This is a guest post from Professor Michael Herz: In a recent Election Law Blog post regarding the Independent State Legislature doctrine, Rick Pildes observes that the term “Congress” in the U.S. Constitution sometimes means Congress acting alone and sometimes… Continue reading

Brennan Center: Spurred by false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, Texas enacted a voting law in 2021 with many egregious provisions. These ranged from new limits on assistance for voters with disabilities or language-access needs to… Continue reading

Announcement: .@Rickhasen, an internationally recognized expert in election law and campaign finance regulation, has joined @MSNBC as an Election Law Analyst. Tonight he discussed the upcoming midterm election with @chrislhayes. WATCH: pic.twitter.com/pmUHadbNT1— MSNBC Public Relations… Continue reading

A major issue in the Moore v. Harper case and about the independent state legislature theory (ISLT) more generally is whether the term “legislature” must mean the same thing in all the constitutional provisions that use it.  In addressing that… Continue reading

Reuters: Last year, as documented by Reuters, U.S. election officials endured an onslaught of intimidation by Trump’s supporters after the 2020 election. This year, they’re facing well-funded campaigns such as the one in Washoe. Officials who resist baseless stolen-election claims… Continue reading

NYT: Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida announced in August “a first salvo” of criminal charges in what he called a long-overdue crackdown on voter fraud by his newly created Office of Election Crimes and Security.But recently released body camera… Continue reading

New from CDT. See also this from WaPo.

The Guardian: Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist in the Trump White House who is at the forefront of the Republican march toward hard-right populism, is throwing his weight behind a movement to radically rewrite the US constitution.Bannon has… Continue reading

I was glad to participate in this panel: How does social media impact democracy? Social media platforms perform a valuable public forum function. They can unite people, generate social empathy, mobilize political action, amplify important issues and voices that… Continue reading

NYC Bar event, including Bauer and Ginsberg. More here from NYC bar on election protection.

AP: Many Americans remain pessimistic about the state of U.S. democracy and the way elected officials are chosen — nearly two years after a divisive presidential election spurred false claims of widespread fraud and a violent attack on the … Continue reading

NPR: Who counts as Black?The thorny question has quietly found its way before the U.S. Supreme Court again, ensnared in a major legal battle over the Voting Rights Act that could further gut the landmark law and make it harder… Continue reading

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

Nate Cohn NYT: When we started our national poll on democracy last week, David Leonhardt’s recent New York Times front-page story on threats to democracy was at the top of my mind. His article focused on two major issues: the… Continue reading