Monthly Archives: December 2021

“Biden’s rhetoric aside, Democrats end the year still stuck on advancing voting rights”

December 19, 2021, 9:06 amUncategorizedRick Hasen

Dan Balz: President Biden’s impassioned rhetoric on Friday about securing voting rights collided once again with the realities of the Democrats’ limited options to turn words into action. Democrats end the year in an even worse place than when… Continue reading

“A head-scratching ranking of states’ election integrity”

December 19, 2021, 8:56 amUncategorizedRick Hasen

Jessica Huseman: The Heritage Foundation released a “scorecard” this week ranking states on election security. It is, as I’ll explain here, extremely flawed in both its methodology and its conclusions. It has received almost no attention, aside from … Continue reading

“Intimidation of election officials in Wisconsin has to stop. It is corrosive to our democracy.”

December 17, 2021, 4:14 pmUncategorizedRick Hasen

Bob Bauer and Ben Ginsberg have written this oped for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. It begins: The recent pattern of attempted intimidation of state and local election officials, combined with attempts to inject partisan influence over the casting and counting of… Continue reading

“A glimmer of hope on Joe Manchin and voting rights?”

December 17, 2021, 11:44 amUncategorizedRick Hasen

Greg Sargent: I’m told Manchin and a dozen other Senate Democrats met with an expert on Senate rules and discussed various ways of carving out a filibuster exception or otherwise reforming it to allow passage of voting rights legislation.… Continue reading

“Consultant’s memo to FPL exec’s email alias reveals strategies for secretive political spending”

December 17, 2021, 11:39 amUncategorizedRick Hasen

Orlando Sentinel: Early in the evening of Nov. 26, 2019, the Tuesday of Thanksgiving week, a political consultant working for utility giant Florida Power & Light sent a pair of confidential documents to an email address created under the… Continue reading

“Texas’ renewed voter citizenship review is still flagging citizens as “possible non-U.S. citizens””

December 17, 2021, 11:33 amUncategorizedRick Hasen

Texas Tribune: Texas’ last attempt to scour its voting rolls for noncitizens two years ago quickly devolved into a calamity.The state flagged nearly 100,000 voters for citizenship checks and set them up for possible criminal investigation based on… Continue reading

“Texas AG Paxton’s $2.2M voter fraud unit closed three cases in Texas in 2021. GOP lawmakers still boosted its budget.”

December 17, 2021, 11:27 amfraudulent fraud squadRick Hasen

Houston Chronicle: Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton has been one of former PresidentTexas PresidentDonald Trump’s most reliable allies in spreading the myth of widespread voter fraud,Donald particularly in the 2020 election, and frequently boasts that few states are… Continue reading

“Settlement Reached in Election-Related Lawsuit Against USPS”

December 17, 2021, 11:21 amUncategorizedRick Hasen

Release: On behalf of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Public Citizen Litigation Group and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) announced today a settlement in the case NAACP v. United States Postal… Continue reading

“Kanye West’s ‘Independent’ Campaign Was Secretly Run by GOP Elites”

December 17, 2021, 11:18 amchicaneryRick Hasen

Daily Beast: New documents show Kanye West’s doomed White House campaign—styled as an “independent” third-party effort—appears to have disguised potentially millions of dollars in services it received from a secretive network of Republican Party operatives, including advisers to the… Continue reading

“Dominion Voting wins key decision in lawsuit against Fox News”

December 17, 2021, 11:14 amUncategorizedRick Hasen

CNN: A judge in Delaware has found that Fox News’ coverage of election fraud after the 2020 election may have been inaccurate, and is allowing a major defamation case against the right-wing TV network to move forward.Judge Eric Davis… Continue reading

January 4 USC Event “One Year After Insurrection: How Has Our Democracy Changed?”

December 16, 2021, 4:19 pmUncategorizedRick Hasen

I’m looking forward to participating in this virtual event (free registration required): Tuesday, January 4, 202210:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. PacificWebinar The aftermath of the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol reflected and further impacted the… Continue reading

CA Supreme Court Rejects Writ Petition Arguing that CA Redistricting Commission Violated Open Meetings Rules and There Was Conflict of Interest with Redistricting Counsel

December 16, 2021, 2:24 pmUncategorizedRick Hasen

At the Lectern: The Supreme Court today denied an original writ petition filed two weeks ago seeking relief against the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, which is responsible for drafting Congressional, state legislative, and Board of Equalization district maps for… Continue reading

NPV effort in Michigan won’t affect 2024 election

December 16, 2021, 11:28 amelectoral collegeNed Foley

I’ve just been alerted to this: National Popular Vote compact won’t make Michigan 2022 ballot. Organizers may try again in 2024, according to the report, but pulling the plug on the effort to get on the ballot in 2022… Continue reading

“Fighting a New Wave of Voter Suppression: Securing College Students’ Right to Vote Through the Twenty-Sixth Amendment’s Enforcement Clause”

December 16, 2021, 9:13 amUncategorizedRick Hasen

Ryan D’Ercole has published this student note in the Washington and Lee Law Review. Here is the abstract: Throughout the 1960s, young people protested for racial and LGBTQ+ equality, women’s rights, and an end to the Vietnam war. In… Continue reading

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The law of politics and the politics of law