[mpen-dayton] FW: "Judge Blocks Trump Order on ..." & "72 hours left for 2017 coverage" & "NAACP opposes Betsy DeVos' nomination as" and more
FYI. Best, Munsup
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- Today's Headlines: Judge Blocks Trump Order on Refugees Amid Chaos and Outcry Worldwide
- FW: Don't let America turn its back on refugees
- FW: Pledge to Resist Trump's Islamophobic Agenda
- FW: 72 hours left for 2017 coverage
- FW: Tell Trump: Hands off our VA
- FW: NAACP opposes Betsy DeVos' nomination as Secretary of Education
- FW: ＴＲＵＭＰ ＢＬＩＮＤＳＩＤＥＤ (on Betsy DeVos' nomination)
- FW: Why Trump is getting away with everything
- FW: Voting Rights Roundup: Republicans around the country plot to gerrymander the Electoral College
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From: 
Subject: Today's Headlines: Judge Blocks Trump Order on Refugees Amid Chaos and Outcry Worldwide
Judge Blocks Trump Order on Refugees Amid Chaos and Outcry Worldwide
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR, NICHOLAS KULISH and ALAN FEUER
In a New York courtroom on Saturday evening, the judge said that sending the travelers home could cause them "irreparable harm."
From: Margaret Fung; Executive Director, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
Subject: Don't let America turn its back on refugees
AALDEF firmly opposes the president's executive order that imposes restrictions on Muslims entering the United States.
In summary, the January 27 executive order constitutes a shameful attack on refugees and immigrants:
- The order suspends the U.S. refugee admissions program for 120 days and indefinitely halts the admission of Syrian refugees;
- The order bans the entry, for at least 90 days, of nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries: Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen;
- The order affects legal residents—including green card holders—who live, work, study, and have raised families in the U.S.
AALDEF condemns the racist and Islamophobic stereotypes that are being used to impose this Muslim ban. We ask you to stand with us and speak out. Your Congressional representative and senators must hear from you: call them as soon as possible to ask them to oppose this order and demand that it be rescinded.
Nearly everyone in this country has an immigration story. Many of our families have fled religious and racial persecution, natural disasters, and even war. America still holds a special place in history, as a haven for so many diverse people. We must fight to preserve this history and pass on a legacy of tolerance and justice for refugees in search of a better life.
We will keep you apprised of developments as we continue to monitor the implementation of this executive order and other harmful anti-immigrant actions by the administration. Thank you for standing with us.
Donate today to help protect freedom, justice and equality for all.
From: Stefanie Fox, Jewish Voice for Peace
Subject: Pledge to Resist Trump's Islamophobic Agenda
Trump will sign Executive Order(s) attacking Muslims, Arabs, immigrants and refugees before the end of the day - a truly horrific end to a very bad week. But the way forward is getting that much easier to see, in the amazing, creative, mass organizing to defeat Islamophobia - and we have a key role to play as JVP.
Will you sign onto our Rapid Response Network and get to work right now?
"As Trump issues Executive Orders targeting Muslims, Arabs, refugees and immigrants, we pledge to resist in every way possible.
We'll put our hearts, souls, and bodies on the line to stop these hateful and racist attacks.
We all belong here. We will love, defend, and protect one another."
We know these asks are coming fast and furious - I think at least as fast at the attacks. With JVP and all our partners and allies, I hope you'll get busy in all the ways you can lend your power and brilliance at this moment.
Click here and we'll send you action ideas and asks instantly and as this fight develops.
This evening news reports came out that Trump will sign a package of Executive Orders tomorrow targeting Muslims, Arab, refugees and immigrants, making national policy of his racist, Islamophobic campaign rhetoric. This is racist and religious profiling and attack in their most blatant form.
When we marched this weekend, we said we'd rise up, over and over, to fight racism, state-sponsored violence, and surveillance. That we will defend and protect each other, period.
Now is the time to do it.
Click here to sign our pledge and join our Rapid Response Network so you'll know first as we roll out education, action, and advocacy steps with our partners in the coming hours, days, and weeks. The pledge reads:
As Trump issues Executive Orders targeted Muslims, Arabs, refugees, and immigrants, we pledge to resist in every way possible. We'll put our hearts, souls, and bodies on the line to stop these hateful and racist attacks. We all belong here. We will love, defend, and protect one and another.
This week has been the very definition of political Shock Therapy - jamming as many worst-case-scenario policy decisions together as possible so it's harder for us to respond. These orders tomorrow will be piled on top of Trump's promise to build even more of a wall on the US-Mexico border, repeal DACA, attacks on reproductive rights through the Global Gag Rule, and an Executive Order moving forward with the Dakota Access and Keystone Pipelines, to name a few. The only way forward is collective action.
Click here to join our Rapid Response Network and we'll be in touch ASAP with next steps.
From: HealthCare.gov Alerts
Subject: 72 hours left for 2017 coverage
Don't miss out on 2017 coverage | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Don't miss this year's final deadline on Tuesday! Get covered before it's too late. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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From: tbacane
Subject: FW: Tell Trump: Hands off our VA
Please tell the sick clown in the white house to keep his small hands off the Veteran's Administration (VA). Our veterans (Past,current and future) will need that department more than ever especially now! -tbacane
-------------------------------------------------
As many of us feared, Donald Trump has already put Obamacare in his crosshairs. And to make things worse, he's going to make veterans — of all people — carry the burden. Trump has been stacking his Cabinet with anti-veteran lawmakers since day one, and he clearly doesn't mind turning his back on our current and former servicemembers.
As it stands, millions of veterans eligible for the VA rely on Obamacare for their coverage. If repealed, then that means the VA will be forced to cover veterans health care on their own. In no world is it right for a committee as underfunded and over-worked as the VA to be forced to foot the bill.
We cannot let Trump turn his back on our fellow veterans. Sign this petition today to let the new administration know that those who currently serve and have served in uniform deserve respect and fair treatment.
To make matters worse, Trump is not only planning to dump these healthcare costs onto the VA's back, but he also just imposed a hiring freeze on federal agencies. Veterans are already struggling to get by. And this will make it virtually impossible for them to find new jobs with the federal government.
The last thing our nation should be focusing on is abandoning veterans and disregarding their needs. In 2015, veterans made up almost a third of the federal workforce. That's over 600,000 vets who are now at risk -- all because of a reckless and foolish decision from a reckless and foolish administration.
The VA and our veterans need help. Can you sign and share this petition today? If enough voices band together, we can send a powerful message that the American people will not back down when it comes to these issues.
Many Americans are already forced to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet, and veterans are especially downtrodden in today's economy. We can and must do better.
Thank you for being a part of this movement.
From: Dr. Jerome L. Reide; Regional Field Director, NAACP Midwest Region III
Subject: FW: NAACP opposes Betsy DeVos' nomination as Secretary of Education
Given the importance of education to the NAACP, and Mrs. DeVos' sheer lack of qualifications and her demonstrated lack of commitment to ensuring the ability of all students to receive an adequate public education, the NAACP has officially opposed her confirmation. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will vote on whether to send the DeVos nomination to the floor of the full Senate with a positive recommendation at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, January 31, 2017. We must urge every Senator to oppose her confirmation.
Attached, for your information, is an Action Alert outlining our concerns and letting you know how you can be an effective advocate. The final page of the Action Alert is a list of Senators who serve on the HELP Committee.
(Munsup's note: The attachment is removed sine its size of is too big. Please let me know if you need the file.)
From: ▶︎ STOP Betsy DeVos - [ECU]
Subject: ＴＲＵＭＰ ＢＬＩＮＤＳＩＤＥＤ
Munsup -- Donald Trump DID NOT bargain for this:
FIRST: Trump nominated Betsy DeVos -- whose family has donated MILLIONS to elect Republican Senators -- to be his Education Secretary.
BUT THEN: End Citizens United announced something HUGE:
We launched a MAJOR ad campaign to BLOCK Betsy Devos's nomination!!
NOW: If we can keep it up, we can expose DeVos and HUMILIATE Donald Trump when he least expects it.
But Munsup, we need 15,OOO donations before DeVos's Tuesday confirmation vote to fully fund our campaign.
DO NOT DELAY. Rush a donation right now to STOP Betsy DeVos's nomination:
Betsy DeVos is completely unqualified to be Secretary of Education -- she has ZERO experience in public education.
She was only nominated for the job because she spends a fortune bankrolling Republican campaigns.
This is money in politics at its worst. We will NOT let Donald Trump appoint Big Money Republicans to top government jobs. But we need to act now.
Please chip in everything you can before it's too late:
http://act.endcitizensunited.org/Stop-DeVos
Let's do this!
From: Nita, Shaunna, Kat, Karin, Adam, Holly, Kathy, Onyi, Susan, Anathea, Audine, Shannon, Megan, Libby, Emma, PaKou, and Pilar, the UltraViolet team
Subject: Why Trump is getting away with everything
Democrats need to do better. A LOT better.
We're only on day 7 of Trump's administration and he's already taken sweeping action to restrict abortion, attack immigrants, start his plans to ban Muslims, and even silence federal agencies.[1]
And how have Democrats responded? By letting Trump's cabinet sail through. Fifteen Senate Democrats voted for Trump's pro-torture CIA pick, Mike Pompeo. And yesterday, two true progressive champions voted in favor of Ben Carson--who has no relevant experience--to run the federal housing agency.[2]
Munsup, this is unacceptable. And it's simply not going to be good enough to protect us from very real threats in the next four years.
We as citizens are doing our part. We're marching and protesting in unprecedented numbers. We're calling our Congress members. We're speaking out. Why won't the Democrats fight as hard as us?
Now--with just days to go before Trump names his nominee for the Supreme Court--is the time to send a clear message: Democrats, we need you to fight harder, starting now. Will you sign the petition?
Tell the Democrats in Congress: We need you to fight A LOT harder to stop Trump and his hate-filled agenda.
The past week of Trump's presidency has stripped millions of people their rights, and it's going to get worse. He plans to gut the Office on Violence against Women.[3] He is going to sign an order to ban refugees and Muslims from entering the country.[4] He is threatening to strip funds from sanctuary cities who welcome immigrants.[5]
And Trump's nominees--each more extreme than the last--are itching to carry out his plans. The fact that Democrats don't have enough votes to stop them doesn't make it OK to surrender their votes and be complicit in building Trump's bigoted, incompetent administration.
The Democrats' mandate to resist Trump comes from us, and they aren't doing nearly enough. If we tell them clearly they are doing a poor job, they will be forced to put up a better, stronger fight against Trump.
Tell the Senate Democrats: fight harder to resist Trump.
Sources:
- Trump reverses abortion-related U.S. policy, bans funding to international health groups, Washington Post, January 23, 2017
The wall is the least aggressive part of Trump's executive actions on immigration, Vox, January 25, 2017
Trump expected to order temporary ban on refugees, Reuters, January 25, 2017
Sudden changes at the EPA, USDA, and CDC under Trump, explained, Vox, Jan 25, 2017 - Senate confirms Pompeo as CIA chief amid questions over torture, spying views, USA Today, January 23, 2017
Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown Will Support Ben Carson's Nomination To HUD, Huffington Post, January 24, 2017 - Trump Wants To Cut Funding For Programs Protecting Women From Violence, Refinery 29, January 23, 2017
- Trump expected to order temporary ban on refugees, Reuters, January 25, 2017
- 'Sanctuary City' Mayors Vow to Defy Trump's Immigration Order, New York Times, January 25, 2017
Want to make a donation to help support petitions on MoveOn.org? Hundreds of thousands of people chip in each year to support MoveOnâ€"which is how we're able to keep our petition website free and support campaigns like this one. You can become a monthly donor by clicking here, or chip in a one-time gift here.
From: Andrew J. Tierman
Subject: FW: Voting Rights Roundup: Republicans around the country plot to gerrymander the Electoral College
Serious abuses of democratic rights by Repub's around the country: gerrymandering POTUS elections and more
See 1-28-17 Voting Rights Roundup from Daily Kos:
Daily Kos Elections
Voting Rights Roundup: Republicans around the country
plot to gerrymander the Electoral College
on ·
● Electoral College: Despite losing the popular vote, Donald Trump just won the presidency thanks to our archaic Electoral College—and now Republican legislators in key states are plotting to make our electoral system even less democratic. Republicans in Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Virginia have all proposed allocating one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district and two to the statewide winner, something that only Maine and Nebraska currently do. While this change might sound like a reasonable reform on the surface, Republicans have only one purpose in mind: gerrymandering the Electoral College.
How this works is simple. Fifty-five percent of all congressional districts were drawn to favor Republicans follow the 2010 census, while just 10 percent were drawn to benefit Democrats. Consequently, Trump carried 230 districts to just 205 for Hillary Clinton, even though Clinton won nearly 3 million more votes nationwide. So if every state awarded electoral votes by congressional district, Trump still would have prevailed. And guess what? Mitt Romney would also have won this way in 2012, and George W. Bush would have in 2000, too.
Republicans will cynically argue that this change promotes fairness. If you were to award electoral votes by district in Minnesota, Clinton and Trump would have each gotten five, while in Virginia, Clinton would have earned seven and Trump six. Republicans will note that the popular vote in both states was relatively close, so they'll say that splitting electoral votes would have better reflected that vote, as opposed to the current winner-take-all system.
However, each state's electoral votes don't exist in isolation, and awarding them by district only in states Clinton carried would, of course, only expand the GOP's Electoral College edge. And it's extremely telling that no red states are currently considering similar proposals. After all, Hillary Clinton won 14 districts in Texas. Why aren't Lone Star Republicans advancing a similar plan? That's a question that doesn't need an answer.
However, the news isn't all bad—at least, not yet. New Hampshire Republicans could pass their proposed bill since they completely control the state government, but it would only swing one electoral vote there, and fortunately, this legislation has yet to gain traction in the Granite State. And in Virginia, a state House subcommittee approved a measure before its chief proponent abandoned his bill this week amid public backlash. But more worrisome is Minnesota, where the Republican state House speaker just threw his backing behind such a scheme.
For the moment, Minnesota and Virginia currently have Democratic governors who could veto such bills, but that could change. Minnesota faces a critical open-seat gubernatorial election in 2018, while Virginia has one this year. If Republicans were to gain the governors' offices and hold the legislatures there, they could easily pass these Electoral College gerrymandering schemes in two key swing states. And even if they don't, they could still prevail: The Republican-controlled legislatures in both states could still put these changes up to a popular vote with just a simple majority vote. Democrats everywhere need be on guard.
Voter Suppression
● Trump Administration: Trump set off another media frenzy when he repeatedly lied to claim that as many as 5 million non-citizens cast ballots, all of them for Clinton, using the numbers to falsely assert that he actually won the popular vote. Most chillingly, Trump offered an anecdote that strongly implied he doesn't believe non-white citizens "look like" they should be voters. This idea of rampant illegal voting has been repeatedly debunked by researchers, election administration officials, and even Trump's own legal team, which argued that there was no evidence of widespread fraud when it persuaded a court to block Michigan's recount.
Nonetheless, Trump has pledged to investigate the matter. However, as befits a man who attained political stardom as the most prominent person to deny that Barack Obama was born in the U.S., it would be absurd to hope that Trump's investigation would be an impartial exercise that would inevitably reveal that fraud is extremely rare. Instead, it will serve as an excuse for Trump and Republicans to push through new voting restrictions.
Indeed, one of America's chief voter suppression architects, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, says he advised Trump on the matter. Accordingly, Trump's upcoming voting restrictions could take a page from Kobach's playbook and include mass purges of voter registration rolls; burdensome proof-of-citizenship requirements that federal courts have previously blocked states from implementing; a national voter ID requirement; and even a rollback of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, the so-called "motor voter law" that requires states to offer registration at public assistance and driver's license offices.
Trump has already taken actions that show just how quickly the executive branch will shift from defending voting rights under Obama to helping undermine them. He appointed to a top civil rights post a lawyer who had played a key role in defending many recent Republican gerrymanders, which courts have increasingly invalidated. We can easily imagine what the rest of his "fraud investigation" team will look like.
Voter ID
● Arkansas: A state House committee approved a Republican-backed voter ID bill, and its chance of passing appears high. Arkansas Republicans used their first legislative majorities since Reconstruction to implement a voter ID requirement in 2013, only to see the state Supreme Court strike it down in 2014 for violating the state constitution. However, Republicans have significantly expanded their legislative majorities in the last two elections, and they believe that passing the bill with two-thirds supermajorities will enable it to survive judicial review this time.
● Wyoming: Wyoming's state government is almost monolithically Republican, and appropriately enough, it was Trump's single best state in 2016, yet it still does not require any sort of photo ID to vote. One Republican legislator now wants change that, introducing a bill to require some form of ID to cast a ballot. It remains unclear whether this measure will attain broader support in a state that is already so uniformly Republican, which just goes to show that most Republican legislators don't support voter ID because they're concerned about fraud, but as a means to winning elections.
Republican Power Grabs
● Mississippi: The Republican-controlled state House passed a bill that would neuter much of the attorney general's independence by forcing him to obtain the permission of the governor, lieutenant governor, and secretary of state before filing any lawsuit seeking an award of $250,000 or more. All of those other officers are Republicans, of course, but oh, did we mention that Attorney General Jim Hood is Mississippi's last statewide Democratic elected official? Yeah, that would explain it. The GOP wants to block Hood from standing up for consumers by suing big corporations—including insurance companies that still hadn't paid out claims for Hurricane Katrina a decade later—something he's done frequently done in his 13 years in office.
Like their brethren in North Carolina, Mississippi Republicans seem to reject the legitimacy of Democrats who hold elective office. Just a year ago, the same Mississippi state House refused to seat a Democrat who had rightfully won an election through the established tie-breaking method, instead using their legal authority to override existing election procedures and install the Republican candidate instead. These moves to nullify election outcomes are part of a disturbing trend happening around the country, as we cover in a few more stories below.
● North Carolina: As we alluded above, Republicans in North Carolina have gone to greater extremes to undermine the power of duly elected Democrats than in any other state. Their latest episode involves reportedly threatening to outright dissolve the city council of Charlotte after its Democratic majority and mayor sought to expand LGBT protections (which led the GOP legislature to pass the notorious HB2 "bathroom bill"). North Carolina grants the legislature very broad authority to meddle in local government affairs, and Republicans have already used that power to gerrymander city and county governments across the state, so this is no idle threat.
● South Dakota: When it comes to showcasing contempt for voters, South Dakota Republicans are giving their colleagues in North Carolina a stiff challenge. Last year, voters passed Measure 22, a ballot initiative that implemented a package of ethics and campaign finance reforms. Almost immediately afterward, the Republicans who dominate South Dakota's state government plotted to nullify the statute. On Tuesday, the state House quickly passed a bill that would effectively eviscerate the voter-approved ethics reform law. Especially galling is that lawmakers have literally declared a "state of emergency" so that the repeal measure would take effect immediately and be immune to a voter-referendum veto.
Measure 22 would place strict limits on lobbying, create an independent ethics commission, and establish a first-in-the-nation public campaign finance system that would give each voter a voucher to donate to their preferred candidates. These reforms passed by a 52-48 margin even as Donald Trump won a 62-32 landslide, indicating that they had bipartisan support from the voters. Nonetheless, Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard insultingly claimed that voters were "hoodwinked" into passing the initiative, and he's pledged to sign a repeal bill as soon as the state Senate approves it next week.
There's a lesson here for reformers: If you're going to use ballot measures to circumvent hostile legislators and constrain their power, make sure your reform doesn't merely add new statutes to the books—which can easily be overturned—but instead amends the state constitution if possible. And there's a lesson here for voters, too: Republican politicians don't give a damn about what you think.
● Texas: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott intends to ask the Republican-dominated state legislature to pass a new law that would allow him to remove certain elected local officials from office, after the Democratic sheriff of Travis County, home to the state capital of Austin and 1.2 million people, refused to kowtow to federal immigration law enforcement officials. Such a law would effectively nullify the voters' ability to elect their preferred officials in this staunchly Democratic county, and it could potentially even be used against local officials elsewhere if broadly written.
● Virginia: The Republican-controlled state House passed a bill along party lines to strip the governor of his power to appoint temporary replacements to the U.S. Senate in the event of a vacancy, instead requiring a special election to take place before anyone could be seated. This measure is squarely aimed at Democrats after Sen. Tim Kaine nearly became vice president in 2016, which would have allowed Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe to appoint a successor who would have served until Virginia's regular statewide elections this November. Should the state Senate approve the bill, McAuliffe would likely veto it, but Republicans could put it on the 2018 ballot as a state constitutional amendment with a simple majority vote in two consecutive legislative sessions.
Republicans cynically defended their bill by claiming it would bring power back to the people, but they conveniently ignore that oddly timed special elections often have abysmal turnout compared to regularly scheduled general elections. A much fairer reform for handling congressional vacancies would be to require any replacement appointee to come from the same party as the departing member, which is what many states already do for vacancies, but this bill is transparently intended to cost Virginia Democrats one of their two Senate votes instead of honoring the electorate's will.
Redistricting
● Alabama: A three-judge federal court recently ruled that a dozen state legislative districts in Alabama violated the constitution and instructed the legislature to redraw them—an order that could ultimately affect many more districts that neighbor the illegally drawn seats. Republican lawmakers, who control the legislature, had intentionally packed black voters into a handful of majority-black districts in order to dilute their influence in adjacent seats.
Republican legislators claimed their map was necessary to comply with the Voting Rights Act, which requires that states create districts where communities of color can elect representatives of their choice. But, said the court, lawmakers could not comply with the law by arbitrarily setting a threshold for a minimum black population per district; instead, they must determine the proportion of black voters needed to elect their preferred legislators on a case-by-case basis—and that proportion is almost invariably lower than the higher bar that Republicans had used.
This same three-judge panel had originally upheld these maps in 2013 before the Supreme Court overturned that ruling in 2015, sending it back to the lower court for reconsideration. If Republican legislators appeal January's ruling, the case could go back before the Supreme Court again, where swing Justice Anthony Kennedy would hopefully side with the court's four liberals once again and finally set down a national precedent that would define the rules governing the permissible use of race in redistricting.
Whatever the Supreme Court decides, though, Alabama remains implacably Republican, and even if they're barred from engaging in impermissible racial gerrymandering, white Republicans would continue to overwhelmingly control the legislature. Nonetheless, this ruling could have major implications for other similar maps that Republicans have instituted across much of the South.
As Daily Kos Elections has previously demonstrated, nearly every Southern state could have drawn another congressional district to elect the candidate of choice of black and Latino voters, Alabama included. Similarly, Republican legislators in many Southern states intentionally drew legislative district maps that limited the power of black and Latino voters, and consequently Democrats.
Should courts start striking down these other maps or imposing new restrictions during the upcoming round of redistricting following the 2020 census, Democrats could gain several congressional districts and many more legislative seats. Such rulings could even potentially tip the balance of power in more closely divided state legislatures like in North Carolina and Virginia, where the Supreme Court is about to decide two other major racial gerrymandering cases.
Voting Rights Court Cases
● Texas: The Lone Star State saw a major voting rights court victory last year when the notoriously conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals nonetheless ruled that Texas' strict voter ID discriminated against black and Latino voters and blocked it from taking full effect for the 2016 elections. However, that victory was only partial, since the court did not find that there had been a discriminatory intent as well as effect, and the judges only required measures to mitigate the law instead of throwing it out entirely, which did not completely blunt its burdensome impact.
Following 2016's ruling, Republican legislators appealed to the Supreme Court, but on Monday, the court refused to take up the case, allowing the appeals court's ruling to stand. However, Chief Justice John Roberts left the door open to hearing the matter at a later date, implying that the court could revisit the issue once Trump appoints a replacement for Antonin Scalia. Texas' reprieve from strict voter ID could thus prove temporary, and the law could once again go back into full force once voter ID supporters regain their fifth seat on the Supreme Court.
Indeed, Trump's Justice Department itself might be content to delay a resolution as it prepares to take over the case from the Obama administration. Trump's attorney general nominee, Jeff Sessions, has all but said that his department would switch sides to defend the law after Obama's Justice Department had fought it.
Elsewhere in Texas, a federal district court recently ruled that the Houston suburb of Pasadena intentionally discriminated against Latino voters with its 2013 city council redistricting plan, forcing it to revert back to the previous districts. This finding of intentional discrimination importantly allowed the court to use the Voting Rights Act to order the city of 154,000 people to "preclear" any changes to election procedures with the Justice Department for the next six years.
Critically, this court ruling is the first to put any jurisdiction back under such scrutiny since the Supreme Court gutted a key provision of the VRA in 2013 that had required a large number of predominantly Southern states like Texas with a history of racial discrimination to vet any proposed voting changes with the Justice Department. That decision, Shelby County v. Holder, eliminated the traditional preclearance regime, prompting white Republicans in many states and cities to rush an array of restrictive voting laws into effect.
Of course, Trump's administration now controls the Justice Department, and Sessions is an extreme enemy of voting rights. Therefore, even if Pasadena is required to clear future changes to its voting procedures, Sessions may just give the city a green light to do whatever it pleases. However, should Democrats regain the presidency and thus the Justice Department, they might one day use this precedent to at least partly get around congressional Republicans' opposition to restoring the full Voting Rights Act.
Voter Registration and Early Voting
● Hawaii: Democratic legislators in Hawaii have introduced bills that would establish automatic voter registration and transition the state to a vote-by-mail system. Legislation designed to implement both reforms had narrowly failed in the previous session after different versions passed each chamber, but the proposals now face renewed urgency after Hawaii's turnout rate once again ranked dead last in 2016 at a pitiful 42 percent. Democrats completely dominate Hawaii's state government—in fact, the state Senate doesn't have a single Republican member—so passage is just a matter of overcoming any intra-party opposition.
● Mississippi: A committee in the Republican-majority state House unanimously passed three bills that would allow 14 days of early voting, provide for online voter registration, and establish a study committee on reforming the voting rights restoration process for those with past felony convictions. Mississippi is one of just 13 states that doesn't allow in-person early voting or unexcused absentees. It also disenfranchises nearly 10 percent of its population, more than any other state besides Florida, including a staggering 16 percent of African-Americans.
Similar bills previously passed the House in 2016 by a near-unanimous margin, but the Republican-controlled state Senate thwarted the measures. While the chances of these reforms passing the House this year appear strong, their fate in the Senate is once again less favorable, with the relevant committee chairwoman sounding highly skeptical of the House's proposals.
● New Mexico: Despite the party's awful election night in most of the nation, Democrats regained control over New Mexico's legislature in 2016. Now, three Democratic legislators want to use their newfound powers to place a state constitutional amendment on the 2018 ballot that would pave the way for automatic voter registration. While the proposed amendment thus far lacks specifics, it has the support of Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver. Importantly, Republican Gov. Susana Martinez can't block the legislature from calling such a referendum, since only a simple majority in both houses would be required to put it up to a public vote.
End of MPEN e-Newsletter
posted by lucas at 6:05 AM
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