Monthly Archives: October 2022
Baude and McConnell: “The Supreme Court Has a Perfectly Good Option in Its Most Divisive Case; In Moore v. Harper, the justices should not side with the views of either party.”
William Baude and Michael McConnell in The Atlantic:
In a constitutional republic like ours, legislatures ultimately derive their authority from the people. This authority is conveyed through written constitutions that charter the government, vest power in different branches, and… Continue reading
“2022 CPA-Zicklin Index Expanded to Russell 1000; Dramatic Gap in Political Disclosure and Accountability Between S&P 500 and Smaller Companies”
Release:
Today, the nation’s premier benchmarking of U.S. companies for transparency and accountability of their political spending expands its coverage, from rating S&P 500 companies to evaluating the entire Russell 1000.The CPA-Zicklin Index of Corporate Political Disclosure and Accountability is… Continue reading
“How Ron DeSantis Blew Up Black-Held Congressional Districts and May Have Broken Florida Law”
ProPublica:
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was incensed. Late last year, the state’s Republican legislature had drawn congressional maps that largely kept districts intact, leaving the GOP with only a modest electoral advantage.DeSantis threw out the legislature’s work and redrew… Continue reading
“Why Republicans Could Prevail in the Popular Vote but Lose in the House”
Nate Cohn for the NYT:
Over the last few decades, we’ve gotten accustomed to the idea that Democrats could easily win the popular vote but struggle to win control of government.This time, there’s a chance of a reversal. After years… Continue reading
Supreme Court Vacates as Moot Third Circuit Decision About Counting Timely But Undated Absentee Ballots in Pennsylvania
Today’s order means the loss of a helpful precedent. Here’s how the cert. petition put the issue:
Pennsylvania requires voters to sign and date a declaration when they vote by mail. In a private lawsuit filed after a local… Continue reading
“Kanye’s antisemitic tweet could be a preview of social media’s future”
WaPo:
The rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, sent an Instagram post Friday suggesting fellow musician Sean “Diddy” Combswas controlled by Jewish people — a common antisemitic trope. Within hours, Instagram had removed the post and locked his account.That sent Ye… Continue reading
“Colorado: 30,000 noncitizens got vote registration mailer”
AP:
Colorado’s secretary of state office says it mistakenly sent postcards to about 30,000 noncitizens encouraging them to register to vote, blaming the error on a database glitch related to the state’s list of residents with driver’s licenses.The office of… Continue reading
“The Malapportionment of the US House of Representatives: 1940–2020”
New article from Ruoxi Li in PS. Abstract:
In the latest round of the apportionment of the US House of Representatives following the 2020 Census, the State of New York lost a seat by an extremely small margin: if a… Continue reading
Redistricting Discussion at Heart of Leaked Racist Discussion by LA City Council Members; Jessica Levinson on the Legal Implications
From the LA Times bombshell report:
Still, much of the conversation focused on the maps that had been proposed by the city’s redistricting commission. Martinez voiced frustration that the panel had proposed removing a number of economic assets from her… Continue reading
AALS Section on Election Law Call for Submissions: Annual Scholarship Award
From an email I recently sent to the AALS Section on Election Law listserv:
The AALS Section on Election Law is soliciting submissions for its annual scholarship award. The award is given to a single work that exemplifies excellence in… Continue reading
My New Paper: “Donald Trump Should Remain Deplatformed from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube Despite the High Bar That Platforms Should Apply to the Question of Deplatforming Political Figures”
I have posted this short paper on SSRN (prepared for this week’s Stanford/UCLA conference on replatforming Donald Trump). Here is the abstract:
This short position paper, prepared for the Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet/UCLA Safeguarding Democracy Project conference,… Continue reading
“Why Little-Noticed State Legislative Races Could Be Hugely Consequential; Races in state legislatures are often quiet and turn on local issues like roads or schools. But a Supreme Court case could give these legislative bodies nearly absolute power over federal elections.”
“Justice Jackson Joins the Supreme Court, and the Debate Over Originalism”
Great new Adam Liptak Sidebar column in the NYT, with the subhead: “In arguments in a voting rights case, the new justice said history must inform constitutional interpretation, making a liberal case for an idea often associated with conservatives.”