Courts & Law

The Arizona Daily Star’s creative headline writer strikes again!

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

ScreenshotI almost spit out my coffee this morning when I opened up the fishwrap newspaper this morning. The print edition headline on the front page of our sad small-town newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star, reads "Setback for AZ's voting ID effort" — on Martin Luther King Day, no less.

A quick Google search reveals that no other newspaper publishing this Howard Fischer report used this politically biased headline. Most used "Citizen proof request rejected by federal eelction commission." The Sierra Vista Herald used "State bid to change federal election law rejected." Hell, even our sad small-town newspaper did not use this politically biased headline in its online version: Panel rejects AZ's bid to require proof of citizenship for voting. All factual headlines.

The headline should read "A victory for voting rights," or "GOP voter suppression rejected."

EAC files its response in proof-of-citizenship case

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Arizona Attorney General Tom "banned for life by the SEC" Horne and Secretary of State Ken "Birther" Bennett are in U.S. District Court in Kansas, Kris W. Kobach et al. v. United States Election Assistance Commission (13-4095-EFM-DJW) suing the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and threatening to impose a two-tier system for voting in Arizona and Kansas based upon whether you registered to vote with the Arizona voter registration form or the federal motor-voter form (NVRA). The Judge in his Order Remanding Matter to EAC for Final Agency Action (.pdf) gave the EAC until January 17 to respond to the order of the Court.

The EAC filed its response just minutes before the midnight deadline. Read the richly detailed 46-page EAC Final Decision on Proof of Citizenship Requests (.pdf). A bullet point summary of the EAC analysis follows:

  • Congress specifically considered and rejected proof-of-citizenship requirements whn enacting the NVRA.
  • The requested proof-of-citizenship requirements are inconsistent with the EAC's NVRA regualtions.
  • The requested proof-of-citizenship requirements are inconsistent with the EAC's prior determinations.
  • The Supreme Court's Inter-Tribal Council opinion guides the EAC's assessment of the states' requests.
  • The states' requested proof-of-citizenship instructions would require applicants to submit more information than is necessary to enable election officials to assess eligibility.
  • The requested changes would undermine the purpose of the NVRA.
  • The requested proof-of-citizenship requirements are not similar to Louisiana's request for modifications to the state-specific instructions.
  • The decision by the Federal Voting Assistance Program to grant Arizona's request has no bearing on the state's requests to the EAC.

CONCLUSION: "For the foregoing reasons, the Commission DENIES the States’ requests."

In short, go pound sand.

‘Kochtopus’ dark money organizations with Arizona ties have yet to pay $15M fine to California

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In other news you never see reported in Arizona's GOP-friendly media, California has yet to receive the $15 million in penalties imposed on "Kochtopus" dark money campaign organizations after an investigation by the Fair Political Practices Commission into secret political donations last year by the Phoenix-based Center to Protect Patient Rights, run by GOP political consultant Sean Noble, tied to billionaire Republican contributors Charles and David Koch.

The Los Angeles Times reports, Two groups that used secret political donations haven't paid penalties:

State authorities have yet to receive $15 million in penalties they imposed on campaign groups after a headline-making investigation into secret political donations.

The money is owed to California's general fund, where it could support government programs.

Two Arizona nonprofits paid $1 million in fines for their role in hiding the source of political cash sent to California in 2012. But the two campaign groups that received and spent the money were ordered to pay $15 million and have sent nothing — seven weeks after the Nov. 30 deadline.

Bipartisan ‘fix’ to the Voting Rights Act filed in Congress

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Ari Berman at The Nation reports, Members of Congress Introduce a New Fix for the Voting Rights Act:

Today Representatives Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and John Conyers (D-MI) and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) will introduce legislation to strengthen the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision last June invalidating a critical section of the VRA. The legislation, known as “The Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2014,” represents the first attempt by a bipartisan group in Congress to reinstate the vital protections of the VRA that the Supreme Court took away.

* * *

The Sensenbrenner-Conyers-Leahy bill strengthens the VRA in five distinct ways:

1: The legislation draws a new coverage formula for Section 4, thereby resurrecting Section 5. States with five violations of federal law to their voting changes over the past fifteen years will have to submit future election changes for federal approval. This new formula would currently apply to Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Local jurisdictions would be covered if they commit three or more violations or have one violation and “persistent, extremely low minority turnout” over the past fifteen years.

The formula is based on a rolling calendar, updated with a current fifteen-year time period to exempt states who are no longer discriminating or add new ones who are, creating a deterrent against future voting rights violations. It’s based on empirical conditions and current data, not geography or a fixed time period—which voting rights advocates hope will satisfy Chief Justice John Roberts should the new legislation be enacted and reach the Supreme Court.

The new Section 4 proposal is far from perfect. It does not apply to states with an extensive record of voting discrimination, like Alabama (where civil rights protests in Selma gave birth to the VRA), Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, which were previously subject to Section 5. Nor does it apply to states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that have enacted new voting restrictions in the past few years.

Federal Court in Oklahoma Rules in Favor of Marriage Equality

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In the reddest of the Red States, Oklahoma, the U.S. District Court has struck down that state's discriminatory ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional, and ruled in favor of marriage equality. Oklahoma’s Ban on Gay Marriage Is Unconstitutional, Judge Rules:

EqualA federal judge in Oklahoma ruled Tuesday that the state’s constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage violated the federal Constitution, the latest in a string of legal victories for gay rights and one that occurred in the heart of the Bible Belt.

The state’s ban on marriage by gay and lesbian couples is “an arbitrary, irrational exclusion of just one class of Oklahoma citizens from a governmental benefit,” wrote Judge Terence C. Kern of United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma, in Tulsa, deciding a case that had languished for nine years. The amendment, he said, is based on “moral disapproval” and does not advance the state’s asserted interests in promoting heterosexual marriage or the welfare of children.

“We’re jubilant, we’re over the moon,” said one of the plaintiffs, Sharon Baldwin, 45, who has lived with her partner and co-plaintiff, Mary Bishop, 52, for 17 years.

The two both work as editors at The Tulsa World newspaper and had just arrived at work on Tuesday afternoon when the city editor told them of the decision.

“We’re taking the day off,” Ms. Baldwin said.