Voting rights bills and lawsuits megathread (Updated: April 27th 2020)

[Virginiá]

Admittedly I'm a little disappointed that, as far as I can tell, it doesn't include same-day registration. I was hoping they would just ram through the Democracy Act again, which seemed more comprehensive than this. I also thought they were trying to pass a law forcing Senate vacancy appointments to be from the same party as the previous office holder, but I wonder if they aren't doing that now since Murphy won. That would seem a little shortsighted, unless they are prepared to ram through such a bill in the lame duck period right after a Republican wins another gubernatorial race.

Either way, still excellent news.

[Virginiá]

OK, so I'm just going to put this here (and in the first post) for future posts: This thread's purpose is for updates on pro-voter access reform and to a lesser degree, anti-gerrymandering reform. Big cases like, say, North Carolina's gerrymander getting struck down is OK, but little updates like the DoJ switching to Texas's side to defend their gerrymander is not OK. Not only does that go against the spirit of this thread, but it's such a boring little update to a gerrymandering lawsuit that it's not worth posting here. If some new state passes a completely new voter ID law - eg a big update - that might be something worth posting here too, just don't be a dick about it. Likewise for pro-voter access news please. Little updates like Michigan going from a strict voter ID law to a stricter voter ID law is not really worth mentioning here, just like it's hardly worth mentioning California passing a law requiring public universities to provide voter registration links on student web portals (I posted that here once, but I remarked that it was hardly worth posting, which is true, but iirc it was a slow week/month).

If a conservative/Republican or just plain anti-voter access user would like to keep everyone apprised of the latest efforts to rig Congressional/legislative maps and/or suppress voting via new legislation, by all means, create your own thread and keep it updated. I'm sure there is at least a handful of users here would probably love it. But this thread is not the place to dump what I consider to be a product of this country's worst actors.

The vast majority of users aren't dicks, so this message really is meant for just one person, who probably could care less, but I'm leaving it here to ask that people respectfully post such anti-voting rights news somewhere else.

[Progressive Pessimist]

NJ voting rights bills voted out of committee

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It's nice that I am starting to feel proud of my state again.

[Virginiá]

http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/380657-maryland-legislature-passes-automatic-voter-registration

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Given that Democrats have a supermajority in the legislature, this is basically all but guaranteed to pass. I was skeptical that this would pass because a year or so back, the Senate shot down AVR for some reason, but now that it's being sent to Hogan, it seems reasonable to assume its for sure.

[kph14]

https://politics.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/bill-shorten-atlanta-voting-hours-advances-house/goraM0zz8ft43NldUsjekL/

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Personally I'd rather the state move up by an hour rather than take Atlanta down one, but meh.

This legislation and another one that was aimed to end Sunday early voting died in the Legislature today.

[Atlas Force]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/981350865859563520

[Virginiá]

Didn't Democrats completely pass on a conservative-held WI Supreme Court race in 2017?

[KingSweden]

Didn't Democrats completely pass on a conservative-held WI Supreme Court race in 2017?

Correct

[Virginiá]

Didn't Democrats completely pass on a conservative-held WI Supreme Court race in 2017?

Correct

Granted that the backlash was still building at that point, but in hindsight, that must be incredibly frustrating to a lot of party officials. I don't know exactly why that went unopposed, but the rule of thumb should always be that if the president's party is the same party holding that seat, and said president is relatively (or more) unpopular in that state, then every office worth a damn should be contested. Anything less is passing up on an opportunity to rebuild the party. It should have been contested no matter what, but especially that time around!

I mean, looking at it now, that could have meant a state Supreme Court majority before 2020, and maybe even the difference between fair and rigged maps, which is a big deal in WI.

[Gass3268]

Didn't Democrats completely pass on a conservative-held WI Supreme Court race in 2017?

Correct

Granted that the backlash was still building at that point, but in hindsight, that must be incredibly frustrating to a lot of party officials. I don't know exactly why that went unopposed, but the rule of thumb should always be that if the president's party is the same party holding that seat, and said president is relatively (or more) unpopular in that state, then every office worth a damn should be contested. Anything less is passing up on an opportunity to rebuild the party. It should have been contested no matter what, but especially that time around!

I mean, looking at it now, that could have meant a state Supreme Court majority before 2020, and maybe even the difference between fair and rigged maps, which is a big deal in WI.

Would have been on the ballot with Tony Evers' landslide. That being said, historically in Wisconsin it's much harder to knock off a sitting Supreme Court Justice, which this would have been. Since 1848, it's only been done twice. Still, it's so stupid they didn't even try.

[Atlas Force]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/982260360320200705

[Virginiá]

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/982260360320200705

As I understand it, MD also is attempting to get same-day registration passed by putting a constitutional amendment on the ballot this year. They have it during early voting, but I guess they can't do it on election day without an amendment.

New Jersey and Massachusetts up next

[Slander and/or Libel]

NJ passed its automatic registration!

https://patch.com/new-jersey/longvalley/automatic-voter-registration-signed-law-nj

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/986627673798709249

[MasterJedi]

https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/986627673798709249

Just waiting for the "Cuomo is gutter trash, who cares, he's 3vil" posts to come in still.

[Slander and/or Libel]

https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/986627673798709249

Just waiting for the "Cuomo is gutter trash, who cares, he's 3vil" posts to come in still.

Oh, Cuomo is still awful. But awful people sometimes do good things.

[Progressive Pessimist]

NJ passed its automatic registration!

https://patch.com/new-jersey/longvalley/automatic-voter-registration-signed-law-nj

Excellent news!

[KingSweden]

According to Rick Hansen....the majority opinion for Gil vs Witford has been assigned to either Chief Justice Roberts or Gorsuch

Not lookin too good

Possibly. It may also have been combined with Benisek.

[Abolish ICE]

According to Rick Hansen....the majority opinion for Gil vs Witford has been assigned to either Chief Justice Roberts or Gorsuch

Not lookin too good

Roberts getting the opinion isn’t necessarily a disaster.  As Hansen noted, he could easily be a sixth vote to significantly rein in partisan gerrymandering.

[Sestak]

According to Rick Hansen....the majority opinion for Gil vs Witford has been assigned to either Chief Justice Roberts or Gorsuch

Not lookin too good

TBF I think if there was a 5-4 to strike down gerrymandering, Roberts would join the majority; he'll want broad agreement across ideologies. I also thinks that given how much he cares about it, I wouldn't be surprised if he did want to write the opinion himself.

I'm just worried. The outcomes here seem to be either:

1. Cement gerrymandering as legal
2. Codify the efficiency gap (which is a horrible metric)

[Virginiá]

TBF I think if there was a 5-4 to strike down gerrymandering, Roberts would join the majority; he'll want broad agreement across ideologies. I also thinks that given how much he cares about it, I wouldn't be surprised if he did want to write the opinion himself.

[...]

Does he really care, or rather, in what way does he care? He was very skeptical during arguments, and his "intelligent man on the street" argument was the most disingenuous, ridiculous thing I've heard from him in years (as an infrequent, casual reader). Aside from what has to be a smart man playing dumb ("sociological gobbledygook"), he seemed content to let an absurdly corrupt regime of election rigging stand just so long as the people themselves didn't think negatively of the system. God forbid the court smack down corrupt politicians - that might lead to more partisanship!

But I do agree with what you said - this doesn't necessarily mean they will punt partisan gerrymandering to the future or worse, rule that it is acceptable or non-justiciable. He could just want to write the opinion and/or give an inevitable majority opinion a broader consensus.

I'm just not sure which. The justices seemed stuck in Maryland's arguments. I dunno. We'll see I suppose.

[Virginiá]

According to Rick Hansen....the majority opinion for Gil vs Witford has been assigned to either Chief Justice Roberts or Gorsuch

Not lookin too good

A theory from Richard Pildes that Kennedy could still be writing the opinion:
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98823

[KingSweden]

According to Rick Hansen....the majority opinion for Gil vs Witford has been assigned to either Chief Justice Roberts or Gorsuch

Not lookin too good

A theory from Richard Pildes that Kennedy could still be writing the opinion:
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98823

This could be the case, or it could have been combined with Benisek.

Who knows.

[GeorgiaModerate]

A federal judge has ruled that Marion County [Indianapolis] must create at least two early voting locations before the November elections:

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[|˶˙ᵕ˙ )ﾉﾞ]

According to Rick Hansen....the majority opinion for Gil vs Witford has been assigned to either Chief Justice Roberts or Gorsuch

Not lookin too good

A theory from Richard Pildes that Kennedy could still be writing the opinion:
http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98823

That sounds plausible. Hopefully it's true