National: Congress Recalls Watchdog to Explain IRS Audit | New York Times

The investigator who wrote a scathing report about the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservative political groups is heading back to Capitol Hill as a key House Democrat says his committee’s investigation has found no evidence of political bias at the agency. IRS inspector general J. Russell George is to testify Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, along with two IRS workers who have been interviewed as part of the committee’s investigation. George has been criticized by some congressional Democrats who say his report failed to mention that some liberal groups were targeted, too. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., released a memo Tuesday saying that interviews with 15 IRS employees and reviews of thousands of emails reveal no evidence of political bias by IRS workers. The memo said there is also no evidence that anyone outside the IRS directed the targeting.

Alaska: Redistricting Board releases latest voting boundaries | Alaska Dispatch

After being sent back to the drawing board by the Alaska Supreme Court last winter, the Alaska Redistricting Board released a new plan this week that did away with some creative groupings, especially for southeast Alaska. The board plans to vote on the plan on Sunday. Under the past plan, new lines were created for House Districts 36 and 37 of Southwest Alaska. House District 36, represented by Bryce Edgmon of Dillingham, stretched from the western coast of Cook Inlet, across the Illiamna Lake region to Bristol Bay, then north into the Yukon and Kuskokwim area. Edgmon no longer represented the Alaska Peninsula or the Aleutian, Shumagin, and Pribilof Islands communities — which were in House District 37.

Mississippi: Meridian Mayor’s Election Shows Voting Law’s Imperfect Legacy | Bloomberg

Percy L. Bland III said he knew he would become the first black mayor of Meridian, Mississippi (STOMS1), when he saw the crowd at Velma Young Community Center at 5 p.m. on election day. These were his voters. In 2009, Bland had lost to white Republican Cheri Barry in a city that is 62 percent black. While he needed white support for the rematch last month, his 990-vote margin came from predominantly black wards where his campaign registered voters, called them and even offered rides to the polls. “All that work was paying off,” Bland said. The federal Voting Rights Act enabled Bland’s election by guaranteeing blacks proportionate power, yet it didn’t foster a coalition that bridged the races or prevent accusations of bias and intimidation. The campaign illustrates the unfinished legacy of the 1965 law, which enfranchised millions of African-Americans — and whose core element the U.S. Supreme Court threw out three weeks after Bland won.

New Mexico: N.M. was affected by Voting Rights Act | Albuquerque Journal

New Mexico is no stranger to the federal government requirement to seek approval from Washington before making changes to state legislative districts. The practice, which the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended Tuesday, was required in New Mexico by the U.S. Department of Justice during redistricting conducted in 1991. The requirement came after New Mexico redistricting efforts in the early ’80s sparked legal action claiming the process was discriminatory. “A three-judge panel concluded that a history of discrimination did exist in New Mexico,” said longtime New Mexico redistricting consultant Brian Sanderoff. “New Mexico was a pre-clearance state because of the alleged sins of the early ’80s.”

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: 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: 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: 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: I.R.S. Official Invokes 5th Amendment at Hearing | New York Times

The Internal Revenue Service official who first disclosed that the agency had targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny, and in doing so ignited a controversy that has ensnared the White House, denied on Wednesday that she had ever provided false information to Congress. She then invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and declined to testify at a House hearing on the agency’s actions. At the House oversight committee hearing, the chairman, Darrell Issa, seated second from right, talked with an aide. Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, was at left. As the official, Lois Lerner, appeared under subpoena before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, she sternly told her questioners that accusations that she had misled Congress in previous testimony were false.

National: The IRS tea party scandal: The lesson is better campaign finance disclosure laws | Slate

Let’s not make excuses for the IRS. The agency shouldn’t have subjected conservative groups to special scrutiny. Campaign finance reform groups should have immediately called for hearings when this scandal broke: Imagine the hue and cry if the IRS during the Bush administration had singled out “progressive” groups for special tax scrutiny and sent themunprecedented questions about their contributors and activities. Given the danger going back to President Richard Nixon of using the IRS against political enemies, the agency has to be scrupulously nonpartisan and fair. Congressional investigations and the Department of Justicecriminal investigation announced Tuesday are inevitable and warranted. But the larger picture here shows why the IRS felt itself forced into the role of campaign finance regulator, and why people also are calling for the Securities and Exchange Commissionand state attorneys general to regulate campaign contributions. This is all about the failure of Congress to require the disclosure of donors who bankroll groups designed to influence elections.

National: ‘Angry’ Obama announces IRS leader’s ouster in scandal | CNN

President Barack Obama vowed Wednesday to hold accountable those at the Internal Revenue Service involved in the targeting of conservative groups applying for federal tax-exempt status, beginning with the resignation of the agency’s acting commissioner who was aware of the practice. In a brief statement delivered to reporters in the East Room of the White House, the president announced that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew had requested — and accepted — the resignation of acting IRS Commissioner Steven T. Miller. The president said the “misconduct” detailed in the IRS Inspector General’s report released Tuesday over the singling out of conservative groups is “inexcusable.”
“Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I’m angry about it,” Obama said.

National: Report on I.R.S. Audits Cites Ineffective Management | New York Times

An inspector general’s report issued Tuesday blamed ineffective Internal Revenue Service management in the failure to stop employees from singling out conservative groups for added scrutiny. Congressional aides, meanwhile, sought to determine whether the Obama administration’s knowledge of the effort extended beyond the I.R.S. House and Senate aides said they were focusing on an Aug. 4, 2011, meeting in which the I.R.S.’s chief counsel appears to have conferred with agency officials to discuss the activities of a team in the Cincinnati field office that had been subjecting applications for tax-exempt status from Tea Party and other conservative groups to a greater degree of review than those from other organizations. Under I.R.S. rules, the agency’s chief counsel, William J. Wilkins, reports to the Treasury Department’s general counsel, and investigators want to determine if Mr. Wilkins took the issue out of the independent I.R.S. to other parts of the Obama administration.

National: IRS Office That Targeted Tea Party Also Disclosed Confidential Docs From Conservative Groups | ProPublica

The same IRS office that deliberatelytargeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year. The IRS did not respond to requests Monday following up about that release, and whether it had determined how the applications were sent to ProPublica. In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public. (We made six of those public, after redacting their financial information, deeming that they were newsworthy.)

National: Federal Election Commission revolving door spins ever so slowly | Politico.com

It’s one of the oldest traditions in Washington: Take an oversight post or a staff job on a government panel for a few years — then cash in at one of the city’s top law firms, lobbying shops or consulting outfits. But at the Federal Election Commission, the revolving door has virtually stopped moving. That’s mostly because for many qualified nominees, the post is just not worth the hassle. Unlike top regulatory or policy jobs at the Commerce Department, Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Communications Commission and others, there’s not necessarily a lucrative job waiting at the end of their terms. Former commissioners, attorneys and outside observers say that lack of a potential career boost — or worse, losing business and clients with no guarantee of being confirmed — is one reason that’s kept potential new members on the sidelines.

National: GOP reaction in IRS case spurs calls for probe, apology | USAToday

President Obama should apologize for the admission by the IRS that it singled out conservative Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny as they applied for non-profit status, Republican members of Congress said Sunday. They also called for an investigation of the agency. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the IRS actions were “truly outrageous” and “chilling” on CNN’s State of the Union. A public apology was “absolutely” needed, Collins said. “I think that it’s very disappointing the president hasn’t personally condemned this and spoken out. … (T)he president needs to make it crystal clear that this is totally unacceptable in America.”

National: IRS kept shifting targets in tax-exempt groups scrutiny: report | Reuters

When tax agents started singling out non-profit groups for extra scrutiny in 2010, they looked at first only for key words such as ‘Tea Party,’ but later they focused on criticisms by groups of “how the country is being run,” according to investigative findings reviewed by Reuters on Sunday. Over two years, IRS field office agents repeatedly changed their criteria while sifting through thousands of applications from groups seeking tax-exempt status to select ones for possible closer examination, the findings showed. At one point, the agents chose to screen applications from groups focused on making “America a better place to live.” Exactly who at the IRS made the decisions to start applying extra scrutiny was not clear from the findings, which were contained in portions of an investigative report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

National: Campaign Contribution Limits Broken Repeatedly In 2012 Election With No FEC Oversight | Huffington Post

In October 2011, John Canning, chairman of the Chicago-based hedge fund Madison Dearborn Partners, expressed his displeasure with President Barack Obama to the Chicago Tribune. “It’s the populist economic policies of wealth redistribution and government control of all aspects of everyday life that I object to,” he said. Canning put his money where his mouth was, hosting a fundraiser for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney that fall. And Romney wasn’t the only benefactor of his largess. Over the course of the 2012 election cycle, Canning gave to as many federal candidates, political action committees (PACs) and party committees as he seemingly could find — some 38 individuals and groups, all but two of them Republican — ultimately distributing $276,000 in contributions.

Voting Blogs: Who’s The Boss? Arkansas, Florida Debate State Power to Discipline Local Election Officials | Election Academy

In recent weeks, two states have engaged in fierce debates over whether or not state election officials can engage in oversight and/or discipline of local election officials:

+ In Arkansas, Gov. Mike Beebe (D) has vetoed a series of bills that would have consolidated authority at the state level, including giving the State Board of Election Commissioners the power”to remove a county election commissioner if not qualified or for failure to perform duties.”

+ In Florida, an election reform bill that just passed the Senate on a party-line vote includes a provision that would allow the Secretary of State to put a county election supervisor on “noncompliant status” under state law. That status would allow the state to dock a supervisor’s pay for problems associated with the election process.

Ohio: House panel OKs elections bill | The Columbus Dispatch

Despite pleas to slow down and reconsider portions of a bill that would limit how long signatures can be collected for ballot initiatives, the House will vote this week on the measure that already has Senate approval. Senate Bill 47 was voted out of the House Policy and Legislative Oversight Committee yesterday afternoon on a 9-5 vote after former Democratic Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner advised the committee members, “If you pass this lickety-split, it’s going to make you look bad.” No one testified at yesterday’s hearing in favor of the petition part of the bill, though a representative from the Ohio Association of Election Officials spoke in support of other parts of the bill.

Editorials: Voting Rights Act section is partisan political issue | The Greenville News

The Supreme Court is said to be close to a decision on the future of one provision of the Voting Rights Act that could simplify elections, speed up the unreasonably long process of redistricting, and reduce government expense in nine state’s where the provision is applied – including Mississippi. Adopted by Congress during the height of the American civil rights struggle, Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act identified states and localities with a history of race-based voter discrimination and mandated that those “covered jurisdictions” must obtain federal approval or “preclearance” from the U.S. Justice Department before making changes to any state or local voting laws or districts. Without question, at the time Section 5 was adopted in 1965, Mississippi’s track record on civil rights in general and voting rights in particular was nothing short of abysmal and shameful. But that was almost a half-century ago and times have changed in Mississippi.

Voting Blogs: Forget About Fresno: How One California County Clerk Stopped Prop 37’s Oversight ‘Recount’ | BradBlog

What happened last November in California’s Prop 37? Is it really possible that progressive California doesn’t want Genetically Engineered Foods to be labeled as such? According to the reported results of that election, that would seem to be the case. But did Californians really vote against such labeling? Unfortunately, thanks to a lack of overseeable public hand-counts on Election Night, and a gaping weakness in the state’s otherwise liberal “recount” law, we’re unlikely to ever know for certain. A weeks-long investigation by The BRAD BLOG into the months-long attempted effort to confirm the results of the Prop 37 ballot initiative last November, serves to highlight not just the weakness in California “recount” law, but also the notion that paper ballots, secretly tallied by optical-scan computers, are just fine, since, as the knee-jerk saying goes, “we can always count the paper ballots by hand afterwards if there are any questions about the results.”

Rhode Island: Oversight panel to focus on election problems | San Antonio Express-News

The Rhode Island House will examine the reasons for long lines and ballot mix-ups seen in last fall’s election in the hopes of preventing similar problems the next time voters head to the polls. The House Oversight Committee agreed Thursday to focus on the election mishaps. It will be the first task the oversight panel has taken up in the two years since it last met. Large crowds of voters overwhelmed one Providence polling place in the November election, leading to hours-long lines and voter frustration.

Editorials: Delegate the Voting Rights Act oversight formula | Christopher S. Elmendorf/The Great Debate (Reuters)

If the Supreme Court strikes the pre-clearance provisions (Section 5) of the Voting Rights Act, it will most likely do so because the statute’s “coverage formula” is untethered from evidence of current discrimination against racial minorities. The oversight formula determines which states must receive the federal government’s blessing before making any changes to their election laws. It is based on decades-old evidence of discrimination. When Congress in 2006 extended the pre-clearance provisions for another 25 years, legal scholars warned that the extension would be constitutionally vulnerable ‑ unless Congress updated the formula. But politically this was too hot to handle.

District of Columbia: Elections board approves budget autonomy referendum | Washington Times

The D.C. Board of Elections on Tuesday rejected arguments from the city’s top lawyer and will let voters decide this spring if they want to divorce the city’s local budget from the spending process on Capitol Hill — a long-sought goal known as “budget autonomy.” The board’s decision came a day after D.C. Attorney General Irvin B. Nathan reluctantly implored the board to be “courageous” and to deny a proposed charter referendum from the ballot, even if it would be a politically unpopular stance. He said the measure is legally unsound and could create a backlash from members of Congress.

South Carolina: Richland County leaders ready to see a change at the Election Commission | MidlandsConnect.com

One day after Richland County election commission board chair Liz Crum stepped down, county leaders are still looking for change. Members of the delegation that appointed election commission director Lillian McBride say she should follow suit after a reviewing a report about the elections failures. “We really have no other option but to replace the executive director, that’s really the only way publics confidence in this whole process will ever be restored”, said Senator Joel Lourie.

Romania: Anti-graft agency says faces political intimidation in run up to election | The Star Online

A Romanian anti-corruption watchdog has said it is under political pressure to drop its investigations of senior figures in the run-up to a December parliamentary election. The head of the National Integrity Agency (ANI) said politicians were trying to intimidate his organisation after it notified three ministers and a state official last week that it was investigating them for possible conflicts of interest.

National: Long lines at the polls stir calls in Congress for election reform | The Hill

A growing number of lawmakers want Congress to step in to streamline voters’ trips to the polls. Although warnings of voter fraud generated far more discussion leading up to Tuesday’s elections, enormous lines in many districts turned out to be the much greater threat to the process, as hours-long waits greeted voters in Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Wisconsin and elsewhere. The delays have stirred questions about why the United States can’t make it easier to vote, stoked accusations of voter suppression in minority districts and renewed the debate over Washington’s responsibility to safeguard an efficient process.

National: High court weighs new look at voting rights law | Businessweek

Three years ago, the Supreme Court warned there could be constitutional problems with a landmark civil rights law that has opened voting booths to millions of African-Americans. Now, opponents of a key part of the Voting Rights Act are asking the high court to finish off that provision. The basic question is whether state and local governments that once boasted of their racial discrimination still can be forced in the 21st century to get federal permission before making changes in the way they hold elections.

Hawaii: State Officials Will Oversee Voting On Nov. 6 In Hawaii County | Honolulu Civil Beat

State elections officials say they will take back oversight of Election Day voting on the Big Island because problems relating to the Aug. 11 primary have not been adequately addressed. Hawaii Chief of Elections Scott Nago said Tuesday he is rescinding state elections responsibilities that had been delegated to Big Island clerk Jamae Kawauchi. A small group of staff members hired by the state will take over Big Island Election Day activities, according to state elections spokesman Rex Quidilla. One of them is Lori Tomczyk, the office’s Oahu-based ballot operations section head who helped out with state elections operations in Hilo on the day of the primary. Tomczyk, who has been on the job since 2000, will be filling in as lead administrator. “We’re injecting our supervision and expertise,” said Quidilla, adding that little would actually be changing in terms of personnel. “This is something we see being done only under these current circumstances. With a great deal of hand-wringing did we come to this point. We certainly hope that this isn’t something that has to be done in the future.”

Voting Blogs: Readers Debate the Merits of Post-election Audits | The Thicket

The September issue of NCSL’s elections newsletter, The Canvass, addressed what I thought was a sleepy topic: post-election audits. (As a way to double-check that the procedures, voting equipment and vote-counting software yielded the correct result, election officials run a post-election audit by hand-counting the ballots from a random set of precincts or machines.) So I was surprised that this issue received more responses than politically-charged and publicly debated issues, such as those on Voter ID or Voter Registration.