Last year California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed a bill to make it illegal for anyone to pay registration workers on a per-registration card basis. However, the same bill has been re-introduced. Assemblymember Richard Pan, and Senator Lou Correa, have amended a non-election law bill that already passed the Assembly so that it imposes the ban. It is AB 2058, and will probably have a hearing in the Senate Elections Committee in June. If passed, it would take effect on January 1, 2013.

The only way qualified parties can remain ballot-qualified in California is by having registration equal to 1% of the last gubernatorial vote, which currently is 103,004 members (however, this doesn’t go into effect until November 2014). Neither the Libertarian Party, nor the Peace & Freedom Party, have that many registered members. They only feasible way for parties to increase their registration substantially has always been to pay people on a per-registration card basis. Persuading strangers on the street to register into a minor party is very difficult work, and paying on a per-registration basis is the only realistic way to substantially increase a party’s registration.

The reason for the bill is that recently, Republican Party activists hired a company to increase the number of registered Republicans, and the people who were hired committed fraud. It does not necessarily follow that the fraud would have been prevented if the ban on paying per-registration card had been in effect.

On May 18, the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia upheld section five of the national Voting Rights Act. Section five is the part of the act that requires certain states and counties to get permission from the U.S. Justice Department before changing any election law. The vote was 2-1. Here is the decision. The decision was written by Judge David Tatel, a Clinton appointee, and co-signed by Judge Thomas Griffith, a Bush Jr. appointee. The dissent is by Judge Stephen Williams, a Reagan appointee. The case is Shelby County, Alabama v Holder, 11-5256.

The same panel also issued an opinion in LaRoque v Holder, 11-5349. That opinion is unanimous. That is also a challenge to the Voting Rights Act, brought by voters in Kinston, North Carolina, who were dissatisfied that the Voting Rights Section of the U.S. Justice Department had refused to let Kinston change from partisan city elections to non-partisan city elections. After this lawsuit was filed, the Voting Rights Section changed its mind and let Kinston make that change. The ruling in this case says that it is now moot. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.

The Washington Post has this lengthy op-ed by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, “Want to End Partisan Politics? Here’s What Won’t Work – And What Will.”

Mann, a Democrat, is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Ornstein, a Republican, is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. They recently wrote a book together, “It’s Even Worse Than it Looks” about the behavior of Congress in recent years. They deplore hyper-partisanship and the tendency of many members of Congress to put party above country. The book also suggests that Republican members of Congress bear considerably more of the blame than Democratic members.

The op-ed is based on the book. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.