Speaking on USERRA

Edward Still and Kathryn Piscitelli will be giving a presentation on "Trying a USERRA Case" at the annual meeting of the National Employment Lawyers Association in Atlanta, GA, 26-28 June 2008.

On a panel at "Working in the Public Interest" Conference

On 30 and 31 March, I will be a member of a panel discussing felon disfranchisement on the University of Georgia School of Law Conference on Working in the Public Interest. The Conference organizers describe it this way:

Entirely student organized, WIPI seeks to bring together eminent practitioners in their respective fields, students, and faculty to discuss practical approaches to lawyering which can best serve the poor. Practical methods of challenging poverty are often not covered in traditional law school courses. This conference seeks to remedy that and provide dynamic, creative ways to combat poverty through the vehicle of the law.

For more information about the Conference, including the schedule of panels, go to the WIPI site.

New Jersey newspaper quotes Ed Still on Hatch Act's effect

The Asbury Park Press reports: New fundraising restrictions on Monmouth County GOP Chairman Adam Puharic have led prominent Republicans to question whether Puharic can continue leading the party. ...

Puharic said his duties as GOP chairman have been altered because of his new job as a federal employee. Puharic began work last week as a public affairs officer at the Newark office of the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. His salary is $91,700.

Because of the federal Hatch Act — which spells out permitted and prohibited political activity of executive branch em-ployees of the federal government — Puharic said he is no longer directly participating in fundraising for the party. ...

The new arrangement could be problematic for Puharic, according to Edward Still, an Alabama elections attorney who maintains a Web site and blog called Votelaw.

"This will mean that if he even signs a fundraising letter or puts his name on fundraising material, that can be considered soliciting under the Hatch Act," Still said. "There's going to be a whole range of things he can't do. He's sort of going to become half a chairman." -- APP.COM - GOP split on whether chairman should resign | Asbury Park Press Online

Commentary on absentee voting by our overseas citizens

My commentary on the bill that would set up a special method for overseas voters to cast a runoff ballot was published by the Birmingham News last Sunday. A complete copy of the piece is here.

Birmingham News publishes commentary on Gooden case

The Birmingham News has published a commentary by my co-counsel, Ryan Paul Haygood, on our Gooden v. Worley case. Ryan discusses the background of Mr. Gooden's case and what we are seeking. He notes that Secretary of State Nancy Worley is "is flouting Alabama's constitution and laws by advising county registrars throughout Alabama to refuse to register" people like Gooden who have been convicted of crimes that the Alabama Constitution does not list as disfranchising.

For a complete copy of the editorial commentary, click here.

Edward Still quoted by the Orlando Sentinel on campaign finance

In a story entitled "Campaign says Harris won't turn to inheritance," the Orlando Sentinel quotes Edward Still on the confusion surrounding Katherine Harris' changed story about where she will get the money to run her campaign for U.S. Senate.

The paper reports:

In an effort to jump-start her sputtering Senate campaign, Rep. Katherine Harris went on national television invoking the memory of her late father and saying the money he left her will form the financial foundation of her challenge to Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson.

Now the Harris campaign says that's not the case.

Campaign spokeswoman Morgan Dobbs said Thursday that Harris will sell her existing assets rather than rely on money from her father, a bank executive who died in January.

In trying to understand why Harris might change the source of the campaign funds from her inheritance to her other property, the Sentinel reporter called Edward Still:

Ed Still, a Birmingham, Ala., attorney who specializes in voting law and campaign-finance law, said he was unaware of any legal reason that might prompt Harris to use existing assets rather than inheritance money.

The attorney, who maintains an election law Web site, said, "As long as the money's hers, it doesn't matter whether she earned it or it was left to her." Still said it may be that the estate money will take time to make its way through the court.

A one-page version of the story is here.