Attorneys who advise state elected officials need no crystal ball to see what an affirmance in Gill v. Whitford would mean for their clients. … Speaker of the Utah House: A woman in her early 50s; a recovering lawyer.Source: Symposium: Gill v. Whitford as bad theater...
In March, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla appointed Brian Hatch to the Fair Political Practices Commission, the agency that interprets the Political Reform Act and enforces election law. For 40 years, Hatch was a Capitol lobbyist for firefighters’ unions.Source: Ethics commissioner’s blunder could turn watchdog into a partisan Democratic tool...
News that special counsel Robert Mueller has empaneled a second grand jury in Washington, D.C., and has hired 16 top attorneys to work on the investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the last U.S.Source: Gauging the bias of lawyers...
A former labor lobbyist who serves on California’s political watchdog agency met privately, talked on the phone and exchanged text messages with a lawyer working for Senate Democrats while advocating for the agency to flip a longstanding legal interpretation of campaign finance law in favor of SenSource: Ethics commissioner had private meetings with Democrats over recall election rules...
Common Cause, a group that actively pushes for broader campaign finance disclosure laws, recently sued President Trump’s Election Integrity Commission in federal court in an attempt to block the Commission’s efforts to obtain voter data from the states.Source: In Trump’s America, Common Cause Cares about the First Amendment...
Jonah Goldberg, in the Los Angeles Times, says in this column that a presidential candidate running outside the two major parties might win in 2020.Source: Jonah Goldberg Says 2020 Presidential Election Might See Non-Major Party Presidential Candidate with Potential to Win...
When Democrats think about their party’s problems on the political map, they tend to think of President Trump’s ability to win the White House despite losing the popular vote and Republicans’ potent efforts to gerrymander congressional districts.Source: The Congressional Map Has A Record-Setting Bias Against Democrats...
There’s a secret society in Silicon Valley. “Imagine an engineer at Google, let’s say he’s a conservative—a red meat conservative. Does he want to go work at the Heritage Foundation? Probably not,” Aaron Ginn, age 29, tells me at a “hacienda-style” D.C.Source: How Conservatives Survive in Silicon Valley...
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Husted v Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute, 16-980, later this year, or possibly early next year. All the briefs should be completely filed by September 15, 2017, and then the Court will set a hearing date.Source: Status of U.S. Supreme Court Consideration of Whether Ohio is Purging Voters Too Frequently...
HELENA — Secretary of State Corey Stapleton’s allegations of voter fraud in Montana has widened a rift with elections officers across the state, some of whom want the elections chief to dial back his rhetoric.Source: Voter Fraud Allegations Roil Montana Elections Officials...
