Blog
By Molly Alarcon – 04/11/12
What We're Reading: a daily round-up of quick hits, clips, and opinion pieces touching on key issues of democracy, justice, liberty and national security.
Students at Temple University in Philadelphia are taking a stand against their state’s recently passed voter ID law. The Temple News editorial board says the law does more harm than good, and columnist Emily DiCicco highlights how the law hurts students.
The Legal Theory Blog highlights the work of former Brennan Center counsel Ciara Torres-Spelliscy and colleague Kathy Fogel (University of Arkansas, Fayetteville) looking to UK rules about shareholder authorized corporate political spending for guidance in the current debate in the post-Citizens United US.
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly was against stop-and-frisk before he was for it, The New York Times reports. African Americans and Hispanics are disproportionately stopped and patted down by police in New York. “Less than 2 percent of police stops led to the recovery of a weapon. By contrast, the unbridled use of stops leaves a deep bruise of unfairness, particularly around the issue of race.”
A study from the University of Virginia reveals shocking racial disparity in the Charlottesville area’s juvenile justice system.
The National Fair Housing Alliance has filed suit against Wells Fargo for neglecting vacant properties owned by the bank in minority areas while sprucing up and maintaining similar foreclosed houses in white areas (Reuters).
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has proposed easing rules for a controversial and high-profile voter ID law passed by his state’s legislature this year.
Tags: What We're Reading Today
By Erik Opsal – 04/10/12
Welcome to the Brennan Center's voting newsletter, the most comprehensive summary of all the latest developments affecting voting. Sign up for all Brennan Center newsletters here.
Latest Developments
Voter Registration for the 21st Century
“A country that should be encouraging more people to vote is still using an archaic voter registration system that creates barriers to getting a ballot,” read Saturday’s New York Times editorial.
As states across the country continue to pass restrictive voting laws, modernizing our voter registration system is one way to help more eligible Americans participate in our democracy. Doing so would cost less, add millions to the rolls, and curb any possibility of fraud.
Already, 17 states electronically send “data from motor vehicle departments to election officials.” These systems have doubled the number of registrations in certain states, according to the Brennan Center’s research.
“It should be self-evident that the country benefits when more citizens are engaged in the electoral process, but too many lawmakers are trying to reduce participation for short-term political gain,” said the Times. “Given the progress some states have achieved with new registration methods, it’s time for Congress to step in and require that all states bring their systems into the digital age.”
Read the Brennan Center’s proposal to modernize our voter registration system.
Cleaning up the Rolls, or Suppressing the Vote?
A new organization in Florida “says it is making a non-partisan effort to clean up errors or possible fraud in voter rolls, but it is associated with a tea party group accused of seeking to suppress minority votes in Texas,” according to a front-page story in today’s Tampa Tribune.
The group, Tampa Vote Fair, will likely challenge voters at the polls, “meaning object to poll officials allowing them to vote.” The Brennan Center has documented how poll watchers and poll challengers have the potential to disenfranchise lawful voters by causing delays, crowding, and confusion inside the polling place and creating a charged partisan atmosphere that can intimidate many new voters.
Read more on challengers and vote suppression.
Confusion at the Polls Before Wisconsin Law in Effect
Wisconsin’s voter ID law is currently on hold, waiting state Supreme Court review. This led to some confusion at the polls during last week’s Republican primary.
An 87-year-old Waukesha woman was not able to vote because the poll worker asked for a photo ID, which she did not have with her, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Elderly voters are particularly affected by the new wave of restrictive voting laws — 18 percent of voters 65 or older do not have the kind of ID these laws require. That doesn’t take into account voters, like this 87-year-old woman, who may forget their ID and be discouraged from voting. Read more stories of voters who may be blocked from voting due to the new restrictive rules.
State Updates
Colorado – Senate Democrats killed a voter ID bill. House Republicans rejected a voter registration bill that one county clerk said “would make updating voter rolls easier, cheaper and more accurate.” The Senate has attempted to revive the bill.
Connecticut – The Secretary of State wrote an op-ed in support of a referendum to remove restrictions on absentee voting, which would make elections “more accessible, cheaper and more flexible.”
Delaware – Lawmakers are working on a constitutional amendment to make it easier for persons with past criminal convictions to regain their right to vote.
Florida – The Bradenton Herald wrote an editorial on new evidence showing Florida’s election law suppresses voting. Read more here.
Georgia – The Grio details the “complicated history” of voter ID in Georgia.
Michigan – The House passed a bill to require photo ID for an absentee ballot. It now heads to the Senate.
Minnesota – A restrictive voting law will officially be on the ballot this fall. The measure would require a photo ID to vote, of a kind that one in ten voters do not have. It could also end election-day registration, a popular feature of Minnesota’s elections. Gov. Mark Dayton symbolically vetoed the amendment, and voting rights groups have vowed to fight it in court. Read the Brennan Center’s statement opposing the measure, and this story about other states offering clues on how voter ID would work in Minnesota.
Mississippi – The former secretary of state asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to block implementation of the state’s voter ID law.
Missouri – A state judge struck down the wording of a voter ID ballot measure, asking for a revision because it was “insufficient and unfair.” A House panel quickly revised the wording, which the House and Senate must still approve. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote an editorial criticizing the measure: “In a perverted, poetic justice kind of way, it's pitch perfect that in their alleged attempt to stop voter fraud, Missouri Republicans committed, well, fraud.”
Nebraska – A voter ID bill died in the legislature.
Ohio – The state Senate voted to repeal a controversial election law. The law was supposed to be on the ballot this fall for voters to decide. Now the referendum’s fate is uncertain.
Pennsylvania – Signed just last month, the full ramifications of the state’s voter ID law are now surfacing. For instance, most university IDs will not be valid. The Scranton Times-Tribune called the law a “scam.” Read more here. The ACLU and NAACP say they will file suit over the law, as legal experts continue debating what kind of impact the law could have.
Rhode Island – The Secretary of State will hand out free voter ID cards in several counties.
South Carolina – A federal court allowed the League of Women Voters of South Carolina, represented by the Brennan Center and other groups, and the NAACP to join a suit challenging the state’s voter ID law. Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), who is also the assistant Democratic leader, called the law reminiscent of the Jim Crow era. “It was effective then, and if we aren’t vigilant, it will be effective today,” Clyburn said. Meanwhile, a South Carolina House panel advanced a bill allowing online voter registration.
Tennessee – The state passed a law last year requiring a photo ID to vote, but people 60 and older do not need a photo on their driver’s license. The Senate passed a bill to remove this exemption, requiring all drivers’ licenses issued or renewed starting in 2013 to have a photo. A bill to make student ID cards valid for voting died in the legislature.
Texas – In the latest development in the battle over Texas’ voter ID law, the Justice Department is asking a three-judge federal panel to deny the state’s request to narrow discovery. Claiming “state legislative privilege,” Texas asserted that “communications between lawmakers, staff and constituents” should be protected. Read more here and here. Texas even wants to block depositions of state legislators. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott also claims the state’s voter ID law will increase turnout and does not discriminate against minorities, despite substantial evidence to the contrary.
Wisconsin – Although the state’s new photo ID law is not in effect, that isn’t preventing some officials from enforcing it anyway, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. An 87-year-old woman attempting to vote in the GOP primary was turned away from the polls because she did not have a photo ID, according to the report. Challenges to the law are pending before the state Supreme Court.
See our summary of all pending and passed voting laws.
New Data and Research
The Center for American Progress is out with an “Issue Brief” entitled, “Voter Suppression 101.” It summarizes topics such as registration restrictions, residency restrictions, limiting early voting, and voter ID laws. The final section of the report discusses “Gaming the Electoral College.” Although almost all states award electors on a winner-take-all basis (the exceptions are Maine and Nebraska), an effort was made in Pennsylvania — a critical swing state — to award electors on a district-by-district basis. In other words, each state’s electoral vote might be split. Although the Pennsylvania plan appears dead for now, other states may enlist in the cause. “If similar swing states, such as Florida or Michigan, took up this plan, it could fundamentally transform the next election into a contest to see who can best game the system,” the brief notes.
Read more at the Center for American Progress.
Media Round-Up
- The New York Times Campaign Stops blog detailed how the rise of super PACs parallels the effort to suppress the vote, citing the Brennan Center’s report on how restrictive voting laws could make it harder for millions of eligible Americans to vote.
- Craigslist founder Craig Newmark created a compelling infographic showing how suppressive election laws infringe on your right to vote.
- Former Brennan Center lawyer Erika Wood wrote in the New York Times about Florida’s long history of voter suppression, continuing today with restrictions on early voting and registration.
- Coca-Cola and Pepsi both left the American Legislative Exchange Council because of its support for controversial laws, including restrictive voting laws, according to NPR’s Peter Overby.
- More Florida: The New Republic’s Alec MacGillis spoke to the Brennan Center’s Lee Rowland about the League of Women Voters and Rock the Vote shutting down registration drives in the state.
- One Kentucky law professor called state constitutions the “new battleground in voting rights.” Many state constitutions explicitly protect the right to vote, which the U.S. Constitution does not.
- Growing numbers of newspaper editorial boards are condemning restrictive voting laws.
Other News
- Electiononline Weekly, a publication of the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, has a rundown of voter ID laws and legislation. Next week they will release their findings on the added costs of these restrictive measures.
- The Fair Elections Legal Network wrote about the growing momentum behind electronic voter registration.
Stay Connnected
- Stop getting forwarded! Get your own copy of the Voting Newsletter here.
- For daily voting rights developments and the latest commentary from our experts, be sure to visit the Brennan Center’s website.
- To keep up with all of the Brennan Center’s work, subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter.
- And don’t forget our newsletters on legal services and fair courts.
- Follow the Brennan Center:
Tags: Newsletter, Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections
By Ethan Smith – 04/09/12
In the battle to defend voting rights, it is easy to demonize Florida. First there was Bush v. Gore, which 12 years later still evokes images of voter intimidation, politicized elections officials, bungled recounts, and those notorious hanging chads. Last year, Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature doubled down on this troubled history by passing a draconian new election law that has already sharply reduced voter registration activity. Ostensibly aimed at combating nonexistent voter fraud, the new law will make it harder for tens of thousands of Floridians to vote.
But despite these rollbacks, there are signs of hope in the Sunshine State, starting in the Village of Pinecrest.
Last month, this leafy suburb of Miami took a bold stand for voting rights, passing a resolution “calling for a repeal of restrictive voting laws.” The resolution casts Florida’s law as part of “concerted campaign to prevent millions of Americans from casting ballots” that “unfairly targets the poor, young and minorities.” The U.S. Department of Justice, along with the Brennan Center and several allied organizations, has opposed the law in court.
Meanwhile, 270 miles north up the Atlantic coast, election officials in Volusia County are crying foul as well. There, local Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall blames her county’s 20 percent drop in new voter registrations directly on the law. As she told the New York Times, the law’s onerous new requirements and stiff penalties for violations have led registration organizations — specifically the League of Women Voters and Volusia County’s five universities — to sharply curtail or completely cease their registration efforts.
And to the west, near Tallahassee, Leon County’s election supervisor, Ion Sancho — a lion in the world of election reform — has stepped into the legal fray, joining the Justice Department and the Brennan Center in contesting the law under the Voting Rights Act. Sancho’s opposition to the law is born of expertise and experience. In 2000, he was appointed to oversee the Florida recounts — and would have, had the Supreme Court allowed them to continue. More recently, he drew attention to the vulnerabilities of computerized voting equipment by hacking his own voting machines, in the process becoming the subject of the HBO documentary “Hacking Democracy.” Now he’s adding his voice to the populist outcry against Florida’s new election law.
Though Florida’s all-out assault on voting rights is drawing critics out of the woodwork, it is not the only state where brave local officials are standing up for the franchise.
After Wisconsin passed a strict voter ID law last year, Milwaukee County began providing free birth certificates to residents to defray the burden of registration and voting. Now a Dane County judge has enjoined the law as unconstitutional. Even though the law is currently not in effect, County Supervisor Nikiya Harris says Milwaukee will continue to provide birth certificates as the law winds its way though the appeals process.
While the attack on voting rights is being coordinated from the highest levels of state government, the defense of these rights is building from the ground up. As ordinary voters fall victim to these draconian laws, brave local officials — like those in Florida and Wisconsin — are bearing witness and fighting back.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Voter ID, Voter Registration Drives
By Molly Alarcon – 04/09/12
What We're Reading: a daily round-up of quick hits, clips, and opinion pieces touching on key issues of democracy, justice, liberty and national security.
The Washington Post interviews the Brennan Center’s Nicole Austin-Hillery on Trayvon Martin and other similar, racially-tinged tragedies.
The New York Times editorial board reiterates a long-time Brennan Center priority: voter registration modernization and online registration in particular.
Mike Lillis of The Hill writes that the Obama Administration has “all but abandoned its push to require federal contractors to disclose their political donations.”
A breaking point for the FEC? Roll Call’s Eliza Newlin Carney profiles the grim prospects for the Federal Election Commission to devise disclosure rules for issue ads, even after a Federal court ruling last month urging them to do so.
The makers of TurboTax and Quicken, Intuit, Inc., has joined Pepsi, Coke, and Kraft in withdrawing support from ALEC, a group that helped pushed voter ID laws in state legislatures across the country (Think Progress).
This morning, Minnesota governor Mark Dayton symbolically vetoed a proposed constitutional amendment to require voters to show photo ID. The Brennan Center urges Minnesotans to vote down the measure in the fall.
Tags: What We're Reading Today
By ReformNY – 04/06/12
Crossposted at ReformNY
Every Friday, the Brennan Center will be compiling the latest news concerning the corrosive nature of money in New York State politics—and the ongoing need for public financing and robust campaign finance reform. We’ll also be linking to dispatches from around the country highlighting the national scope of this crisis. This week’s links were contributed by Matthew Ladd and Dan Rockoff.
For more stories on an ongoing basis, follow the Twitter hashtag #moNeYpolitics and #fairelex.
New York Campaign Finance and Ethics News
1. A report issued this week by the Center for Working Families finds that Pedro Espada’s contributions from the real estate industry skyrocketed once the ex-state Senate Majority Leader took over the housing committee. The report not only finds that Espada’s fundraising shot up by over 650% once he became Chairman of the housing committee, but that over half of the funds Espada raised from 2009 to 2010 came from the real estate industry—and that only three contributions, totaling a mere $800, came from his own district. The full CWF report can be read here.
2. An analysis by Common Cause of donor data from the most recent state legislative election reveals that the vast majority of contributions in state races originate outside candidates’ home districts. For instance, the data shows that two state Senators, Republican Mark Grisanti and Democrat Tim Kennedy, raised from 75% to 90% of their campaign contributions from wealthy donors living outside their districts. Additionally, about $3 of every $4 donated to Syracuse’s two state Senators—Democrat David Valesky and Republican John DeFrancisco—came from corporations or groups, not individuals, and most of that money came from outside the legislators’ district. Susan Lerner, of Common Cause New York, noted that most contributions for state races come “not from the actual voters” but from small clusters of zip codes near the Capitol, Wall Street, and the Upper East and Upper West sides of Manhattan.
3. The Times Union editorial board issued a strong call for Gov. Cuomo and the state legislature to improve the transparency of the new Joint Commission on Public Ethics, citing the commission’s recent refusal to release its voting records as a red flag that the commission is too secretive. Given that the commissioners of the new ethics watchdog are appointed solely by the governor and legislative leaders, “when a commission this important and this powerful votes, the public ought to know who is voting and how they vote.”
4. Following the conviction of Yonkers Council Member Sandy Annabi and her political mentor Zehy Jereis on charges of corruption, US Attorney Preet Bharara stated publicly that “the investigation is ongoing,” suggesting that the bribery scandal surrounding Annabi’s sudden support for two development projects may grow. As an editorial in the lower Hudson Valley Journal News opined, “nothing in recent experience suggests, for an instant, that these prosecutions will be the last.”
5. The Buffalo News called on the New York state legislature to refrain from voting itself a pay raise in the absence of progress on needed reforms. The paper urged lawmakers to “focus on the matters that reform state government – the public financing of campaigns, for example –“ before they can consider benefiting themselves. New York legislators are already paid a base of $79,500, making them some of the nation’s “best-paid state legislators.”
National Campaign Finance News
1. In a clear victory for campaign finance disclosure, a federal district court judge ruled late last week that a Federal Election Commission rule permitting the sources of some corporate donations to remain hidden violated the intention of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law. The rule required disclosure only for corporate contributions that were explicitly earmarked for political purposes, creating an easy loophole for corporate donors who could simply give to campaigns without declaring what the funds were for. Although the rule does not apply to super PACs, the loophole was wide enough to let in $138 million in undisclosed contributions during the 2010 Congressional elections, 80 percent of it to Republican candidates.
2. Public hostility to Citizens United and the broadening perception of partisanship on the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to play a major role in the 2012 elections. Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster who works with Priorities USA Action, a Super PAC supporting President Obama’s re-election, said that his polling and focus groups showed that Citizens United “is probably the best-known decision since Bush v. Gore.” Garin said: “To the extent it would be a motivating issue this year, it would be for Democratic and independent voters around the Citizens United case.”
3. In California, Kinde Durkee pleaded guilty Friday, March 30 to mail fraud after embezzling $7 million from more than 50 campaign clients, including Senator Dianne Feinstein. Durkee, called the “Madoff of Campaign Finance,” was investigated after submitting falsified campaign finance reports to elected officials. Durkee’s case is especially notable for its enforcement and disclosure lessons: As one California paper noted, “Despite a history of fines for campaign disclosure violations issued by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, Durkee maintained a client list that included some of California’s most prominent Democratic politicians, political organizations and nonprofits.”
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Public Financing, NY Reform
By Molly Alarcon – 04/06/12
What We're Reading: a daily round-up of quick hits, clips, and opinion pieces touching on key issues of democracy, justice, liberty and national security.
The New Republic interviews the Brennan Center’s Lee Rowland, a lead attorney in a lawsuit against Florida’s suppressive voter registration rules.
Erika Wood, formerly of the Brennan Center and now a professor at New York Law School, has a must-read article on the New York Times’ Campaign Stops blog about Florida’s old and recent history of voter disenfranchisement.
A coalition of government reform groups, including the Brennan Center, will hold New York Governor Andrew Cuomo accountable to his State of the State pronouncement to pursue campaign finance reform.
Senator Durbin (D-IL) will chair a Senate hearing on racial profiling in the US. The Brennan Center will submit written testimony and put forth a witness to discuss why racial profiling doesn’t work, how it harms law enforcement efforts and communities, and how federal lawmakers can end the practice.
Senator Jim Webb, the champion behind the National Criminal Justice Commission Act pending in Congress, writes in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star that the US faces a “profound, deeply corrosive crisis” of over-incarceration and the disintegration of our criminal justice system.
Tags: What We're Reading Today
By Molly Alarcon – 04/05/12
Reuters looks in-depth at the debate over voter ID laws in states across the country, quoting the Brennan Center’s Wendy Weiser.
ALEC, the Koch-funded organization that has sponsored voter ID laws in numerous state legislatures, has seen two major funders, Pepsi and Coke, withdraw their support, due in part to outcry against voter ID laws (NPR). ALEC’s model bills have also been criticized for their contribution to the explosion in the prison population through harsh sentencing.
The Obama administration has signed off on a new military trial for five suspected 9/11 terrorists, The Miami Herald reports.
Washington Business Journal: “The National Fair Housing Alliance issued a report Wednesday that points to broad disparities between the way financial institutions maintain and market bank-owned properties in white neighborhoods compared to African American and Latino neighborhoods.”
The Minnesota legislature gave final approval to a proposed constitutional amendment requiring voters to show photo ID. Voters in the state will have to approve the measure this fall. Read the Brennan Center’s statement opposing the proposal.
Highlighting a report by the Sentencing Project, a Brennan Center ally, the UK’s Guardian newspaper sheds light on the disproportionate incarceration rates of minorities in the US, and the implications this has for voting rights.
Tags: What We're Reading Today
By Roopal Patel – 04/04/12
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Lamar Smith (R-TX) presided over a hearing called “Holiday on ICE” to mock the Obama administration’s plans to improve immigration detention conditions. Smith jeeringly referred to the minimum standards set earlier this year for medical care, protections from sexual abuse and assault, and access to counsel as “hospitality guidelines.” The new immigration detention standards are far from perfect: they do not provide alternatives to incarceration options, even for minors and the disabled. However, they are a much-needed first step in improving the incarceration conditions for immigrants, and a long overdue move towards treating detainees with the human dignity they deserve.
Smith’s sarcasm insults immigrants and obscures the harrowing conditions detainees face. There have been over a hundred deaths and numerous rapes and sexual assaults in detention facilities since ICE was created as a part of Department of Homeland Security in 2003. In 2007, Boubacar Bah died from head injuries that were left untreated for thirteen hours while in detention in New Jersey. In 2007, Rosa Isela Contreras-Dominguez, a thirty-five year old pregnant woman died after she was refused medical treatment while in custody in El Paso, Texas. These are just two cases of many.
Thousands of men, women and even children are being detained for violations of immigration law. Since immigration cases are civil and not criminal in nature, ICE is legally prohibited from detaining immigrants for punitive reasons. However, even though the cases are civil, the agency models immigration detention after criminal incarceration systems. And although modeled on criminal systems, detainees do not have the protections applicable to those incarcerated under criminal laws. As a result, immigrant detainees face unique challenges. For example, the Prison Rape Elimination Act does not apply to immigration detention centers, and immigrant detainees have no right to counsel. Also, ICE employs a haphazard detention system that includes privately-owned detention facilities, ICE facilities, and county facilities, making tracking and oversight extremely difficult. Often, many of the detainees are transferred far from their families and from any legal counsel they may have established.
Immigrant detention conditions in the US have long been criticized by human rights groups. ICE only made the regulation changes after years of being criticized by investigative news reports and human rights groups. The new standards seek to reduce detention transfers by placing centers in strategic locations, require strip searches to be performed by guards of the same gender to lower risk of sexual assault, require safe water and improved medical treatments, and seek to improve processes for reporting sexual assault.
When we place people in cages, we assume a responsibility to treat them humanely. Rules designed to prevent death, rape, or assault and providing basic medical care are not luxuries. And the absence of those rules is no joke.
Tags: Justice, Racial Justice, Civil Justice, Criminal Justice, Sentencing Reform
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