National: Supreme Court Strikes Down Aggregate Limits on Federal Campaign Contributions | New York Times

The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a major campaign finance decision, striking down limits on federal campaign contributions for the first time. The ruling, issued near the start of a campaign season, will change and most likely increase the role money plays in American politics. The decision, by a 5-to-4 vote along ideological lines, was a sequel of sorts to Citizens United, the 2010 decision that struck down limits on independent campaign spending by corporations and unions. But that ruling did nothing to disturb the other main form of campaign finance regulation: caps on direct contributions to candidates and political parties. Wednesday’s decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, No. 12-536, addressed that second kind of regulation.

National: Election Assistance Commission seeks stay of order in voter citizenship case | Associated Press

Federal election officials have asked a judge to temporarily suspend his own order that they help Kansas and Arizona enforce state laws requiring voters to prove their U.S. citizenship, arguing that the case “implicates the fundamental right to register to vote.” The court filing late Monday comes in response to U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren’s decision on March 19 requiring the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to immediately modify a national voter registration form to add special instructions for Arizona and Kansas residents about those states’ proof-of-citizenship requirements. More than a dozen voting rights groups, which had previously intervened in the litigation, made a similar joint request for a stay last week. Project Vote Inc. filed its own motion Tuesday seeking the same thing. Kansas and Arizona had asked the federal agency for state-specific modifications, but it refused. Secretaries of State Kris Kobach of Kansas and Ken Bennett of Arizona, both conservative Republicans, sued the agency last year.

National: Supreme Court strikes down limits on federal campaign donations | The Washington Post

A split Supreme Court Wednesday struck down limits on the total amount of money an individual may spend on political candidates as a violation of free speech rights, a decision sure to increase the role of money in political campaigns. The 5 to 4 decision sparked a sharp dissent from liberal justices, who said the decision reflects a wrong-headed hostility to campaign finance laws that the court’s conservatives showed in Citizens United v. FEC , which allowed corporate spending on elections. “If Citizens United opened a door,” Justice Stephen G. Breyer said in reading his dissent from the bench, “today’s decision we fear will open a floodgate.” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote the opinion striking down the aggregate limits of what an individual may contribute to candidates and political committees. The decision did not affect the limit an individual may contribute to a specific candidate, currently $2,600. But Roberts said an individual should be able to contribute that much to as many candidates as he chooses, which was not allowed by the donation cap.

National: Will other states delay use of SAVE for voter checks? | Miami Herald

Florida is one of a handful of states that signed agreements with the Department of Homeland Security to use SAVE to search for non-citizens on voter rolls. Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner announced Thursday that he was delaying his plan to start a new round of looking for non-citizen voters due to DHS revamping the SAVE website. DHS started changes to the website in February but may not finish the project until after the 2014 election however SAVE remains operational by agencies nationwide. So we wondered if any other agencies that use SAVE for voter registration purposes have also halted efforts as a result of the website changes.

National: Democrats call on GOP to move voting rights bill | The Hill

House Democrats are amping up their pressure on GOP leaders to move on legislation to restore voting rights protections shot down by the Supreme Court last year. In a March 27 letter, Democratic leaders noted that the high court’s ruling “acknowledged the persistence of voter discrimination,” and they urged the Republicans to take up a bipartisan proposal, designed to counteract such prejudices, before November’s elections. “Some of us believe the bill should be enacted in its current form, and some of us would prefer to see it amended,” the Democrats wrote to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.). “But all of us stand united in our desire for the House to consider the issue in time for the entire Congress to work its will before the August district work period.” Spearheaded by Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking House Democrat, the letter was endorsed by 160 Democrats, including Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.), caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra (Calif.), caucus Vice Chairman Joseph Crowley (N.Y.), Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), the ranking member of the Judiciary panel, and Rep. John Dingell (Mich.), the House dean. GOP leaders have not said if they’ll try to move legislation on the issue this year.

National: GOP Steps Up Attack on Early Voting in Key Swing States | The Nation

On Election Night 2012, referring to the long lines in states like Florida and Ohio, Barack Obama declared, “We have to fix that.” The waits in Florida and Ohio were no accident, but rather the direct consequence of GOP efforts to curtail the number of days and hours that people had to vote. On January 22, 2014, the president’s bipartisan election commission released a comprehensive report detailing how voting could be smoother, faster and more convenient. It urged states to reduce long lines by adopting “measures to improve access to the polls through expansion of the period for voting before the traditional Election Day.” That would seem like an uncontroversial and common sense suggestion, but too many GOP-controlled states continue to move in the opposite direction, reducing access to the ballot instead of expanding it. The most prominent recent examples are the swing states of Wisconsin and Ohio. Yesterday Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed legislation eliminating early voting hours on weekends and nights, when it’s most convenient for many voters to go to the polls. When they took over state government in 2011, Wisconsin Republicans reduced the early voting period from three weeks to two weeks and only one weekend. Now they’ve eliminated weekend voting altogether.

National: Voter Rights Groups Appeal Proof of Citizenship Ruling | Associated Press

Voting rights groups filed an appeal Friday of a judge’s order that federal election officials must help Kansas and Arizona enforce state laws requiring new voters to provide documentation proving their U.S. citizenship. A court filing sent to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals challenges a ruling earlier this month by U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren in Wichita. Melgren had ordered the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to immediately modify a national voter registration form to add special instructions requiring proof of citizenship for Kansas and Arizona residents. The appeal was filed by more than a dozen voting rights groups and individuals who had earlier intervened in the case on behalf of the election commission. They include the League of Women Voters of the United States, Project Vote Inc., Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Common Cause, Arizona Advocacy Network, League of United Latin American Citizens Arizona, Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, Chicanos Por La Causa and others.

National: New G.O.P. Bid to Limit Voting in Swing States | New York Times

Pivotal swing states under Republican control are embracing significant new electoral restrictions on registering and voting that go beyond the voter identification requirements that have caused fierce partisan brawls. The bills, laws and administrative rules — some of them tried before — shake up fundamental components of state election systems, including the days and times polls are open and the locations where people vote. Republicans in Ohio and Wisconsin this winter pushed through measures limiting the time polls are open, in particular cutting into weekend voting favored by low-income voters and blacks, who sometimes caravan from churches to polls on the Sunday before election. Democrats in North Carolina are scrambling to fight back against the nation’s most restrictive voting laws, passed by Republicans there last year. The measures, taken together, sharply reduce the number of early voting days and establish rules that make it more difficult for people to register to vote, cast provisional ballots or, in a few cases, vote absentee.

National: Voting Rights Fight Takes New Direction | NPR

It’s that time again, when primary voters start casting their ballots for the midterm elections. As in recent years, voters face new rules and restrictions, including the need in 16 states to show a photo ID. But this year, some voting rights activists say they’re seeing a change — fewer new restrictions and, in some places, even a hint of bipartisanship. Although that wasn’t the case last month in Ohio, when the Legislature voted along party lines to eliminate a week of early voting. Lawmakers also agreed to prevent local election officials from mailing out unsolicited absentee ballot applications. “We’re talking about disenfranchising thousands of folks,” Democratic state Rep. Alicia Reece said on the House floor. “And don’t tell me it can’t be done, because our history has shown it has been done.”

National: Republican FEC Commissioners Go Public With Complaints About Mystery Redaction | National Journal

The Republican commissioners of the Federal Election Commission have broken their silence about the mysterious 76-page document that was redacted against their wishes in the deadlocked decision over whether Crossroads GPS was a legitimate nonprofit. In a statement posted to the FEC’s website late Tuesday, the commission’s three Republicans pulled back the curtain a bit on the missing document. “We do not believe that these redactions are necessary,” they wrote, saying they had sought to release the documents in a closed-door commission meeting but “the vote failed.” National Journal first reported the existence of the massive redaction and the behind-the-scenes controversy earlier this month.

National: The Long-Term Impact of Voting Law Changes | Governing

Last week, we looked at what the electoral impact of new election-law changes would be in 2014. Would stricter photo ID requirements or curtailed early voting influence the outcome of November races in the states that had passed such legislation? Ultimately, we concluded any affect would be limited. But in other ways — and in the longer term — such changes to voting rules could have a big impact. Here are a few ways in which the new changes could shape November and beyond. Several states where election-law changes are being held up in the courts are highly competitive electorally. In both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, voter ID laws are being held up in the courts. The laws were passed by Republican legislatures and signed by Republican governors, but both of these states are politically competitive. If either law is ultimately enacted, numerous competitive races could be affected in future electoral cycles.

National: After Ruling, Alabama Joins 2 States in Moving to Alter Voting Rules | New York Times

Alabama says it plans to move ahead with a requirement for potential voters to show concrete proof of citizenship, in the first sign of a wider impact from a court decision on Wednesday ordering a federal elections agency to help Arizona and Kansas enforce their own such requirement. Alabama is one of the four states that have adopted the extra layer of proof for people registering to vote. With such rules under a legal cloud, it held off on carrying them out. Now that may change. The federal court decision “has given us the confidence that Alabama has strong footing for implementation of the rules regarding proof of citizenship,” Secretary of State Jim Bennett said in an email. The ruling, by a district court in Wichita, Kan., is all but certain to be appealed, parties in the case said, and is unlikely to be the last word in decades-old fights over who gets to make the rules for voting and what they may require.

National: Advocates vow appeal of latest ruling in fight over voter law | Cronkite News

A federal judge’s order backing Arizona and Kansas laws that require proof of citizenship for voter registration is “not the American way” and must be challenged, opponents said Thursday. The comments came after a U.S. District judge in Kansas ordered the Election Assistance Commission to include the two states’ proof-of-citizenship requirement on federal voter registration forms, which only require that people check a box verifying their U.S. citizenship. “We will appeal it,” said Sam Wercinski, executive director of the Arizona Advocacy Network. He said no official decision has been made, but he expects voting-rights advocates will file an appeal “within 30 to 60 days.” But state officials in Kansas and Arizona said they are confident the latest decision will stand – and that they do not intend to wait for appeals. “They have a right to appeal, but the decision was made effective immediately,” Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne said Thursday. It is the latest twist in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled last summer that Arizona officials could not reject federal voter registration forms because they did not require proof of citizenship.

National: Verified Voting Marks 10 Years of Safeguarding US Elections | Scoop News

In 2004, Verified Voting began working to make U.S. voting systems more secure. The organization sprang from the energy created when founder David Dill issued the Resolution on Electronic Voting, which today has 10,000+ endorsers including top computer security experts and elected officials. Dill was subsequently appointed to the California Ad Hoc Task Force on Touch Screen Voting by then-Secretary of State Kevin Shelley (now a Verified Voting Board member). Click here to read Dave and Kevin’s look back at the origin of their relationship… What a difference a decade makes! At the time, fewer than one-sixth of the states had a requirement for voters to be able to verify their vote on a paper record or ballot: today, nearly three-fourths do. Yet, this November, sixteen states will use voting systems that do not provide an independent means of verifying individual votes, and nearly half the states will not conduct post-election audits to verify the accuracy of election results.

National: Will Voter ID Changes Affect the 2014 Elections? | Governing

Over the past few years, new limitations on voting — including stricter requirements for voter identification, cutbacks in early voting options and rollbacks of same-day voter registration — have spread across the nation, provoking outrage from critics who charge that Republican-dominated legislatures and GOP governors have increased obstacles to voting in order to disenfranchise minorities and less affluent voters who disproportionately vote Democratic. As three dozen states gear up for statewide elections in 2014, we thought it would be a good time to look at how these changes might affect actual electoral results this fall. Adding obstacles to voting is clearly something that’s a problem for individual voters. However, the cumulative impact of voting-rule changes on determining the winner of key races looks more likely to be hit and miss in 2014. (In our next column, we will look at some of the impacts of voting-law changes beyond the 2014 election, which are likely to be more significant.)

National: Two States Win Court Approval on Voter Rules | New York Times

A federal judge in Kansas on Wednesday ordered federal election authorities to help Kansas and Arizona require proof of citizenship of registering voters, in a decision that could well set a trend for other Republican-dominated states. Judge Eric F. Melgren of United States District Court in Wichita ruled that the federal Election Assistance Commission had no legal authority to deny requests from Kansas and Arizona to add state-specific instructions to a national voter registration form. The states sued the agency to force the action after it had turned them down. The Supreme Court ruled last June that Congress holds full power over federal election rules, but indicated that states could require proof of citizenship in state and local elections. Federal rules require prospective voters only to sign a form attesting to their citizenship, a procedure favored by Democrats who want to increase participation of minorities and the poor in elections, but that Republican officials say fosters voter fraud. In his ruling, Judge Melgren, appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, characterized the decision by the election commission to deny the states’ requests as “unlawful and in excess of its statutory authority.” He said that Congress had not “pre-empted state laws requiring proof of citizenship through the National Voter Registration Act.”

National: DOJ plans expansion of voting rights enforcement | USAToday

The Justice Department, no longer responsible for vetting election procedures in states with a history of racial discrimination, instead plans to proactively search the entire country for voting rights violations. Its new focus is the result of a June 2013 Supreme Court decision dismantling a Voting Rights Act provision that had required all or part of 15 states to get “pre-clearance” from Justice officials or a federal court before making any changes to their election procedures. Now, the department says, it will be more proactive in protecting minority voters.

National: Long lines, disputed counts: Why U.S. elections stumble | Detroit Free Press

In the 2012 election, Robert Bauer was President Obama’s campaign counsel and Benjamin Ginsberg was the top lawyer for Republican opponent Mitt Romney. Now they have joined forces to co-chair the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, studying the problems elections face. Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity. Q: Long lines, unreliable voting machines, disputed ballots: Why don’t elections in the United States work better?

Ginsberg:There are 8,000 different jurisdictions that are responsible for putting on some part of our elections. It is a process largely fueled by volunteers. They don’t have adequate training in most cases. So uniformity among our elections because of the way our system has been for 200 years is proving pretty difficult.

Bauer:We don’t commit nearly the resources that we need to, to the election administration process. Our administrators, who are generally overlooked when things go well and harshly criticized when they don’t, by and large have to deal with very tight budgets in which the priority is never very high for the work they have to do.

National: Kansas, Arizona laws requiring voters to prove citizenship upheld | Reuters

Efforts by Kansas and Arizona to require people who register to vote by mail to prove they are U.S. citizens were upheld by a federal judge on Wednesday, potentially opening the door for more states to enact such measures. The two Republican-led states had sued the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, set up by Congress after chronic voting problems during the 2000 presidential election, saying the agency wrongly prevented them from demanding such documentation in voter registration forms in the state. Laws passed in the two states requiring proof of citizenship for voters are part of a broader movement in many conservative states to demand would-be voters provide identification to ensure that non-citizens, including undocumented immigrants, cannot influence elections. “Today’s decision is an important victory for the people of Arizona against the Obama administration, assuring that only Arizona residents, and not illegals, vote in Arizona elections,” said Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne, who filed the lawsuit along with Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach.

National: Judge orders U.S. election commission to help Kansas, Arizona enforce voter law | Associated Press

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to help Kansas and Arizona enforce laws requiring new voters to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship. U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren in Wichita ruled the commission has no legal authority to deny requests from Kansas and Arizona to add state-specific instructions to a national voter registration form. The states and their top election officials — secretaries of state Kris Kobach of Kansas and Ken Bennett of Arizona — sued the agency to force the action.

National: Merriam-Webster makes ‘super PAC’ official | Center for Public Integrity

“Super PAC” is officially legit. Making good on a promise, language authority Merriam-Webster recently published an entry for “super PAC” in its online unabridged dictionary — a subscription-only product. Inclusion of “super PAC” in its free online dictionary is forthcoming, Associate Editor Kory Stamper told the Center for Public Integrity. The Merriam-Webster entry reads:

Super PAC, noun: a type of political action committee that is legally permitted to raise and spend larger amounts of money than the amounts allowed for a conventional PAC; specifically: an independent PAC that can accept unlimited contributions from individuals and organizations (such as corporations and labor unions) and spend unlimited amounts in support of a candidate but that cannot directly contribute money to or work directly in concert with the candidate it is supporting.

National: Sequoia v. Dominion: Former Election Firm With ‘Hanging Chad’ Ties Sues New Owner | Wall Street Journal

The voting machine maker that was partly blamed for Florida’s infamous hanging chads in 2000 was taken over by a competitor years ago, but the lawyers who are handling the company’s unfinished business are suing its new owner for money. Lawyers in charge of Sequoia Voting Systems Inc., now basically a litigation vehicle, are accusing Dominion Voting Systems Inc. of paying too little for Sequoia Voting’s operations in 2010. The dispute led Sequoia Voting to file for bankruptcy last month as its lawyers push Denver-based Dominion Voting for money. But back to hanging chads: Sequoia Voting sent punch-card ballots to parts of Florida for the 2000 presidential election, when some machines left behind stuck or hanging chads and led some ballots to be thrown out, according to press reports.

National: Can Cantor Deliver on Voting Rights Act? | Roll Call

After two trips to the Deep South alongside civil rights icon and Georgia Democrat John Lewis, the pressure is on Eric Cantor to deliver on the Voting Rights Act. The majority leader has made a major, personal investment in connecting to the civil rights movement — something that ultimately could prove important for a GOP that regularly polls in the single digits among African-Americans and poorly among other minorities. But translating participation in the Faith and Politics Institute’s annual pilgrimage into legislative text that can win support from the bulk of the Republican Conference isn’t an easy task. And so far, Cantor hasn’t laid out a clear path for a bill nine months after declaring his support for a congressional response to the Supreme Court decision striking down the VRA’s core enforcement mechanisms. Democrats have signaled that they trust Cantor, a Virginia Republican, on this issue, and that the extent to which he is able to help advance a VRA fix depends largely on his ability to mobilize his flock, many of whom are hostile to the idea.

National: Are Americans souring on voting restrictions? | MSNBC

As Republicans have pushed for voter ID in states across the country, they’ve been emboldened by polls showing such laws are popular with voters. But new research—conducted partly in Ohio, still the most pivotal presidential swing state—suggests that when it comes to making voting harder, the tide of public opinion may be turning. There isn’t enough data to draw firm conclusions. But a genuine shift would be a major boon to the movement to protect voting rights, and it would significantly complicate efforts to enact new restrictions. A Des Moines Register poll released Monday found that 71% of Iowa voters—including two out of three Republicans—think it’s more important that every eligible registered voter has the chance to vote than that no ineligible voter is allowed to cast a ballot. Just 25% said the reverse.

National: Big-money partisanship invades quiet realm of secretary of state elections | The Washington Post

The partisan battle over voting restrictions is engulfing secretary-of-state races around the country, as parties on both sides focus on controlling the offices responsible for administering election laws. Democrats and Republicans are launching high-profile and well-financed campaigns aimed at spending millions of dollars in what are normally under-the-radar contests. On the left, veterans of President Obama’s reelection campaign have launched iVote, a super PAC that will funnel money to battleground states with competitive races for secretary of state. Another group, dubbed SoS for Democracy, is being led by longtime labor activists Steve Rosenthal and Larry Scanlon. From the right, a super PAC called SOS for SoS — organized by a former top official at an outside group that supported Newt Gingrich — is aiming to raise and spend $10 million on key races.

National: Hoyer optimistic on voting rights bill | TheHill

A senior Democrat on Tuesday said he was “hopeful” the House would approve new voting rights legislation by the summer, despite the lack of an endorsement from the Republican leadership. “We are very hopeful that we will pass a voting rights bill and do so in the near term, hopefully in the next couple of months,” Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said during his weekly briefing with reporters. Hoyer over the weekend participated in an annual bipartisan pilgrimage to the South commemorating the civil rights movement. Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) also attended events on the trip, and Hoyer said he planned to meet with Cantor this week to discuss a legislative response to the 2013 Supreme Court ruling that struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Cantor has joined the pilgrimage with Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a civil rights leader, for the past two years, but he has yet to take a position on a bill that Lewis wrote with GOP Rep. James Sensenbrenner (Wis.).

National: Congress bans taxpayer funding for political conventions | Washington Times

Congress on Tuesday agreed to cancel its giveaway of taxpayer money to its own political conventions every four years, as the Senate cleared a bill to cut off funds. Senators approved the bill by unanimous consent early Tuesday, sending it straight to President Obama for his signature. “This is the type of bipartisan legislation that should move easily through the Senate,” Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said as he pushed the bill through.

National: Congressional investigations of FEC stalled | Center for Public Integrity

Leaders on two U.S. House committees acknowledge that parallel investigations into computer security and staffing breakdowns at the Federal Election Commission aren’t living up their initial billings. Such apparent lack of action comes at a critical time for the FEC, which this month warned Congress of threats to its computer networks that have “increased dramatically,” and of staff vacancies across the agency that “have begun to affect negatively the FEC’s ability to provide public services.” The Center for Public Integrity detailed the severity of both problems, which include the successful infiltration of FEC computer systems by Chinese hackers, in an investigative report last year. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Government Operations Subcommittee that oversees federal IT matters, in January promised to “conduct a full and thorough review of the vulnerabilities of FEC systems which should raise concerns for all federal elected officials.” That hasn’t yet occurred.

National: Voting rights advocates push for federal oversight | Bay State Banner

When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act last June, justices left it to Congress to decide how to fix the law. But while Congress deliberates, activists are turning again to the courts: At least 10 lawsuits have the potential to bring states and some local jurisdictions back under federal oversight — essentially doing an end-run around the Supreme Court’s ruling. A quick refresher: The Voting Rights Act outlaws racial discrimination against voters. But the law’s real strength comes from its “preclearance” provision, which forces jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to submit new voting measures to the federal government for approval. In last summer’s “Shelby County v. Holder” ruling, the Supreme Court threw out the part of the law that spelled out when states were automatically subject to federal oversight. States that have been released from preclearance have already passed a rash of new restrictive voting measures.

National: Selma honors anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday’ | Associated Press

Speakers at the commemoration Sunday of a key event in African Americans’ fight for voting rights urged Congress to resurrect the requirement that many southern states get federal approval for changes in election laws. The son of Martin Luther King Jr. said blood spilled on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge helped pave the way for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But a court case also arising out of Alabama led the U.S. Supreme Court last year to effectively strike down a key provision of the law that requires federal approval for election changes in all or parts of 15 states. “I’m very concerned because it is ironic that the state that helped to give us so much has temporarily set up a scenario to take it away. That we must change,” Martin Luther King III said in a speech this morning.