National: Obama’s Elections Panel Not Expected to Back Major Reforms | Hispanic Business

A commission named by President Barack Obama to address the problem of long lines on Election Day had its first meeting last week — but few observers held out hope for major reform. Its first session Friday lasted less than an hour and drew fewer than 50 people. And even its co-chair downplayed expectations. “We will not be providing legislative recommendations,” said Ben Ginsberg, an attorney for the Mitt Romney campaign tapped by Obama to co-chair the bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration. Instead, Ginsberg said the 10-member panel would be devising “best practices” to help states improve the efficiency of elections and registration while reducing wait times at the ballot box.

National: Arizona’s Proof-of-Citizenship Requirement for Voters Struck Down | Governing.com

In a ruling that raises more questions that it resolves, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship requirement for federal voter registration forms. In Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., a 7-2 majority determined that the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 preempts the state requirement. In the short term, this means that those who register to vote through a federal form only need to sign the form, swearing to be U.S. citizens. Georgia, Kansas and Alabama have proof-of-citizenship requirements identical to Arizona’s, which also seem to be negated now. But in reacting to the court’s decision, detractors of the nullified state requirement said they were still concerned about a back-door option created by the ruling. “What the Supreme Court gave the federal government with one hand, it suggested could soon be taken away with the other,” wrote Richard Hasen, a political science professor from the University of California, Irvine School of Law, in a Daily Beast column.* That’s because the ruling allows Arizona to ask the federal Election Assistance Commission to add proof-of-citizenship as part of the federal registration form; if the commission — which currently has no appointed commissioners — rejected the request, then the state could take that request to court.

National: The GOP Dilemma Over the Voting Rights Act | National Journal

In January, the Supreme Court heard the case of an Alabama county that wanted to change the venerable 1965 Voting Rights Act. On behalf of the government, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli argued that the act has worked well and meets constitutional muster. But swing-voting Justice Anthony Kennedy seemed skeptical about the Voting Rights Act. “Well, the Marshall Plan was very good, too,” quipped Kennedy. “But times change.” Congress may be about to find out how much times have changed. The Supreme Court is poised to turn over a key portion of the Voting Rights Act, likely kicking it back to Congress, adding another burden for the log-jammed legislature. It’s particularly heavy baggage for Republicans. While Democrats and civil rights groups stand largely united behind the broadest interpretations of the Voting Rights Act, for Republicans it’s a trickier matter. On one hand, they are eager to reach out to minority voters. They eagerly tout their charismatic, high-profile minority officeholders like Sens. Tim Scott or South Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas, Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. If Congressional Republicans seem unwilling to rebuild the Voting Rights Act should the court curtail it, they risk being seen as indifferent or even hostile to minorities. On the other hand, the party’s Tea Party wing is likely to revolt if the Republican House they elected tries to re-establish what many see as a federal overreach. Already, Cruz has offered an amendment to address the Supreme Court’s decision in an Arizona voting rights case earlier this week that struck down a proof-of-citizenship requirement.

National: Liberals brace for Supreme Court decision on voting rights | NBC

Bracing for an impending Supreme Court decision that could limit the reach of the Voting Rights Act, liberal legal experts and advocates are assessing what to do if the court strikes down a central part of the law. Addressing the annual convention of the liberal lawyers’ group the American Constitution Society, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a pioneer of the civil rights movement, told an audience of more than 1,000 lawyers and law students in Washington, D.C., that as a young activist in the 1960s, he’d chosen to “get in trouble – good trouble, necessary trouble” using civil disobedience and street protests to win the right to vote. Now, Lewis said, “I think it’s time for all of us once again to get in trouble.” Referring to the high court’s imminent decision on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, Lewis said, “We’re at a crossroads. Something’s going to happen, maybe next Monday, maybe next Thursday, the court is going to say something.” Arguing that voting rights were in jeopardy, Lewis said “I think it’s time for all of us once again to get in trouble.”

National: Chris Van Hollen: IRS Rules To Be Challenged In Court | Huffington Post

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Tuesday that he and two campaign finance watchdog groups would sue the IRS, challenging regulations that allow nonprofit groups to be involved in politics if they’re “primarily” devoted to a social welfare purpose. Van Hollen said he and watchdog groups Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 would sue to clarify an IRS regulation that he said was at odds with the law, which requires certain groups to “exclusively” engage in social welfare to earn nonprofit status. The IRS regulation permitting groups “primarily” engaged in social welfare allows the organizations to participate in an undefined amount of political activity, said the congressman, a leading advocate of campaign finance reform and ranking member of the House Budget Committee.

National: Cruz to introduce voter ID amendment to counteract Supreme Court ruling | The Hill

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Monday said he would offer an amendment to the Senate immigration bill to counteract a Supreme Court decision striking down state laws requiring voters to prove their citizenship. Cruz’s amendment, which he plans to attach to the bipartisan Gang of Eight bill being debated this week in the Senate, would allow states to require IDs before voters register under the federal “Motor Vehicle” voter registration law. The high court on Monday overturned an Arizona law requiring people to prove their citizenship if they wanted to register through that law. In a 7-2 vote, the court ruled in the case of Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. that state law was trumped by federal law and Arizona could not require voters to provide additional information.

National: Rep. Elijah Cummings releases a full IRS interview transcript | Washington Post

The House Oversight Committee’s top Democrat on Tuesday released the full transcript of a congressional interview that he said “debunks conspiracy theories” about the IRS targeting controversy. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member of the committee, produced a complete interview transcript in which an IRS manager in Cincinnati said he elevated the first tea party case that led the agency to begin singling out conservative groups for extra scrutiny. Cummings released partial transcripts from the manager’s interview last week, prompting warnings from committee chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) about releasing full interviews.

National: Did Scalia add ‘virus’ to Arizona voting opinion? | MSNBC

A Supreme Court decision Monday that struck down an Arizona law requiring people to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote was hailed by voting-rights advocates as a big win. But several legal scholars say the ruling, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, could in fact set back the voting-rights cause in cases to come. As Spencer Overton, a law professor at George Washington University writing inThe Huffington Post, put it, Scalia “may have implanted today’s opinion with a virus that may hamper federal voting protections in the future.” In his opinion, Scalia found that the Constitution’s “Elections Clause” gives Congress the authority to set the “times, places, and manner” for holding congressional elections. As a result, Scalia ruled, Arizona’s law, known as Proposition 200, is pre-empted by the federal National Voter Registration Act, which requires states to accept a federal form that makes people attest under penalty of perjury that they’re citizens, but doesn’t make them show proof. So far so good for voting rights. But Scalia also ruled—and six other justices agreed—that the Elections Clause does not give Congress the power to set voter qualifications.

National: Voting Rights Groups Get High Court Win As Bigger Case Looms | NPR

Advocates of tougher voter registration standards have racked up wins in recent years — voter ID laws have taken hold across the nation, for example. But those who believe that government should make voting as easy as possible just gained a significant victory with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision slapping down an Arizona law that required potential voters to prove their citizenship. In its 7-2 decision, the court ruled that the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, the so-called motor voter law, trumped an Arizona law passed in 2004. The state law demanded that voters produce documentation of their citizenship at the time they registered to vote. The federal law requires those registering in federal elections only to attest to their citizenship. The process is simple enough that people can register by postcard. The high court’s decision on the Arizona law put an extra bounce in the step of officials at civil and voting-rights organizations.

National: Supreme Court strikes down Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship to vote | NBC

The Supreme Court on Monday struck down an Arizona law that requires people to submit proof of citizenship when they register to vote. The vote was 7-2, with Justice Antonin Scalia writing for the court. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, two members of the court’s conservative wing, dissented. Only a handful of states have similar laws, which the states say are meant to reduce voter fraud, but civil rights groups worried that more states would have followed if the Supreme Court had upheld the Arizona law. Those groups say the Arizona law was an effort to discourage voting by legal immigrants. Groups opposed to the Arizona law said that the court had blocked an attempt at voter suppression. “Today’s decision sends a strong message that states cannot block their citizens from registering to vote by superimposing burdensome paperwork requirements on top of federal law,” said Nina Perales, vice president of litigation for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

National: Supreme Court expected to rule soon on constitutionality of Voting Rights Act | Washington Examiner

The Supreme Court is expected by the end of the month to announce its ruling on a case that could end a landmark Civil Rights-era law designed to combat discriminatory voting practices nationwide. All or parts of 16 states, mostly in the South, currently must receive approval from the Justice Department or a federal court before making changes in the way they hold elections. The provision is part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act — enacted to stop Jim Crowe-era practices such as literacy tests, poll taxes or other measures designed to keep blacks from voting. But Shelby County, Ala., is challenging the constitutionality of the advance approval, or “preclearance” requirement, saying it no longer should be forced to live under oversight from Washington because it has made significant progress in combating voter discrimination.

National: Political Optics Overlooked in ‘Tea Party’ Review – IRS Official | New York Times

Internal Revenue Service employees in Ohio, who singled out conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status for extra scrutiny, likely did not consider the political implications, an IRS official in Washington has told congressional investigators. Providing additional details about the worst crisis to hit the IRS in years, tax agency official Holly Paz told investigators she was concerned when she learned that IRS employees were singling out groups with “Tea Party” and other key words in their names. Paz is the most senior IRS official to be extensively interviewed by investigators. Ousted acting IRS Commissioner Steve Miller was among the top-level Washington officials grilled by Congress in recent weeks. Investigators conducted longer transcribed interviews with IRS employees behind closed doors.

National: IRS Supervisor in DC Scrutinized Tea Party Cases | New York Times

An Internal Revenue Service supervisor in Washington says she was personally involved in scrutinizing some of the earliest applications from tea party groups seeking tax-exempt status, including some requests that languished for more than a year without action. Holly Paz, who until recently was a top deputy in the division that handles applications for tax-exempt status, told congressional investigators she reviewed 20 to 30 applications. Her assertion contradicts initial claims by the agency that a small group of agents working in an office in Cincinnati were solely responsible for mishandling the applications. Paz, however, provided no evidence that senior IRS officials ordered agents to target conservative groups or that anyone in the Obama administration outside the IRS was involved.

National: Obama election administration commission to hold Miami hearing | POLITICO.com

The commission President Barack Obama is setting up to address problems with election administration plans to hold one of its first meetings in the city that appeared to be ground zero for excessive delays in the 2012 vote: Miami. The panel will convene at the federal courthouse in Miami on Friday, June 28 to hear testimony from “local, county and state election officials,” as well as “comments by interested members of the public,” according to a notice set to be published Wednesday in the Federal Register. In November, some Miami voters spent more than five hours waiting to case their ballots, according to the Miami Herald. Obama promised action on the subject in his election night victory speech.

National: Democratic Senators to voting panel: Fix the long lines | MSNBC

A group of Democratic senators is urging President Obama’s election commission to take “strong steps” to ensure that voters are no longer forced to wait hours to cast their ballots, as occurred last November in some areas of the country. “The existence of long lines…defective voting machines, and the lack of staff and adequate resources at polling locations created inexcusable conditions for voters,” Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Chris Coons of Delaware, Mark Warner of Virginia, and Bill Nelson of Florida said in a letter to the commission’s chairmen sent Tuesday. “Lines created by these conditions are forcing citizens to decide between casting their ballot or caring for a sick child, or earning a paycheck to feed their families. This is a choice that no citizen should have to face.”

National: Awaiting the Court’s ruling, voter advocates prepare for life after Section 5 | MSNBC

Voting-rights advocates hope the Supreme Court won’t rule against Section 5, a key piece of the Voting Rights Act. But while they wait for the decision to be handed down, they’re already strategizing for a post-Section 5 world. “If the Court struck down or weakened Section 5, it would lead to the largest rollback of American democracy since the end of Reconstruction,” Wade Henderson, the president of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, told reporters Wednesday. Shelby County, Ala., is challenging the constitutionality of Section 5, which allows the U.S. Justice Department to block any proposed election changes made by certain areas with a history of racial discrimination—mostly in the south—if those changes might reduce the voting power of minorities. Many Court observers expect that the ruling, which could come as soon as Thursday, will strike down or significantly water down Section 5.

National: Republican IRS agent says Cincinnati began ‘Tea Party’ inquiries | Chicago Tribune

A U.S. Internal Revenue Service manager, who described himself as a conservative Republican, told congressional investigators that he and a local colleague decided to give conservative groups the extra scrutiny that has prompted weeks of political controversy. In an official interview transcript released on Sunday by Democratic Representative Elijah Cummings, the manager said he and an underling set aside “Tea Party” and “patriot” groups that had applied for tax-exempt status because the organizations appeared to pose a new precedent that could affect future IRS filings. Cummings, top Democrat on the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee conducting the probe, told CNN’s “State of the Union” program that the manager’s comments provided evidence that politics was not behind IRS actions that have fueled a month-long furor in Washington.

National: Arizona voter ID case about more than driver’s licenses | Constitution Daily

It is about 2,300 miles from Phoenix, the capital of the state of Arizona, to Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. That’s a long way. But beyond physical distance, the philosophical divide between Phoenix and D.C. may be even bigger. The Supreme Court is poised to decide the case known as Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., which could have implications much broader than the matter of whether extra identification must be presented if a person without a driver’s license is trying to register to vote in Arizona. The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), sometimes called the “Motor Voter” law, was passed in Washington, D.C., by the federal government back in 1993. It established uniform procedures for all states to follow in federal elections. Under the NVRA, someone who is registering to vote has to check a box affirming under penalty of perjury that he or she is a U.S. citizen.

National: Business donations to judges’ campaigns often equal friendly rulings | McClatchy

State supreme court justices are favoring the corporate interests that finance their election campaigns, a comprehensive new study concludes. With more judicial elections now awash in dollars, the study of several thousand court decisions found a relationship between business-affiliated contributions and how justices voted. The more business money a supreme court justice has received, the more likely she or he is to support business litigants, according to the yearlong study by the American Constitution Society, a liberal advocacy group. “We have reason to be worried,” study author Joanna Shepherd said Tuesday. “Business groups tend to spend far more on judicial elections than any other interest group.”

National: Supreme Court nears rulings on key voting rights cases | Washington Times

The Supreme Court is expected this month to announce rulings on two key voting rights cases that could reshape how Americans nationwide cast ballots in federal elections. The more high-profile of the two pending rulings — which could come as early as this week — involves an Alabama county that is pushing back against federal oversight of its election procedures. The other centers on an Arizona law that requires voters to submit documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote. While both cases deal with specific jurisdictions, the court’s decisions will set legal precedents that could — depending on whether the justices uphold, strike down or suggest changes in the laws — trigger states nationwide to reform the way they hold elections and who they allow to vote.

National: Clarifying common misconceptions about the IRS targeting campaign | The Washington Post

Spin relies on confusion, and both seem to be prevalent in the ongoing saga over an IRS targeting campaign that singled out certain types of groups for special scrutiny after they applied for tax-exempt status. The most important questions in the IRS controversy are: Who started the filtering policy, what were the motivations, and how do we prevent it from happening again? Let’s examine some of the most common misconceptions that could distract from those issues. IRS officials have suggested that the targeting campaign, which began sometime before mid-2010, started as a policy to deal with an overwhelming increase in tax-exemption applications. This is an unsubstantiated claim that Democrats have replicated to defend the tax agency’s actions.

National: Republicans vote to end Election Assistance Commission | USAToday

Republicans moved a step forward Tuesday in their continuing effort to eliminate the Election Assistance Commission, which was created to help states run elections. A House committee approved legislation Tuesday to shut down the federal commission set up more than 10 years ago to help states improve their election systems. “This agency needs to go,” said Mississippi Republican Rep. Gregg Harper, who introduced the bill to eliminate the Election Assistance Commission. “This agency has outlived its usefulness and to continue to fund it is the definition of irresponsibility.” The House Administration Committee approved the legislation by voice vote. This marks Harper’s third attempt in four years to close the bipartisan independent commission, which he called a “bloated bureaucracy.” It is not clear when the full House will vote on the measure. Harper said he’s working to persuade a senator to introduce a companion measure in that chamber.

National: Red flags and gray areas in IRS scandal | Politico.com

The conservative groups testifying about overzealous IRS scrutiny during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing Tuesday can’t get around a simple fact: All have been involved in the kinds of political activity that’s ripe for red flags. Simple searches on Google, Facebook, Twitter and other news engines point to plenty of political activities that are the essence of what the IRS looks for when deciding who gets an exemption from Uncle Sam. The group leaders attended rallies to stop Obama administration priorities and ripped into the president’s work on health care and missile defense. They spoke openly about defeating President Barack Obama in the 2012 election. They pushed for winners in state and local election races. Their activities might not have run afoul of the rules. But for the murky world of charitable exemptions now under heightened political scrutiny, their backgrounds underscore the gray area the IRS was in as it posed questions to the groups.

National: Substantial Minority of Scrutinized Exempt Organizations Were Not Conservative | Tax Analysts

We know now that the IRS used “inappropriate criteria” — names and policy views associated with conservative and Tea Party causes — for selecting applications for tax-exempt status for extra review. The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration laid out the charges in a May 14 report, and the IRS has admitted it made errors. But TIGTA’s report doesn’t shed much light on whether other organizations were subject to similar review. As the early furor gives way to more careful investigations, it will be important to get a more complete picture of IRS processing of applications for tax exemption. The IRS has helped somewhat by releasing a list of all the “centralized” groups (that is, organizations whose applications were referred to specialists for closer review) that were granted tax-exempt status as of May 9, 2013. Though the overlap between the subset and the full set of centralized groups isn’t perfect, the list suggests that the majority of groups selected for extra scrutiny probably matched the political criteria the IRS used and backed conservative causes, the Tea Party, or limited government generally. But a substantial minority — almost one-third of the subset — did not fit that description.

National: House Republican Lawmakers See Elections Oversight Committees as Waste of Money | IVN

The community of federal campaign oversight will undergo significant downsizing following announcements from the Federal Election Commission and the House Administration Committee, Wednesday. Tony Herman, General Legal Counsel to the Federal Election Commission, will leave the agency this July and the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) moved one inch closer to being scrapped. In a statement, FEC Chair Ellen Weintraub said, “I want to thank Tony for his outstanding service to this agency and to the American public.” He will return to Covington & Burling, LLP where he was a partner before joining the FEC in 2011. The FEC has been understaffed since February when former commissioner, Cynthia Bauerly, left after serving nearly a 5-year term. Now with five out of six commissioners, each serving expired terms, the agency will need to locate a new General Counsel before July 7.

National: Shelby County’s Voting Rights Act case should get Supreme Court decision this month | al.com

Many are expecting the U.S. Supreme Court to issue a ruling this month on Shelby County’s challenge of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Section 5 “preclearance” provisions. In the case known as Shelby County V. Holder, lawyers representing Shelby County government are attempting to declare parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act unconstitutional as they pertain to 16 states including Alabama that need federal permission for changes in elections. Lawyers representing Shelby County, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 27 in the case.

National: With help of former aide, Miller seeks voter registration fix | The Macomb Daily

With the help of Michigan Elections Director Chris Thomas, U.S. Rep. Candice Miller on Tuesday made the case on Capitol Hill that Congress must act to end millions of duplicate voter registrations nationwide from state to state. In testimony, Thomas told the Committee on House Administration, chaired by Miller, that federal legislation is needed to clear up the confusion caused when voters maintain an old driver license in one state but declare their voter registration in another state. A pending bill co-sponsored by Miller, former Michigan Secretary of State, and Rep. Todd Rokita, former Indiana Secretary of State, would require new state residents applying for a driver license to notify the state if they intend to use their new residency for the purpose of voting. If so, the legislation would mandate that the new state to notify the applicant’s previous state of residence so its chief election official can update voter lists accordingly.

National: House Republicans put Election Assistance Commission in cross hairs | Washington Times

House Republicans are pressing to kill an independent government commission designed to improve state-level voting procedures, arguing the body has run its course, is ineffectual and is a waste of taxpayer money. The House Administration Committee will meet Tuesday to vote on amendments on a bill to repeal the Election Assistance Commission — created as part of the Help America Vote Act of 2002, or HAVA, that was designed to help modernize state-level voting systems in response to Florida’s ballot-counting troubles during the 2000 presidential election. But the commission has been in limbo since late 2010, when it last had a quorum. All four seats currently are vacant. Democrats, who support the agency, say that’s because Republicans have undermined its authority by holding up nominations and repeatedly trying to abolish it.

National: New tax chief Werfel pledges to correct ‘serious problems’ at IRS | The Hill

The new acting IRS chief stressed Monday that he was pressing ahead to fix the problems that allowed the agency to target conservative groups, saying the current controversies had sparked a difficult time at the IRS. Danny Werfel, in his first testimony on Capitol Hill, also stressed that the current controversy shouldn’t be used to tar the entire agency. Werfel, who has been acting commissioner for less than two weeks, told a House Appropriations subcommittee Monday that the singling out of Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status was inexcusable. “We have a great deal of work ahead of us to review and correct the serious problems that have occurred at the IRS and continue the important work of the agency on behalf of taxpayers,” Werfel said in prepared remarks for his first congressional appearance in his new role.

National: Congressmen: You have no right to vote | Philadelphia Inquirer

Two members of the House of Representatives insist the Constitution doesn’t guarantee you the right to vote—and one leading fact-checking group says they may be correct, on a technicality. Mark Pocan, a representative from Wisconsin, has joined with Keith Ellison from Minnesota to introduce a new constitutional amendment in the U.S. House of Representatives that guarantees everyone 18 years and older the right to vote in elections. The folks at PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize–winning website in Florida, evaluated Pocan’s statement on the House floor that “nothing in the Constitution explicitly guarantees our right to vote.”