Florida Secretary of State Rick Detzner

Because Gov. Rick Scott (R) and his legislative allies spent much of 2011-2012 filling up the November ballot with complicated and unnecessary ballot questions and pushing through measures aimed at suppressing voter turnout, Florida voters had to wait in lines for up to six hours. Now, Scott’s handpicked Secretary of State has released a report recommending that Florida expand early voting and limit the length of future ballot questions.

Secretary of State Rick Detzner, who in the days after the November elections said he had no regrets about the Scott administration’s handling of the election, acknowledged in the report that there was widespread frustration with “the length of lines at polling places, which were believed to have been caused by the record number of voters, a shortened early voting schedule, inadequate voting locations and a long ballot.” He makes no mention of the reasons for those factors — Scott’s unwillingness to extend early voting hours, a Scott-signed law shortening early voting, and an effort by the Republican legislature to load the ballot up with complicated ballot measures sure to slow down voters at the polls.

But, he encourages Scott and his fellow Republicans not to repeat the same mistakes in future elections, recommending Florida:

• Extend the early voting schedule from a minimum of 8 days to a maximum of 14 days, while also allowing supervisors of elections the flexibility to offer early voting on the Sunday immediately prior to Election Day.
• Expand the allowable locations of early voting sites at government owned, managed or occupied facilities to include the main or branch office of a supervisor of elections, a city
  hall, courthouse, county commission building, public library, civic center, convention center, fairgrounds or stadium.
• Set a word limit for proposed legislative amendments.
• Repeal statutes allowing the full text (stricken or underlined) of a constitutional amendment or revision to be placed on a ballot.
• Allow mail ballot elections for candidates in certain elections.

While the 14-day period would be an improvement over the eight days currently provided by Florida law, it would represent a return to where things were before Scott took office.

It remains to be seen whether Florida acts on these recommendations. In November, Gov. Scott defended his suppression tactics as having done “the right thing” and a month later blamed the legislature for the early voting limits he himself signed into law. But last month, he endorsed re-expanding the early voting he limited.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Virginia House and Senate passed two bills to make the state’s voter ID law even stricter. The measures, sponsored by Sen. Dick Black (R-VA) and Rep. Mark Cole (R-VA), would ban voters from presenting a utility bill, pay stub, government or Social Security card as proof of identity — all forms of ID allowed under the current law. They could still use a voter ID card, concealed handgun permit, drivers license, or student ID. But the Senate is also considering a bill that would even further restrict acceptable voting ID to photo IDs only.

Though Virginians endured marathon voting lines on November 6, with voters still waiting hours after polls officially closed, Republicans still claim that voting in the state is too easy. Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli (R-VA) recently called for stricter photo ID requirements because Obama “can’t win a state where photo ID is required.”

Virginia’s current voter ID law was one of the few approved by the Department of Justice, as it did not disproportionately impact minority voting rights. But if these new measures are signed into law, Virginia’s voter ID law will resemble the one in Texas that was struck down in court because it clearly disenfranchised minority voters. The DOJ estimated at least 600,000 voters would have been affected by Texas’ law — hitting minority and low-income communities hardest. If the U.S. Supreme Court decides to strike down the section of the Voting Rights Act that protects minorities’ voting rights, Virginia, Texas, and other states would be allowed to disenfranchise these voters.

Since Obama won the state in 2012, the Republican-dominated Virginia legislature has been accelerating their push to disenfranchise certain voters. While Democrats were distracted by the inauguration, Virginia Republicans quietly passed a gerrymandering plan to erase at least one Democratic seat. The state also considered a scheme to rig their electoral college votes and dilute minority voting power.

Shortly after the Democratic presidential candidate won the White House last November, Pennsylvania state Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R) announced a plan to keep that from happening again in the future. Under Pileggi’s plan, the blue state of Pennsylvania would award electoral votes proportionally according to the popular vote, so that a percentage of it electors will go to the Republican candidate even if a majority of Pennsylvania’s voters prefer the Democrat. Meanwhile, red states would continue to award all of their electors to the Republican.

In response to an inquiry from ThinkProgress, state Sen. Mike Folmer’s (R) office explained that he supports this plan to rig the next presidential race because he believes it to be more consistent with the Founding Fathers’ vision. Seriously:

Senator Folmer believes such changes would be consistent with how electoral votes were originally awarded under our constitutional republic.

When the Electoral College was established by the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the individual states were empowered to determine how their electors would be chosen. The Founding Fathers rejected the idea of a national popular vote because they feared the rights and interests of the minority could be trampled by the majority. This is why the term “democracy” does not appear in either the Declaration of Independence or the United States Constitution.

From the first Presidential election of 1788 – 1789 through the election of 1800, the states’ electoral votes were awarded proportionally. After the bitter election of 1800, states began to move to a winner take all system – even though the citizens of that era considered such a change to be blatantly political. By 1836, all states had moved to a winner take all system.

Folmer is correct that Pileggi’s plan is more like the anti-democratic methods used to pick our first presidents, although he is wrong about many of the details of how early elections were run. In the first presidential election in 1788-89, just six states used some form of a popular vote to select the members of the Electoral College. Three states delegated this power entirely to their legislatures, although only about 30 percent of South Carolina’s lawmakers even bothered to show up to choose the first president. New Jersey’s governor unilaterally selected the electors in his state.

Moreover, this pattern of cutting the people out of the presidential election was common in early American elections. Six states held a popular election in 1792; eight held one in 1796; and just five held a popular vote in 1800. And the “popular” elections from this era cannot even vaguely be described as democratic. Just over 13,000 people voted in the 1792 election that reelected President George Washington — out of a nation of 3.9 million people. Needless to say, the 700,000 persons held in bondage at this point in American history did not cast a ballot.

So Folmer is right that Pileggi’s effort to cut the American people out of the opportunity to choose their own president is more like the system that elected our first presidents than our current system. The real question is why he thinks moving back to the anti-democratic days of the past is a good thing.

Sen. Folmer’s full statement is copied below the fold:
Read more

Just weeks after a three judge panel unanimously ruled the Kansas legislature was failing to meet its constitutionally defined responsibility to suitably fund the state’s education needs, conservative Kansas legislators responded with a proposal to limit judicial oversight of education funding. The January ruling ordered the legislature to raise education funding around $400 million to return the state’s schools to reasonable standards and called out the hypocrisy of cuts given other “priorities” pursued by the legislature at the same time:

The court said it was “illogical” for the state to argue that it could not adequately fund schools at the same time it slashed income taxes.

The ruling is the latest in a series of court victories for a group of public school districts, parents and students in Kansas who have demanded for years that the state provide more money for education.

A funding plan was devised for Kansas in 2006 through a settlement of a prior lawsuit but the groups filed suit again in 2010 when the state made an estimated $300 million in funding cuts. The state made even more cuts in 2011. There have been $511 million in cuts to the base funding between fiscal year 2009 and fiscal 2012.”

Rather than accept the decision and provide Kansan students with adequate funding, last week conservative legislators introduced a constitutional amendments intended to reduce judicial influence and Attorney General Derek Schmidt (R) appealed the ruling.

The large conservative majorities in both chambers of the Kansas legislature, have pursued an aggressive agenda under Governor Sam Brownback, including gutting arts funding, and attempting to end income taxes.

Kansas is not alone in constitutionally requiring education funding standards, with many other states including New Jersey and Washington fighting similar battles over education funding in recent years. Just yesterday, a District Judge ruled Texas’s school-finance system unconstitutional due to funding disparities between richer and poorer districts.

Two members of Congress introduced bills this week to reform federal marijuana law, including one to regulate and tax the drug in states where it is legal. In advance of a press conference on the proposals late Tuesday, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) told the Associated Press how the measures would work:

[Rep. Jared] Polis’ (D-CO) measure would regulate marijuana the way the federal government handles alcohol: In states that legalize pot, growers would have to obtain a federal permit. Oversight of marijuana would be removed from the Drug Enforcement Administration and given to the newly renamed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Marijuana and Firearms, and it would remain illegal to bring marijuana from a state where it’s legal to one where it isn’t.

The bill is based on a legalization measure previously pushed by former Reps. Barney Frank of Massachusetts and Ron Paul of Texas.

Blumenauer’s bill would create a federal marijuana excise tax of 50 percent on the “first sale” of marijuana—typically, from a grower to a processor or retailer. It also would tax pot producers or importers $1,000 annually and other marijuana businesses $500.

“This legislation doesn’t force any state to legalize marijuana, but Colorado and the 18 other jurisdictions that have chosen to allow marijuana for medical or recreational use deserve the certainty of knowing that federal agents won’t raid state-legal businesses,” Polis said.

The bills are the first of several proposals in the works, according to the Associated Press. Several other bills to soften federal marijuana law were proposed in Congress last session. And Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said he intends to hold hearings to consider decriminalizing marijuana. Reps. Blumenaur and Polis also released a report Monday on marijuana legalization, which explains why both the shift in public opinion and the failed criminalization efforts necessitate reform:

The war on marijuana is waged at a tremendous cost of money and impact on human lives. Over 660,000 people in 2011 were arrested for marijuana possession. It has been estimated that enforcement of federal marijuana laws (including incarceration) costs a minimum of $5.5 billion dollars each year.

Such costs are not evenly distributed across racial and economic lines. As is the case for the entire war on drugs, the war on marijuana has had an overwhelmingly disproportionate impact on communities of color. According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), African Americans are 13 times more likely to go to jail for the same drug-related offense than their white counterparts.

There are also dramatic costs – financial and personal – associated with the black market for marijuana in the United States and Latin America.

Noting the immense confusion over the existing web of state, local and federal marijuana laws, the report also calls for reform to federal tax and banking laws that preclude marijuana dispensaries from operating like any other legal business, the legalization of industrialized hemp, and the creation of a drug policy working group to educate members and coordinate the various reforms recommended in the report. Although the bills likely won’t gain traction any time soon, both the proposals and the report mark a heartening shift in attitude at the federal level toward once-taboo reforms that provide an alternative to the failed War on Drugs.

During the November 2012 election, Black and Hispanic voters waited nearly twice as long to vote as whites, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology analysis. New York Times graphs summarizing the analysis show that white voters waited an average of 12.7 minutes, while Black and Hispanic voters waited an average of 20.2 minutes:

Long lines in several swing states were a major concern during this election, and the longest lines were in Florida, where another recent study estimated that at least 201,000 people may have been deterred from voting by lines that were hours long. This was in no small part due to Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) elimination of 6 early voting days in the state and other voter suppression initiatives that several top Republicans later admitted were intended to keep Democrats from the polls. Both the MIT analysis and a New York Times/CBS poll showed that Democrats had longer average wait times than Republicans. In the wake of the election, 14 states are considering proposals to expand early voting, including Florida, where Gov. Scott is now publicly supporting a restoration of the early voting days he cut.

A report released by the Brennan Center for Justice Monday proposes congressional action to modernize the voting system through voluntary automated registration that moves with the voter from state to state, federal investment in voter registration reform, as well as online voter registration options and same-day registration options. Democrats expect President Obama to address voter modernization reform during his State of the Union next week.

In an interview with a New York classical music station that largely focused on her well-known love of opera, Justice Ginsburg briefly discussed her own stance on the death penalty — and that, if it were up to her, she would abolish it:

Every time I have to participate in a case where someone has been sentenced to death, I feel that same conflict. When you are with a group of nine people, the highest court in the land, you can’t pretend to be king or queen. If I had may way, there would be no death penalty. But the death penalty for now, is the law. But I can say, I won’t participate in those cases, then I would not be an influence.

Despite her opposition to the death penalty, Ginsburg previously indicated that she would not vote to strike down all death sentences, as some of her predecessors did in the past, believing she could have more influence on her pro-death penalty colleagues by remaining engaged in the nuances of individual death penalty cases.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is capitalizing on the radical federal appeals court decision that held unconstitutional several of President Obama’s recess appointments to help businesses skirt workers’ rights in as many cases as possible. In a memo to its members, the nation’s top corporate lobbying shop urged businesses seeking to challenge rulings against them by the National Labor Relations Board to “act fast” to file their appeal in the same court that ruled in their favor – the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit – so that they could invalidate adverse NLRB actions before another court steps in:

If you are involved in any case where the Board has issued an adverse decision without a proper quorum, you should consider filing a petition for review in the D.C. Circuit. Any decision of the Board can be appealed to the D.C. Circuit; however, the Board may petition for enforcement in any circuit where an alleged unfair labor practice occurred, or where an employer resides or transacts business. Because other circuits may not reach an equally favorable conclusion on the recess-appointment issue, it may benefit you to act as quickly as possible to ensure that you file your petition in the D.C. Circuit first.

In addition to urging its members to appeal all adverse rulings, the Chamber is taking its own measures to challenge NLRB actions that occurred even before Obama’s January 2012 appointments. Relying upon the sweeping and unsupported reasoning of the decision – which suggests that hundreds of recess appointments made over the last 150 years are unconstitutional – the Chamber is seeking to invalidate 2011 union rules issued by the NLRB.

But as the Chamber acknowledges in its own guidance, other circuits (and the Supreme Court) may soon come to contrary conclusions, as they have in the past. After all, the January 25 ruling by three Republican-appointed judges defining “recess” in the narrowest possible terms disregarded 150 years of modern history and the longstanding practice of presidents from both political parties of making appointments to executive branch vacancies that urgently need to be filled while Congress is out of session.

President Obama’s January 2012 recess appointments to the NLRB, for example, prevented a total standstill by the agency, which is legally prohibited from functioning without at least three members. Likewise, his appointment of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Agency Director Richard Cordray was necessitated by senators’ wholesale refusal to confirm anybody to the new agency unless its fundamental structure was altered. The agency was prohibited from performing several core functions without a director in place.

As NYU law professor Sally Katzen explains in the Washington Post, senators’ increasing tendency through the filibuster to hold entire federal agencies hostage by refusing to confirm particular appointees is key to understanding the nature of modern recess appointments.

This burgeoning movement by the Chamber previews the chaos that is likely to errupt as conservative interests seek to invalidate as much agency action as possible. But in at least one sense, the Chamber’s reaction is more measured than it could have been. While the Chamber at least acknowledges that businesses seeking to expand the scope of the ruling will have to go through the court system one case at a time, a hospital chain announced last week it would simply cease complying with all recent NLRB rulings, falsely claiming that the D.C. Circuit’s decision automatically invalidated any NLRB action since last January.