Politico: Surrounded by broken glass in a defaced Capitol on the night of Jan. 6, Speaker Nancy Pelosi conferred with a senior House Republican about a bipartisan commission that would investigate the attack on Congress. Ten weeks later, those talks … Continue reading
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Richmond.com reports. … Continue reading
Open Secrets: The 2020 election saw more than $1 billion in “dark money” spending at the federal level, a massive sum driven by an explosion of secret donations boosting Democrats in a historically expensive cycle. That’s according to an estimate from OpenSecrets. The billion-dollar sum … Continue reading
That’s the suggestion made to Tierney Sneed in this piece: Also it’s worth remembering that legislation that would restore the Voting Rights Act — among the priorities Hasen urged Democrats to narrow their focus on — is already moving along … Continue reading
This looks terrific: Register for the Symposium here: https://estore.uga.edu/C27063_ustores/web/store_cat.jsp?STOREID=152&CATID=1261 Panel 1: The Right To Vote Panelists: Gilda R. Daniels Associate Professor of Law, University of Baltimore School of Law Atiba Ellis Professor of Law, Marquette University Law … Continue reading
Eric Wemple: On Jan. 9, The Post reported that then-President Donald Trump, in a call with Georgia’s lead elections investigator, Frances Watson, had instructed her to “find the fraud.” He mentioned that she could become a “national hero,” reported the … Continue reading
WaPo: Russia and Iran both sought to influence the 2020 U.S. election, but no foreign government attempted to change votes, alter ballots or reporting results, the intelligence community said Tuesday.The document by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, … Continue reading
I have written this oped for the Washington Post (Post Outlook). It begins: Are Democrats in Congress and their good government allies going to blow it again on voting rights? It sure looks like they could — by portraying the 791-page For … Continue reading
WaPo: Calling its lawsuit challenging 2020 election procedures “groundless” and “disingenuous,” a judge has ordered the Arizona Republican Party — and its lawyers — to pay the state thousands of dollars in legal fees. In his ruling, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah contended the … Continue reading
WaPo: Civil liberties groups are ratcheting up pressure on major corporations based in Georgia — including Coca-Cola, Aflac, Delta Air Lines, Home Depot and UPS — to oppose a Republican-led effort to make it harder to vote in the Peach … Continue reading
Look forward to listening to this: ALI President David F. Levi is joined by three former Solicitors General, Walter E. Dellinger, Donald B. Verrilli, and Seth P. Waxman, to discuss the topic of election litigation and reflect upon the unconventional … Continue reading
NYT: State and national voting-rights advocates are waging the most consequential political struggle over access to the ballot since the civil rights era, a fight increasingly focused on a far-reaching federal overhaul of election rules in a last-ditch bid to … Continue reading
NYT: But an examination of the two men’s histories shows that local and federal law enforcement agencies passed up several opportunities to take action against them and their fellow Proud Boys long before they breached the Capitol.The group’s propensity for … Continue reading
CNBC: Civil rights and activist groups are turning up the pressure on large Georgia companies like Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines to oppose sweeping voting restrictions proposed by Republican state legislators.“We’ve got the power of organized people. They’ve got the power of organized money. And … Continue reading
Politico reports. … Continue reading
Bloomberg Law: One of the Democratic party’s top election lawyers was hit with sanctions by a federal court for violating ethics rules in a suit against Texas over straight-ticket voting, a rare rebuke for a seasoned attorney following months of … Continue reading
New at The Conversation. … Continue reading
CNN: A broad majority of Americans say that political violence in response to election results is likely in the United States in the next few years, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS.Overall, 71% say political violence in response to … Continue reading
I just posted this short article, forthcoming in the California Law Review, on SSRN. It’s a response to Pam Karlan’s Jorde Lecture, “The New Countermajoritarian Difficulty,” whose theme is the array of forces — both judicial and otherwise — that … Continue reading
Axios: President Biden is being encouraged to effectively pack the nation’s top campaign finance regulator with officials who will more doggedly enforce laws regulating political money, Axios has learned. Why it matters: The notoriously gridlocked Federal Election Commission has rankled reformers … Continue reading
Oh my: Rep. John Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills Republican who chairs the Government and Elections Committee that advanced Ugenti-Rita’s measure on a party-line vote Wednesday, said GOP lawmakers are concerned about what happens to ballots automatically sent to people who … Continue reading
KCCI: A civil rights organization is now suing the state of Iowa over a new early voting law.Late Monday afternoon, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed legislation that shortens Iowa’s early voting period from 29 days to 20 and closes polls an hour earlier … Continue reading
NYT: Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, boasted privately to fellow Republicans on Wednesday that their fund-raising efforts had outperformed Donald J. Trump’s, after the former president took aim at the party’s committees in a bid to control its financial … Continue reading
AP: In Arizona, a Republican state senator worried aloud that his party’s proposed voter identification requirements might be too “cumbersome.” But he voted for the bill anyway.In Iowa, the state’s Republican elections chief put out a carefully worded statement that … Continue reading
Star Tribune: “People are furious we lost the presidency,” said Sharon Peterson, a longtime GOP activist from Rosemount who’s backing Carnahan. She said many in the party’s volunteer ranks are consumed with worry about the fairness of the next election, … Continue reading
New Brennan Center report: To begin to address these deep-rooted problems, lawmakers across the country are turning to the most powerful campaign finance reform available since the Supreme Court tipped the scales toward megadonors in Citizens United. Public campaign financing offers candidates … Continue reading
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy for TPM. … Continue reading
From this NYT story, which was also linked to below: The jockeying comes as the party struggles to chart its path forward after losing the House, the Senate and the White House during Mr. Trump’s tenure, with moderate party leaders … Continue reading
That’s a line from this Reuters story, which shows that the cut-off in corporate contributions to candidates who objected to the electoral vote count has been more than offset by the increase in small donations. From 2008-2018, the Democrats had … Continue reading
Release: The 2020 General Election was historic in many ways, including voter turnout. According to the California Secretary of State, California saw the highest eligible turnout rate (the percentage of adult citizens who voted) in 2020 for a general election … Continue reading
NPR: As Americans continue to complain of late-arriving bills, birthday cards and other deliveries, there has been one bright spot in the U.S. Postal Service’s performance in recent months: the 2020 election. The vast majority of mail-in ballots sent during … Continue reading
Release: All Voting is Local Florida and Daniel A. Smith, professor of political science at the University of Florida, today released Casting, Rejecting, and Curing Vote-by-Mail Ballots in Florida’s 2020 General Election. Across Florida’s 67 counties, voters of color, new voters, … Continue reading
Palm Beach Post: Former President Donald Trump is set to fulfill his civic duty as a private citizen and vote in the town of Palm Beach’s municipal election. Despite his false claims about mail voting during the 2020 election cycle, Trump requested a mail … Continue reading
AJC: The Georgia Senate passed a bill Monday to roll back no-excuse absentee voting and require more voter ID, which would create new obstacles for voters after Republicans lost elections for president and the U.S. Senate.The legislation would reduce the … Continue reading
The Election Law Journal roundtable scheduled for March 9 will be rescheduled. Stay tuned for an update. … Continue reading
Dan Balz for WaPo: Ben Ginsberg, a Republican election-law attorney who called out Trump’s falsehoods about the election being stolen, said that in any bill this big, there are good provisions and questionable ones. “It’s an almost 800-page bill, so … Continue reading
WaPo: Former president Donald Trump has sent a cease-and-desist letter to at least three Republican organizations demanding they stop using his name and likeness to fundraise, two Trump advisers confirmed Saturday.The letter, which was first reported by Politico, was sent to … Continue reading
NYT: President Biden is signed an executive order on Sunday that directed the government to take steps to make voting easier, marking the 56th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Selma, Ala., which swiftly turned voting rights into a national cause.The … Continue reading
Harry Enten for CNN: Numerous Republican state legislatures are trying to pass new voter restriction legislation (e.g. limiting absentee and early voting). Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress are trying to pass laws that expand access to the ballot box.The moves from both camps come after … Continue reading
WSJ: DID MAIL-IN VOTING BOOST BIDEN? The presidential-election results left the impression that mail-in voting increased turnout and propelled President Biden to victory. But the reality is that voting by mail didn’t do either, Stanford researchers say in a new paper based on … Continue reading
CPI and Georgia Public Broadcasting report. … Continue reading
Axios: A Democratic congressman filed a lawsuit against former President Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-S.C.) on Thursday alleging that they and others are “responsible for the injury and destruction” of the Jan. 6 attack on the … Continue reading
Kevin Johnson for Governing. … Continue reading
Andrew Appel and Susan Greenhalgh blog. … Continue reading
New Ned Foley WaPo oped: Add to list Political polarization is spurring partisans to extremes, but there’s a simple change Congress could make to reverse this alarming trend: mandate that its members be elected by a majority of votes.Americans probably … Continue reading
Historically, the general public has had no access to accurate partisan information about district plans. The operatives who painstakingly design the plans have had such information, of course. But members of the opposing party, journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens have … Continue reading
Equally American: Tomorrow, the U.S. Department of Justice will argue before a federal district court judge in Reeves v. Nago that federal overseas voting laws that discriminate against residents of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands cannot be challenged in federal court … Continue reading
Josh Douglas has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: I was in “the room where it happens” when Kentucky enacted a new photo ID law for voting. And I lived to tell the tale.This Article recounts the … Continue reading
Register for this symposium on Mar. 5. (Schedule) … Continue reading
Jack Michael Beerman and Gary Lawson have posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In this essay, and in light of the controversy that arose in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, we explain the constitutional process … Continue reading