Gabriel Sterling, a leading defender of Georgia’s voting system who famously called for President Donald Trump to condemn election threats in 2020, entered the Republican race for secretary of state on Thursday.
Sterling, 54, immediately becomes the most well-known candidate in the race to succeed Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, his former boss….
Sterling garnered the national spotlight in December 2020, when he stood at the steps of the Georgia Capitol and told Trump to speak against threats to election workers.
“Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get killed. Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions or this language,” Sterling said Dec. 1, 2020. “This has to stop. We need you to step up.”
Five weeks later, on Jan. 6, 2021, a pro-Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol turned deadly.
Sterling, who was chief operating officer for the secretary of state’s office until he resigned this summer, is a lifelong Republican but became the target of conservatives who distrust Georgia’s election equipment….
All posts by Rick Hasen
“In Texas, a Senate Race Turns Brutal Before It’s Even Declared; Attorney General Ken Paxton is waging ‘legal war’ against Beto O’Rourke, a possible Democratic rival, threatening jail and an investigation that could bankrupt his organization.”
For the past month, two Texas political titans — the attorney general Ken Paxton and the former congressman Beto O’Rourke — have been locked in an escalating legal drama, complete with threats of jail time, courtroom showdowns and the possible bankrupting of a Texas voter registration effort.
The clashes have direct implications for the 2026 Senate race, given that Mr. Paxton is already a Republican candidate in the primary against Senator John Cornyn, and Mr. O’Rourke has been openly mulling a run as a Democrat. It has also served as an unusually direct example of how President Trump’s unapologetic use of government powers to pursue partisan ends has spread to political conflicts in the rest of the country.
More tangibly, the attorney general’s attacks threaten the future of Mr. O’Rourke’s political organization, Powered by People, which has spent nearly $400,000, about $100,000 a week, on litigation so far.
“He may very well be able to bankrupt the most successful voter registration program in the state,” Mr. O’Rourke said in a telephone interview. “This is weaponizing the political system to persecute your political enemies.”
It started last month as an offshoot of Mr. Trump’s push to have Republicans redraw congressional lines in Texas. Mr. Paxton directed his office to investigate Mr. O’Rourke’s political organization over its role in raising money for Democratic state lawmakers who had staged a walkout to stymie the redistricting push.
It quickly escalated to Mr. Paxton asking a Texas court to throw Mr. O’Rourke in jail. The legal wrangling has sprawled across the state to courtrooms in El Paso, Fort Worth and Austin.
“No matter how much Beto and Powered by People try and take us down in court, I will continue to wage legal war,” Mr. Paxton said in a news release last month.
Mr. Paxton was not made available for an interview, but his office provided a statement: “Beto’s desperate, unprecedented legal maneuvers will not stand, and there will be accountability for the Beto Buyoff of Texas politicians,” he said….
“House Republicans form new subcommittee to probe Jan. 6”
House Republicans voted on Wednesday to establish a new subcommittee to reinvestigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, moving to reopen one of the most polarizing chapters in American politics.
Lawmakers slipped a resolution into a rule on the House floor that would establish the subcommittee, which is likely to be headed by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Georgia). Republicans have complained that the original probe, which was led by Democrats, was biased against President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly denied he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
Loudermilk has already helmed one inquiry into Jan. 6: He used a subcommittee of the House Administration Committee to conduct a follow-up to the Democratic-led investigation after Republicans retook control of the House in 2023.
“We’re going to continue the work that we did last time, which is looking at the evidence to still try to understand: How did the Capitol get breached? There was a huge security failure here,” Loudermilk said.
Democrats said they weren’t aware the resolution had been added to the rule until it was debated in the House Rules Committee on Tuesday night.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), a member of the first committee that investigated the attack on the Capitol, said in a statement: “We welcome yet another chance to remind Americans of House Republicans’ ongoing complicity with — and embarrassing apologetics for — MAGA’s violent insurrection against Congress and Vice-President Mike Pence and Trump’s sinister attempt to overthrow a presidential election.”
The resolution would establish a select subcommittee under the House Judiciary Committee with a total of eight members to be appointed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and not more than three to be appointed “in consultation” with the Democratic minority. Loudermilk said he believed Democrats would not be constrained in their choice of appointees….
“In rare interviews, federal judges criticize Supreme Court’s handling of Trump cases”
Lawrence Hurley for NBC News:
Federal judges are frustrated with the Supreme Court for increasingly overturning lower court rulings involving the Trump administration with little or no explanation, with some worried the practice is undermining the judiciary at a sensitive time.
Some judges believe the Supreme Court, and in particular Chief Justice John Roberts, could be doing more to defend the integrity of their work as President Donald Trump and his allies harshly criticize those who rule against him and as violent threats against judges are on the rise.
In rare interviews with NBC News, a dozen federal judges — appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents, including Trump, and serving around the country — pointed to a pattern they say has recently emerged:
Lower court judges are handed contentious cases involving the Trump administration. They painstakingly research the law to reach their rulings. When they go against Trump, administration officials and allies criticize the judges in harsh terms. The government appeals to the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority.
And then the Supreme Court, in emergency rulings, swiftly rejects the judges’ decisions with little to no explanation.
Emergency rulings used to be rare. But their number has dramatically increased in recent years.
Ten of the 12 judges who spoke to NBC News said the Supreme Court should better explain those rulings, noting that the terse decisions leave lower court judges with little guidance for how to proceed. But they also have a new and concerning effect, the judges said, validating the Trump administration’s criticisms. A short rebuttal from the Supreme Court, they argue, makes it seem like they did shoddy work and are biased against Trump.
“It is inexcusable,” a judge said of the Supreme Court justices. “They don’t have our backs.”
All 12 judges spoke on condition that they not be identifiable, some because it is considered unwise to publicly criticize the justices who ultimately decide whether to uphold their rulings and others because of the risk of threats.
Judges are increasingly targeted, with some facing bomb threats, “swattings” and other harassment. Judges especially involved in high-profile cases — and their families — have reported receiving violent threats…..
e Supreme Court has an obligation to explain rulings in a way the public can understand, a third judge said, adding that when the court so frequently rules for the administration in emergency cases without fully telling people why, it sends a signal. The court has had strong left-leaning majorities in the past, but what is different now is the role emergency cases are playing in public discourse.
The Supreme Court, that judge said, is effectively endorsing Miller’s claims that the judiciary is trying to subvert the presidency.
“It’s almost like the Supreme Court is saying it is a ‘judicial coup,’” the judge said.
Not all judges who were interviewed shared that view. Some were more reluctant to criticize the justices.
A judge appointed by President Barack Obama said that while the Supreme Court could do more to explain itself, some lower court judges had been out of line in blocking Trump policies.
“Certainly, there is a strong sense in the judiciary among the judges ruling on these cases that the court is leaving them out to dry,” he said. “They are partially right to feel the way they feel.”
But, the judge added, “the whole ‘Trump derangement syndrome’ is a real issue. As a result, judges are mad at what Trump is doing or the manner he is going about things; they are sometimes forgetting to stay in their lane.”….
Very Sad News: Ed Still Has Passed Away
Ed was a great lawyer and a kind and gentle man. From the LDF announcement:
The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) mourns the loss of Edward Still, an attorney whose legal advocacy in voting rights and redistricting transformed democracy in Alabama and across the nation. Over the course of his illustrious five-decade career, Mr. Still led powerful voting rights litigation and advocacy, representing Black voters and other voters of color in more than 200 cases under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Mr. Still passed away at 79 years old on September 1, 2025.
“We are profoundly saddened by the loss of attorney Edward Still, a legendary voting rights advocate and close legal partner of LDF,” said Todd A. Cox, LDF Associate Director-Counsel. “Mr. Still’s tireless commitment to protecting the rights of Black communities in Alabama helped build political power and strengthen our nation’s democracy. With a sharp legal mind and an extraordinary spirit, Mr. Still advanced the fulfillment of America’s most foundational values of equality and justice for all. We extend our deepest condolences to Mr. Still’s family and loved ones. His legacy will endure through the continued fight for a fair and inclusive democracy.”
Mr. Still began his legal career in Tuscaloosa in 1971, later practicing in Birmingham for more than two decades before serving as Director of the Voting Rights Project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, D.C., from 1997 to 2001. He subsequently worked as Special Counsel at Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky LLP before returning to Birmingham, where he continued his work on behalf of communities across Alabama and beyond.
For more than fifty years, Mr. Still led groundbreaking litigation to solidify the promise of full democratic participation for Alabama communities. Mr. Still was part of the legal team in City of Mobile v. Bolden, the Supreme Court case that led to Congress amending the Voting Rights Act to strengthen its protections against racial discrimination in voting in 1982. He then helped litigate Dillard v. Crenshaw, the landmark case that transformed local elections throughout Alabama to allow Black representation in local government. Mr. Still maintained a close relationship with LDF for many years through voting rights and redistricting litigation, including serving as co-counsel on a number of cases including Dillard v. Crenshaw, Mobile v. Bolden, Escambia County v. McMillan, Shelby v. Holder, Pensacola v. Jenkins, Hayden v. Pataki, Bozeman v. Lambert, Reno v. Bossier Parish School Board, and Cromartie v. Hunt.
Mr. Still also advised Alabama cities on redistricting, served as general counsel to the Alabama Democratic Party, and played a key role in major election contests, including representing former Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley. His expertise and dedication made him one of the nation’s leading voices in redistricting and voting rights law.
Ugh: “Trump’s DOJ seeks voting equipment in Missouri ahead of 2026 election”
A top official in President Donald Trump’s Justice Department recently sought access to voting equipment used by two Republican clerks in Missouri during the 2020 election, an unusual request from federal officials amid continued efforts by the president to malign the integrity of the nation’s voting systems.
Trump overwhelmingly won each of his three elections in Missouri, yet many of his supporters there and elsewhere continue to champion the president’s false claim that voting equipment was rigged against him in 2020 and that ballots should be tallied by hand. The Trump administration, working with an intermediary, previously sought access to voting equipment in Colorado, but the effort in Missouri appears to originate directly from the Justice Department.
The two Missouri clerks rejected the request from Andrew “Mac” Warner, a top official in the Justice Department’s civil rights division and a former West Virginia secretary of state who has embraced false claims about the 2020 election. One of the clerks cited state statutes that restrict who can access voting equipment, and the other told Warner he no longer has the Dominion Voting Systems equipment he was looking for.
“They wanted to test a machine that was used during the 2020 election,” Jasper County Clerk Charlie Davis said in an interview last week with The Washington Post. “I just told him we upgraded our machines. Our vendor has all of the old machines so we don’t have access.”.
Days later, Davis got a call from his friend Jay Ashcroft, who oversaw the 2020 and 2024 elections as Missouri’s secretary of state. Ashcroft did not describe his interest in the machines, or whether he was working with federal authorities, Davis recalled. Ashcroft, the son of former U.S. attorney general John Ashcroft, urged Davis to cooperate with the Justice Department and wondered if he would change his mindif he was given a replacement machine, according to Davis. Davis told him he no longer had the equipment….
“Money, Politics, and the First Amendment”
This looks to be a great hybrid event at the University of Wisconsin’s State Democracy Research Initiative on October 3.
“Richard Bernstein: The Trump Administration’s Arguments About the National Guard Threaten the 2026 Elections”
Yesterday, federal District Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the Trump Administration’s federalization of the National Guard in Los Angeles to assist in immigration law enforcement violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which is 18 U.S.C. section 1385. The Posse Comitatus Act bars use of the military for law enforcement, “except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress.” The Trump Administration argued that the National Guard authorization statute on which it relied—10 U.S.C. section 12406(3)—is an express exception. Judge Breyer’s ruling to the contrary, at pages 26-32 of his decision, was his core holding. Although the Los Angeles deployment was not about elections, if an appellate court adopts certain arguments made by the Trump Administration in that case, such a decision could set our country on a path to military interference in the 2026 elections.
It would be criminal for any Administration to use the military to interfere with voting or vote counting in any election. In particular, 18 U.S.C. sections 592 and 593 (“Sections 592 and 593”) criminalize both having troops at the polls and military interference with voting, conducting elections, or election officers. These statutes apply to use of both the regular military and members of National Guard units “called into Federal service.” 10 U.S.C section 12405; see also 10 U.S.C. section 10106. Although Sections 592 and 593 apply only to officers and members of the military, 18 U.S.C. section 2 also makes it criminal for others—for example, a member of the Cabinet or a White House official—to aid, abet, counsel, command, induce, procure, or willfully cause violations of Sections 592 and 593. And 18 U.S.C. Section 371 makes it criminal for both military and non-military officials to conspire to violate Sections 592 and 593.
But, in the Los Angeles case, in addition to the Trump Administration’s expansive interpretation of 10 U.S.C. section 12046(3), the Administration has raised three arguments that, if adopted by the Ninth Circuit or the Supreme Court, would disable federal court enforcement of Sections 592 and 593 and thus encourage using the military to interfere in the 2026 elections. The first such Trump Administration argument is that the President has an inherent power to use the military to protect federal property, federal personnel, and federal functions and that this inherent protective power is not subject to federal statutory limitations. One can almost hear the Trump Administration arguing in 2026 that it is using the military to protect the federal function of federal elections. But Judge Breyer’s decision at 33-42 exhaustively surveyed the precedents and correctly decided that any inherent protective power to use the military domestically is subject to federal statutory restrictions. Under this ruling, no inherent protective power would override the statutory prohibitions in Sections 592 and 593 against employing the military to interfere with elections….
“Utah’s congressional maps must be redrawn right away, judge rule”
AP:
A judge has ruled that Utah lawmakers must proceed with redrawing the state’s congressional district map right away, pointing to Texas and California in rejecting their argument that the job can’t be done in time for the 2026 midterm elections.
The ruling keeps Utah firmly among states where partisan redistricting battles stand to tilt the outcome of the next congressional election.
Utah lawmakers were wrong to disregard an independent commission’s map in drawing one that has been used for the 2022 and 2024 elections, Salt Lake County District Judge Dianna Gibson ruled Aug. 25.
The map did away with a district in the Salt Lake City area that has swung between Republicans and Democrats in favor of a map where four districts, each with a piece of the urban corridor, have been won by Republicans with wide margins….
Plaintiffs File Cert Petition in Turtle Mountain Band Case on Whether Private Plaintiffs Have the Right to Sue to Enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (More than 90% of Suits Have Been Brought This Way Since 1982)
This cert petition follows from the Supreme Court’s order putting the Eighth Circuit ruling on hold pending resolution of this cert petition. See also my earlier Slate coverage of the stakes.
Georgia: “Republican lawmakers push for hand-marked ballots in November election”
Key Georgia lawmakers Tuesday called for a rapid test-run of hand-marked paper ballots in this year’s elections, switching from touchscreens in some polling places.
The rush to try paper ballots filled out by hand follows mounting pressure from President Donald Trump, conservatives and election security activists who oppose electronic voting touchscreens.
A switch would comply with part of a state law passed last year requiring the elimination of computerized QR codes from ballots by July 1, 2026.ExploreGeorgia’s next voting system? Senators seek paper ballots filled out by hand
Two House Republican committee chairmen stressed “the urgency of the matter” in a letter to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
“It is imperative to begin testing viable alternativesto the continued use of QR-coded ballots,” wrote House Governmental Affairs Chairman Victor Anderson, R-Cornelia, and House elections study committee Chairman Tim Fleming, R-Covington.
Under their proposal, Raffensperger would ask counties and cities to voluntarily participate in the trial of hand-marked paper ballots during the election for Public Service Commission on Nov. 4.
Raffensperger has defended the security and accuracy of Georgia’s voting system, saying audits repeatedly show Georgia’s vote counts are correct. But he didn’t immediately comment Tuesday on the lawmakers’ request….
“Why Lawmakers Don’t Want to Ban Their Own Stock Trading”
While running for Congress last year, Republican Rob Bresnahan—like most Americans—hated the idea of lawmakers making money by trading individual stocks in elected office and said he wanted to ban the practice.
Then he won his race.
Now a congressman representing northeastern Pennsylvania, Bresnahan is one of the most active traders in Congress and is drawing political heat for some of the transactions, which he says are handled by an adviser who doesn’t consult him on trades. He recently suggested he wouldn’t follow through on his plan to put his investment portfolio in a blind trust as an ethical firewall. He hasn’t signed on to a leading House effort to restrict stock trading, instead introducing his own bill that ethics advocates and colleagues have said is weak.
When asked during a Scranton-area radio interview if he planned to tell his adviser to stop trading stocks to avoid backlash, he replied: “And then do what with it? Just leave it all in accounts and just leave it there and lose money and go broke?”
Hannah Pope, a spokeswoman for Bresnahan, declined to say whether he plans to follow through with his plans for a blind trust. She said Bresnahan’s trades are executed without his input.
“Any suggestion that Rob has involvement in his financial planner’s trades is complete and utter bulls—,” she said.
Many lawmakers decry stock trading on principle, only to back off later when faced with the practical impacts—ranging from transaction costs and taxes to annoyance over being told how to conduct their finances. While some are plowing ahead on ideas for new bans, passage remains uncertain after a history of failed efforts.
Proponents of a crackdown see trading as an obvious opportunity for corruption. Opponents note that insider trading is already illegal and say that new rules would discourage successful businesspeople from running for Congress.
Sen. Rick Scott (R., Fla.), one of Congress’s wealthiest members, with investments in private equity and hedge funds, in a recent hearing raised questions about how lawmakers would sell illiquid assets under a stock-trading ban. Scott, who hasn’t reported any stock trading this year, said supporters of a ban were insinuating that a lawmaker’s wealth is bad.
“This idea that we’re going to attack people because they make money is wrong,” he said. “We should cherish all of our different backgrounds.”
Rep. Gil Cisneros (D., Calif.), one of the most active traders in the House, said earlier this year that he opposes broad trading bans. He would, however, support restrictions on investing in industries that lawmakers oversee.
“I think our standards are too loose here,” he said. He added that his trades are handled by an outside financial manager….
“The Hidden Cause (and Higher Stakes) of the Gerrymandering Crisis”
Michael Parsons and Kevin Johnson in The Fulcrum:
The gerrymandering wars have laid bare the unique Achilles’ heel at the heart of our structural dysfunction: We give partisan institutions immense power over the rules of elections. No other peer democracy entrusts politicians with control over as many pieces of electoral machinery as the United States. Ignoring these major flaws has long left American democracy susceptible to authoritarian capture, and now the bill is coming due….
One hidden cause of the current crisis is rising partisan manipulation of ballot measures, which has contributed significantly to the redistricting arms race over the past decade.
In three red states (Ohio, Missouri, and Utah), majorities backed strong, citizen-led anti-gerrymandering measures. But, in all three states, either Republican legislatures overrode the approved initiative, or Republican officials manipulated the ballot-measure process to deny the will of the voters. Had those voters’ wishes been respected, the constraints on gerrymandering facing blue and red states would be more closely balanced, the risk of an arms race would be contained, and Democrats would not be threatening to unwind two decades’ worth of progress toward fairer maps.”
“The Future of Voting Rights Is on the Line at the Supreme Court”
Here’s a transcript of a bit of my Slate Amicus podcast conversation with Dahlia Lithwick:
Can you just explain to us what happens if Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is no longer the mechanism by which voters can remedy racially discriminatory voting practices?
It would be an earthquake in American politics, like nothing we’ve seen before, because Section 2 applies nationwide, it applies to congressional districts, it applies to city council races, it applies to state legislative districts. Any place where legislative lines are drawn and white people and minority voters prefer different candidates—and that’s not just in the South, that’s in parts of California, that’s in places all over the country—Section 2 would no longer require race-conscious districting, and it would mean that our legislative bodies will be less diverse. They will be whiter. Now some of the people who’ve been elected before as incumbents, they’d still be able to get elected, but you’re going to see a bunch of redistricting in places where you could draw more Republican seats and squeeze out seats. Think about some of the most prominent Black members of Congress, the most prominent Latino members of state legislatures; some of these people would no longer be able to get elected. It would be huge. So I can’t even tell you what an effect Section 2 has had in assuring fair minority representation in this country, and it would be gone.