Posted in: News of note
Election Law news of note, week ending January 18, 2019
Here I compile news I find of note (even if others may not find them of note!) regarding Election Law topics each week.
Iowa's governor has proposed ending permanent felon disenfranchisement in the state. Iowa is one of a handful of states that still does so in our patchwork quilt of state-based voter qualification rules. This comes on the heels of the successful repeal in Florida just last year. The opportunity to give convicted felons a second chance has seen growing bipartisan support on a variety of fronts, including the recent passage of the FIRST STEP Act in Congress. The details of such a proposal remain to be seen—and whether Iowans support it remains another matter to be seen.
Speaking of Iowa, "radical changes" are promised for the 2020 Iowa Democratic caucuses. The likely solutions, a "proxy" caucus and a "tele-caucus," are sure to increase participation in the event. I've wondered how historic structures like "realignment," a tool that benefited Barack Obama in 2008, might look in a new format, and whether results differ. Assuredly, a change in process will lead to increased uncertainty ahead of the caucuses—perhaps simply building excitement!
A federal court of appeals declined to extend the long-standing consent decree in litigation known as DNC v. RNC. The decree began in litigation that Democrats filed against Republicans in 1981, and it has been extended for years since to prevent Republicans from engaging in certain election-related tactics. But it's worth remember that back in 2016, a similar effort was raised, and the Supreme Court, without noted dissent, declined to consider the issue. Perhaps that was in part because the litigation arose in literally the days before the election and there was little opportunity to develop the record. But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote separately concerning her reason: Ohio law already prohibits voter intimidation. Perhaps, then, extending a 1981-era consent decree is unnecessary, as long as evidence exists that existing state laws are, well, not inadequate to the task. We shall see if future challenges arise concerning this consent decree.
By the way, it's going to be a busy week for faithless elector litigation! Oral argument is scheduled for cases in Colorado and Washington this upcoming week.
Written by Derek T. Muller On January 18, 2019 In News of note
In an effort to use Twitter less, I'll try to start compiling news items I find of note (even if others may not find them of note!) regarding Election Law topics each week.
A new bill introduced in New York would prohibit state parties from using "Independent" or "Independence" in their names. The Independence Party sometimes cross-endorses candidates or runs its own candidates for office. But some lawmakers believe this term deceives voters. This is not a unique problem. In California, the obscure American Independence Party has garnered a significant number of registered voters affiliated with the party, likely because of the name. I've written about the concept of "Ballot Speech," or the right of candidates and political parties to express themselves by means of the ballot to voters. I think political parties—especially an established 25-year-old group like the Independence Party—should receive more protection than they currently receive for reasons I lay out in the article. Regardless, the bill struck me as one of note.
The West Virginia House of Delegates has asked the Supreme Court to consider a Guarantee Clause claim arising out of the state's impeachment proceedings. The House impeached all members of the West Virginia Supreme Court and sent the claims over to the Senate for trial. But "the acting court halted the impeachment process in West Virginia by concluding that legislators had overstepped their constitutional authority. Acting justices concluded lawmakers had based impeachment on areas the state Constitution set aside as the responsibility of the judicial branch." It's an interesting internal power struggle, and hardly the first time the West Virginia Supreme Court has been the topic of Supreme Court election-related litigation. I think the Court is unlikely to grant the petition, and even less likely to find a Guarantee Clause violation, but the brief was of interest to me.
Democrats took over majority control of the House of Representatives and introduced H.R. 1, a symbolic and sweeping 571-page bill regarding elections in the United States. I won't spend much time on each piece of the bill because it has effectively no chance to become law. But two provisions struck me as notable. First, the bill basically leaves untouched Shelby County and related portions of the Voting Rights Act. It seems strange to me that, given that Shelby County has been one of the greatest critiques of the Supreme Court by left-leaning politicians in recent years, the only thing the act does is provide, "Congress is committed to reversing the devastating impact of this decision." Perhaps an updated Voting Rights Act merits a separate bill. But I found it notable that in 571 pages, Shelby County was almost nowhere to be found. It seemed that not all Democratic constituencies had a hand in crafting the bill.
Second, the bill includes a "Democracy Restoration" provision (Section 1402) that provides that the right to vote in federal elections shall not be abridged or denied on the basis of a criminal conviction, unless those individuals are "serving a felony sentence in a correctional institution or facility at the time of the election." Setting aside the policy of this provision, I've long wondered what constitutional hook would authorize Congress to do so (although there are some plausible if unlikely bases). There's no express constitutional hook in this bill, but a subsequent provision (Section 1407) was of interest: it prohibits a State from using federal funds "to construct or otherwise improve a prison, jail, or other place of incarceration" unless that State "has in effect a program under which each individual incarcerated in that person's jurisdiction . . . is notified, upon release from such incarceration, of that individual's rights under section 1402." It seems to me that the Spending Clause is a rather difficult hook to expand the franchise. That said, technically, Section 1407 only requires states to "notif[y]" them, not actually enfranchise, so perhaps it isn't the hook from the Spending Clause—instead, perhaps it's one of the reason I've mused about earlier.