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Nov 16, 2007 -- Legal Center Weekly Report: November 16, 2007 Legal Center Files Brief in High Court Review of Indiana Voter ID Law
The Campaign Legal Center and law professor Charles Ogletree served as legal counsel to more than two dozens scholars responding to Indiana's controversial voter ID law, which is now before the Supreme Court. The friend of the court (amici curiae) brief filed on November 13th in the cases (Crawford v. Marion County Election Board and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita) traces the history of disenfranchisement efforts in the U.S. since Reconstruction.
The brief explains how voter ID laws are not unlike a number of disenfranchising devices that include secret ballot laws, registration acts, "eight-box" laws, literacy tests, and the poll tax. Such devices were often championed as "reform" measures, and were often billed as anti-fraud or anti-corruption devices in their day, just as voter ID laws are currently. Yet, through detailed provisions within them, these laws often produced a discriminatory effect within the particular historical context in which they were imposed.
This week the Campaign Legal Center, together with Democracy 21, filed comments in the FEC's rulemaking to interpret the "candidate travel" provisions of the "Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007." Congress' intent in enacting the new travel restrictions was to end the long-time practice of candidates being subsidized for travel on non-commercial flights through the unsurprising generosity of corporations, wealthy individuals and others. Yet several of the Commission's proposed alternatives for implementing the new law would allow this practice of candidate travel on private airplanes being subsidized by others to continue.
The Legal Center's comments urge the Commission to reject any and all proposed provisions that would permit candidates to shift any part of the full cost of the non-commercial flight onto the plane's owner, other political committees, or non-campaign travelers.
On November 16, 2007, the Campaign Legal Center's Director of Litigation, J. Gerald Hebert, testified before the Committee on House Administration's Subcommittee on Elections. The hearing, "Voter Registration and List Maintenance (continued)," focused on issues voter fraud, vote caging, problems regarding implementation and the selective enforcement of the National Voting Rights Act by the Department of Justice.
Reform Coalition Issues Statement on House Ethics Enforcement Proposal
The Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters and Public Citizen issued a statement this week in response to the recommendations set forth in an outline of an ethics enforcement proposal being considered by the House Ethics Enforcement Task Force.
The groups called on Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Republican Leader John Boehner, who created the ethics enforcement task force, to take the steps necessary to address the problems that exist with the proposal in order to provide the nation with an effective new Office of Congressional Ethics. The groups asserted that obtaining access to subpoena power and acquiring adequate professional staff and resources are essential to the creation of an effective enforcement body.
The FEC today published alternative proposed rules to interpret and implement the Supreme Court's decision earlier this year in Wisconsin Right to Life. Legal Center staff is currently analyzing the alternative draft rules and will soon comment on the proposals on the CLC blog.
Legal Center Blog Highlights
Each week, the Campaign Legal Center staff posts blog entries on its site, www.clcblog.org. Click to read this week's entries: "In the Wake of Valdes," "Legal Center Files Brief in High Court Review of Indiana Voter ID Law," "CLC Files Comments in FEC 'Candidate Travel' Rulemaking," "Will FEC Proposed Rule Gut BCRA 'Electioneering Communication' Provisions," "von Spakovsky, Obama, and the 'Race Card,'" or to sign up for the blog, click here.
To read a variety of this week's editorials and articles on a variety of Campaign Legal Center issues, including an Op-Ed by Tara Malloy featured in Legal Times, please click here. |
