On Thursday, October 20, 2011, John Hardin Young will speak on Afghan Constitution Building and Election Reform as a part of the William and Mary Election Law Society’s Speaker Series. The talk, entitled “Constitution Building and Electoral Reform in Afghanistan” will be presented in Room 133 of 613 S. Henry Street in Williamsburg, VA at 12:50 PM. Please RSVP here. Mr. Young is also an adjunct professor at William and Mary Law School.
On November 18, Joe Sandler and Liz Howard will appear at the ABA’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section’s Fall Conference on the “How New Pay-to-Play Regulations Impact Your Clients” panel. The panel will include the following panelists: Joseph Sandler, Ki Hong, Partner at Skadden Arps, Mark Renaud, Partner at Wiley Rein and Liz Howard will serve as the monderator. Panelists will discuss current and future trends in pay-to-play laws.
To register for this event, please visit the ABA’s Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice Section’s website.
In wake of the recent attempt to have a referendum on the Maryland DREAM Act, a team of lawyers, including Partner Joseph Sandler, representing CASA de Maryland and eight other plaintiffs, have filed a suit challenging the validity of petition signatures. The Maryland DREAM Act allows undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition to Maryland state universities if they have attended a Maryland high school for three years. In order to be eligible, students must also attend a community college for two years, before transferring to a four-year university.
The suit claims that many of the signatures collected in favor of putting the DREAM Act on the November ballot are invalid. Speaking to the New York Times, Mr. Sandler said “[the suit] was a test case for whether petitions for ballot measures that were generated and filled out online would stand in court.”
Echoing his concerns over how the signatures for the referendum were collected, Mr. Sandler told the Washington Post, “There’s no safeguard. If someone knows your name, Zip code and date of birth, which might be on your Facebook page, the computer will print out that information exactly…There is no way to make sure the voter whose name appears on the petition is the one who printed it out and signed it.”
Mr. Sandler told the Maryland Reporter, “the State Board of Elections should not have certified many of the 108,923 petition signatures it received.” He also shared similar sentiments with Hometown Annapolis and the Baltimore Sun.
On Monday October 24, 2011, John Hardin Young will be featured on the University of Richmond’s T.C. Williams School of Law “Election Law Panel: Voter Rights, Redistricting, and the Constitution.” The panel, which will take place from 6:00 P.M. until 7:30 P.M., is sponsored by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, the Black Law Student Association and the Metro Richmond Area Young Democrats. Other panelists include Kent Willis, Executive Director of the Virginia ACLU, Virginia State Senator Henry Marsh, Virginia House Delegate Jennifer McClellan, and Gerry Hebert Executive Director of the Campaign Legal Center.
Liz Howard contributed to the recently published twelfth volume of the ABA’s Developments in Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice (ABA 2011). In the introduction for the Elections chapter, she commented on the interesting developments and factors affecting election law in the previous year, including President Obama’s references to campaign finance law in his State of the Union address and the potential impact of current litigation.
The book may be purchased here on the ABA’s website.
Chambers USA once again recognized Sandler, Reiff & Young as a top political law firm. The 2011 Guide to the nation’s best lawyers reads:
At six lawyers strong, this team is not among the largest on the market, but its formidable experience and great reputation make it one of the major players on the political law scene. Out of Washington, DC it handles the gamut of work, from campaign finance to lobbying compliance advice. The group is undoubtedly best known for Democratic candidate and committee representation work, and recently engaged in FEC investigations work.
The guide cites Partner Joseph Sandler in particular for being “hailed among peers as an outstanding figure in the arena of Democratic party work.” Mr. Sandler’s experience in regulatory compliance, campaign finance advice work and corporate structuring for nonprofit and for-profit organizations is also noted by the guide.
Liz Howard was a featured presenter at the recent leadership conference hosted by the Congressional Youth Leadership Council. The presentation was designed to provide an overview of the legal issues surrounding running for political office, such as fundraising, independent expenditures and restrictions on advertising. Ms. Howard expects to continue her relationship with CYLC and the attendees.
Jeff Wice was recently featured on the National Journal’s “Expert Blogs.” Mr. Wice was one of seven national experts who responded to a question asking, what matters more in redistricting: the GOP’s edge in statehouse control or a Democratic Department of Justice. Mr. Wice responded that he believes it is too early to tell. He wrote, “[w]e’ve already seen Republican efforts to ‘pack’ minority residents fall short in New Jersey’s commission-based redistricting,” but also noted that “[i]n Virginia’s divided control legislature, Democrats and Republicans created plans designed to improve both majorities only to end up with a Governor’s veto.” Mr. Wice’s entire response can be viewed here.
Neil Reiff was recently quoted in a Roll Call article, rejecting the idea that the Federal Election Commission is broken. According to the article, campaign finance reform advocates are concerned the FEC is “broken” and therefore, incapable of enforcing campaign finance regulations. Roll Call reports that 8 non-profits recently wrote a letter to President Obama seeking stronger campaign finance laws and claiming that 3 Republican commissioners “have paralyzed the agency by consistently blocking enforcement of the laws and repeatedly misinterpreting the laws”. However, Reiff said that “[t]his has been the least partisan commission in my 18 years of practice,” and that “if you put the rhetoric aside, the FEC’s recent decisions mirror similar ones at the Supreme Court, which has knocked down key provisions of campaign finance laws during the past five years.”
On March 28, Neil Reiff appeared on a panel sponsored by the George Washington University Law School Election Law Society. The panel included GW Law Professor Spencer Overton, Leslie Rutledge, counsel from the Republican National Committee, as well as prominent campaign finance attorney Craig Engle, from Arent Fox, LLC. Panelists discussed current and future trends in campaign finance law.
Joe Sandler also spoke recently about the impact of the Citizens United decision and other recent developments on the financing of the 2010 elections, and the prospects for the future. The panel, which also included Charlie Spies of Clark Hill PLC, Martha McKenna, former political director of the DSCC, Gentry Collins, former political director at the RNC and recent candidate for RNC chairman, was sponsored by the Election Law Society of Georgetown University.