Greg Stohr: Voters in New Hampshire are free to take selfies with their election ballots and post the photos online after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to revive a state ban on the practice. The justices, without comment, left intact … Continue reading
Category Archives: campaigns
I have written this piece for Politico. A snippet: Now, though, a band of state lawmakers is attempting to succeed where so many others have failed. In at least 24 states, legislators have introduced bills that would force Trump (and … Continue reading
Nate Cohn for NYT’s The UpShot: Mr. Ossoff probably would not have raised nearly as much money if he’d been competing for attention with 434 other races. His fund-raising tally is better than that of 96 percent of the congressional … Continue reading
Nat Stern has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming Maryland Law Review). Here is the abstract: A large majority of state judges are chosen through some form of popular election. In Republican Party of Minnesota v. White, the Supreme Court struck down … Continue reading
Norm Ornstein in the Atlantic: The Constitution leaves a lot of leeway for Congress. So it is time to consider a new law, one that cleans up the issues and discrepancies in the existing succession act but does more. It … Continue reading
Tuesday’s NYT A1: The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, took the extraordinary step on Monday of announcing that the agency is investigating whether members of President Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election. Mr. Comey’s testimony before … Continue reading
Must-read Jane Mayer on Robert Mercer for The New Yorker: Mercer strongly supported the nomination of Jeff Sessions to be Trump’s Attorney General. Many civil-rights groups opposed the nomination, pointing out that Sessions has in the past expressed racist views. Mercer, for … Continue reading
Steve Klein: Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper signed House Bill 1014 yesterday, amending the state’s election law to allow voters to take and share photographs of their own marked ballots, an activity known as taking a “ballot selfie.” The bill followed … Continue reading
Tilman Klumpp, Hugo Mialon, and Michael Williams have posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Approximately one in forty adult U.S. citizens has lost their right to vote, either temporarily or permanently, as a result of a felony … Continue reading
NYT: Cambridge Analytica’s rise has rattled some of President Trump’s critics and privacy advocates, who warn of a blizzard of high-tech, Facebook-optimized propaganda aimed at the American public, controlled by the people behind the alt-right hub Breitbart News. Cambridge is … Continue reading
NYT: Saying their patience is at an end, conservative activist groups backed by the billionaire Koch brothers and other powerful interests on the right are mobilizing to pressure Republicans to fulfill their promise to swiftly repeal the Affordable Care Act. … Continue reading
Politico: President Donald Trump buttered up a room full of Republican donors Friday night by boasting of his upset 2016 election win and ticking through a list of his surprise swing state victories that even the party high rollers at … Continue reading
KPCC: You might have gotten a nasty surprise in the mail recently that read, “County of Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. EVICTION NOTICE.” It’s not real, though. It’s a political mailer. And Los Angeles County officials were not happy. “The political … Continue reading
Philly.com: If President Trump, or anyone else, wants to get on the New Jersey ballot to run for president in 2020, he could have to release his tax returns, if some Democratic lawmakers have their way. Whether legislators have that … Continue reading
CPI reports. … Continue reading
KTOO reports. … Continue reading
WRAL: When former Gov. Pat McCrory turned over the keys to North Carolina’s Executive Mansion to Gov. Roy Cooper on Jan. 1, his staff didn’t include the keys to the social media accounts used by the Governor’s Office. The Republican’s … Continue reading
Maggie Haberman for the NYT: President-elect Donald J. Trump, in a free-flowing speech Wednesday night at a dinner honoring his running mate, Mike Pence, jabbed at his new Republican allies and his critics alike, questioned the ethics of “super PACs” … Continue reading
NYT: When Donald J. Trump strides onto the inaugural ballroom floor this week amid the sprawling celebration of his swearing-in, he will have corporate America and many of its titans to thank for the rapturous greeting. Chevron, the oil giant, … Continue reading
NYT: On Friday, Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, declared that he did not view Donald J. Trump as a “legitimate president.” Mr. Lewis, an icon of the civil rights movement, said he planned to boycott the inauguration, the first … Continue reading
WaPo: The Republican Governors Association just wrote a $5 million check — the largest single political donation in Virginia’s history — with the goal of putting a Republican in the governor’s mansion. The whopping contribution suggests Republicans like their odds … Continue reading
New column: It is greatly regrettable that states did not adopt this electoral change previously. But as there is no constitutional obstacle to their doing so, we can only hope that they muster the political will to make this … Continue reading
NYT: With a single tweet on Thursday, President-elect Donald J. Trump pulled L. L. Bean, the Maine retailer known for its boots, jackets and preppy New England aesthetic, back into a political crossfire. The company was already facing a boycott … Continue reading
Alexander Hertel-Fernandez has written this article for the Journal of Politics. Here is the abstract: American employers are increasingly engaging their workers in the political process. Drawing on original surveys of firms and workers, this paper examines the extent to which … Continue reading
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy blogs. … Continue reading
NYT: Like the Kochs, the DeVoses are generous supporters of think tanks that evangelize for unrestrained capitalism, like Michigan’s Acton Institute, and that rail against unions and back privatizing public services, like the Mackinac Center. They have also funded national … Continue reading
After complaints from the Campaign Legal Center and the Sunlight Foundation, the FCC issued these two orders admonishing some broadcasters for not following disclosure rules and clarifying those disclosure rules for the future. … Continue reading
From the joint intelligence report at page 2: We assess the influence campaign aspired to help President-elect Trump’s chances of victory when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to the President-elect. When it appeared to Moscow … Continue reading
NYT: Fueling U.S. Forward is “dedicated to educating the public about the value and potential of American energy, the vast majority of which comes from fossil fuels,” the group says on its website. “We’ll talk to people of diverse backgrounds … Continue reading
Paul Jossey in the National Review: The Internet is an incredible human achievement. It has done more to ensure freedom and human rights than any government agency ever could. But such freedom is insecure when would-be censors exist either inside … Continue reading
BuzzFeed: The FBI did not examine the servers of the Democratic National Committee before issuing a report attributing the sweeping cyberintrusion to Russia-backed hackers, BuzzFeed News has learned. Six months after the FBI first said it was investigating the hack … Continue reading
Reuters reports. … Continue reading
Short and sweet (not “otiose”) opinion. … Continue reading
Here’s the cert. petition. More from me when I have a bit more time. … Continue reading
Sam Issacharoff has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Houston Law Review). Here is the abstract: In 2016, both the Republicans and Democrats experienced efforts at hostile takeover of their presidential campaigns. On the Republican side of the ledger, the takeover … Continue reading
Nate Cohn for NYT’s The UpShot. … Continue reading
Blockbuster report from CPI: A new Texas nonprofit led by Donald Trump’s grown sons is offering access to the freshly-minted president during inauguration weekend — all in exchange for million-dollar donations to unnamed “conservation” charities, according to interviews and documents … Continue reading
This was a great conference. Video courtesy of CSPAN: Vice President Biden Keynote Viability of Third Parties (Ginsberg, Keating, Pildes) Role of Media in the 2016 Election (Marcus, Psaki) Technology in Political Campaigns (Goodstein, Persily, Rospars) Fred Yang on 2016 Campaign Polling Campaign … Continue reading
Shane Goldmacher for Politico. … Continue reading
Chris Geidner: The battle over Monday’s electoral college vote is the beginning, not the end. A larger campaign to undermine the legitimacy — and constitutionality — of Donald Trump’s presidency is likely just getting underway. Discomfort with Donald Trump before … Continue reading
WaPo: FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper have backed a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the presidency, according to U.S. officials. Comey’s support … Continue reading
AP: The sponsor of a 2015 bill that changed how Montana fills its U.S. House and Senate vacancies says Gov. Steve Bullock should appoint an interim replacement for departing Rep. Ryan Zinke until a special election is held. Democratic Sen. … Continue reading
WSJ reports. … Continue reading
The Fix: “We did great with the African-American community,” he said, during the rally in Hershey, Pa. “So good. Remember — remember the famous line, because I talk about crime, I talk about lack of education, I talk about no … Continue reading
Sean McElwee, Jesse Rhodes, and Brian Schaffner for Monkey Cage: Across the board, we find that donors as a group are more partisan than non-donors who share their party affiliation. For example, Democratic donors were 10 percentage points more supportive … Continue reading
I’ve been watching the Bloombingburg voting saga play out for years (see this excellent VICE piece by Hella Winston). And now comes news of what many suspected: Lamm and others have been charged in federal court with conspiracy to commit … Continue reading
Bauer blogs. … Continue reading
What a read at Politico. Sam Bagenstos (prof at U Mich.): “None of this lets Comey, the Russians, or anyone else off the hook. But, Jeebus Christmas, what incompetence.” Chris Ashby: “Just gonna tweet this link to 11 CFR 109.20, … Continue reading
NYT: The impact of the information released by the hackers on candidates like Ms. Taddeo in Florida and others in nearly a dozen House races around the country was largely lost in the focus on the hacking attacks against the … Continue reading
Must-read NYT on the hack of the DNC, etc. … Continue reading