Election-Campaign Law

"How I teach cumulative voting"

Posted on February 25, 2009
Kaimipono D. Wenger writes on Concurring Opinions blog: I use M&M's, of course. It wasn't always this way. I remember quite well the first couple of semesters that I taught Business Associations. My attempts to teach cumulative voting were --...

Illinois: could a quick election rid them of this troublesome senator

Posted on February 20, 2009
Garrett Epps writes in Salon: The ambiguities of the United States Constitution, however, offer the Illinois state Legislature an opening to short-circuit this dreary ritual. The Legislature should call a special election in the next few weeks to fill Burris'...

Maine: federal judge dismisses latest charges against Tobin

Posted on February 19, 2009
The Bangor Daily News reports: A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed the most recent charges against James Tobin, 48, of Bangor that alleged he lied to the FBI about his role in a phone jamming scheme on Election Day 2002...

Texas: 5th Circuit revives suit against Texas Democrats under Sec. 5

Posted on February 19, 2009
The Fifth Circuit has partially reversed the dismissal of a Section 5 case about the allocation of delegates to the Texas Democratic Party convention. The opinion begins: Plaintiffs-Appellants LULAC of Texas, the Mexican American Bar Association of Houston, Texas, and...

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Alabama: House again passes bill banning PAC-to-PAC transfers

Posted on February 13, 2009
The Birmingham News reports: The Alabama House of Representatives, for the eighth consecutive year, approved legislation Thursday to ban political action committees from shuffling money to obscure the source of campaign contributions. The House voted 98-0 for the bill banning...

Alabama: group sues to declare state constitution invalid

Posted on February 13, 2009
The Birmingham News reports: A group of Alabama voters who say the state's constitution was never legally ratified by the people are asking for a new vote on it or on a new constitution. The voters this month sued several...

Alabama: stricter voter I.D. bill delayed in committee ... till the 'Second Coming'

Posted on February 12, 2009
The Birmingham News reports: A legislative panel voted along party lines Wednesday to delay a proposed law that would require people to show government-issued photo identification to vote at the polls. People unable to show a photo ID could vote...

Alabama: bill would list disfranchising crimes of "moral turpitude"

Posted on February 12, 2009
The Birmingham News reports: State law finally would have a definitive list of 70 felonies that disqualify from voting people convicted of the crimes, if a bill cleared by a legislative panel Wednesday becomes law. Alabama's constitution disqualifies from voting...

Kentucky: Senate committee approves campaign finance bill

Posted on February 11, 2009
The Fort Mills Times reports: A Kentucky Senate panel has approved a plan that would require candidates for statewide office to report campaign contributions more frequently around an election. The proposal by Republican State Sen. Damon Thayer of Georgetown would...

Maryland: Steele defends payment to dissolved company

Posted on February 10, 2009
The Washington Post reports: Michael S. Steele, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, said yesterday that there was nothing improper in a payment of more than $37,000 to his sister's company for work on his 2006 Senate campaign...

Senate nears passage of electronic filing of campaign reports

Posted on February 10, 2009
The Hill reports: After years of delay, the Senate moved closer to considering a measure that would require senators to file their campaign finance reports electronically, an action transparency advocates hail as bringing the upper chamber into the 21st century...

Alabama: no-reason absentee voting approved by committee

Posted on February 06, 2009
The Birmingham News reports: The House Constitution and Elections Committee approved a bill Thursday that would authorize early voting in Alabama by allowing anyone to cast an absentee ballot. "It will give us an opportunity to vote 40 days out,"...

Alabama: Candiate without enough petition signatures now sues for $20 million

Posted on February 04, 2009
The Montgomery Advertiser reports: A former mayoral candidate says he isn't filing a lawsuit to be allowed back into the campaign. The 29-year-old says he wants the money instead. Willie D. Knight, who is asking for $20 million in damages,...

Scotland: register of voters lost after by-election

Posted on February 03, 2009
The Herald reports: THE official register of all those who voted in the crucial Glenrothes by-election in November was lost within days of being handed over by the returning officer to the sheriff clerk in Kirkcaldy, it has been revealed....

Alabama: most expensive judicial race in the country

Posted on January 31, 2009
The Birmingham News reports: A spending surge the week before the Nov. 4 election helped paste a $5.3 million final price tag on the Alabama Supreme Court race, making it the nation's most expensive in 2008, according to new campaign...

Illinois: can Blago use campaign bucks for legal defense?

Posted on January 30, 2009
The National Law Journal reports: Federal criminal corruption charges lodged against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich have highlighted a gray area in the state's laws: whether the state's top executive can use campaign contributions for his legal defense fees...

Population shifts will add congressional seats to red states

Posted on January 28, 2009
The Hill reports: As Republicans brace for a 2010 election cycle that begins their long road back to the majority, they do have one major weapon in their arsenal — redistricting. ... The 2010 census could add multiple House seats...

FEC lists Palin as "candidate for president 2012" -- but not so fast

Posted on January 28, 2009
McClatchy Newspapers reports: Ever since Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin opened up a political action committee yesterday, there's been a lot of speculation about why her name suddenly is popping up in the Federal Election Commission database as a candidate for...

Minnesota: problems with Coleman's witnesses

Posted on January 27, 2009
TPM-DC reports on the Coleman-Franken contest: This afternoon the Coleman team was bringing in rejected absentee voters to show that their ballots were improperly tossed. So far the court has heard from six people, most of of whom said they...

District of Columbia: voting rights bill to be reintroduced

Posted on January 27, 2009
The Washington Times reports: Supporters of the long effort to secure D.C. voting rights will return with renewed optimism Tuesday to Capitol Hill, where new legislation faces its first vote. With a Democrat as president and more Democrats in Congress,...

Alabama: voter I.D. bill might have hard time in the legislature

Posted on January 26, 2009
AP reports: A bill pushed by Attorney General Troy King to require Alabama voters to show photo identification at the polls has modest support but enough foes to make it difficult to pass, according to an Associated Press survey of...

"This land is your land"

Posted on January 18, 2009
Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen sing "This land is your land" with all the verses (today at the Lincoln Memorial): The words are here if you want to sing along....

"When inspiration calls, ...

Posted on January 17, 2009
... you don't send it to voicemail." will.i.am, on NPR's Morning Edition, 17 Jan. 2009....

Alabama: 2 teachers claim NEA forced them to contribute to Obama

Posted on January 15, 2009
The Mobile Press-Register reports: Two Daphne Middle School educators allege in a complaint filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission that their teachers union illegally funneled funds to a political action committee, and ultimately forced them to contribute to President-elect...

Texas: Supreme Court agrees to hear challenge to Section 5 of VRA

Posted on January 10, 2009
The New York Times reports: The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would decide whether Congress overstepped its constitutional authority in 2006 by extending a central provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The plaintiff in the case,...

R.I.P.: Charles Morgan Jr.

Posted on January 09, 2009
The Washington Post reports: Charles "Chuck" Morgan Jr., 78, a civil rights lawyer who challenged the racist society of his native South and won numerous landmark cases for equal rights before the U.S. Supreme Court, died Jan. 8 at his...

New York: 3 charged with conspiracy to interfere with voting rights

Posted on January 08, 2009
AP reports: Three Staten Island men, riled by Barack Obama's victory, spent election night hunting down black people to beat up and yelled insults about the president-elect, federal prosecutors said yesterday. The men beat a Liberian immigrant teenager, pushed a...

Alabama: suit attacks residency requirement for one circuit court

Posted on January 08, 2009
The Montgomery Advertiser reports: An Elmore County man is suing the state's top election official over a law that imposes residency requirements on candidates running for circuit judge in the 19th Judicial Circuit. Attorney Jerry M. Blevins filed a lawsuit...

Minnesota: what should be said in a notice of contest?

Posted on January 07, 2009
Eric Black at MinnPost.com criticizes the Coleman Notice of Contest: The petition has an almost generic quality. Think of every imaginable way that a vote for Coleman that should have been counted was rejected, add every way that a ballot...

Minnesota: Coleman's lawsuit

Posted on January 07, 2009
TPM Election Central reports: I've been reading through the lawsuit that Norm Coleman has filed against the result of the Minnesota Senate race, and it's a marvelous thing. The complaint ignores the existence of counter-evidence, employs one maneuver when it...

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