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“Biden, Trump will be on November ballot, DeWine says”
A more optimistic note on Ohio’s handling of the Biden ballot mess (h/t Derek Muller):
‘DeWine told 10TV that he doesn’t think anyone should worry.
“We’ve got some technicalities that are going on, but it’s going to get worked out so no one should really have any concern,” DeWine said. “They’re going to have a choice this November. They’re going to be able to pick one of these two to be our president.”’
“Why Losing Political Power Now Feels Like ‘Losing Your Country’”
Tom Edsall in the N.Y. Times reviewing the social science on why it’s so hard to undo the emotional feelings associated with “affective” polarization. His column leads with Rachel Kleinfeld’s important work on this topic. I wish, however, Edsall had discussed the kind of institutional reforms to counteract polarization that Rick Pildes, among others, has been pursuing. Rick’s Dunwody lecture last week highlighted five institutional reforms that would mitigate the effect of affective polarization on the capacity of the country’s democratic system to engage in effective governance. As Rick said in his lecture (and I’m paraphrasing here from memory, as I was fortunate to be in the audience), if he could achieve just one reform in the effort to combat affective polarization, it would be to replace partisan primaries with the kind of nonpartisan primaries employed in Alaska as part of its “top 4” system with Ranked Choice Voting. This is why efforts, like the one currently underway in Arizona to adopt this kind of nonpartisan primary, are so important. Edsall ends his column on a negative note: “as long as Trump is the Republican nominee for president, and as long as the prospect of a majority-minority country continues to propel right-wing populism, the odds for reducing the bitter animosity that now characterizes American politics remain slim.” It would have been better, in my view, if he at least mentioned the most promising antidote for the problems of governance that affective polarization causes.
The Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School Is Hiring
The Election Law Clinic at Harvard Law School is hiring a Clinical Instructor: an attorney with at least three years of experience who is ready to train a new generation of election lawyers. The job posting is on the ELC Careers page, and the official HLS description is here. Please consider applying!
“Alabama senate passes bill to fix date so President Biden can be on ballot”
AL.com reports. “It could get final passage as early as next week.” It “bipartisan support and no opposition.” Maybe now Ohio can be embarrassed enough to do the same. For Ohio’s mess, see Can Ohio overcome dysfunction to fix Biden ballot conflict? It’s unclear.
“Ted Cruz could be liable for taxes on payments from his iHeartMedia podcast, experts say”
That’s the headline of this Houston Chronicle article, but the body of the article (which is behind a paywall) notes that there is a disagreement among experts on the point. Because the podcast payments went to a PAC, there’s a complaint filed with the FEC that Cruz violated campaign finance laws by soliciting money for the PAC.