Civil & Human Rights

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The U.S. Surpeme Court issued five opinions this morning, but one opinion comes from Arizona, the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. challenge to Arizona's Prop. 200 (2004) requirement of proof of citizenship. The federal voter registration form only requires the voter to attest to citizenship status.

In a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. that Arizona's proof of citizenship requirement is preempted by the federal law requiring that states use the federal voter registration form. Justices Thomas and Alito both filed dissenting opinions.

Here is a copy of the opinion.
Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc.

Disgraced recalled Senator Russell Pearce and Governor Jan Brewer (who was Secretary of State at the time) are going to have a cow today over the Court's opinion.

I will have more when I have time to read through the 51 page opinion.

UPDATE: Today's win for the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. will be short-lived, because Justice Antonin Scalia's majority opinion lays out the administrative path for Arizona to follow to have the proof of citizenship requirements of Prop. 200 included in the federal voter registration form, and possible future litigation.

Here are highlights from Justice Scalia's majority opinion:

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

And the suspense builds . . .

According to the stats kept by
Scotusblog.com, the U.S. Supreme Court has heard 75 merit cases this
term, and issued opinions in 56 of those cases.

This leaves 19 opinions to be announced over the next two weeks
before the end of June. Mondays are orders and opinions days, and the court has added Thursday opinion days. Unless the court adds an additional opinion day, this leaves four opinion days.

There are several cases I am following for decisions that could be issued on any of these four opinion days. One never knows, the U.S. Supreme Court does not announce opinions in advance, and the court does not leak to the media.

There are two voting rights cases. The first is Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc.,
(12-71), which involves the question whether the National Voter
Registration Act preempts Arizona's Prop. 200 (2004) that requires
persons who are registering to vote to show proof of citizenship to
register to vote. The federal law requires only an attestation of
citizenship, subject to prosecution for false attestation. This is a
federal preemption issue.

The "big one" that everyone is waiting for is Shelby County v. Holder, (12-96), which involves the question whether Congress’ decision in 2006 to reauthorize Section 5 of
the Voting Rights Act under the pre-existing coverage formula of Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act exceeded its authority.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Howard Fischer from Capitol Media Services has a decent explanation of the Voter Suppression Act, HB 2305, passed by the Tea-Publican controlled Arizona legislature before sine die. GOP OKs series of changes in election law:

Republicans used the final hours of their just-ended legislative session
to push through a series of changes in election laws that could give
them advantages in future elections.

* * *

Among the additions:

• Making it a crime for volunteer
political workers and organizations to collect early ballots from voters
and take them to polling places;

• Increasing the number of signatures that minor-party legislative and congressional candidates need to get on the ballot;

•
Imposing higher legal standards on voter-sponsored initiatives, making
it easier to throw them off the ballot if they do not strictly comply
with each and every provision of the law;

• Adding some procedural requirements to recall laws.

Let's unpack some of these changes. If you are a member of the Libertarian Party, or the Green Party, or the new Americans Elect Party, you now have a big problem qualifying your candidates for the ballot.

Current law sets the number of signatures a candidate needs to qualify for the ballot based upon the number of registered voters in the candidate's political party. For example, in a Democratic voter registration advantage district, a Democrat may need 385 minimum number of signatures to qualify, a Republican may need only 165 minimum number of signatures to qualify, and minor political parties have a ridiculously low number of minimum signatures to qualify.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Press release from Arizona attorney Vince Rabago pertaining to a Voting Rights Act complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice regarding voter suppression of Latino voters in Arizona during the 2012 election.

MEDIA RELEASE

ARIZONA ATTORNEY DEMANDS FEDERAL INVESTIGATION INTO LATINO VOTER SUPPRESSION IN 2012 ELECTION: PROVIDES EVIDENCE OF MISLEADING CALLS TO SPANISH SPEAKERS, AND ELECTION OFFICE MISCONDUCT IN ARIZONA

Media Contact: Vince Rabago • (520) 955-9038 • Vince@VinceRabagoLaw.com

(Tucson, Ariz. – June 14th, 2013) Today, Arizona attorney Vince Rabago filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice requesting that the agency investigate apparent efforts to unlawfully suppress and intimidate Latino voters in Arizona during the 2012 election.

Rabago, a former state prosecutor, submitted two affidavits signed by voters under penalty of perjury who
received misleading “robo calls”. These Spanish speaking calls told voters to bring their identification documents with them to the polls in order to exercise their right to vote. Both voters receiving these calls are fluent in Spanish and immediately knew the statements were false and misleading. One voter, William Risner, is an election law attorney with extensive experience. The other voter, Dr. Ted Downing, is a former elected state legislator who participated in legislative election law reform efforts in Arizona.