“Kris Kobach said Wednesday he turned down an immigration adviser’s position at Homeland Security because it doesn’t carry enough weight to be able to solve the border crisis.” No denial in this Wash. Times piece of his ten demands for the … Continue reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Steven Rosenfeld: Two days after May’s city elections, Denver’s Elections Division held a low-profile audit of key parts of America’s most radical new voting system.Over several weeks, 119 residents who were overseas had been using their smartphones to identify themselves … Continue reading
You’ve got to read this all the way to the end. … Continue reading
Jessica Huseman on this decision: Today, the Kentucky Attorney General ruled that the Kentucky State Board of Elections improperly withheld 362 pages of public records from me, violating the law in *seven* different ways "at the direction of the Secretary … Continue reading
News & Observer on #NC09 do-over. … Continue reading
Tampa Bay Times reports. … Continue reading
Jeff Greenfield in Politico. … Continue reading
Jerry Goldfeder and Myrna Perez in NYLJ. … Continue reading
The Buffalo News reports. … Continue reading
One recurring argument in the ongoing debate over partisan gerrymandering suits is that, if they can be brought, they will inundate the federal courts. Wisconsin advanced this floodgates claim in Whitford, asserting that courts would have to engage in “unprecedented … Continue reading
Thanks Dan! … Continue reading
NYT on Speaker Pelosi’s belief that the only way to remove President Trump from office “is to defeat him in 2020 by a margin so ‘big’ he cannot challenge the legitimacy of a Democratic victory.” Few people outside Ms. Pelosi’s … Continue reading
Today’s decision striking down Ohio’s congressional districts as unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders is notable in several respects. First, it was again unanimous. By my count, this is the fourth consecutive decision (following those in Maryland, Michigan, and North Carolina) in which … Continue reading
Direct your #ELB pitches to Dan. … Continue reading
TPM: The Missouri legislature moved one step closer on Monday to putting on the ballot a measure that would gut an anti-gerrymandering initiative passed by voters last year. The proposal, if it becomes law, would set the stage for the state to … Continue reading
I found it noteworthy that when Stacey Abrams was asked in her NY Times interview whether polarization was an “irreconcilable” problem, her immediate answer was to talk about the end of earmarks. I have written many times (e.g., here) about … Continue reading
Statement from the joint center, including from Spencer Overton (who also clerked for J. Keith). … Continue reading
Last week, a three-judge district court unanimously held that twenty-seven Michigan state house, state senate, and congressional districts are unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. The consequences of the decision are important. If it’s upheld, Michigan will have fair district maps in 2020 … Continue reading
Billy Penn reports. … Continue reading
My article on unifying disparate impact law has just come out in the Yale Law Journal. Here’s the abstract: The last decade has seen the largest wave of franchise restrictions since the dark days of Jim Crow. In response to … Continue reading
Cliff Albright NYT oped. … Continue reading
NPR: After high turnout in last year’s midterm elections propelled Democrats to a new House majority and big gains in the states, several Republican-controlled state legislatures are attempting to change voting-related rules in ways that might reduce future voter turnout.In … Continue reading
The Tampa Bay Times reports. … Continue reading
The Mueller report makes one legal judgment, in particular, that I find extremely puzzling. I think this judgment is going to cause endless confusion in the public and political debate about the report, and indeed, is doing so already. I … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: Robert Mueller let Donald Trump Jr. off the hook too easily for potential campaign finance violations that arose from the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with Russian operatives. Mueller’s questionable … Continue reading
Haaretz: An Israeli public relations company headed by a settler leader boasted Wednesday that it was behind the Likud initiative to place 1,200 hidden cameras in Arab polling stations on Election Day. … Continue reading
Stephanie Mencimer reviews Joan Biskiupic’s fantastic new book on John Roberts, The Chief. The review focuses on Roberts and race, and discusses the Crawford voter id decision and the Shelby County voting rights case. A good read. … Continue reading
KC Star: One of the GOP senators from Kris Kobach’s home state said Tuesday that the Senate would not be able to confirm the Kansas Republican if President Donald Trump tapped him for a cabinet post.Kobach, the former Kansas secretary … Continue reading
Axios: McGahn said a big part of his job as White House counsel was to deregulate and rein in the “administrative state.”He said he did that by writing deregulatory executive orders and picking judicial nominees who wanted to limit the power of … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
The George Mason conference on October 4 looks super interesting and sure to be exciting with Bob Bauer and Don McGahn as the keynoters. … Continue reading
Press release via email: On Friday, civil rights groups prevailed in their lawsuit against Secretary of State Alex Padilla to expand voter registration at agencies in the state that serve people on public assistance and individuals with disabilities. San Francisco … Continue reading
Over at the Balkinization blog, I have a post with historical perspective on emerging debates among some Democrats over whether, if they have the political power to do so after 2020, they ought to increase the size of the Supreme … Continue reading
Here: RankPaperDownloads1.Are Corporations People? Book Review of We the Corporations: How American Businesses Won Their Civil RightsDavid E BernsteinGeorge Mason University – Antonin Scalia Law School, FacultyDate Posted: 19 Feb 2019 Last Revised: 19 Feb 20192682.Laboratories of Democracy Reform: State Constitutions and Partisan … Continue reading
Tonja Jacobi and Matthew Sag for SCOTUS OA: Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek are the last chance the Court has before the 2020 census to do something about partisan gerrymandering. So, with the future of democracy in the balance, how … Continue reading
I usually have some fun with these, but like Larry Solum this year, I don’t think these jokes feel right in the current environment. Maybe back next year. … Continue reading
At the recent oral argument in the partisan gerrymandering cases, both Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh raised the question whether partisan gerrymandering is a problem that could solve itself without federal court intervention. One possibility is through congressional action establishing state … Continue reading
From Brendan Nyhan, at Medium: For anyone concerned about democratic norms and the rule of law, the 2016 election offered a clear lesson: Parties need to exercise more control over candidate selection. In this era of high partisanship, the official … Continue reading
At oral arguments in yesterday’s partisan gerrymandering cases, several Justices raised questions about whether partisan-gerrymandering challenges implicitly appeal in one way or another to a baseline of proportional representation (PR). This is an idea introduced by Justice O’Connor in her … Continue reading
Houston Chronicle: Nearly 300,000 Texans in the 2018 midterms were hindered by problems at the polls in 2018, according to a statistical analysis released Tuesday by an advocacy group.Because of voting machine malfunctions, lack of easy access to polling locations … Continue reading
Politifact evaluates the statement: “HR 1 is going to take your hard-earned tax dollars and millions more and send them to (a political candidate’s) campaign so (they) can put ads on TV.” … Continue reading
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. … Continue reading
NYT: Over the last two years, Ms. Harris has systematically constructed a database of donors and email addresses that raised several million dollars for her fellow Democrats, demonstrating an uncommon potency for a first-term senator, according to federal election records … Continue reading
Thank you Howard! … Continue reading
I missed this Steve Weissman oped in WaPo a few weeks ago. … Continue reading
More than thirty years ago, Sandy Levinson wrote an article called “Gerrymandering and the Brooding Omnipresence of Proportional Representation.” The article is old but its title was as apt as ever in today’s oral arguments in Rucho and Lamone, in … Continue reading
Must read: These process norms fared well. But the Mueller report marked a low point for more substantive norms of presidential conduct. It shows that a demagogic president like Donald Trump can devalue or even depart radically from key norms, … Continue reading
Judge Costa gives a long and scholarly explanation for the earlier denial of a stay in this order. Judge Clement gives a lengthy and scholarly reply. But this (h/t Steve Klepper) at the end of Judge Clement’s dissent is jarring: … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: Back in November, when President Donald Trump referred to a judge who had ruled against his administration as “an Obama judge,” Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare rebuke in a public statement. … Continue reading