The latest on the restoration of voting rights in Iowa. … Continue reading
Category Archives: political equality
A piece in the Atlantic on the governance options available to billionaires: When people think about the political relevance of Michael Bloomberg’s money, they tend to think about how his massive spending helps his campaigns: the record $261 million he … Continue reading
At the same time as the Thursday hearing on voting system security that I’d mentioned, House Oversight will be holding a hearing on “Reaching Hard-to-Count Communities in the 2020 Census.” The witness list is still TBD, as far as I … Continue reading
A bill has passed the state Senate, and is working its way through the state Assembly. If it gets signed into law, that would make New Jersey the seventh state to change where incarcerated individuals are counted for representational purposes. … Continue reading
Bertrall Ross and Doug Spencer have a new paper out in the Northwestern Law Review: “Passive Voter Suppression: Campaign Mobilization and the Effective Disfranchisement of the Poor.” The abstract: A recent spate of election laws tightened registration rules, reduced convenient voting … Continue reading
A recap of recent action on the enfranchisement of people with convictions, from Stateline. … Continue reading
The new year brings another new book on electoral mechanics, edited by Jan Eichhorn and Johannes Bergh. The abstract: This book explores the consequences of lowering the voting age to 16 from a global perspective, bringing together empirical research from … Continue reading
Christina Wolbrecht and J. Kevin Corder with a new book on the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. The abstract: How have American women voted in the first 100 years since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment? How have popular … Continue reading
Two studies newly published in the latest issue of the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics series: Ethan Kaplan and Haishan Yuan, Early Voting Laws, Voter Turnout, and Partisan Vote Composition: Evidence from Ohio We estimate effects of early voting on … Continue reading
The AP covers a lawsuit, filed in November under the state constitution, challenging disenfranchisement after incarceration, for terms of probation or parole or until payment of fines and fees. The case documents are here (the early-December amended complaint is here). … Continue reading
Mississippi cites Gill v. Whitford in contesting challengers’ standing to contest the requirement that statewide candidates win both a majority of the state and a majority of state house districts. And the Court’s refusal to recognize that redistricting problems are … Continue reading
Facing South on the lawsuits challenging the validity of amendments to the state constitution because they were passed by a legislature elected via unlawful district lines. … Continue reading
A clever title for a clever piece about partisan gerrymandering, and the doctrine holding the Guarantee Clause nonjusticiable. I’m inclined to agree on the substance. … Continue reading
A reminder of a significant population often overlooked when summary stats are compiled. In 2018, 14.3 million people with disabilities cast ballots, more than the 11.7 million Latino voters that year and nearly as many as the 15.2 million African-American … Continue reading
Chock full of election-law goodies. Among other pieces: Elizabeth Warren, Foreword (on corruption and faith in government)Jeffrey Clements, “But It Will Happen”: A Constitutional Amendment to Secure Political Equality in Election Spending and RepresentationViki Harrison, How One State Legislature Grappled … Continue reading
The latest polling numbers in the fight for representation for DC residents. That’s consistent with past polls … which have also showed a majority favoring full voting rights for DC. … Continue reading
The WaPo sees a through-line in debates about race and the census. Janai Nelson has a deeper look in the Columbia Law Review. … Continue reading
Four states down, 32 to go. … Continue reading
The Smithsonian lifts up African-American suffragettes. … Continue reading
Ron Fein: Why do we want to limit the influence of money in politics and what do we tell the courts? For 40 years, since the Supreme Court’s 1976 Buckley v. Valeodecision, the legal arguments for limiting big money in … Continue reading
WSJ: Donald Trump’s first attempt to seize some control over the Republican National Committee and the course of the GOP convention is creating a showdown over a little-noticed election for a powerful internal post that helps determine who can become … Continue reading
For the last few days, I’ve been blogging about a new paper of mine on Windsor v. United States over on Balkinization (here, here, and here). I offer a new spin on it, one that invokes Ely’s Democracy and Distrust … Continue reading
Larry Lessig has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming California Law Review). Here is the abstract: How we understand the “corruption” of Congress goes a long way to showing why, and how that “corruption” can be remedied. In this paper, … Continue reading
Demos has released a new report. The takeaway, according the Center for Public Integrity, is that “The U.S. political system is increasingly gamed against Americans of modest means — a situation exacerbated in recent years by major changes in the … Continue reading