Giving citizens the flexibility to register to vote (or update their existing registration if they’ve recently moved) on Election Day actually chips away at Americans’ “individual freedoms,” according to Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp (R).

During a panel discussion on voting at the conservative Heritage Foundation on Thursday, Kemp lambasted the idea of same-day voter registration. Ten ideologically diverse states, from Idaho to Wisconsin to California, have enacted the program, also known as Election Day registration. By removing barriers to voting and making it easier for citizens to register, studies have found that EDR boosts turnout on average by 7 to 14 percentage points.

Kemp dismissed EDR as a “buzzword” that is as an affront to Americans’ right not to participate in elections. “[It] really gets down to the individual freedoms of people in our state and Americans in general and their ability to decide for themselves, ‘yes I want to register to vote and participate in the process, or no that I don’t,” Kemp said.

KEMP: I think we do have to have commonsense protections to make sure that our rolls are secure to stop potential voter fraud. This whole issue with dealing with the federal government and universal registration and same-day registration and all these different buzzwords really gets down to the individual freedoms of people in our state and Americans in general and their ability to decide for themselves, “yes I want to register to vote and participate in the process, or no that I don’t.”

Watch it:

There are countless problems with our voting system, but infringing on Americans’ right to not vote is not one.

Regardless, Kemp’s assertion that EDR somehow compels citizens to vote is ludicrous. The law simply allows those citizens who want to to register on Election Day.

In fact, Georgia, as much as any state, could benefit from EDR. In 2012, the Peach State ranked 33rd out of 50 states with a voter turnout of 58 percent. Meanwhile, five of the top six voter turnout states have EDR.

Following the lead of Wyoming and Texas, state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R) introduced unconstitutional legislation on Wednesday to make enforcing federal anti-gun violence measures a felony in Pennsylvania.

Metcalfe said he aims to make federal law unenforceable to protect Pennsylvanians’ “sacred personal liberties” from the “chains of government tyranny”:

Passage of my legislation will send the message that there will never be additional gun control, anywhere in Pennsylvania. Whether by White House executive orders, congressional fiat, or judicial activism, we will never allow the left to benefit from the wicked acts of murderers in order advance their senseless gun-grabbing agenda which would only succeed in replacing one of our most sacred personal liberties with the chains of government tyranny.

However, if Metcalfe referred to the Constitution, he would quickly find his bill violates the Supremacy Clause, which states that “duly-enacted” federal laws “shall be the supreme law of the land” and trump state laws. This means states cannot nullify laws or arrest officials for enforcing them simply because lawmakers do not like them, or even because they make their own determination that the law is unconstitutional.

While gun extremists’ response to sensible gun policy has ranged from states’ unconstitutional campaigns to calls for the President’s impeachment, other Republicans have acknowledged that nothing about gun violence prevention is unconstitutional.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), once thought to be a possible roadblock to some of President Obama’s proposed gun control measures, told a West Virginia talk show host Thursday morning that he supports legislation requiring a background check for anyone who wants to buy a gun.

Manchin has long been a darling of the National Rifle Association, and has consistently earned A ratings from the organization since he assumed his Senate seat in 2010. In December, days after the mass school shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school, Manchin signaled an openness towards rethinking his past resistance to new gun control regulation, but his comments to radio host Hoppy Kercheval on Thursday suggest that the blue dog Democrat is already working on a bill to introduce universal background checks:

KERCHEVAL : Do you think there should be universal background checks on anybody who wants to buy a gun? Right now it’s done only through federally licensed firearms dealers.

MANCHIN: I’m working on a bill right now with other Senators — Democrats and Republicans — we’re trying to get it, and looking at a background check that basically says that if you’re going to be a gun owner, you should be able to pass a background check, to be able to get that. With exceptions. The exceptions are: Families, immediate family members, some sporting events that you’re going to — that if you’re just going to be using them at the sporting events. So we’re looking and talking to people with expertise. I’m working with the NRA, to be honest with you, and talking to them.

Recent polling has shown that more than nine in ten Americans are in favor of universal background checks, but the NRA has thus far refused to lift its opposition to any substantial new regulations on gun ownership. But Manchin is now the second Democrat to reveal that the NRA has been party to ongoing negotiations over background checks.

Presently, as many as 40 percent of all guns sales are done with no background checks at all.

(HT Greg Sargent)

GOP Sen. Marco Rubio (FL) agrees that Congress needs to pass immigration reform and has given numerous media interviews outlining his proposal to offer legal status to immigrants here illegally. “We just have to get this thing done for once and for all,” Rubio told the New York Times.

The potential 2016 presidential candidate has been meeting with conservative lawmakers to build support for his proposal. But in selling the plan to right-wing voters, Rubio places strict pre-conditions to providing legal status to undocumented immigrants and significantly downplays the component. On Wednesday, for instance, Rubio reiterated to conservative radio host and reform opponent Mark Levin that Congress must adopt stronger immigration enforcement — including border security — before offering work permits to undocumented immigrants:

LEVIN: I want to make it clear. You want operational security of the border, and you want enforcement in the workplace of existing law.

RUBIO: Let me tell you the problem with that. In the past, people say that, but then what happens is they go ahead and do the process of legalization, but they don’t do the security. One of the things is…the security component is a trigger. In essence, none of that other stuff with regard to getting in line and applying, none of that happens until we’ve been able to certify that indeed the workplace security thing is place, the visa tracking is in place, and there’s some level of significant operational control at the border.

While the Obama administration also has offered stronger checks to verify a worker’s citizenship or legal status, Rubio’s suggestion that the border needs to be more secure before immigration reform can be implemented is ridiculous. The U.S. spent $18 billion on immigration enforcement in the 2012 fiscal year, which is more than every other federal law enforcement agency combined, according to a report from the Migration Policy Institute. A record number of people continue to be deported under Obama, and net undocumented migration is at or below zero.

Instead of wanting to focus more money and resources on the border, it is time for Rubio and Congress to consider a permanent fix to the nation’s immigration system, including a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants living here.

The Huffington Post reports that Senate Leaders Harry Reid (D-NV) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reached a deal today to support minor — and in some cases, temporary — changes to the Senate Rules, rather than push through the more robust reforms championed by many Democratic senators. The language of the deal, which is divided into two separate resolutions, is available here and here.

The list of reforms is short and unlikely to fundamentally repair the broken Senate, but it does include some genuinely helpful reforms to the nominations process — in addition to a major concession to the Republican minority. Here are the three biggest winners and losers in this package:

Winners

• Republicans: The package creates a new process that gives Republicans the ability to offer two amendments on any bill that cannot be blocked by the Majority Leader, although there is a process by which consensus bills can be streamlined if a substantial number of Republicans consent. More importantly, however, by not including any real limits on the minority’s power to force 60 vote majorities on nearly any bill or nomination, Republicans retain their veto power over matters they wish to block.
• District Judges: Currently, Senate rules allow the minority to force up to 30 hours of wasted time before a single nominee can be confirmed. Because Senate floor time is limited, this leads to many confirmations being delayed for months or killed entirely simply because the Majority Leader cannot afford to budget the time to move the nomination forward. The proposal reduces the amount of time that can be wasted while confirming a federal trial judge to 2 hours, significantly reducing the time cost of such confirmations.
• Sub-Cabinet Officials: Meanwhile, the 30 hours of wasted time on sub-cabinet officials’ confirmation votes is reduced to 8 hours.

Losers

• Circuit Judges, Supreme Court Justices & Cabinet Officials: The senior most Senate-confirmed jobs — justices, court of appeals judges and the most powerful executive branch officials — are still subject to 30 hours of delay.
• The Tea Party: The package reduces the number of opportunities to obstruct a bill that is supported by the Minority Leader and at least 7 Republicans, meaning that senators like Rand Paul (R-KY) or Mike Lee (R-UT) will have fewer chances to block progress on matters that everyone but a few Tea Party extremists support.
• The Future: The most significant changes in this package — the reduced hours for nominees and the two free amendments for the minority — sunset in two years and thus will cease to exist in the 114th Congress unless reinstated.

Washington Governor Jay Inslee (D) said he plans to move forward with implementation of the state’s recreational marijuana law after a positive meeting with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Because marijuana is illegal under federal law, both former Governor Christine Gregoire and Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (R) have implored the Department of Justice for guidance as their states move to implement marijuana legalization measures approved by voters in November. While both laws have already gone into effect and now permit the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for those 21 and older, the states will not authorize dispensaries and suppliers to operate until a months-long procedure for writing and implementing regulations is complete. The Seattle Times reports:

Inslee said the 45-minute conversation was “very satisfying” and a “confidence-builder” about the state’s ability to move forward implementing legal marijuana. “We went in thinking we should continue with rule-making and nothing I heard should dissuade us,” Inslee said.

At the same time, he stressed that Holder said nothing about the federal government’s intentions and whether it would crack down on Washington state or look the other way.

Inslee said he did not press Holder for a clearer signal, or position, because he considered their talk a preliminary meeting, with more discussions to follow.

Noting that the state is moving ahead with rule-making, Ferguson said he emphasized that the state would like answers soon. “We made it very clear that while we’re moving forward, some deadlines are coming up soon. I think Attorney General Holder understood that we’d need guidance in months to come,” Ferguson said. […]

In case the federal government decides to oppose the law, Ferguson has a team of lawyers in his office preparing to make the best legal case for upholding I-502.

While Inslee is preparing for a legal battle with Holder, enforcement of federal marijuana law may not manifest itself in a lawsuit against the state. Perhaps more likely are individual actions against those in violation of federal drug law. This could take the form of a raid by a DEA agent, a criminal action by an individual federal prosecutor against the owner of a dispensary, a federal forfeiture action seeking to seize the property where a dispensary is housed or even a move by the Internal Revenue Service to block deduction of all marijuana business expenses.

These types of actions have ensnared some suppliers of medical marijuana in the federal-state conflict. Just last month, the one-time owner of a medical marijuana dispensary who was seemingly in compliance with California law was sentenced to ten years in prison. And the landlords for the country’s largest dispensary are embroiled in a prolonged legal battle to seize their properties.

While President Obama did tell Barbara Walters last month that his administration “bigger fish to fry” than targeting “users” of recreational marijuana, he said nothing about suppliers or distributors – the targets of federal medical marijuana enforcement. And the only public statement coming from the DOJ or the DEA since November has been a generic statement just following the election that federal enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act “remains unchanged.” Still, Gov. Inslee is no doubt aware of these individual prosecutions, and is likely on watch for signs that the dispensaries his state is going through the trouble to regulate will not be subject to federal crackdowns.

A Florida state representative wants to prevent people sentenced to death from getting a full review of their case, despite Florida leading the nation in people exonerated after being sentenced to die.

Like most death penalty states, Florida has a web of state-level appeals processes and additional checks to ensure that every aspect of a case is thoroughly examined before an accused criminal is executed. This system is expensive and often cruel, which is why many death penalty advocates cite extended death row wait times during the appellate process as a reason to abolish the system altogether (indeed, there’s a bill in the Florida state legislature that proposes to do just that). But Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) has a different view:

Every death penalty defendant deserves a fair trial. In Florida, they even get a mandatory appeal to the Supreme Court. But after the Supreme Court has spoken all subsequent appeals should be limited.

The problem with Gaetz’ “solution,” as Radley Balko notes, is that Florida leads the nation in death row exonerations. 24 people have been exonerated after being sentenced to die in Florida since the state reinstituted the death penalty in the 70s. That’s a full quarter of all slated executions in Florida during that time period.

Gaetz’ stated reason for wanting to shorten the appeal process is that it deters crime. He cites a study that purports to find “one less murder is committed for every 2.75-years reduction in death row waits.” This research is widely viewed as discredited. One scholar who reviewed the work found it “fraught with technical and conceptual errors: inappropriate methods of statistical analysis, failures to consider all the relevant factors that drive murder rates, missing data on key variables in key states, the tyranny of a few outlier states and years, and the absence of any direct test of deterrence.” The National Academy of Science believes the evidence that the death penalty deters crime in any fashion is so poor that it “should not influence policy judgments about capital punishment.” A National Research Council review came to a similar conclusion.

Aside from the cost and the failure to deter crime, capital sentencing also turns as much on race as on the nature of the crime.

Yesterday, Virginia Republicans took the first step to move a GOP plan to rig the Electoral College forward in that state. Similar plans are under consideration in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

The Republican election rigging plan targets blue states that President Obama won in 2008 and 2012, and changes the way they allocate electoral votes to give many of these votes away for free to the Republican candidate for president. Under the Republican Plan, most electoral votes will be allocated to the winner of individual Congressional districts, rather than to the winner of the state as a whole. Because the Republican Plan would be implemented in states that are heavily gerrymandered to favor Republicans, the resulting maps would all but guarantee that the Republican would win a majority of each state’s electoral votes, even if the Democratic candidate wins the state as a whole.

Today, the Center for American Progress Action Fund released a white paper detailing how this Republican election-rigging plan works — including this rather striking visual demonstration of just how effectively Republicans gerrymandered six states that are likely targets of their plan: