Courts & Law

GOP candidate forum for Secretary of State was a joke

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Politics Unplugged on azfamily.com channel 3 hosted a candidate forum for the Tea-Publican candidates for Secretary of State on Sunday. The video segments do not embed in WordPress, so here is the link. Politics Unplugged: June 15, 2014. The moderators threw softball set-ups to the candidates, and did not challenge their statements. It was a joke.

In the first segment, state Sen. Michele Reagan tried to take credit for her weak-tea bill dealing with “dark money” campaign organizations. What she fails to mention is that her bill did not get past the Senate Elections Committee, which she chairs.  She had such little influence with her GOP colleagues, she couldn’t get a vote. I wrote at the time:

“Sen. Reagan’s bill “to include the names of the three largest contributors” will only result, at best, in the disclosure of “Kochtopus” alphabet soup 501(c) organizations — Russian nesting dolls — set up to hide the true identity of the actual contributors, who are millionaire and billionaire plutocrats. It is not a serious attempt to regulate the dark money organizations corrupting our elections. It is pure posturing by her for her campaign to become Arizona’s next Secretary of State. We can do better than Michele Reagan, the co-author of the GOP Voter Suppression Act, HB 2305.

 That would be the GOP Voter Suppression Act that the Arizona legislature repealed earlier this year because they were terrified of the voters turning out this fall for a “citizens veto” of their handiwork dirty work.

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Scott Fistler (sham Cesar Chavez) tossed from ballot

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The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports, Cesar Chavez tossed from 7th District ballot: Cesar Chavez, formerly GOP candidate Scott Fistler, was barred from running in Arizona’s 7th Congressional District after a judge tossed more than 700 signatures he collected in an attempt to qualify for the Democratic primary election. Chavez successfully defended himself against … Read more

Senate hearing set for Voting Rights Amendment Act

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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has scheduled a June 25 hearing on the Voting Rights Amendment Act, his bill aimed at updating those sections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) deemed by the high court to be unconstitutional. Senate panel to examine voting rights fix:

VoteThe date marks the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision, which Leahy characterized as a “disastrous” threat to voting protections. He’s urging lawmakers to adopt his bill ahead of November’s midterm elections.

“It is time for Congress to act,” Leahy said Monday in a statement. “Just as Congress came together 50 years ago to enact the Civil Rights Act, Democrats and Republicans should work together now to renew and strengthen the Voting Rights Act, which has always been bipartisan.

“This year should be no different, and I hope all Republicans will work with us to enact the meaningful protections in the Voting Rights Amendment Act.”

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SCOTUS: 17 opinions in next 15 days

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gavelIt’s that time of year again when lawyers get that queasy feeling in their stomach, knowing that the cases remaining to be decided by the John Roberts’ U.S. Supreme Court are the most divisive, and almost certain to be 5-4 decisions.

The Huffington Post has a breakdown of cases remaining to be decided by June 30 (Case citations via SCOTUSblog.com). Supreme Court Has 17 Cases To Decide By June’s End:

It’s crunch time at the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices are racing to issue opinions in 17 cases over the next two weeks.

The religious rights of corporations, the speech rights of abortion protesters and the privacy rights of people under arrest are among the significant issues that are so far unresolved.

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Democrats and a Day for E.Orr

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The caption is a paraphrase of Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore (1983).

EyeoreIt turns out that some staffers from the Pima County Democratic Party and Arizona Democratic Party were not as thorough in their review of the petition signatures of state Rep. Ethan Orr (R-Tucson) as their cocksure snarky press releases this past week would indicate.

They spiked the ball before they were in the endzone — a a rookie mistake.

Pima County Recorder F. Ann Rodriguez conducted the requisite review of petition signatures after the petition challenge was filed last week, and determined that “E.Orr” filed 393 valid signatures, just barely enough, only 32 more than required — which means 241 of his 634 signatures were invalid.

The Tucson Sentinel reports that Democrats will withdraw the challenge in the wake of the report from the Recorder’s Office. Recorder: Orr has sigs to remain on ballot:

The suit, filed by attorney Jeff Rogers, a former chair of the Pima County Democratic Party, will be withdrawn before it is heard by a court next week, as Democrats conceded that Orr filed more than the necessary number of signatures. They had claimed that he was 15 signatures below the threshold to qualify for the ballot.

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