Joseph Sandler filed comments yesterday with the Federal Elections Commission in response to a draft advisory opinion posted on the Commission’s website that would override restrictions on political “robocalls” of more than a dozen states. In so doing, it would grant a request by the political action committee of a conservative group called the American Future Fund.
Writes Kenneth P. Doyle in the BNA Money & Politics Report, “A new comment letter filed Jan. 8 by prominent Democratic and Republican election lawyers, supported the American Future Fund’s position on the advisory opinion. The comments were submitted on behalf of the American Association of Political Consultants in a nine-page letter signed by William McGinley and Joseph Sandler. McGinley of the firm Patton Boggs, represents Republican candidates and political committees, while Sandler of the firm Sandler Reiff & Young, represents Democrats.
Their letter urged the FEC commissioners to reject the conclusions of its initial draft advisory opinion and to issue an opinion “holding that state laws effectively prohibiting the use of pre-recorded telephone calls in federal elections—including those state laws requiring that prior consent be obtained by a live operator—are preempted” by federal campaign finance laws.”
The Federal Elections Commission is set to decide this matter on January 14 in a meeting of the commissioners.
Sandler Reiff and Young, P.C. is pleased to announce that Jeffrey M. Wice has joined the firm as “of counsel” to provide redistricting assistance to congressional, state legislative and local government officials, and other organizations with a stake in the post-2010 linedrawing process.
Mr. Wice has over 30 years of experience in redistricting, voting rights and census law. He pioneered national Democratic Party redistricting assistance to the states and has worked as redistricting counsel to the Democratic National Committee, national redistricting projects, and to many state legislative leaders, governmental entities, and elected officials. He is experienced in all aspects of redistricting activity, from developing state legislative committees and criteria through legislative enactments and litigation.
The new round of redistricting presents particular challenges with one person/one vote equal population standards and new interpretations of the federal Voting Rights Act. Sandler, Reiff & Young P.C.’s attorneys have extensive experience working with legislative leaderships and redistricting committees in these and other aspects of redistricting law.
Read a copy of Mr. Wice’s firm biographybelow:
Jeffrey M. Wice, “of counsel” to Sandler, Reiff & Young P.C,. has over 30 years of experience working in redistricting, voting rights and census law. He is considered a national expert on redistricting and has been included by ROLL CALL in its list of the top 50 Washington policy insiders. Mr. Wice also appears in the 2010 documentary movie “Gerrymandering.”
Mr. Wice has assisted many state legislative leaders, Members of Congress, and other state and local government officials on redistricting and voting rights matters across the nation. During the 1980s, Mr. Wice developed the first national Democratic Party redistricting assistance program, working with state legislative leaders preparing for the 1990 census and redistricting process. During the 1990s, Mr. Wice served as a counsel to the President’s appointees to the 2000 federal Census Monitoring Board. During the 2000 redistricting cycle. Mr. Wice served as counsel to the Democratic National Committee’s Redistricting Project. He also represented the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus in its successful in its federal court effort to ensure minority voting rights under the Voting Rights Act. As the Democratic Party prepares for the 2010 census and subsequent redistricting, Mr. Wice serves as counsel to the Foundation For The Future, the party’s redistricting planning project.
Mr. Wice has been a contributor to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) “Redistricting Law Handbook” for the 1990, 2000, and 2010 editions. As a long time counsel to the New York State Legislature. Mr. Wice has served in several NCSL leadership positions, including service on the national Executive Committee and as a staff chair of the Elections and Redistricting Committee.
He is a Special Professor of Law at Hofstra Law School where he teaches election law. In the past, he has also taught election law at Touro Law School. Mr. Wice has submitted several redistricting and voting rights related amicus briefs in U.S. Supreme Court cases, including the landmark case Shaw v. Reno and most recently in Bartlett v. Strickland.
Mr. Wice holds a B.A. from The George Washington University (1974) and a J.D. from the Antioch Law School (1982). He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and has been admitted to practice the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia and the United States Supreme Court.
Neil Reiff discusses the implications of Speechnow.org v Federal Elections Commission in a published comment in JURIST. In the comment, Mr. Reiff examines the momentum of recent campaign finance decisions and forecasts the impact of recent decisions on the changing political landscape.
Mr. Reiff writes, “The Speechnow.org decision (which also upheld political committee reporting requirements for independent expenditure committees) will bring more independent spending into the light by inducing committees to avoid the subterfuges of “issue advocacy” while subjecting their activity to the reporting regime of federal campaign finance law.”
Mr. Sandler will participate in a panel on “The Future of Voter Protection,” with Hannah Fried, the Director of the DNC’s voter protection program. To view the conference agenda, click here.
John Hardin Young spent an entire week in February 2010, in Manila meeting with the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and other stakeholders and advise on complaints adjudication as the entire country shifts to Optical Scan Ballot technology for the upcoming May 2010 general election. Mr. Young and Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Paul H. Anderson also met with high-ranking members of the judiciary, as well as prominent civil society groups, academics, and other election stakeholders.
Joe Sandler and Liz Howard filed an Amicus Brief in the Doe v. Reed case on behalf of several direct democracy scholars and the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. This case involves the constitutionality of public disclosure the persons who sign petitions for ballot initiatives and referenda.
Application of the “exacting scrutiny” standard is not appropriate in this case. Even assuming that the mere act of signing a referendum or initiative petition is “core political speech,” Petitioners have not shown that public disclosure of the names of signers in any way burdens that speech. Such disclosure does not “compel” any speech beyond the mere fact that a voter has signed the petition. Disclosure does not infringe “privacy of identity, association and belief,” as Petitioners suggest, because there is no reasonable expectation or assumption of privacy or secrecy: any voter who signs a petition knows that her signature, name and address, and the fact that she is signing, is being put on paper in the hands of a stranger, in a public place, in front of others, and will be submitted to a government agency. Further, public disclosure of petitions is widespread and routine in states that allow ballot initiatives and referenda. Nor does disclosure create any risk of intimidation or harassment of signers. Of the approximately 600,000 voters who signed referendum petitions in the State of Washington in the last decade, Petitioners have failed to identify a single individual who claims to have been harassed or intimidated as a result of mere disclosure of her signature. More than a million names of signers of petitions for referenda and initiatives opposing gay marriage have been posted on the internet. Yet there is no evidence that any of these signers, has faced any threat of retaliation or harassment by reason of that disclosure.
Even if public disclosure of petition signatures is to be subjected to “exacting scrutiny,” the State’s disclosure of the signatures under the Public Records Act serves sufficiently important governmental interests to find such disclosure constitutional. First, fraud is a widespread, significant problem in signature gathering for ballot measures. Public disclosure has in fact proven essential and indispensable in exposing such fraud in a number of states.
Second, it has been commonplace for signature-gatherers to mislead and trick voters into signing referenda and initiative petitions those voters would not have signed had they been informed of the actual content of the ballot measures. Numerous voters have discovered such deception, and have been able to remove their names or disassociate themselves from the measure, only because their signatures were disclosed publicly. In fact, there is no way that a voter duped into signing a petition can exercise that right in the absence of public disclosure.
Third, public disclosure serves an important interest in informing voters about ballot measures. Scholarship indicates that “information brokers” such as the media and interest groups can analyze and disseminate information about who is signing petitions and how they are being collected in a way that can provide “cues” to voters, to enable those voters to make more reasoned and informed decisions about whether to support a ballot measure.
In “Beware the Fortunetellers” Mr. Sandler and Mr. Reiff discuss the fallout of last week’s Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United v. FEC. The authors argue that although the ruling will have vast implications for the future of campaign finance, that future is not as written in stone as many pundits would have the general public believe.
The DNC, represented by Joseph Sandler of Sandler, Reiff & Young, prevails in an historic appellate case over the party’s decision to unseat Florida’s delegates. The Washington Post, 5/28/2008. Mr. Sandler also appeared on CNN to discuss the ruling. Full text here.
Jim Lamb provided insight into the effect Virginia’s campaign finance laws have on the upcoming election in Virginia. Listen to Peter Overby’s coverage or read the full text at NPR’s website.
