Republican lawmakers in California have filed a lawsuit asking the State Supreme Court to stop Democrats from moving ahead this week with a plan to redraw congressional districts.
It was the latest move in an escalating national battle over redistricting that began this summer when President Trump asked Texas leaders to help Republicans maintain control of the House of Representatives by reshaping congressional districts and delivering five additional seats for their party.
California Democrats responded on Monday by introducing a package of bills to create new district boundaries that could help Democrats flip five seats in their state. Democratic state lawmakers, who control more than two-thirds of the California Legislature, plan to pass the bills on Thursday and put the proposal before voters in a Nov. 4 special election.
The emergency petition, filed by four Republican state legislators, argues that the State Constitution prohibits the Legislature from acting on the redistricting bills until Sept. 18 because new legislation requires a 30-day review period. The lawmakers said that more time was needed for the public to review the proposal, which would change the way some Asian American and Hispanic communities are represented….
At issue is a technical question of whether a bill is “introduced” at the time it is first assigned a bill number and drafted with preliminary language, or whether it must be fleshed out in full to begin the 30-day clock in the State Constitution. The state’s Constitution also has a rule that requires the final text of a bill be published for 72 hours before lawmakers can vote on it.
In the final weeks of the legislative session, California lawmakers for decades have rewritten bills, top to bottom, in a process colloquially referred to as “gut and amend.”…
The 72-hour rule is a more recent requirement, intended to ensure that such last-minute bills receive at least three days of review. To adhere to that rule, the full Assembly and Senate are waiting until Thursday to vote on the redistricting bills that were introduced on Monday.
Democrats cannot afford to wait beyond this week because of the preparation time that elections officials need for a special election in November….
All posts by Rick Hasen
New Section 2 Lawsuit Filed in Montana
On August 14, 2025, the Chippewa Cree Indians of the Rocky Boy’s Reservation and two Native voters filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana challenging Chouteau County’s unfair, at-large voting system for the Board of County Commissioners. The suit alleges the system unlawfully dilutes the voting strength of Native voters and has denied them any representation on the county commission for more than a decade.
Under the current at-large system, all voters in Chouteau County cast ballots for all three commissioners, instead of electing commissioners by district. As a result, Native voters — who now make up approximately one-third of the county’s voting-age population — have consistently been unable to elect a candidate of their choice. The three current commissioners have all been elected and re-elected under this system since at least 2010.
“We’re filing this lawsuit because Choteau County continues to hold elections in which the Native votes don’t count,” said Chippewa Cree Tribe Chairman Harlan Gopher. “The Chippewa Cree Tribe filed this lawsuit to prevent this local government from trampling on the civil rights of our people. A fair redistricting process must respect the boundaries and voice of our Nation.” …
“Can Federalism Protect Subnational Liberal Democracy from Central Authoritarianism?”
Jim Gardner has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Liberal democracy is eroding rapidly around the globe, including in the United States, raising alarming questions about whether American democratic institutions will endure. Nevertheless, some have speculated that federalism may protect liberal democracy at the subnational level when the central government turns authoritarian. This article argues that such optimism is premature: there is no a priori basis on which to predict the effect of central democratic backsliding on the quality of subnational democracy. Federal theory does suggest that internal heterogeneity in basic political commitments is likely to produce an escalating pattern of severe and possibly intractable intergovernmental conflict. Empirical evidence bears this out: while subnational governments often resist nationally authoritarian policies, authoritarian central governments tend to punish and suppress this resistance. Nevertheless, although successful subnational resistance in particular cases cannot be ruled out, the most likely outcome of central democratic backsliding appears to be some kind of competitive authoritarianism regardless of whether the state is federal or unitary. Thus, federalism may offer little meaningful protection against long-term democratic backsliding. Additional research is needed to reach firmer conclusions.
Looking forward to reading this!
“Trump vows to change how elections are run. The US Constitution doesn’t give him that power”
“Republicans say they’ll sue to block California redistricting plan. Do they have a case?”
Bob Egelko for the SF Chronicle:
“By concocting this partisan redistricting scam, Gavin Newsom and Democrat politicians are openly violating the California Constitution and their oath of office,” DeMaio said in a news release. “Any vote … on this corrupt plan would be unlawful and unconstitutional.”
He argued that the state Constitution, under a ballot measure approved by the voters in 2008, allows only a bipartisan commission to draw district lines and does not permit them to be redrafted for political purposes.
The National Republican Congressional Committee also said Newsom’s plan would be challenged in court as well as the ballot box. Newsom “is shredding California’s Constitution and disenfranchising voters to prop up his Presidential ambitions,” Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., chair of the committee, said on X.
But Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UCLA who has written widely on election law issues, said the Legislature can ask California voters to change the state Constitution by placing an amendment on the ballot with two-thirds majority votes in each house. Newsom and legislative Democrats introduced their measure on Monday.
“If it’s a constitutional amendment approved by voters, then there is no state law problem with amending the earlier constitutional amendment,” Hasen said….
Another election law professor, Justin Levitt of Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, who was a national policy adviser for democracy and voting rights under President Joe Biden, said DeMaio was correct that the California Constitution currently prohibits legislators from redrawing district lines.
“But that’s exactly why the Legislature is proposing a constitutional amendment,” Levitt said. “And I’m not aware of any limitation on the Legislature to propose such an amendment for the voters to consider.”…
Hasen of UCLA said Newsom’s proposal might be challenged on other legal grounds, such as the rule limiting California ballot measures to a single subject. But he said opponents’ strongest argument would probably be a political one – that the voters should reject a plan to suspend the nonpartisan redistricting program they approved 17 years ago.
DeMaio appeared to agree on Monday.
“If we stop it in court, fine,” he said at a press conference in the state Capitol. “But more than likely it will have to be stopped at the ballot box.”…
ELB Book Corner: Karen Sebold: “The Foxes Are Guarding the Henhouse: How Elected Officials Weakened the Federal Election Commission”
I am pleased to welcome Karen Sebold to ELB Book Corner, writing about her new book, Evaluating Campaign Finance Oversight: An Assessment of the Federal Election Commission. (Use that link with code LXFANDF30 for a 30 percent discount). Here is the second of three posts:
I want to thank Rick Hasen for the opportunity to post about my new book, “Evaluating Campaign Finance Oversight: An Assessment of the Federal Election Commission.” My posts explore the book’s main themes using edited excerpts from the text.
Today’s post examines one of the primary themes of the book: campaign finance laws are only effective if the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is effective. In the U.S., the FEC is the primary agency enforcing campaign finance law. The FEC regulates and oversees the campaign finances of presidential candidates and members of Congress. These elected officials are the primary fundraisers and spenders of campaign contributions in U.S. elections; therefore, they, or their surrogates, are also the primary focus of FEC investigations. These officials could easily exploit the agency, as they control its administrative resources. This leads many observers to believe that the foxes are guarding the henhouse (Oldaker 1986; La Forge 1996; Sheppard 2007).
In my book, I illustrate how the agency’s resources do not match the major increases in election spending. Since 2000, most election cycles have surpassed the previous cycle’s spending level, with over $5 billion spent in the 2000 election and more than $18 billion by the 2020 election (https://www.opensecrets.org/elections-overview/cost-of-election). Yet, the FEC’s budget and staff have minimally increased, if not stagnated, over the last two decades. The structure of the agency and legal requirements for decision-making exacerbate the issues at the agency. The agency is led by a panel of six partisan commissioners, with up to three Democrats and up to three Republicans. Four commissioners must agree on a decision when enforcing campaign finance law. The requirement that four commissioners agree to an enforcement decision, while only three are allowed from one party, is challenging, especially given that the commissioners are deciding on claims of potential violations against their parties, candidates, or the independent political committees and nonprofit groups that support them. If an investigation is blocked or an enforcement action is stopped because four of the commissioners can not agree, that is as good as getting a case dismissed for the alleged violator. According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the GOP commissioners employed this tactic 29 times as of March 2024 to block the FEC from investigating or taking action against President Trump (https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-investigations/gop-commissioners-have-single-handedly-blocked-fec-action-against-trump-29-times/).
The appointment of commissioners has been notoriously a slow process that often leaves the FEC without a quorum (i.e., four commissioners). This leads to a partisan imbalance from the appointment of too few commissioners (especially Democratic commissioners), as the Republicans have dominated the commissioner panel for years. I found these Republican commissioners were more likely to vote against enforcing the law. Critics of the agency (La Forge 1996; Skahan 2018) argue that the commissioner panel is structurally flawed, and as a result, alleged violators often go unchecked. The past few years do not inspire hope that it will improve, as the foxes in charge of the agency continue to undermine it. The FEC was essentially shut down during the majority of Trump’s first administration, and as of May 2025, it is now shut down again due to a lack of a quorum. In December 2024, Republican Sean Cooksey left before his term expired. In February 2025, Trump fired Democratic Commissioner Weintraub. Weintraub was serving well past the expiration of her term, but President Trump has given no indication that he will be appointing her replacement anytime soon. Republican Commissioner Allen Dickerson left in April 2025 before his term expired. The numerous shutdowns at the FEC lead me to believe the easiest way for the foxes to guard the henhouse is to keep the hens out of it.
UPDATE: “Dickerson and Cooksey did not exit early as mistakenly stated in the post but left when their terms expired.”
References:
La Forge, Amanda S. 1996. “The Toothless Tiger – Structural, Political and Legal Barriers to Effective FEC Enforcement: An Overview and Recommendations.” The Administrative Law Journal 10, 1: 351- 384.
Oldaker, William, C. 1986. “Of Philosophers, Foxes, and Finances: Can the Federal Election Commission Ever Do an Adequate Job?” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 486, 1: 132-145.
Sheppard, Maurice C. 2007. The Federal Election Commission: Policy, Politics, and Administration. Lanham, MD.: University of America Press Inc.
Skahan, Kelly Ann. 2018. “Ineffective by Design: A Critique of Campaign Finance Law Enforcement in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom.” Washington International Law Journal 27, 2: 577-607.
California Democrats’ Proposed Retaliatory Gerrymander Against Texas Could Be Triggered if Another Democratic State Engages in Its Own Partisan Gerrymander
California Democratic leaders are preparing to put a measure before voters that would temporarily suspend congressional redistricting maps drawn by an independent commission for the rest of the decade as retaliation for Texas (or other Republican) states engaging in their own Republican gerrymanders. We’ve been told that the law would be written with a trigger, so that if California approves it, the measure would only kick in as a tit-for-tat against a Republican gerrymander in Texas or elsewhere.
Yet this released bill, which is perhaps still a work in progress, would seem to kick in if any state does any mid-decade redistricting, even if that’s another Democratic state going a gerrymander. (There’s an exception for court ordered redistricting and a special rule for Ohio that is already slated to redraw their maps). Here’s the relevant text of the trigger:
(b) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Constitution or existing law, the single-member districts for Congress reflected in Assembly Bill 604 of the 2025–26 Regular Session shall temporarily be used for every congressional election for a term of office commencing on or after the date this subdivision becomes operative and before the certification of new congressional boundary lines drawn by the Citizens Redistricting Commission pursuant to subdivision (e).
(c) (1) Subdivision (b) shall become operative only if Texas, Florida, or another state adopts a new congressional district map that takes effect after August 1, 2025, and before January 1, 2031, and such redistricting is not required by a federal court order.
(2) The condition described in paragraph (1) shall include a new congressional district map adopted by the State of Ohio only if the map is adopted pursuant to division (F)(3) of Section 1 of Article XIX of the Ohio Constitution.
Now maybe this is just a drafting glitch and it will be fixed before it goes to the voters. But one could easily see a Democratic-dominated state such as Illinois or Maryland tweak their maps JUST to trigger the California re-redistrict. It could also be triggered if a state voluntarily makes changes in light of Supreme Court rulings on the Voting Rights Act or otherwise.
Stay tuned.
“The collapse of Common Cause’s vision for US democracy”
No organization has led the effort for redistricting reform more than Common Cause. I have known many Common Cause leaders, both nationally and in California where I live. They have all been good and admirable people who cared deeply about safeguarding and improving US democracy. But from my perspective, Common Cause has often been the “conservatives” in the political reform movement, pushing tepid reform that really didn’t accomplish all that much, and usually refusing to support more fundamental reform, such as instant runoff voting/ranked choice voting or proportional representation. It took a number of years for Common Cause to come around on other commonsense reforms, such as automatic voter registration and public financing of campaigns, which it now supports but in my experience their support often has been lukewarm and unreliable, with occasional exceptions.
Still, their leadership for redistricting reforms, especially nonpartisan independent redistricting commissions (IRCs), has been unwavering. Passing political reform is hard work, yet Common Cause leaders plugged away at it year after year, decade after decade, and for that they deserve praise. IRCs have been their signature reform for making US democracy more fair and representative, their leadership on display across many campaigns. In a recent policy statement commenting on this unfolding mid-decade debacle, Common Cause leadership declared: “Independent redistricting commissions are still the best mechanism we know of for achieving fair representation.”
And now that strategy is in utter tatters….
Q & A with Me in New York Magazine: “The Supreme Court Could Supercharge the GOP’s Redistricting Power Grab”
I spoke with New York’s Intelligencer‘s Nia Prater:
What are the potential ramifications if the Court weakens Section Two or ultimately does away with it?
First of all, it would be a huge blow for minority representation. A big part of the reason that we have such diverse legislative bodies, including Congress and state legislatures, is because the Voting Rights Act requires the drawing of districts to give minority voters the same opportunities as other voters to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of their choice. So we would see much whiter legislative bodies, including Congress, if the Court got rid of Section Two. But it would also, as I said in relation to your earlier question about Texas, give states, including southern states that have long been found to have engaged in race discrimination in voting, a freer hand in drawing partisan gerrymanders. Those gerrymanders help white Republicans and hurt minority voters and Democrats. And so, there would be a much greater chance to engage in the kind of partisan gerrymandering that we’re seeing being pushed now in Texas all across areas where Republicans have control of the state government.
“Newsmax pays $67 million to settle defamation case linked to 2020 election coverage”
NPR:
Newsmax will pay $67 million to settle one of the last outstanding defamation lawsuits against a news organization for airing false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.
Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems – the same voting-technology company that had received a $787 million settlement from Fox News over its election coverage – brought the lawsuit against Newsmax. A trial was scheduled to begin in October.
In the lawsuit, filed in the months after the 2020 election, Dominion accused the cable news network of spreading false claims that the company’s voting technology had been manipulated to help Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. Like other right-wing news networks, Newsmax featured Trump allies who promoted these conspiracies, including former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell and supporter Mike Lindell of My Pillow.
Newsmax announced the settlement in an Aug. 15 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the document, the network paid $27 million of the settlement on that day; the rest will be paid by January 2027.
Multiple court rulings and investigations by election officials have found no widespread fraud was present in the 2020 election; even still, these debunked claims were still being echoed by factions of Trump supporters in 2024. Dominion has said the election lies caused the company and its employees extensive harm, including death threats and lost revenue….
No, President Trump Can’t Ban Mail in Ballots or Voting Machines, as His Truth Social Post Suggests He Might Try to Do
This morning President Trump put out a post on Truth Social that shares some of his usual and debunked conspiracy theories about voter fraud in elections. Part of the post says that he will “lead a movement” to get rid of mail-in ballots and voting machines. Nothing wrong or illegal about that, and there can be a debate about these things.
But part of the post says that Trump is going to sign an executive order purporting to direct how the midterm elections will be run, on the theory that states are merely an “agent” of the federal government in counting and tabulating the votes. This is wrong and dangerous. TheConstitution does not give the President any control over federal elections. Federal courts have recognized this in the context of his first EO on elections issued months ago–and part put on hold through preliminary injunctions.
CONGRESS in Article I, Section 4 has the power to make or alter state rules for the conduct of congressional elections, but even this congressional power does not extend to state and local elections—witness how Arizona has different rules for voter registration and proof of citizenship applicable in states vs federal elections. CONGRESS also has the power to ensure certain equality in the conduct of elections, for example, to enforce the 15th Amendment’s guarantee against race discrimination in elections. The PRESIDENT has the power to “take care” that these laws are faithfully executed, but that is not the power to take over state elections. It does not make states agents of the federal government, much less agents of the executive branch.
I will have more to say about this, but I will say now that the danger of interference in the midterm elections is real, and this is a dangerous step in this direction. The timing may be connected to trying to distract from the debacle of the Russia-Ukraine war negotiations, but I was expecting more like this and now is the time to be prepared.
ELB Book Corner: Karen Sebold: “Why Elon Musk Got Away with His $1 Million Give-Away: Loose Campaign Finance Laws and Even Looser Enforcement”
I am pleased to welcome Karen Sebold to ELB Book Corner, writing about her new book, Evaluating Campaign Finance Oversight: An Assessment of the Federal Election Commission. (Use that link with code LXFANDF30 for a 30 percent discount). Here is the first of three posts:
I want to thank Rick Hasen for the opportunity to post about my new book, “Evaluating Campaign Finance Oversight: An Assessment of the Federal Election Commission.” My posts discuss the main themes of the book, using edited excerpts from the text.
Today’s post explores one of the primary themes of the book: loose campaign finance laws and even laxer enforcement. Campaign finance is a complicated issue that involves a trade-off between the collective good of fair and honest elections and the constitutional right to participate freely in the political system. Congress struggles with what the law should restrict and what it should protect, and the Supreme Court and federal courts have made it challenging to limit political campaign finance activity, as they often uphold the constitutional right to participate freely in the political system when making decisions on campaign finance. This has led the U.S. to develop a loose campaign finance system that allows various entities to raise and spend money for electoral purposes, including political candidates, political parties, interest groups, wealthy donors, non-profits, and businesses, to influence the outcomes of elections. There is now a regime of outside groups that galvanize vast resources for electioneering activities to shape the outcomes of elections. In the 2024 election cycle, these groups spent over $4 billion on the federal races (https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/by_group). There are also numerous legal “gray areas” in campaign finance law that give rise to disputes about what can and cannot be done regarding campaign spending.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) in 2010 is often cited as a significant reason for loosening the campaign finance laws, as it removed prior spending restrictions on independent groups funded by corporations, labor unions, and wealthy donors as long as there was no coordination with the electoral candidates or political parties. Of course, most ELB Book Corner readers may be aware that this legal decision has been loosely adhered to, as electoral candidates are now increasingly relying on independent groups for campaign messaging and get-out-the-vote efforts. The Brennan Center for Justice highlighted how, during the 2024 election, when Donald Trump was trailing Kamala Harris in the money race, he “was able to compensate for this disadvantage by outsourcing much of his campaign to his super PACs and other outside groups funded by a handful of wealthy donors” (https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/fifteen-years-later-citizens-united-defined-2024-election). Of course, who can forget the notorious $1 million a day giveaway to voters sponsored by Elon Musk’s America PAC in the swing states, aimed at encouraging citizens to register to vote. Some election administration experts believe it is tricky to say this was a violation of the law because, technically, Musk was not paying people to vote or register to vote, but instead asked people to sign a petition promising to register to vote (https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/musk-1-million-voter-petition-lottery-falls-legal-gray-area-experts-s-rcna176362).
Other than a warning from the U.S. Justice Department that the sweepstakes may violate federal law (https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/23/politics/elon-musk-justice-department-letter). Musk has faced no other consequences for this brazen and potentially illegal violation of federal campaign finance law. It is unlikely that the FEC, the primary agency for overseeing and enforcing campaign finance law, will hold Musk accountable, given the loose legal framework under which the agency operates and the structure of the agency’s decision-making panel. My new book examines the FEC’s structure and how it operates, illustrating how campaign finance oversight is challenging due to the loosening of campaign finance laws, limited resources, and the hyper-partisanship at the FEC. The FEC is led by a panel of six partisan commissioners, with up to three Democrats and up to three Republicans. At least four commissioners must agree when making a decision on most agency decisions, making it easier to block a decision than to agree to one.
“Russia is quietly churning out fake content posing as US news”
A pro-Russian propaganda group is taking advantage of high-profile news events to spread disinformation, and it’s spoofing reputable organizations — including news outlets, nonprofits and government agencies — to do so.
According to misinformation tracker NewsGuard, the campaign — which has been tracked by Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center as Storm-1679 since at least 2022 — takes advantage of high-profile events to pump out fabricated content from various publications, including ABC News, BBC and most recently POLITICO.
This year, the group has focused on flooding the internet with fake content surrounding the German SNAP elections and the upcoming Moldovan parliamentary vote. The campaign also sought to plant false narratives around the war in Ukraine ahead of President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
McKenzie Sadeghi, AI and foreign influence editor at NewsGuard, said in an interview that since early 2024, the group has been publishing “pro-Kremlin content en masse in the form of videos” mimicking these organizations.’“If even just one or a few of their fake videos go viral per year, that makes all of the other videos worth it,” she said.
While online Russian influence operations have existed for many years, security experts say artificial intelligence is making it harder for people to discern what’s real.
Storm-1679 developed a distinct technique in 2024 for combining videos with AI-generated audio impersonations of celebrity and expert voices, according to Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center….
“$5,000-Per-Plate Dinner Tests Museum Ban on Political Fund-Raisers”
At a private event hosted by Senator Dave McCormick, Republican of Pennsylvania, donors wandered through a sculpture hall at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh and partied with their cowboy hats on at a dinner where each plate cost $5,000.
The aftermath was less celebratory.
Dozens of employees at the Carnegie Museums sent an open letter to trustees, saying that the fund-raiser violated guidelines meant to safeguard the institution from partisan activities. The money raised was not directed to McCormick, who was elected in November, but to a nonprofit with ties to a political action committee he established. The organization supports conservative policy goals in energy and manufacturing.
Weeks after last month’s event, the museum network’s chief executive, Steven Knapp, acknowledged to employees that it was a violation of policy, accusing the fund-raiser’s organizers of providing misleading information and promising to contact McCormick.
“The people working for him have put us in a terrible situation, have really damaged our relationships internally and externally, and we didn’t deserve that,” Knapp said in a staff meeting, according to an audio recording obtained by The New York Times. He added, “I’m so outraged by what occurred to us that I would be just as happy to say, ‘No more politicians, period.’”
McCormick’s office did not respond to a request for comment….