Georgetown’s Project on State and Local Government recently hosted a discussion of the Moore case and the independent state legislature doctrine. My contribution is now posted on their blog, here. I’ll also include a few excerpts here: As we… Continue reading

Sam Issacharoff and I have posted on SSRN this new essay. Here’s the abstract: Democracies grapple with the tension between the principle of majority rule and ensuring respect for the interest of political minorities, however those might be defined… Continue reading

The argument traversed a wide range of detail and touched on many important issues. The Court did not seem interested in the most sweeping challenges to the VRA that Alabama’s brief put forward. At the end of the day, I… Continue reading

I’ve written a number of times on what the ISLT would not do, as have Derek Muller, Pam Karlan, and Ned Foley, even if the Court were to adopt the most expansive version of the doctrine. In addition, we have… Continue reading

Intriguing experimental paper from Suthan Krishnarajan in the APSR: Democracy often confronts citizens with a dilemma: stand firm on democracy while losing out on policy or accept undemocratic behavior and gain politically. Existing literature demonstrates that citizens generally choose the… Continue reading

Like Rick Hasen, I was given homework by the House Committee on Administration after testifying in July on the independent state legislature theory. The Committee sent me a list of follow-up questions, and my written responses are available here.

North Carolina has now filed its opening brief.  I want to single out one aspect of that brief here.             As I’ve emphasized, there are at least two different versions of ISLT on the role of state constitutions.  The more sweeping… Continue reading

Fascinating decision of NC Supreme Court that requires a bit of unpacking: federal courts held that 28 NC legislators were elected from unconstitutional, racially-gerrrymandered districts. Courts permitted them to retain their seats until the next election. The NC legislature can… Continue reading

Alaska’s ranked-choice voting special election on Aug. 16th to fill its vacant, single seat in the US House is generating two issues I want to flag. First, in recently campaigning in a tele-rally for Sarah Palin, Donald Trump reportedly told… Continue reading

For the National Constitution Center’s podcast, the Center’s President and CEO, Jeff Rosen, moderated this discussion. Available at this link.

From Aug. 1 piece by Philip Bump in Wash. Post: In February 2021, soon after President Biden took office, CBS News and its pollster YouGov released data showing that most Republicans viewed Democrats in precisely that way. Asked to evaluate… Continue reading

A large group of election-law experts has made this point.  Nonetheless, there continues to be confusion and misunderstanding in some public commentary about this fundamental legal fact.  This confusion has also slipped into some discussions about the Electoral Count Reform… Continue reading

This is a joint post with Ned Foley:             Along with a bipartisan group of election-law experts, we endorsed the bipartisan Senate draft Electoral Count Act Reform bill as a “vast improvement” over the status quo.  None of the suggestions… Continue reading

In my testimony on the independent state legislature theory (ISLT) to the House Administration Committee, I identified seven different potential versions of such a doctrine, should the Court endorse it at all.  That highlights the fact that the question is… Continue reading