Made the fax version of CapFax today for election law discussion

If you're a subscriber to CapFax, you saw that I made the discussion about Vallas' case. If you're not a subscriber and you work for someone with any sort of deep pockets, sign up.

One other interesting part of Count II (the constitutional challenge): the Vallas camp is arguing that one provision of the state constitution (elections shall be free and equal) is inconsistent with another provision (governors shall be a resident of Illinois for three years). There is something to their argument, but who is to say that the first provision trumps the second provision? Why wouldn't it be the reverse, where the second provision trumps the first? They were both written at the same time (in the 1969 constitutional convention), so it is unlike an amendment to the federal constitution which should trump the original part of the constitution as it was written and ratified later.

And on a related point, plaintiffs often say the federal constitution trumps state statute or the state constitution, which is true. Here, however, the Vallas plaintiffs did not sue in federal court and do not argue that the federal constitution's First Amendment requires that the state constitutional provision of a three-year residency requirement be struck down. It's all state law.

Finally, has anyone else noticed how firmly in the Republican Party the Tribune editorial board seems to be? Their reaction to Durbin's apt comparison of torture techniques still being used by American soldiers to horrible regimes looks like it comes from the mouth of Ken Mehlman, the GOP Chair.