David H. Gans has this persuasive essay about why the entire Federal Voting Rights Act is constitutional. The language of the 15th amendment forms the basis for this opinion. Thanks to Rick Hasen for the link.
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Maine Governor Paul LePage has submitted a budget that defunds the state’s public funding program for candidates for state office. See this press release from a Maine group that supports the program. Thanks to Thomas MacMillan for the link.
Texas State Representative Eric Johnson (D-Dallas) has introduced HB 464, to let unregistered individuals register to vote on election day. He also introduced HB 465, to repeal the law that requires voters at the polls to show government photo-ID. The law was passed in 2011 but still hasn’t been implemented because a 3-judge U.S. District Court held that it violates the federal Voting Rights Act. See this story.
On January 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C., heard oral arguments in Nader v Federal Election Commission, 12-5134. Back in 2004, various units of the Democratic Party (both state and national) and their allies spent millions of dollars in a massive attempt to keep Ralph Nader off the ballot in as many states as possible. These campaign expenditures were never reported to the FEC. Nader asked the FEC to investigate this apparent violation of the campaign finance laws, but the FEC stalled for years and then said it would not even ask for a response.
After the FEC said it would do nothing, Nader sued the FEC, but the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of the FEC, even though the opinion acknowledged that the FEC had broken the law when it didn’t even ask various state Democratic Parties to respond to the complaint. The U.S. District Court said that was “harmless error.”
In the U.S. Court of Appeals, three days before the hearing, the panel of judges had asked both sides to file supplemental briefs on the issue of whether a candidate, such as Ralph Nader, even has standing to sue the FEC when the candidate is in his position. Nader argues that he certainly has informational standing, because if the D.C. Circuit remands the matter back to the FEC and tells the FEC to investigate, the information gained would be useful to Nader’s current active lawsuit in Maine state court against the Democratic Party for damages. The three judges are Karen Henderson, Thomas Griffith, and A. Raymond Randolph. All three judges took a very lively interest in the case and asked many questions.
On November 2012, the Working Families Party New York nominee for U.S. Senate (who was also the Democratic nominee) received more votes on the Working Families line than the Conservative Party nominee for the same office (the Conservative nominee was also the Republican nominee). The U.S. Senate totals represented the first time that the WFP had outpolled the Conservative Party in a New York statewide race. The two US Senate totals were: Working Families 250,580; Conservative 240,819.
But the U.S. Senate race was an aberration. When one looks at other public offices up in New York state in 2012, the Conservative Party still outpolled the Working Families Party.
In the U.S. House races, the Conservative Party nominees polled 257,439 votes, which was 4.84% of the total vote cast in the districts in which the Conservative Party had nominees. By contrast, in U.S. House races, the Working Families Party polled 219,104 votes, which was 3.65% of the vote in the districts with WFP nominees.
In State Senate races, the Conservative Party nominees received 321,494 votes, which was 6.56% of the total vote cast in districts with a Conservative on the ballot. The Working Families Party received 148,472 votes, which was 3.63% of the total vote in districts with WFP in the race.
In Assembly races, Conservative nominees got 277,922 votes, or 6.73% of the vote in districts in which the Conservatives participated. The Working Families Assembly figures were 174,137 votes, or 4.62%.
Also, in the presidential race, Mitt Romney received 262,035 votes (3.72%) as a Conservative, whereas President Obama received 147,643 votes on the WFP line, or 2.09%.
In 2012, the Conservative Party displayed more independence than the Working Families Party did. Among the congressional and legislative nominees of each party, the Conservative Party ran 27 nominees who weren’t major party nominees. The Working Families Party only ran five nominees who weren’t major party nominees.