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PLF files brief in North Carolina voter ID case

June 17, 2016 | By CHRIS KIESER

In 2013, on the heels of the Supreme Court’s Shelby County decision that ended federal preclearance of voting laws, North Carolina enacted an omnibus election reform bill that set off a partisan firestorm in the state and on editorial pages nationwide. On top of the much-discussed voter identification requirement, the law repealed same-day re ...

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Weekly litigation report — June 17, 2016

June 17, 2016 | By JAMES BURLING

Property rights — limits on the public trust doctrine The Washington state court of appeals issued this opinion on the “public trust doctrine” in Chelan Basin Conservancy v. GBI Holdings.  The facts here involved a lake that had been raised 21 feet by a dam in the 1920s. GBI owned several acres of land that periodically flooded ...

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Fifth Circuit's Texas voter ID opinion is a mixed bag

August 06, 2015 | By CHRIS KIESER

Yesterday, a Fifth Circuit panel issued its opinion in the controversial Texas voter ID case. The case involves challenges under the Voting Rights Act as well as the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Twenty-Fourth Amendments. Particularly at issue was whether Texas’ effort to require that voters present a valid photo ID violates Section 2 of the Vot ...

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Challenge to Guam's race-based plebiscite will go forward

May 08, 2015 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

The Guam legislature passed a law that allowed only “native inhabitants of Guam” to vote in an upcoming plebiscite concerning Guam’s political relationship with the United States. The plebiscite would ask native inhabitants to vote on whether Guam should seek statehood, independence, or a continued “association” with t ...

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Supreme Court issues decision in Alabama redistricting cases

March 25, 2015 | By CHRIS KIESER

This morning, the Supreme Court issued its decision in the combined Alabama redistricting cases – Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama and Alabama Democratic Conference vs. Alabama. PLF filed this amicus brief before the Court. The plaintiffs in these cases challenged Alabama’s 2010 redistricting plan as an unconstitutional racia ...

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Could Texas soon be back under federal Voting Rights Act supervision?

December 17, 2014 | By CHRIS KIESER

In October, federal judge Nelva Gonzalez Ramos of the Southern District of Texas issued a far-reaching opinion striking down Texas’ new Voter ID law on several grounds. She not only found that the law violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, but also that it was an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote … ...

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The Leadership Conference tries hard to convince itself that Americans support the Voting Rights Act

October 21, 2014 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

Everyone knows that pollsters can design questions that elicit the results they want. Indeed, even very subtle changes in poll questions can show that Americans either support or disapprove of any particular person or policy. That’s why reputable polling organizations take great pains to develop questions that are nonpartisan and objecti ...

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PLF files brief in the Supreme Court opposing race-based redistricting

October 16, 2014 | By CHRIS KIESER

We have previously blogged about the latest redistricting controversy to reach the Supreme Court. In these two combined cases, styled Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama and Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, the plaintiffs contend that the redistricting plan for the Alabama Senate and House of Representatives is an unconstitutional ...

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Federal courts expanding disparate impact analysis in recent Voting Rights Act cases

October 01, 2014 | By CHRIS KIESER

Here on the Liberty Blog, we have often posted about the perils of “disparate impact” laws; that is, laws that allow courts to find illicit discrimination in a facially neutral action without any showing of improper intent (here, here, and here, for example).  These statutes require businesses and government actors to engage in pernic ...