Courts & Law

Legal fissure opens between AZ Secty of State and the AZ Lege over campaign finance limits

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A legal fissure has opened between Arizona Secretary of State Ken "Birther" Bennett and the GOP leadership of the Arizona Legislature seeking to overturn the Arizona Court of Appeals decision in Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, et al. v. The Honorable Mark H. Brain, and real parties in interest (.pdf), which struck down our lawless legisture's new campaign finance limits as unconstituional. Howard Fischer reports, Erasing campaign contribution limits now would create problems, Bennett tells court:

Reversing his earlier stance, Secretary of State Ken Bennett now wants to keep caps in place for how much money candidates can take from individuals and special interests, at least for the time being.

In legal papers filed with the Arizona Supreme Court, Bennett acknowledged he initially supported the bid by Republican legislative leaders to allow much higher limits — and, in some cases, no limits at all — on what donors can give and candidates can accept. In fact, his attorney argued to the state Court of Appeals, the Republican-controlled Legislature was legally entitled to make the changes.

The appellate court disagreed, blocking the higher limits from taking effect.

GOP leaders want the state’s high court to overrule the appellate court. But they concede a full-blown review of the issue could take months, so they are asking the justices to allow the higher limits to be implemented while the case plays out in court.

Bennett, through his lawyer, told the justices that would be a bad idea.

“The public has a significant interest in the smooth function of an election,” wrote attorney David Weinzweig for the secretary of state. He said changing the rules now — which actually would be for the third time — would result in “uncertainty and chaos.”

Bennett said he has worked since the appellate court ruling to inform both candidates and contributors that they are bound by what was on the books until September.

“Another change in regulations would undo those efforts and further upend Arizona’s campaign finance system,” he said.

Legal challenges filed against Kansas, Arizona ‘two-tier’ voting system

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Eric Lach at Talking Points Memo reports Dual Attacks Take On Voting Restriction Efforts In Arizona, Kansas:

Just weeks after Kansas and Arizona made clear their intentions to move ahead with two-tier voting systems, legal efforts are being mounted to fight those plans.

On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in Kansas directly challenging the state's two-tier system, where voters who show no proof of citizenship would be allowed only to vote in federal elections, not state or local elections. At the same time, the Brennan Center for Justice and the League of Women Voters of the United States teamed up to join the ongoing federal case that prompted Kansas and Arizona to start flirting with two tiers in the first place.

The ACLU case is straightforward. Filed in the Third Judicial Circuit in Topeka, Kan., the complaint argues that two-tier voting "divides registered voters in Kansas into two separate and unequal classes, with vastly different rights and privileges." According to USA Today, nearly 18,000 voters in Kansas who registered for the first time this year can vote in federal elections but not in state or local ones because they have not submitted citizenship documents.

"It all comes back to voters' equality," the ACLU's Molly Rugg wrote in a blog post on Thursday. "Kansas cannot treat equally qualified voters unequally on the whim of the Secretary of State. If you are qualified to vote in the presidential election, you are certainly qualified to vote in Kobach's re-election bid next year."

In both Kansas and Arizona, plans for two-tier systems began in the wake of Supreme Court's June ruling in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council, the legal battle over Arizona's 2004 voter identification law. While the Supreme Court blocked the law, both Arizona and Kansas have focused on the wiggle-room the court left them. In August, the two states joined together to sue the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the agency which maintains the federal voter registration form, in an attempt to force the agency to add proof-of-citizenship language to the state-specific instructions on the federal form. (Each state has state-specific instructions on the federal form.) And in the meantime, officials in both states made preparations for two-tiered systems.

So what’s it going to be, Guv? Yes or no?

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Governor Jan Brewer's publicity agent for her crappy book Scorpions for Breakfast, Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services, frequently inserts into his reporting the reminder that "The governor said she remains convinced that, despite a constitutional provision, she can run for what would be a third term. 'I have not made up my decision,'' she said."

Lame-Duck1Almost a year ago, Brewer's Secretary of State, Ken "Birther" Bennett, also a GOP candidate for governor in 2014, argued that Governor Brewer is constitutionally prohibited from running again. Howard Fischer reported, Brewer can't run again in 2014, Bennett says:

The state's chief election officer said Monday that his interpretation of state law is that Republican Jan Brewer's reign as governor must end in January 2015, no matter what she and her lawyer say.

Secretary of State Ken Bennett said he understands Brewer believes that the two years she spent finishing off Democrat Janet Napolitano's term do not count toward the two-term limit voters mandated in 1992.

Brewer, elected in her own right at the 2010 election, is saying she could run again in 2014 if she wants, although she has not yet decided if she will.

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Bennett sidestepped a question of whether he would take legal action to keep Brewer off the ballot should she seek the nomination.

The mendacity of mini-me, Robert Robb

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I posted about this the other day in George Will and his mini-me, Robert Robb: "George Will's mini-me at the Arizona Republic is not a lawyer, but he frequently pretends to be one in his columns. Lucky for him he is not a lawyer . . ."

Mini-me wrote a dismissive column on the Arizona Court of Appeals decision striking down the new campaign contribution limits in Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, et al. v. The Honorable Mark H. Brain, and real parties in interest (.pdf), a lawsuit brought by the Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission, on the theories that it violates two citizen initiatives enacted by voters in the same year, the Citizens Clean Elections Act and the Voter Protection Act. Robb used to work for the Goldwater Institute, and his legal analysis parallels closely the legal arguments made by Clint Bolick of the Goldwater Institute in this case. Contribution limits: Read the law, not the tea leaves.

On Wednesday the mendacity of Robert Robb took a double-barrel shotgun blast from Thomas Collins, an attorney and executive director of Arizona Citizens Clean Elections; and Sam Wercinski, executive director of the Arizona Advocacy Network.

Collins: Clean Elections ruling follows the law:

In his Nov. 15 column, “Contribution limits: Read the law, not the tea leaves,” Robert Robb once again wrongfully attacks the Arizona Court of Appeals for following the law and upholding the Citizens Clean Elections Act that voters passed in 1998.

That court blocked House Bill 2593 in October. HB 2593 would increase the amount of political donations candidates can receive by nearly 10 times and eliminate altogether other limits that work to prevent corruption and the appearance of corruption in Arizona. Under Clean Elections, the court found, the new bill cannot apply to state and legislative campaign-contribution limits.

Abortion politics in the U.S. Supreme Court

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

A couple of weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed as “improvidently granted” the case of Cline  v. Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice (docket 12-1094), an appeal from the state of Oklahoma to  revive a law that restricts doctors’ use of drugs rather than surgery to perform an abortion with the medication RU-486 and others, struck down by the federal courts.

Uterus-stateAround the same time, Planned Parenthood of Texas applied for an order setting aside the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals order permitting the Texas law requiring abortion practitioners to have admitting privilieges at a nearby hospital before they may perform abortions at a clinic or in a doctor’s office. Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas Surgical Health Services v. Abbott (13A452).

In a 5-4 decision along ideological lines, the Court declined on Tuesday to set aside the Fifth Circuit Court order. Lyle Denniston at Scotusblog.com reports, Texas abortion law left in effect:

Splitting five to four, the Supreme Court late Tuesday afternoon refused to block a Texas abortion law that critics say is forcing the closing of one-third of all clinics in the state.  The Court had been studying the issue for the past week.  The majority said that the challengers had not met the requirement for setting aside a federal appeals court’s order permitting the law to take effect on October 31.

The majority specifically included Justices Antonin Scalia, who wrote separately in a concurring opinion joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and Clarence Thomas.  But Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy presumably voted with those three, because it would have taken five votes to act definitively on the plea by doctors and clinics when there were four Justices who wanted to block the law.

The specific order denying the application (13A452) was unsigned.  Both Justice Scalia’s opinion and that of the dissenters referred to the result as the action of “the Court.”