I spoke with Bloomberg’s June Grasso. … Continue reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Joshua Sellers and Justin Weinstein-Tull have posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, NYU L Rev). Here is the abstract: The right to vote is foundational in our democracy, but it lacks a strong foundation. Voting rights litigants are constantly on … Continue reading
Joe Manchin made news yesterday by endorsing H.R. 4 (which would revive Section 5 of the VRA) over H.R. 1 and by recommending nationwide preclearance, applicable to all fifty states. Nationwide preclearance would solve one of the Shelby County Court’s … Continue reading
LAT: After Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti took office in 2013, he helped launch a charity fund that allows donors to support diverse programs from environmental initiatives to youth employment.Since then, Garcetti has reported raising more than $60 million from … Continue reading
I hadn’t been aware of this 2019 paper in Legislative Studies Quarterly by David Cotrell. The piece itself is behind a paywall. Here’s the abstract: Recent research has leveraged computer simulations to identify the effect of gerrymandering on partisan bias … Continue reading
Mark Fisher, Davin Phoenix, Sierra Powell, Myrna Mousa, Shawn Rosenberg, Dana Greenia, Maria M. Corrada, Claudia Kawas, and Annlia Paganini‐Hill new article. From the abstract: In this population of older persons, political identification on the liberal‐conservative spectrum was resilient despite … Continue reading
WaPo column: The situation today reflects the worst tendencies of the pre-Trump era in extreme form. Trump didn’t invent most of what is central to his appeal; he says the ugliest, once-whispered parts out loud. And responsible Republicans who see … Continue reading
Alan Neff and Caroline Fredrickson at Just Security. … Continue reading
NYT. … Continue reading
NYT: For several weeks, Republicans in Arizona have conducted an extraordinary audit into the results of November’s presidential election, drawing scrutiny and widespread criticism for examining ballots without any evidence of fraud, and instead relying on conspiracy theories. The audit … Continue reading
From Fair Vote: A record 23 cities in Utah passed ranked choice voting ordinances for elections in 2021, more than doubling the number of elections that will allow voters to rank mayoral candidates. Altogether, with these added cities, 53 jurisdictions … Continue reading
NYT: A key Senate committee deadlocked on Tuesday over Democrats’ sweeping proposed elections overhaul, previewing a partisan showdown on the Senate floor in the coming months that could determine the future of voting rights and campaign rules across the country.The tie … Continue reading
NYT: More than 100 Republicans, including some former elected officials, are preparing to release a letter this week threatening to form a third party if the Republican Party does not make certain changes, according to an organizer of the effort.The … Continue reading
NPR: Shortly after Arizona Republican lawmakers approved it, GOP Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday quickly signed a bill into law that could remove tens of thousands of voters from the state’s early ballot mailing list.Voters who sign up for the … Continue reading
NYT on HR 1. … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
New Ned Foley paper that is worth your time: Congress should enact a law requiring a candidate for a seat in Congress to receive a majority of votes in order to win the election. Congress should let states determine what … Continue reading
I wrote this column for Democracy Docket about a provision I think should be part of any electoral reform legislation: an “Anderson-Burdick fix,” enacted under Congress’s Elections Clause authority, that instructs courts to apply heightened scrutiny to voting restrictions. In … Continue reading
WSJ reports. … Continue reading
Seattle Times reports. … Continue reading
For this race, Londoners used an RCV system, in which they were permitted to rank their first and second choices. But a terrible, confusing ballot design led a significant number of voters to cast a first choice for two different … Continue reading
This story is out of Colorado, from the CPR News. Proponents assert that there are good government reasons for these changes. But the story notes that the vote in committee to report out this bill was on a straight party-line … Continue reading
Given the intense politics within Puerto Rico over statehood v. commonwealth status, it is rare to find journalistic stories that capture well the positions in this debate. This long essay from Ben Jacobs at the DC Examiner is one of … Continue reading
Alexa Ura for Texas Tribune: As opposition to Texas Republicans’ proposed voting restrictions continues to intensify, state lawmakers’ deliberations over the GOP priority legislation could soon go behind closed doors.The House early Friday voted 81-64 to advance a pared down version of Senate Bill … Continue reading
NYT talks with Brendan Nyhan. … Continue reading
Interesting report: A former two-term governor of West Virginia and a former secretary of state, the chief elections officer in West Virginia, Manchin said he sees the need for some changes. However, he also believes the authority for managing elections … Continue reading
NYT: Hours after Florida installed a rash of new voting restrictions, the Republican-led Legislature in Texas pressed ahead on Thursday with its own far-reaching bill that would make it one of the most difficult states in the nation in which … Continue reading
Veteran election hand Christopher Thomas oped in the Arizona Mirror: Arizona’s faux audit of 2020 ballots fails to comply with the federal election records retention law, further undermining the integrity of the exercise with the possibility of illegality.This law, which has … Continue reading
NPR: Texas legislators approved new, more restrictive state election rules aftera session that lasted from Thursday night into the early morning hours of Friday. The GOP-backed state Senate bill passed the House at 3 a.m. (4 a.m. ET) after hours of debate … Continue reading
That’s an arresting line from this Matt Bai piece on the Republican Party. I consider changing the structure of primaries one of the more important political reform agenda items. See this good report from Unite America on the topic also. … Continue reading
From the Washington Post: The contest is quickly becoming a free-for-all. Following Cheney’s impeachment vote, the state party censured her, and several Wyoming politicians filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to challenge her. The most credible among them so … Continue reading
This story caught my eye: “NY AG finds nearly 82% of net neutrality comments to the FCC were fake”: “The OAG found that millions of fake comments were submitted through a secret campaign, funded by the country’s largest broadband companies, … Continue reading
NYT: Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida signed new voting restrictions into law on Thursday that will make it more difficult for people to vote by mail and use popular ballot drop boxes, a move similar to other states controlled by Republicans that … Continue reading
David Leonhardt NYT newsletter: Facebook’s suspension of Donald Trump will continue for now, the company announced yesterday. But it still has not resolved the central problem that Trump has created for social media platforms and, by extension, American democracy.The problem is … Continue reading
In my recent Real Clear Politics essay, I argued that putting more weight on competitive districts in the redistricting process would be one means of mitigating the forces of political extremism. As I said when I first put forward a … Continue reading
Episode 32: Professor Rick Hasen stopped by Supreme Myths to talk about voting rights and suppression, elections, the Scalia Myth, and other important issues. … Continue reading
Adam Liptak deep dive: If the sweeping voting rights bill that the House passed in March overcomes substantial hurdles in the Senate to become law, it would reshape American elections and represent a triumph for Democrats eager to combat the wave of election … Continue reading
WaPo: Rep. Liz Cheney made clear Monday that she will continue to publicly denounce former president Donald Trump over his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, imperiling her position in House Republican leadership as GOP members continue to … Continue reading
WaPo: Incorrect information from government sources apparently led three separate news organizations to publish the same erroneous claim about Rudolph W. Giuliani last week that all three later corrected.The Washington Post, the New York Times and NBC News all reported … Continue reading
From OANN: Just declined to give comment to an OANN reporter who asked me to comment the following: pic.twitter.com/kMcE9UIUoq— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) May 3, 2021 … Continue reading
Politico: Senate Democrats made a major commitment to muscle through Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ethics and voting reform bill. Yet many say they have no idea how to pass it and wonder what exactly the end game is for a signature … Continue reading
I’ve just removed an earlier ELB blog post that linked to a story that now begins with this correction: Correction: An earlier version of this story, published Thursday, incorrectly reported that One America News was warned by the FBI that it … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
AP reports. … Continue reading
Maragaret SullivanWaPo column. … Continue reading
LAT: The $1-million donation came as the COVID-19 crisis was unfolding, a charitable gift given on behalf of Gov. Gavin Newsom last year. But unlike with other so-called behested payments, philanthropic contributions made at the request of an elected official, … Continue reading
In Real Clear Politics, I published a longish essay arguing that one direction political reform should take to limit the forces of extremism in our politics is the creation of more competitive election districts. I will blog about the analysis … Continue reading
For its special election to fill a vacant House seat, Texas used the top-two primary structure currently used more generally in CA and WA. There were 23 candidates who ran, and since no one is going to win an outright … Continue reading
From the Washington Post: The race for second place is on.The seven Republicans running for Virginia governor are making their final appeals to the record 53,000 delegates who’ve signed up to vote in their party’s May 8 nominating convention.Because it’s a … Continue reading
From The Economist, subtitle: “The Mormon right has not followed white evangelicals’ descent into grievance politics” ONE OF THE few uplifting notes of last year’s election season was struck by the candidates for Utah’s governorship. “Win or lose, in Utah, … Continue reading