Civil & Human Rights

Sunshine Is Best Disinfectant: AZ Legislature Delays Voter Suppression Discussion

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Wave05-sm72by Pamela Powers Hannley

Yesterday, the Judiciary Committee of the Arizona House of Representatives was scheduled to discuss repealing last year’s omnibus voter suppression bill (HB2305). Since thousands of Arizona citizens had signed petitions to stop implementation of HB2305 and put voter suppression on the 2014 ballot, sneaky legislators had devised a plan to do an end-run around voters by repealing the destined-to-fail-at-the-polls bill and replace it with several individual voter suppression bills. (After all, we can’t let citizens decide issues as important as who gets to vote or how measures are put on the ballot.)

Thanks to a widely distributed press release from the Protect Your Right to Vote Committee, news of Republican legislators’ Voter Suppression Plan B flew out across the blogosphere on Wednesday, resulting in much citizen– and news media– interest.

Overnight, hundreds of concerned Arizona voters called and wrote to members of the committee urging them to respect the will of the voters and let them have their say on HB2305 in November. Dozens of people showed up to speak at the hearing as well as three television news crews. Judiciary Chairman Eddie Farnsworth then told the amassed crowd that he was holding his repeal bill (HB2196). He has since rescheduled the hearing on his bill for next week.

Proving once again that sunshine is the best disinfectant and voter suppression is a topic best discussed in the dead of night with no witnesses, Farnsworth decided not to open discussions with TV cameras rolling and citizens watching.

Government Watchdog: NSA spy program is illegal and should be shut down

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The big story today is that the independent federal privacy watchdog, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, has concluded that the National Security Agency’s program to collect bulk phone call records has provided only “minimal” benefits in counterterrorism efforts, is illegal and should be shut down. No shit!

I said that back in 2005 when the New York Times first revealed the secret spy program of the Bush-Cheney regime. Congress, rather than impeach the Bush-Cheney regime for the most extensive violations of the U.S. Constitution ever, passed laws ex post facto to make the existing illegal spy program "legal" and to give it the imprimatur of congressional approval. The telecommunications companies that cooperated with the illegal spy program were given immunity from civil liability. "Nothing to see here, move along."

The New York Times reports today, Watchdog Report Says N.S.A. Program Is Illegal and Should End:

The findings are laid out in a 238-page report, scheduled for release Thursday and obtained by The New York Times, that represent the first major public statement by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which Congress made an independent agency in 2007 and only recently became fully operational.

The report is likely to inject a significant new voice into the debate over surveillance, underscoring that the issue was not settled by a high-profile speech President Obama gave last week. Mr. Obama consulted with the board, along with a separate review group that last month delivered its own report about surveillance policies. But while he said in his speech that he was tightening access to the data and declared his intention to find a way to end government collection of the bulk records, he said the program’s capabilities should be preserved.

The Obama administration has portrayed the bulk collection program as useful and lawful while at the same time acknowledging concerns about privacy and potential abuse. But in its report, the board lays out what may be the most detailed critique of the government’s once-secret legal theory behind the program: that a law known as Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the F.B.I. to obtain business records deemed “relevant” to an investigation, can be legitimately interpreted as authorizing the N.S.A. to collect all calling records in the country.

The program “lacks a viable legal foundation under Section 215, implicates constitutional concerns under the First and Fourth Amendments, raises serious threats to privacy and civil liberties as a policy matter, and has shown only limited value,” the report said. “As a result, the board recommends that the government end the program.”

Virginia is for lovers: Virginia AG says state’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, will ask a federal court to strike it down

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

EqualThe other day I posted that "Media attention is about to turn to the state of Virginia, where a high profile case led by the Prop. 8 "Dream Team" of David Boise and Ted Olson is scheduled for a hearing on January 30."

That day is today.

The Washington Post reports that Virginia's newly elected Attorney General Mark Herring is taking a page out of California's Prop. 8 litigation playbook, and announced today that he believes the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. He said Virginia will join two same-sex couples in asking a federal court to strike it down. Virginia’s Herring files brief opposing same-sex marriage ban:

The action, which Herring (D) made with the support of Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), marks a stunning reversal in the state’s legal position on same-sex marriage and is a result of November elections in which Democrats swept the state’s top offices.

Democrats cheered the move as a victory for civil rights while Republicans blasted it as dereliction of the attorney general’s duty to defend the state constitution.

HB2305 Redux: Arizona Legislature Hell Bent on Suppressing Your Right to Vote

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by Pamela Powers Hannley

In the wee hours of the 2013 session of the Arizona Legislature, Republican legislators cobbled together several voter suppression initiatives that had gone no where and passed them (at the urging of House Speaker John Boehner) as an omnibus voter suppression bill (HB2305).

During the summer, outraged Arizonans collected 145,000 signatures to halt implementation of HB2305 until the people voted on it in 2014.

Hell bent on cheating their way into office… er… voter suppression,  a group of legislators now wants to circumvent a statewide vote on HB2305 by repealing HB2305 and re-introducing its component parts for potential passage in the 2014 session.

Below is a press release from the Protect Your Right to Vote Committee. It’s time to make some phone calls – especially to Ethan Orr (LD9)– and tell your representatives that if they want to pass a voter initiative it should be a bill that guarantees the right to vote– not a set of bills that will deny citizens their rights.

 

Presidential Commission on Election Administration releases its report

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Presidential Commission on Election Administration has released its report, The American Voting Experience: Report and Recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration (.pdf).

Greg Sargent writes at the Washington Post, A step towards better elections:

[The Commission's] prescriptions are very likely to please voting reformers, though they probably will cite areas where the panel could have gone farther. The key recommendations are improved voter registration through online registration and interstate exchange of voter lists, to ensure accuracy and speed the process; expansion of early voting; and improved voting technology.

One of the most important things about the report is that it unabashedly identifies our voting difficulties as a national problem that requires a national solution. “We view the recommendations as broad-based solutions to common problems evident on a national scale,” the report says. “The recommendations in this report are targeted at common problems shared by all or most jurisdictions. For the most part, they are of a size that should fit all.”

The report does discuss some regional variations, but this is a clear declaration of the scope of the problem, and the required scope of the solution. Indeed, the report recommends the creation of a national standard: “no citizen should have to wait more than 30 minutes to vote.”

“Some had eschewed national solutions, or any kinds of efforts to fix these problems, by suggesting they’re so particular and local that they can’t be solved with national policy,” Wendy Weiser, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, tells me. “This sets a national standard for judging our election performance against. Here is a bipartisan group with strong credibility from both parties, strongly putting their thumb on the scale for national solutions.”