@ Politico: the fact that the remaining Blue Dogs survived the 2010 elections suggests “that they’re a pretty capable group of candidates,” said Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University. “Of course, with redistricting going on, it’s hard to know what’s going to happen to their districts.”

With redistricting not going well for Democrats in the South, this is a overly optimistic piece on the Blue Dog Caucus and their chances at survival in 2012.  New lines and another tough cycle, this time with a unpopular President at the top of the ticket, may make the money raised irrelevant.

At the link, a three-judge federal panel on Friday denied a motion by Florida to speed up a review of controversial changes to the state’s voting laws — a decision that all but guarantees Florida will hold its Jan. 31 presidential primary under two sets of election rules.  The decision by the U.S. District Court here ends a weeks-long battle between Florida officials and the Justice Department on how long the case should last, and it could mean a ruling no earlier than next May.  It may also add some chaos to what should be a closely watched Republican presidential primary, although Florida election supervisors said they expected little disruption.

It appears these federal judges don’t want to negatively impact their pre-planned vacations over the multi-holiday season regardless on the impact of voters in Florida.  Instead they set the hearing in the middle of a Presidential election year.  Who nominated these Judges?  The court is already allowing the courtroom to become a complete zoo by allowing 29 intervenors into the case when the issues are fairly straightforward and the complexity of the case is neglible.  When compared to the complex redistricting litigation across the country, there is no excuse in failing to having this promptly heard and decided.  Justice delayed is Justice denied.

DOJ, in attempt to save their questionable objections and push for illegal maximation of minority seats in a reasonable redistricting plan, yells racism in a crowded courtroom.  

“The Justice Department says Texas has not met that standard. It says “discriminatory intent permeated the congressional redistricting process, based on a broad array of circumstantial evidence.”

And Texas responds to this DOJ accusation of intentional discrimination:

“Despite their outrageous claims, if one looks behind DOJ’s inflammatory rhetoric, they produce no genuine evidence of discrimination,” said Abbott’s spokeswoman Lauren Bean. “Ironically, DOJ is objecting to districts that the Legislature specifically enacted to protect Hispanic incumbents – who happen to be Republicans – in the same manner that the Legislature worked to protect incumbents of both parties.”

When DOJ and left wing groups rely on the intent prong to try to stop a redistricting plan, particularly with no direct evidence, you would correctly detect a level of panic and overreach.

At the link.  The Democrats fought it all the way because it might hurt their partisan advantage but Hispanics were eventually given an increased level of representation.  However, it will likely not be enough to elect an Hispanic candidate.  The Republicans got some level of fairness and competitiveness in the line-drawing evolution.  The vestiges of past Democrat partisan line-drawing were generally left intact though with only moderate tweaks by the special masters to reduce some of the inherent unfairness of the lines.  What has to be worrisome for the Democrats is that there may now be real opportunities for Republicans to reduce the artificial gerrymandered Democratic majority in coming elections.

Gov. Brian Sandoval last spring vetoed two Democrat-passed redistricting plans, largely on the grounds that they did not create a Hispanic-majority congressional district or 12 Hispanic-majority legislative districts.

When legislators adjourned June 7 without an agreement, redistricting fell into Russell’s court after both parties filed lawsuits.

Slate provides more from Artur Davis on absentee ballot fraud:

“Anyone who is even a casual observer of Alabama politics, however, knows quite well the frequency of absentee ballot charges and convictions within counties in the congressional district I represented, specifcially Hale, Greene, Lowndes, Perry, and the Bessemer areas within Jefferson County.”

and more:  “Law enforcement authorities in Alabama are well aware of many of the most notorious practitioners of absentee ballot fraud,” he said. “Should they build a case they have every ability to contact me or any other candidate so that they can weigh for themselves the value of the information.” Anyway, why not start with the evidence already out there? “I am a little mystified as to the point that no one is prosecuted for manufacturing ballots; it is a relatively common event in Alabama and has produced a number of cases and convictions, as well as guilty pleas: you can ascertain this for yourself by running a search engine for the last decade on voter fraud in Alabama.”

The HattiesburgAmerican weighs in on the coming Mississippi referendum on photo ID:

Politicians are sometimes heard, in jest, sharing an adage with friends and neighbors: Vote early and often. Most snicker at the thought, knowing they would never partake in illegality, but understand nonetheless that voter fraud is a recurring problem as old as the ballot box itself.

In Wisconsin, the organizer of Occupy Milwaukee is calling his recent arrest and allegations of voter fraud “distractions.” Austin Thompson was handcuffed and taken away by police more than a week ago after the group purposely made a spectacle outside M&I Bank. Allegations of voter fraud later surfaced after a complaint stated that Thompson used an extended stay hotel as his address to vote in the spring elections, and he really lives in Georgia.

Thanks to everyone at Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney law firm who put together yesterday’s event and book signing in Pittsburgh.  I didn’t get a chance to spend as much time as I would have liked with everyone but thanks to everyone who came. 

Particular thanks to Tabella who has kept ELC filled with updated information in my absence – especially the earthquake that is the Georgia challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act as part of the redistricting lawsuit they filed.  Now three states – Florida, Arizona and Georgia – are all making a statewide challenge to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.  More importantly, they are all going to Court instead of the DOJ for approval of redistricting plans.  This is a main theme of my book Injustice – that states and counties should go to court for approval of election law changes instead of submitting to DOJ.  Federal Judges are more impartial and more likely to follow the law than the characters featured in Injustice.  Glad people are taking the alternative route.

 American Spectator.  Davis offers this observation:

“The truth is that the most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African American community, at least in Alabama, is the wholesale manufacture of ballots, at the polls and absentee, in parts of the Black Belt. Voting the names of the dead, and the nonexistent, and the too-mentally-impaired to function, cancels out the votes of citizens who are exercising their rights — that’s suppression by any light. If you doubt it exists, I don’t; I’ve heard the peddlers of these ballots brag about it, I’ve been asked to provide the funds for it, and I am confident it has changed at least a few close local election results.”

This is precisely what I write about in Chapter Six of Injustice, and how DOJ Voting Section Attorneys enabled the behavior for years.

At the the link, a great summary of the multiple flailings objections by DOJ in District Court where they claim Texas’s preclearance arguments were too simplistic.  The parties briefs can be found here and DOJ filings can be found here.

In papers filed this evening, the Department of Justice and individual parties sharply criticized the standard the State of Texas wants the D.C. panel to use in evaluating arguments about ‘retrogression’ in the state’s redistricting maps.  Calling the state’s proposed standard “arbitrary,” the Justice Department argued that “determining whether a minority group has the ‘ability to elect’ a candidate of choice under Section 5 is not as simple as looking at a discrete set of population figures. ‘The legal standard is not total population, voting age population, voting age citizen population or registration, but the ability to elect.’” [DOJ, p. 4]

Fairly weak objections considering that many believe that “simple is better” when the alternative is aggressive race-based gerrymandering that inevitably results in Shaw districts that would appear as bug splats on the wind shield in our everyday life.  These districts appear so because some demographer is sitting at a computer intentionally looking for minorities to add to a district no matter the appearance.  While DOJ and the groups criticize Texas for simple maps, they can’t seem to draw districts that don’t appear intentionaly racially germandered on its face. 

The DOJ argues that the state’s proposed congressional map also is retrogressive, especially in light of “an almost unprecedented increase in the number of seats in its congressional delegation – four – resulting from a State population increase fueled mostly by the increase in the State’s Hispanic population.” [DOJ, p. 21-22]  and this: According to DOJ, “[u]nder the proposed plan, Hispanic voters will lose ground in their existing ability to elect candidates of choice  … even though the number of Hispanic majority districts remains the same [at] seven,” pointing to what it says are problems in CD-23 and CD-27.  [DOJ, p. 23-24]

So DOJ asserts that while Texas maintained the same number of majority minority seats in their proposed congressional map and generally kept districts at the same level of Hispanic citizen voting age population, there must still be “retrogression” and apparently circumstantial evidence of intentional discrimination.  Why?  Because Texas may have been able to create a few more coalition or opportunity districts.  These coalition districts wouldn’t necessarily elect Hispanics or blacks but rather white politicians such as Texas Democrat Lloyd Doggett who is supposedly the candidate of choice for a coalition of minority groups plus white voters mixed together.  DOJ continues to push these theories despite the Supreme Court weighing in on the issue of coalition districts in the context of Section 2 in Bartlett. 

DOJ is trying to change the question from now simple minded “retrogression” (or backsliding) to a more complex theory disguising a policy of “maximization of seats?”  It appears that the DOJ standard is evolving from maintaining the status quo to pushing the envelope even if alternative maps create gerrymandered bug splats districts that run afoul of the Shaw series of cases at the Supreme Court. 

Bottom Line:  There is no legal authority for the maximization of districts that DOJ is pushing and the coalition district theory is discredited and a sure loser at the Supreme Court.