Page 32 - AVN March 2016

LEGAL NEWS
DeWitt on Elections (Continued from page 28) pouring freightloads of Citizens United money into increasing their majority to 60-40, affording
the capability to stop a Democratic filibuster. In short, with a 60-40 Republican Senate, coupled
with a Republican White House and an almost certain Republican House of Representatives,
the Republicans will have the ability to ram through pretty much any legislation that they
want—and sadly, some Democrats cannot always be counted upon to oppose bad legislation.
The Democrats, on the other hand, do have a fighting chance of winning back the Senate.
To hope that they can garner a 60-40 majority probably is unrealistic against Citizens United
money—lots of Citizens United money!
U.S. House of Representatives and State/Local Elections
The entire United States House of Representatives, of course, is up for election every two
years. And the Republicans have won it every time since 1994 except 2006 and 2008, when
the American public was so fed up with the Republicans—after tricking the country into two
hopeless wars—that the electorate finally said, “Enough!”
For decades, the Democrats enjoyed control of the House. Then, something happened in the
1990s. The Republicans figured out that they could purchase the body. That was before the
McCain-Feingold campaign limits and the ensuing Citizens-United case that threw it out.
You will have the opportunity to vote in a race for your House district. It is very unlikely that
the Democrats will re-take the House in this coming general election. But in swing districts,
this can be a start.
The Republican strategy that took back the House—that is, essentially purchased it—in
all but two elections after 1992 worked because Democratic House candidates have a tough
time raising money. The Democratic base is less affluent and their candidate is competing for
money with candidates for governor and president. It works even better for state legislatures.
Republicans figured—correctly—that they had a fighting chance to gain control of state
legislatures by throwing money at the elections. State legislatures redraw district lines in every
year that is divisible by 10. That includes state districts and U.S. House districts. In 2000, and
worse in 2010, the Republicans bought redistricting in materially all Republican-leaning states;
and also did so in a tangible number of Democratic-leading states. That is one significant
reason why the House now has such a strong Republican majority.
Parenthetically, sick and tired of the politics of redistricting—pejoratively called
gerrymandering—several states have created by referendum a politically neutral redistricting
commission. The Republican-controlled Arizona legislature wanted nothing to do with
neutrality in redistricting and filed suit, claiming that the U.S. Constitution’s provision that the
manner of elections, including districting, shall be “prescribed in each State by the Legislature
thereof.” The Supreme Court said in 2015 that Arizona’s independent commission was close
enough. Expect that trend to spread. However, it won’t spread that far by 2020.
The state legislators you elect will, in many cases, be involved in redistricting. Accordingly,
who is elected may have ramifications for well over a decade. It could give the Democrats a
fighting chance to take back the House—or not.
Finally on this topic, the conservatives have taken the same throw-money-at-it approach to
local politics. That has the impact of electing conservative, local politicians who do things like
enact ordinances calculated to prohibit and/or eliminate adult businesses.
The Moral of the Story
Democratic-leaning voters have a tendency to be apathetic, to their own detriment. They also
often have a tougher time voting; Republicans have made sure of that. Republican states have
enacted, amongst other things, voter-ID laws and constrained voting hours so that working
stiffs need to take off work to vote, the functional equivalent of a poll tax.
Nevada, as an example, had a Democratic secretary of state until the 2014 Republican
landslide. It was difficult to imagine an easier place to vote: Many polling places; easy early
voting; easy registration; and so on. Now that it has a Republican in that office, it will be
interesting to see how this coming election will work. One can only picture the cry of state
poverty to justify fewer polling places, long lines, elimination of early voting, and so on.
“But what difference can one vote make?” you ask. Maybe not much. But say you get
involved in a registration drive and a get-out-to-vote campaign. Say you are able to get fifty
Democrat-leaning voters to the polls. That’s probably forty net Democratic votes, at the least.
And say you have twenty-five friends in your precinct that will do the same thing. That’s one
thousand such votes in your precinct. If the same things happens in all of the precincts in your
state legislative district, that easily could sway the outcome of the election.
Democrats can win back the government if they just vote, because there are more of them
than there are Republicans. To do otherwise increases the chokehold that the 1 percent has on
the other 99 percent of us.
Get to work! Vote—and bring your friends.
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Randazza on Candidates (Continued from page 30)that should be a qualification for a job, unless you do that job with
your vagina. But, this feminist pandering is not likely to end once she
is elected. Sanders? He’s my guy, but I recognize that one thing that
comes along with hardcore Liberals is a contingent of feminists and
“politically correct” types.
You need look no further than college and law school campuses to
see the proof. These bastions of liberal thought are some of the most
speech-unfriendly places in the country. You need only consider the
swell of demands for “safe spaces” and “trigger warnings” to see that
Liberalism is no hero to free speech—at least not anymore. Left-wing-
dominated academia is falling over itself to get rid of due process
on campus, as long as that lack of due process is aimed at men or
those who they politically oppose. Left wing academics championed
the infamous anti-porn ordinance in American Booksellers Association,
Inc. v. Hudnut. In that case, left-wing “scholars,” who would be very
much at home with either Hillary or Bernie, pushed a law that defined
“pornography” as a practice that discriminates against women, and
allowed women to treat porn as a violation of their civil rights. Thus,
any woman who felt “harmed” by porn could seek damages through
civil lawsuits. More recently, left-wing academics have pushed to
remove copyright protection for pornography because they see it as
“anti-progressive.”
And who pushed the anti-pornography civil rights ordinances?
Catharine MacKinnon—hardly someone the Trump administration
would welcome over for dinner. However, you can bet Hillary or Bernie
would be more than happy to share an audience with her.
Let’s not forget our current “human trafficking” hysteria, where the
prevailing view is that no woman would ever take her clothes off for
money, unless she is an unwilling sex slave. In this latest trend, the
extreme right and extreme left joined forces to assume every actress in
a porn movie must be the victim of human trafficking.
The adult entertainment industry needs to stop letting the left take it
for granted.
Regardless of your political preferences, if you were to choose a
President solely on the basis of what’s good for the adult entertainment
industry, my presumption is that Trump would be the friendliest
candidate. He’s never been a religious demagogue, and while he tries to
pay lip service to the Christian right, I don’t think they’re going to find
themselves heavily aligned with a man we’ve never actually seen open
a Bible. Following Trump, Sanders is probably the second friendliest
candidate for porn because, at the very least, he would have no use for
the Christian right. However, his administration would likely be filled
with a good amount of censorship-friendly feminists, and that would be
bad for the industry.
Following Bernie, I’d say that Cruz would be the runner-up for worst
serious candidate for porn, as he would likely be a repeat of the George
W. Bush administration.
And in dead last place, Hillary Clinton. Clinton is very comfortable
pandering to whatever constituency she thinks will propel her to power.
She would have no misgivings about pandering to the Christian right
and to feminists. She would certainly be in favor of expansive abortion
rights, but that will leave her with needing to trade something to the
Christians. I predict that she would be more than pleased to offer up
the porn industry as the sacrificial lamb—thus placating the religious
and the feminists in one fell swoop. If she wins the Democratic
nomination, and you are voting only on the issue of “what is good for
the porn industry,” then, you should switch parties and throw your
weight behind Trump. Of course, you may have reasons you don’t want
to do that, but I think that I’ve made the case that “good for the adult
entertainment industry” does not always follow the Party Line.
For a full discussion, see Randazza, Marc J., Freedom of Expression and
Morality Based Impediments to the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights
(January 16, 2016). Nevada Law Journal, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2016. Available at
SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2716892