Yesterday, Nick offered some thoughts on the arguments in the Rucho and Benisek partisan gerrymandering cases, and several Justices’ fixation on whether all of this litigation is just a Trojan horse for achieving proportional representation. Nick’s post highlights the fact … Continue reading
Justin Levitt
One state, three governors, three legislatures. … Continue reading
The Smithsonian lifts up African-American suffragettes. … Continue reading
A Politico update on the impact of new rules for Democratic primary debates. … Continue reading
Democrats in New York state government back off of campaign finance reform now that they’re in power. … Continue reading
The Nation on the piece of HR 1 that would require the Census to count people who are incarcerated at their last known address. The Census Bureau requested comment on the issue several times in the last few years, … Continue reading
The NY Times Editorial Board calls HR 1 the “Merrick Garland of reform legislation.” … Continue reading
The Washington Post goes deeper on this story, of the Census Bureau collecting administrative data (including citizenship information) to bolster household-by-household census results. … Continue reading
Robert Brischetto catalogs what Texas has found. … Continue reading
Sam Levine with followup on some of the North Carolina federal prosecutions of noncitizen voting. And earlier, with a contrast of Crystal Mason’s sentence for casting a ballot while on supervised release and Paul Manafort’s sentence for tax and bank … Continue reading
At least 31 so far, here (MD) and here (NC). … Continue reading
APNPR CBSCNNFoxNBC New York TimesWashington Post USA TodayWall St. JournalHuffPostMother JonesTPMVoxThe Hill (and here, and here) Roll CallThe GuardianTampa Bay Times (bonus: zombies!) … Continue reading
Eleanor Holmes Norton points out that today is the first time the US House has endorsed DC statehood. … Continue reading
Final vote: 234-193. UPDATE: The text of the whole thing [will be] here. (As of 7:30pm ET on 3/8/19, the only text appears to be from an earlier version: the version actually considered is a combination of this, this, and … Continue reading
The Daily Caller on Wednesday’s (unsuccessful) vote on an amendment to HR 1 that would have lowered the voting age to 16. This might also have been unconstitutional, for the same reasons Derek mentioned here. … Continue reading
Well, that’s the Washington Times headline. But no, no they didn’t. They turned back an attempt to add a nonbinding (and likely unconstitutional) resolution (here’s a version of the text in last year’s Congress). … Continue reading
US News & World Report notes the struggle to boost electoral participation beyond the fight over administrative barriers. … Continue reading
In line with sentencing guidelines, prosecutors had recommended 19-24 years; Judge Ellis sentenced Manafort to 47 months. As a reminder, this case (in Virginia) concerned tax fraud and bank fraud. The sentencing in Manafort’s DC case (after a plea to … Continue reading
I look forward to the expose. … Continue reading
DOJ announces a step up in enforcement of statutes regulating foreign influence, including the Foreign Agents Registration Act … including a new team headed by a former Mueller prosecutor. And a useful thread here explaining the import. … Continue reading
A fascinating mapping of estimates of affective polarization (how Americans feel about members of the opposing major party). The polling question isn’t new, but I think that mapping the results onto counties by their demographic composition might be. (Note: this … Continue reading
On the occasion of Don Young’s becoming the longest-serving Republican in the history of the House, U.S. Term Limits reviews the historical tenure patterns for members of Congress. … Continue reading
McConnell picks on one thing missing from H.R. 1. More on third parties collecting and returning absentee ballots, in California, here. … Continue reading
He picks his favorite parts of H.R. 1. … Continue reading
The New York Times runs down a brief summary of H.R. 1. … Continue reading
An AP piece on the administrative hurdles of rights restoration, and the consequences for those who may not know that they’re voting while ineligible. The cover photo of the lead subject of the story may challenge a lot of preconceptions. … Continue reading
The Springfield News-Leader reports: Last fall, Missouri voters approved a one-of-a-kind plan to root out partisan gerrymandering with 62 percent of the vote. Republicans unhappy with the changes are now trying to roll them back. Five GOP lawmakers, including Senate … Continue reading
A deferred prosecution agreement says that charges (including tax fraud, wire fraud, and theft of funds based on misappropriation of Congressional and campaign funds for personal use) will be dropped against Rep. Aaron Schock if he repays $68,000 and pays … Continue reading
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy digs into what testing the waters in 2011 might have taught the President about corporate contributions and campaign finance law. … Continue reading
This ought to be fascinating. Not least because if it goes anywhere, it may actually shed some light on what Cohen and the Trump Organization actually thought was legal representation and what was not. There’s been an awful lot of … Continue reading
Behind a paywall, the Economist reviews an apparent shift in Texas legislators’ priorities. … Continue reading
Here’s the Government’s brief in the SCOTUS case over the inclusion of a citizenship question in the decennial enumeration. I expected the arguments about speculative standing, about the deferential APA review, and about the degree of discretion ostensibly committed to … Continue reading
Sigh. … Continue reading
The AP has more on the latest at the Census Bureau. I think this is an effort to gather the administrative data that Census employees said would be more effective at assessing statistical citizenship rates, with fewer downsides for public … Continue reading
Big (and voluminous) news from California: in a 126-page opinion, Judge Seeborg has enjoined the inclusion of a question regarding citizenship on the 2020 census. The decision follows on Judge Furman’s opinion out of New York, but is more expansive: … Continue reading
You knew that Michael Bloomberg, Eric Holder, Jeff Merkley, and Hillary Clinton have all announced in the last two days that they’re not running for President in 2020. But did you know that, as of today, you still have 590 … Continue reading
The House Oversight Committee asked Georgia Governor Brian Kemp today for a set of documents related to voters’ difficulties in Georgia in 2018. So far, it’s just a request. And Kemp appears unimpressed. … Continue reading
WaPo’s FactChecker reviews some of Hillary Clinton’s claims about the 2016 election at the Selma Bloody Sunday commemorative service for this past weekend. … Continue reading
A new FEC complaint alleges that several PACs directed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and/or her chief of staff reported large lump-sum expenditures to a set of campaign vendor LLCs, apparently complaining that the specific expenditures should have been reported individually. … Continue reading
Steven Rosenfeld sees parallels between a 2017 Alberta provincial leadership campaign and the NC09 scandal, with lessons for 2020 primaries considering means to further participation online or by phone. … Continue reading
Nevada Senate Maj. Leader Kelvin Atkinson resigned yesterday, “announcing he would be pleading guilty to federal charges of misappropriation of campaign funds for personal use and taking ‘full responsibility’ for his actions.” The resignation letter is here. There aren’t a … Continue reading
On February 22, Rick noted that a North Carolina state trial court had voided a constitutional amendment pertaining to voter ID, because the amendment had been put on the ballot by a legislature elected pursuant to an unconstitutional gerrymander. Today, … Continue reading
There’s been ongoing litigation over the legality of Wisconsin’s voter ID rule (and other changes to Wisconsin election law). And by “ongoing,” I mean largely “in stasis”: opinions from the trial court were issued in July 2016 (and partially stayed … Continue reading
TIME on the efforts of many election officials to protect the voting process against interference. And the Brennan Center on the work still to be done with respect to voting systems. … Continue reading
538 has the latest on the National Popular Vote compact, focused on the Colorado governor’s likely signature on a new bill. … Continue reading
Calling the hipsters at SXSW: I got an idea for your Friday afternoon. … Continue reading
The reporting continues with respect to employees in the Kentucky Secretary of State’s office, looking up names in the voter registration rolls, potentially to assess political affiliation. The SOS’s office claims that “all searches were performed at the request of … Continue reading
Three new white papers on California’s top-two primary out of the USC Schwarzenegger Institute, by Charles Munger, Jr., a financial and political backer of the top-two system. … Continue reading
As Dan mentioned, I’ll be the one drinking from the fire hose through the 9th (with, as always, renewed appreciation for how Rick manages to do this every single day). Please send tidbits (and complaints) to me. … Continue reading
Justin here. I’ve got a new post up at the Take Care blog, on a filing last week from DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. It’s a reversal of position, signed by a political appointee rather than career staff, of a request … Continue reading