House Passes Sweeping Bill Involving Voting, SCOTUS, Campaign Finance Reform
March 4, 2021
VOTING REFORMS PASS THE HOUSE
|Late last night, the House of Representatives passed the “For The People Act,” designated H.R. 1, which would create uniform national voting standards, reform campaign finance laws, and outlaw partisan redistricting. The move comes just after the Supreme Court heard a major case on voting rights this week. Mike DeBonis with The Washington Post reports, “The bill also would require tech platforms to disclose political advertising information; establish a code of ethics for Supreme Court justices for the first time; restructure the Federal Election Commission to an odd number of members to break partisan deadlocks; and require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns.”
CRYTAL CLEAR
|Reid J. Epstein and Michael Wines with The New York Times explain the Arizona voting case justices heard this week and write, “There was not much subtlety to the Republicans’ argument to the Supreme Court on Tuesday for allowing laws that effectively limit voting access for people of color.” MICHAEL CARVIN, representing the Arizona Republican Party said that overturning state laws that impede the right to vote for minority groups would put the GOP at a competitive disadvantage. “Should the Republican argument prevail at the Supreme Court, where conservative justices hold a six-to-three majority, it could give the party’s lawmakers wide latitude to enact voting restrictions to eliminate early voting on Sundays, end third-party ballot collection and restrict who can receive an absentee ballot — all voting mechanisms Democratic lawyers argued would disproportionately curtail voting access to people of color.”
GOP'S FORMULA FOR WINNING
|David Savage with The Los Angeles Times says the Supreme Court seemed ready to leave Arizona’s voting restrictions in place. One of those restrictions calls for throwing out ballots cast by voters who arrive at the wrong precinct on election day but want to vote there anyway. The other makes it a state crime for anyone — other than family members, caregivers or postal workers — to collect and return mail ballots. Savage reports, “In their comments and questions, most of the justices said they were in search of a middle-ground position, blocking new restrictions that could have a significant impact on Black, Latino or Native Americans, rather than automatically invalidating any rule that has different impacts based on race. Both of Arizona’s rules were in effect during last year’s election, when JOE BIDEN narrowly defeated then-PRESIDENT TRUMP in the previously Republican-leaning state, which also elected another Democrat to the Senate. But since then, Republican state lawmakers there and in other GOP-controlled states have proposed dozens of new rules that could make it harder for Black people and Latinos to vote.”
TOP-ED
|“The legitimacy of the Supreme Court depends on public confidence that its decisions are principled, not political. Rightly or wrongly, that confidence has been eroded by decisions perceived to be partisan, as well as by the partisan rancor accompanying recent confirmation battles. A code of conduct for the justices would increase public confidence in their decisions.” That’s Mark L. Wolf in NBC News reacting to the House’s passage of H.R. 1 which would at long last impose a code on Supreme Court justices. Justices are the only U.S. judges that don’t operate under any formal code of conduct, and Wolf makes the case that having one in place would improve public confidence in SCOTUS. He adds, “In addition, as the United States regularly advocates for transparency as a check against misconduct and corruption, confidence in the U.S. judiciary at home and abroad would be enhanced if the Supreme Court were, by statute, required to broadcast its proceedings and allow the broadcasting of proceedings in the lower federal courts. Senators who have unsuccessfully introduced legislation to do so can now renew that effort when acting on H.R. 1.”
THE FIRST TO KNOW
|Joan Biskupic with CNN notes that if JUSTICE STEPHEN BREYER retires this spring or next, it’s likely that the White House will know well before any of us. “History suggests he will slip early word to PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN and the public will not know until weeks later. That was the protocol for Breyer’s predecessor, Justice Harry Blackmun, in 1994, when he privately told President Bill Clinton months before his retirement announcement on April 6. More recently, Justice John Paul Stevens in 2010 quietly passed his intention to retire to President Barack Obama.”
KEEP THEM COMING
|Axios reports the White House is quietly working away with Senate Democrats to ensure PRESIDENT BIDEN has a steady stream of judicial nominees so it can ensure the federal judiciary becomes more reflective of the country’s demographics. In addition, the White House is motivated to put Biden appointees in the courts to help combat the success of PRESIDENT TRUMP in filling the judiciary with a huge number of conservative appointees during his tenure.
OTHER NEWS
Voting Rights Cases Make This Supreme Court Squeamish
Bloomberg“The Voting Rights Act of 1965 specifically put the judiciary into the role of policing electoral fairness that Frankfurter had wanted it to resist. The most powerful critique of the Roberts approach to election law is that he actually isn’t exhibiting Frankfurterian judicial restraint, because Frankfurter believed the courts should defer to the legislature — and the legislature passed the Voting Rights Act. In striking it down in the Shelby County case, critics accurately point out, Roberts was actually being a judicial activist.”
The Supreme Court Is Giving Lower Courts A Subtle Hint To Rein In Police Misconduct
The Atlantic“For years, the Supreme Court has sent a clear message to lower courts: Police officers can’t be sued for violating someone’s constitutional rights unless the specific actions at issue have previously been held unconstitutional. Police, the Court has argued, need ‘breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions.’ The trouble is that no matter how egregious the conduct might seem, so long as a plaintiff cannot find a prior court decision declaring similar behavior unconstitutional, a court cannot hold officers accountable. But in the past few months, following a summer of protests against police violence, the Supreme Court seems to be quietly changing its message.”