The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly February 6-12 2012

Deal or No Deal in Texas?

A series of lawsuits have been filed challenging the constitutionality of the pre-clearance provisions of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Jonathan Brater offered a defense of Section 5 in the Boston Review. With a primary scheduled for April, a judicial panel in Texas rushed to find a settlement on redistricting maps. Ohio Republicans plan to repeal changes to the election code they passed last year. A Wisconsin judge declined to block the State’s Voter Id law but set a trial debate to hear arguments. After Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White’s removal from office as a result of his voter fraud conviction, the battle over his replacement moves to the State Supreme Court. Senegal’s President began his controversial bid for a third term and Yemen prepares for an election to choose Ali Abdullah Saleh’s successor.

National: States line up to challenge stringent Section 5 voting rights provision | The Washington Post
Editorials: The Past is not Past – Why We Still Need Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act | Jonathan Brater/Boston Review
Texas: Redistricting Judges to Lawyers: Get to Work | The Texas Tribune
Ohio: Senate Republicans plan to repeal controversial elections law | cleveland.com
Wisconsin: Judge refuses to halt new voter ID law, but trial date to be set | Wisconsin State Journal
Indiana: High court takes over Secretary of State dispute | RealClearPolitics
Senegal: President Begins Bid for Controversial Third Term | Africa | English
Yemen: Despite its flaws Yemen election gives hope | IRIN

Feb 11, 2012

National: States line up to challenge stringent Section 5 voting rights provision | The Washington Post

Conservative activists and Republican attorneys general have launched a series of lawsuits meant to challenge the most muscular provision of the Voting Rights Act 0f 1965 before a Supreme Court that has signaled it is suspicious of its constitutionality. Working their way to the high court are lawsuits from Arizona to North Carolina, challenging Section 5 of the historic civil rights act. The provision requires states and localities with a history of discrimination to get federal approval of any changes in their voting laws. The combination of skeptical justices and an increasingly partisan political environment has led some experts to predict that the end is near for that requirement, which civil rights groups have called the most effective weapon for eliminating voting discrimination.

The Supreme Court’s recent actions “have indicated that Section 5 is living on borrowed time,” Columbia University law professor Nathaniel Persily told the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights last week. “Assuming the personnel on the court remains constant, the question is not whether the court will declare Section 5 unconstitutional, but when and how.”

The lawsuits are defending redistricting and a variety of new laws and electoral changes — including controversial requirements that voters show IDs at the polls — that Democrats and minorities charge will dilute minority rights. The Supreme Court, in a 2009 ruling and again last month, expressed concern about “serious constitutional questions raised by Section 5’s intrusion on state sovereignty.”

Full Article: States line up to challenge stringent Section 5 voting rights provision – The Washington Post.

Today the state of South Carolina sued the Justice Department for blocking its new law requiring citizens to show government-issued photo identification to vote. This is just the latest broadside in what promises to be a protracted battle over the constitutionality of state voting laws and federal protections against discrimination. For decades, Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act has been a cornerstone of civil rights law. The provision requires certain jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to get federal “preclearance” before enforcing new voting laws. Today, opponents of the law are trying to dismantle this foundation of our democracy, bringing several court challenges in recent months. They argue that, 50 years after the worst abuses of the Jim Crow era, the law should be struck down as unconstitutional, and that federal protection of minority rights in these jurisdictions is no longer needed. Do they have a point? To paraphrase William Faulkner, the past is not past.

A quick glance at the wave of suppressive voting laws enacted last year illustrates clearly how important Section 5 continues to be. South Carolina, a state still covered by Section 5, offers an excellent case in point.

If the United States awarded medals for voter suppression, South Carolina would compete for the gold. In the last two years, South Carolina has debated and approved numerous laws that would cripple the ability of minority voters to participate. In applying Section 5 to challenge the voter-identification law, the Justice Department found it could disenfranchise more than 80,000 African-American voters. Twenty-five percent of African American citizens don’t have the requisite government-issued photo identification, compared with eight percent of white citizens.

Full Article: Boston Review — Jonathan Brater: The Past is not Past (Voting Rights, Voter ID Laws).

With hearings on redistricting scheduled for next week and deadlines for April primaries pending, a panel of federal judges told lawyers Friday afternoon to redouble their efforts to reach a quick settlement on interim political maps for the state’s congressional and legislative elections. That’s not the first time they’ve told the lawyers to talk, but negotiations stalled this week when the state and some plaintiffs reached an agreement that several other plaintiffs didn’t like. In their order this afternoon, the judges said that proposal is still very much alive. They said they want to set an April primary. And they want negotiations to resume “with all due effort” before the hearings that begin next Tuesday.

The judges included a footnote to their order that refers to a Supreme Court decision in a North Carolina case: It says the Voting Rights Act doesn’t require political mapmakers to create so-called “coalition districts” where two or more minority groups might combine to form a majority. They’re allowed, but not required. According to Rick Hasen, a professor at the University of California at Irvine School of Law, it means the state can leave existing coalition districts alone, but doesn’t have to create new ones. That could undermine some of the arguments made by various plaintiffs in the Texas case and restrict the settlement talks to districts where Black or Latino voters can form majorities on their own.

Full Article: Redistricting Judges to Lawyers: Get to Work — Redistricting | The Texas Tribune.

Ohio Senate Republicans on Thursday set into motion a plan to repeal a controversial election law and replace it with new changes that would take effect before the November election. But the House Speaker isn’t yet on board with the plan, and a group of voting rights advocates have vowed to seek a referendum — with the backing of President Barack Obama’s campaign — if Ohio lawmakers pass a new elections law. A bill was introduced Thursday to repeal House Bill 194 — the election law overhaul package GOP lawmakers passed last year that restricted opportunities for early voting and made other changes that opponents said amounted to voter suppression.

Democrats and others have gathered enough signatures to put the law up for a vote this November. Until then, the law remains on hold. If the law is repealed, the referendum issue would be moot, although it still might be on the ballot. Senate President Tom Niehaus, a Republican from Clermont County, said he hopes to have a bipartisan discussion to reach a compromise on election reforms that can be put into place before November.

“Some changes can likely wait until after the November election, but others are needed this year to provide clarity in advance of one of the largest turnout elections Ohio will face in this decade,” Niehaus said in a statement. But House Speaker William G. Batchelder, a Republican from Medina, said the Senate GOP’s plan caught him off guard. He said repealing HB 194 while it is slated for a referendum might be unconstitutional.

Full Article: Ohio Senate Republicans plan to repeal controversial elections law | cleveland.com….

A Dane County judge on Wednesday refused to immediately halt Wisconsin’s new voter ID law, but left the door open for two Milwaukee groups to prove their case at a trial before him. Circuit Judge David Flanagan wrote that the Milwaukee NAACP and Voces de la Frontera had not sufficiently demonstrated irreparable harm for him to issue a temporary injunction they were seeking to stop the law before the Feb. 21 primary election.

But Flanagan declined to express any view as to their probable likelihood of success on the merits of their case, which is usually a determination that a judge makes when deciding whether or not to issue an injunction. Instead, Flanagan set a scheduling conference for Monday to set a trial date for the case.

Full Article: Judge refuses to halt new voter ID law, but trial date to be set.

The state’s highest court set a Feb. 29 hearing for arguments over whether Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels should be allowed to appoint a replacement for White or Democratic candidate Vop Osili should take over the office. The Supreme Court also denied without comment a request that lawyers for the state Democratic Party made Monday to the state appeals court that it enforce a Marion County judge’s December decision in a civil case ordering the state recount commission to declare Osili as the election winner. That action followed a Hamilton County jury’s verdict over the weekend convicting White of six felony criminal charges, including voter fraud for lying about his residence by using his ex-wife’s Fishers address on voter registration forms. Democrats have maintained in the civil case that White wasn’t an eligible candidate for the 2010 election and that Osili was the eligible candidate who received the most votes.

Democratic Party lawyer Karen Celestino-Horseman said she was pleased that the Supreme Court decided to take over the case and that by setting the hearing for this month it could prevent a long period of uncertainty over who should lead the secretary of state’s office, which responsibilities includes oversight of elections.

Daniels on Saturday named the office’s top counsel, Jerry Bonnet, as interim secretary of state, but indicated he would wait until after White’s Feb. 23 sentencing hearing to decide on a permanent appointment. White’s defense attorney said he will ask the judge to reduce the convictions to misdemeanors, which would allow White’s return to office. The state attorney general’s office had asked for an expedited review from the state Supreme Court.

Full Article: RealClearPolitics – Politics – Feb 07, 2012 – Ind. high court takes over secy of state dispute.

Senegal’s presidential election campaign is officially underway with 13 candidates seeking to prevent President Abdoulaye Wade from winning a controversial third term in the February 26 election. Eight opposition candidates opened their campaigns ahead of Senegal’s first-round presidential vote under a single banner and a single agenda. ”Respect for the constitution at the start of this campaign necessitates the repeal of the candidacy of President Abdoulaye Wade,” said presidential candidate Macky Sall. The recent rally at Obelisk Square in Dakar marked a drastic shift from earlier gatherings there.

Violent protests broke out in Dakar and elsewhere after the constitutional council gave Wade the green light to seek a third term, despite a limit of two he enacted during his first term. After his re-election in 2007, Wade said he would respect the limit. ”I blocked the number of terms, so it is not possible. I tell you sincerely that I cannot run for a third term,” he said.

Now he is pressing ahead and the opposition is pushing back. Leading the way is the June 23rd Movement, or M23, that takes its name from the day tens of thousands took to the streets in protest when Wade proposed a constitutional referendum that would have enabled him to win the presidential election with just 25 percent of the vote.

Full Article: Senegal’s President Begins Bid for Controversial Third Term | Africa | English.

A presidential election to be held on 21 February in Yemen will open the door for a new chapter in the poorest and arguably most fragile country in the Arab world, says new Prime Minister Mohammed Salim Ba-Sindwa. A successful election will pave the way for comprehensive reforms, said Ba-Sindwa, who was chosen to lead a national reconciliation government – part of a deal signed in November ending months of political turmoil. Once elected directly by people, the new president will be constitutionally empowered to re-unite the divided army and replace corrupt officials in the various government institutions, Ba-Sindwa told IRIN in an interview.

“Our plan for the post-election period is to make the rule of law prevail nationwide. This is key to purifying the country from corruption and corrupt officials,” he said. “We will apply the law on the senior [official] before the junior; on the strong before the weak and on the rich before the poor.”

The prime minister’s words echo the optimism among some in the country, who see the election as the cornerstone of political transition. It is one of a string of steps stipulated in a power-transfer deal brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), after year-long nationwide protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s 33-year rule dragged the country to the brink of civil war.

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The Voting News Weekly: The Voting News Weekly February 6-12 2012

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