Pennsylvania Web Page Suggests District Presidential Elector Bill Lacks Enough Votes to Pass

A bill, SB 1282, is pending in the Pennsylvania legislature to provide that each U.S. House district should choose its own presidential elector. According to the web page Keepparelevant.com, it appears that the bill is shy of one vote to pass the House. The web page is opposed to the idea. It assumes, logically, that all Democrats in the legislature will oppose the bill. The web page believes that eleven House Republicans won’t vote for the bill either, which would mean it would lack one vote of a majority. See here.

U.S. Court of Appeals Expedites One of the Lawsuits that Attack the Federal Voting Rights Act

The U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. circuit, will hear Shelby County, Alabama v Holder, on January 19, 2012. This is one of the three cases in which various governments or private citizens argue that the pre-clearance parts of the Voting Rights Act are unconstitutional. The other two cases were filed by the state of Arizona, and private individuals in North Carolina. Thanks to Rick Hasen for this news.

Indiana State Court of Appeals Says Election Results Should Stand, Even if One Candidate Illegally Campaigned at the Polling Place

On October 11, an Indiana State Court of Appeals ruled that the Democratic primary for city council in Muncie on May 3, 2011, should not be held all over again. A lower state court had found that one of the candidates had illegally campaigned at the polls, wearing a campaign shirt. But the State Court of Appeals said that the candidate’s conduct, while “reprehensible”, does not mean that the election results should be set aside and the election run all over again. The appeals court said there is no evidence that the candidate’s campaigning at the polls changed any votes. Here is the decision. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

New Mexico Republican Party Files Lawsuit Against Restrictions on Giving to Political Parties

On October 7, the New Mexico Republican Party filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court against New Mexico laws, passed in 2009, that severely limit contributions to political parties. Here is the complaint. The case is Republican Party of New Mexico v King, 11-cv-900. The case was assigned to Judge William P. Johnson, a Bush Jr. appointee.

The suit attacks the law that prohibits any individual from giving more than $5,000 to a New Mexico political party. Although the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld limits on how much an individual may donate to a political party, the law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, a federal law, has much higher donation limits, which rise with inflation and which are now approximately $30,000 per year.

The lawsuit also attacks the New Mexico law because it has been interpreted to ban the national Republican Party from giving more than $5,000 to the New Mexico Republican Party. The lawsuit says federal law preempts such a limit, and permits a national party to give as much money as it wishes to a state party. And, the lawsuit attacks the law that says the Republican Party state party can’t give more than $5,000 to any county Republican Party. Thanks to Joe Trotter for the link.

Although there are many campaign finance lawsuits pending, there are few such cases involving limits on donations to political parties. The only other one now pending, as far as is known, is the Libertarian Party lawsuit that challenges the federal law on limits to political parties when the giver is deceased.

Fred Barnes Thinks Republican Presidential Debates Are Too Inclusive

Fred Barnes,a prominent Republican who is executive editor of the Weekly Standard, has this Wall Street Journal commentary about primary season presidential debates. He criticizes the recent Republican presidential debates on the grounds that too many candidates are included. He labels the candidates he doesn’t want in the debates as “Also-rans”, but of course “also ran” is the term for someone who already ran in an election and didn’t place among the top vote-getters. “Also-ran” is not an appropriate term at this point in the election season.

Also, he says, “The debates put the also-rans on equal footing with candidates who are well-financed and better organized”, but as anyone who has watched the recent debates knows, just because a candidate in invited into the debate does not mean he or she is put on an “equal footing.” The debate organizers this year have generally arranged things so that the “leading” candidates are in the center of the stage, and the others are near the edges of the stage. Also, not all candidates in these debates get equal time to speak. Some of these debates have given some of the candidates only two questions to respond to, whereas other candidates on the stage get as many as a dozen questions.

The ability of the sponsors of these Republican presidential debates to give preferred treatment to the leading candidates rebuts one argument in favor of inclusive general election debates. General election presidential debates in the U.S. generally exclude all but the Democratic and Republican nominees. But, clearly, from the examples of the recent presidential primary debates, it would be possible to have more candidates included in the general election debates, and still give most of the time and attention in those general election debates to just the Republican and Democratic nominees, just as Mitt Romney and Rick Perry got most of the time and attention in the last Republican presidential primary debates. Critics of inclusive general election debates sometimes say that it would be bad to include other candidates because that would decrease the amount of attention on the major party nominees, but that doesn’t logically follow.

Barnes does acknowledge that these recent Republican presidential debates are attracting large TV audiences. Herman Cain certainly would not be enjoying his success in polls if he had never been included in the debates.