Plus, disbarment charges for former Trump lawyer and Jan. 6 architect John Eastman.

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** 3/29/2024
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This week saw a big win for voters in Montana as the state’s Supreme Court struck down four voter suppression laws that disproportionately impacted young voters, Native American voters and voters with disabilities.

Elsewhere, however, court rulings in Florida and South Carolina leave both of those states stuck with gerrymandered and discriminatory maps, at least for the time being. And a ruling from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania that accidentally have the wrong date, or are undated, won’t be counted.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump’s lawyer and the chief architect of the Jan. 6 insurrection on the Capitol is having a no good, very bad week. First, a legal theory he championed in his infamous memo leading up to Jan. 6, 2021 was shut down by a Pennsylvania court. Then, his right to practice law was revoked in California.


** A Big Win For Voting Rights in Montana
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It’s a great week for voters in Montana as the state’s Supreme Court, in a sweeping 4-3 decision, struck down ([link removed]) four major voter suppression laws.

The decision, which will take effect prior to the 2024 elections, reverses three House bills and one Senate bill. The struck down laws include:
* House Bill 176 ([link removed]) , which eliminated Election Day registration;
* House Bill 530 ([link removed]) , which banned paid ballot collection and curtailed other forms of ballot return assistance;
* House Bill 506 ([link removed]) , which prohibited the mailing of ballots to new voters who will be eligible to vote on Election Day but are not yet 18 and
got it
* Senate Bill 169 ([link removed]) , which targeted young voters by making it more difficult to vote with a student ID.

The court wrote ([link removed]) that H.B. 530, the law that banned paid ballot collection, discriminated against Native American voters because it “takes away the only option to vote for a significant number of Native Americans living on reservations.”

Similarly, the court found that the law that makes it harder to vote with a student ID also didn’t pass constitutional muster because it “imposes a burden on student voting” as it implies a current student ID isn’t valid enough proof of identification.

All four laws violate the state’s constitution and disproportionately impacted young voters, Native American voters and voters with disabilities, the court decided. In its ruling, the court held that the Montana Constitution “affords greater protection of the right to vote than the United States Constitution.”


** South Carolina and Florida Stuck With Gerrymandered and Discriminatory Maps… For Now
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This week saw two unfortunate court rulings in South Carolina and Florida that left both states with gerrymandered and discriminatory congressional maps. At least for the time being.

The decision ([link removed]) in South Carolina came from a federal court, which ruled ([link removed]) that the Palmetto State should use its current congressional map for the 2024 elections. That same court originally struck down the map for being an unconstitutional racial gerrymander, but decided it must be used for the next election as the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to issue its opinion on the merits of the case.

After the release of 2020 census data, the Republican-controlled Legislature enacted a new congressional map that racially gerrymandered the state by drastically changing the composition of the 1st and 6th congressional districts and moving over 30,000 Black voters. The South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP sued over the new maps and a three-judge district court panel sided with the plaintiffs in January 2023 that the new maps discriminated against Black voters.

The Republican defendants appealed the ruling to the nation’s highest court, which has yet to issue its opinion on the matter. But since the state’s June 11 primary election is rapidly approaching, GOP officials asked ([link removed]) the district court to pause its ruling since there won’t be enough time to draw a new map, should that be required. The court at least acknowledged that its decision isn’t ideal, writing that “the ideal must bend to the practical.”

Meanwhile, in a unanimous decision, a federal three-judge panel upheld Florida’s congressional map, which a group of nonpartisan advocacy groups challenged, alleging it intentionally discriminated against Black voters in the northern part of the state. According to the lawsuit, the new congressional districts — which were pushed through the state Legislature at the behest of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in April of 2022 — eliminated the 5th Congressional District, which empowered ([link removed]) Black voters in Jacksonville and Tallahassee.

The three-judge panel wrote ([link removed]) in their opinion that the plaintiffs “have not proven that the Legislature acted with race as a motivating factor in passing the Enacted Map,” and added that “[t]he plaintiffs freely concede there is no direct or circumstantial evidence of racially discriminatory purpose on the part of any member of the Florida Legislature.”

A state-level case ([link removed]) over the maps is ongoing before the Florida Supreme Court, which could issue a ruling that would impact the congressional districts before the 2026 midterms.
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** Appeals Court Says Undated and Incorrectly Dated Ballots Won’t Be Counted in Pennsylvania
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In another round of bad news this week, this time for Pennsylvania voters, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed ([link removed]) a federal court ruling that mail-in ballots that are undated or incorrectly dated should be counted.

The ruling stems from a 2022 lawsuit filed ([link removed]) by nonpartisan organizations challenging a state regulation that requires all counties to reject any mail-in ballot that is missing a date or has an incorrect date — like a voter’s birthday instead of the date the envelope was signed — on the outer return envelope. The plaintiffs, led by the Pennsylvania State Conference of the NAACP, argued that rejecting such ballots violates the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act ([link removed]) , which ensures that a voter’s ballot still counts in the event of an honest mistake like, say, writing the wrong date on the outer envelope of a mail-in ballot.

Naturally, Republicans intervened in the lawsuit and defended the state’s mail-in ballot date regulation, arguing that private groups and individuals cannot sue under the Materiality Provision and that the date provision is constitutional.

In a big win for voters in November of 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania ruled ([link removed]) in favor of the plaintiffs and struck down the rule, deciding that it did, in fact, violate the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act.

But this week’s court ruling reversed that victory, with a three-judge panel ruling ([link removed]) 2-1 that the Materiality Provision only applies for when the state determines who can vote, not for rules like date regulation.

The case isn’t totally dead, though. One of the plaintiffs’ claims — that the mail-in ballot date regulation violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment — was sent back to the district court for further consideration. The plaintiffs argue that the rule violates the Equal Protection Clause because it imposes inconsistent rules on different voters that the plaintiffs argue are unsupported by any legitimate government interest.

But it’s not all doom and gloom for Pennsylvania voters. A federal judge this week dismissed ([link removed]) a lawsuit ([link removed]) by state GOP lawmakers challenging a pro-voting executive order from President Joe Biden and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D). The lawsuit used the independent state legislature theory (ISL) ([link removed]) , a fringe right-wing legal theory that essentially says that only state legislatures can make laws that regulate federal elections.

The lawsuit argued that actions taken by Biden and Shapiro (D) violated the U.S. Constitution’s Electors and Elections Clauses because they improperly regulate the “time, place, and manner” of federal elections. But the Trump-appointed judge who penned the 27-page order shut down the ISL theory, ruling that the plaintiffs “have not alleged any individualized and particularized harm” and therefore did not have standing to bring the case.


** California Judge Recommends Former Trump Lawyer John Eastman Be Disbarred
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And in another win against the ISL theory, former Trump lawyer John Eastman — whose plot to overturn the results of the 2020 election was based on this fringe theory — was recommended ([link removed]) for disbarment by a California judge on Wednesday.

Eastman faced 11 charges from the California State Bar over his myriad legal efforts to help Trump overturn the election results. Those charges stemmed from two memos he sent — one on Dec. 23, 2020 and another on Jan. 4, 2021 — that presented ways in which Trump could stay in the White House. The second one Eastman sent, a notorious six-page memo ([link removed]) , outlined how Trump could stay in the White House by persuading Vice President Mike Pence to throw out the electoral votes for Joe Biden in seven key states and instead cast them for Trump.

The Dec. 23 two-page memo ([link removed]) outlined a plan to keep Trump in office alleging false evidence of election fraud. Eastman allegedly devised this plan even after multiple lawsuits in numerous states found no credible evidence of fraud that would affect the outcome of the election.

Eastman’s plans to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election and declare Trump the winner stemmed from the ISL theory ([link removed]) in that he interpreted the word “legislature” to mean that only the legislature can set the rules for federal elections, including how presidential electors are chosen.

In a scathing 128-page ruling ([link removed]) from the State Bar Court of California, Eastman was charged with one count of “failing to support the Constitution and laws of the United States,” two counts of “seeking to mislead a court,” six counts of “moral turpitude by making various misrepresentations” and finally, two counts of “moral turpitude.”

The California court recommended ([link removed]) that Eastman not only be disbarred, but have to pay “monetary sanctions” for “making numerous false and misleading statements regarding the conduct of the 2020 presidential election and Vice President Pence’s authority to refuse to count or delay counting properly certified slates of electoral votes and for his collaborative efforts with President Trump to impede the counting of electoral votes.”


** OPINION: In Arizona’s Most Populous County, There’s a New Sheriff in Town
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[link removed]

In Maricopa County, Arizona, voters are stuck in a loop of corrupt sheriffs who fail to bring real change to the office. It's an unfortunate example of how elections do not always represent the true will of the people, contributor Jessica Pishko argues. Read more. ([link removed]) ➡️


** What We’re Doing
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As the 2020 and 2022 elections showed us, election workers play a pivotal role in ensuring fair, free and accurate elections. And though the threat to election officials and poll workers is alarmingly high, a new state-by-state guide released last week by the Brennan Center for Justice and All Voting is Local reminds us that sometimes bad actors work within the system.

Their guide for Poll Worker Rules and Constraints outlines best practices for election officials in a number of swing states — including Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, among others — to keep safeguards in place against poll workers who try to disrupt the election process. Read it here. ([link removed])

A new episode of our podcast Defending Democracy dropped this morning! A second Trump presidency would last longer than 4 years. In today’s episode, writer and political commentator Molly Jong-Fast joins to discuss how a second Trump term would be different, the myth of the "moderate" Republican and the media's role in all of this. Listen on Apple ([link removed]) , Spotify ([link removed]) or wherever you get your podcasts ([link removed]) , or watch it on YouTube ([link removed]) .
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