Monthly Archives: July 2025

“Old money: Campaign finance and gerontocracy in the United States”

campaign finance, campaigns

Adam Bonica and Jacob Grumbach have written this article for the Journal of Public Economics. Here is the abstract:

Politicians in the United States rank among the oldest globally. This study examines how money in politics contributes to age inequality in political representation. Using record-linkage to construct a novel data set combining the ages of voters, donors, and candidates, we find that the median dollar in US elections comes from a 66-year-old — significantly older than the median voter, candidate, or elected official. Results from within-district and within-donor analyses confirm that age proximity with candidates increases contributions on the extensive and intensive margins. Finally, we simulate candidate fundraising by age under a hypothetical campaign finance voucher policy.

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“Smithsonian removes Trump from impeachment exhibit in American History Museum”

chicanery

Wapo:

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in July removed references to President Donald Trump’s two impeachments from an exhibit display. A person familiar with the exhibit plans, who was not authorized to discuss them publicly, said the change came about as part of a content review that the Smithsonian agreed to undertake following pressure from the White House to remove an art museum director.

A temporary label including content about Trump’s impeachments had been on display since September 2021 at the Washington museum, a Smithsonian spokesperson told The Washington Post, adding that it was intended to be a short-term addition to address current events. Now, the exhibit notes that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal.”

In addition to describing Trump’s two impeachments, the temporary label — which read “Case under redesign (history happens)” — also offered information about the impeachments of presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton as well as Richard M. Nixon, who would have faced impeachment had he not resigned. The Washington Post viewed a photograph of the temporary signage….

“In reviewing our legacy content recently, it became clear that the ‘Limits of Presidential Power’ section in The American Presidency: A Glorious Burden exhibition needed to be addressed,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The section of this exhibition covers Congress, The Supreme Court, Impeachment, and Public Opinion. Because the other topics in this section had not been updated since 2008, the decision was made to restore the Impeachment case back to its 2008 appearance.”

The change coincides with broader concerns about political interference at the Smithsonian and how the institution charged with preserving American history could be shaped by the Trump Administration’s efforts to exert more control over its work.

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California: “Gavin Newsom floats November special election for his anti-Trump redistricting push”

redistricting

Politico:

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday he will likely call a November special election to have voters approve new House maps that boost Democrats.

By embracing a public vote, Newsom teed up a nationalized contest that opens a prominent front in national Democrats’ efforts to thwart President Donald Trump’s agenda. Newsom has vigorously embraced the party’s push to counter a GOP-friendly Texas gerrymander by buoying Democrats in blue states like California, arguing Trump has left the party no choice….

The governor’s remarks were his most detailed yet since he first vowed to counter Texas’ GOP-buoying gerrymander by having California redraw its boundaries. Newsom had formerly said he was also considering having the Democratic-dominated Legislature simply draw new maps, circumventing the voters who enshrined an independent commission in 2010.

But Newsom backed away from that option Thursday, signaling he would prefer to put the issue to voters. He said the new maps would remain in place for the next three election cycles, after which the commission would draw new lines as scheduled.

“We’re not here to eliminate the [independent redistricting] commission,” Newsom said. “We’re here to provide a pathway in ’26, ’28, and in 2030 for congressional maps on the basis of a response to the rigging of the system of the president of the United States.”…

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“The Fact Checker rose in an era of false claims. Falsehoods are now winning.”

cheap speech

Glenn Kessler’s final WaPo column as their fact checker:

In reviewing many of the some 3,000 fact checks I have written or edited, there is a clear dividing line: June 2015, the month Donald Trump rode down the Trump Tower escalator and announced he was running for president….

In ending its work with fact-checkers, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg falsely claimed that fact-checkers censored free speech by being “too politically biased,” echoing Trump administration arguments. The Washington Post did not participate in the Meta program, but any Facebook user had the option to opt out of having posts fact-checked. Many fact-checkers would liken their work to nutritional labels on snack foods — providing more information about online content. People are free to ignore the warnings, just as people can ignore nutritional labels….

In 2016, Trump’s opponents still cared about the facts. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s (R) campaign had a wall where they posted positive fact checks. Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) dropped a talking point simply in response to my question for a possible fact check. Hillary Clinton’s staff worked hard to find policy experts to vouch for her statistics. (Her comments on her private email server were less defensible).

But Trump didn’t care. He kept rising in the polls and eventually won the presidency. Other politicians took notice and followed his lead.

Besides Trump, something else changed the nature of truth in the mid-2010s: the rise of social media. The Fact Checker was launched in 2007, one year after the creation of Twitter and when Facebook had only 50 million users. By 2012, Facebook had 1 billion followers; it reached nearly 1.6 billion in 2015. Trump adroitly used Twitter — where he had 2.76 million followers at the start of 2015 — and other social media to spread his message. Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the United States was the most talked about moment on Facebook among the 2016 candidates in all of 2015, according to Facebook data.

Social media helped fuel the rise of Trump — and made it easier for false claims to circulate. Russian operatives in 2016 used fake accounts on social media to spread disinformation and create divisive content — tactics that led companies such as Meta to begin to use fact-checkers to identify misleading content. But the political forces which benefited from false information — such as Trump and his allies — led a backlash against such efforts, saying it was a form of censorship. Now tech companies are scaling back their efforts to combat misinformation….

During Trump’s first term, The Fact Checker team documented that he made more than 30,000 false or misleading claims. Week after week, I would write fact checks unpacking his latest misstatements, and Trump generally earned Four Pinocchios — the rating for a whopper. But I sense that the country has gotten so used to Trump exaggerating the truth that it no longer seems surprising. I chose not to repeat the exercise in his second term…

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D.C. Bar Committee Recommends that Jeffrey Clark, Who Tried to Help Trump Subvert the 2020 Presidential Election, Be Disbarred

chicanery, election subversion risk

From the report and recommendation:

Having reviewed the record in this matter, including the parties’ arguments before the Board, we reject Respondentís procedural arguments and dispositive motions. On the merits, we conclude that Disciplinary Counsel proved by clear and convincing evidence that Respondent attempted to make intentionally false statements when he continued to advocate that the Justice Department issue a letter containing falsehoods. Although the hearing witnesses agreed that Respondent had sincere personal concerns about the integrity of the 2020 election, they also agreed that the Justice Department had not identified potentially outcome-determinative issues in Georgia or other states. Respondent knew that because Messrs. Rosen and Donoghue told him so. Thus, Respondentís conduct constituted an attempt to make intentionally false statements about the results of the Justice Department’s investigation. We agree with the Hearing Committee that Disciplinary Counsel failed to prove that Respondent attempted to seriously interfere with the administration of justice, although for different reasons.

A majority of the Board recommends that Respondent be disbarred. [Footnote: Two Board Members recommend that Respondent be suspended for three years and be required to prove his fitness to practice prior to reinstatement.] We recognize that there are no factually comparable prior disciplinary cases. But that is not surprising given the underlying facts. In making this recommendation, we are mindful of the need to maintain the integrity of the legal profession and deter the respondent and other attorneys from engaging in similar misconduct. Lawyers must observe the highest standard of professional conduct. At a minimum, they must be honest. While dishonesty is always intolerable, the facts here are significantly aggravating to warrant disbarment: Respondent was prepared to cause the Justice Department to tell a lie about the status of its investigation of an important national issue (the integrity of the 2020 Presidential election). Lawyers cannot advocate for any outcome based on false statements and they certainly cannot urge others to do so. Respondent persistently and energetically sought to do just that on an important national issue. He should be disbarred as a consequence and to send a message to the rest of the Bar and to the public that this behavior will not be tolerated.

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“Corporate America has largely abandoned its post-January 6 promises on democracy”

authoritarian threats in US

CREW:

Since the January 6 insurrection, over 2,000 corporate and industry group PACs have given over $174 million to members of the Sedition Caucus—those 147 lawmakers who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election as well as Donald Trump and the new members of Congress who ran on the Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 election. The attack on the Capitol was an alarming illustration of the violence that can result when people in power spread dangerous lies. It was also an existential threat to the continuing viability of American democracy, if election results can be met with violence from those who don’t like the result. Such a cataclysmic event should have marked a turning point in the political spending behavior of corporations—and for many corporations, at first it did.

In the aftermath of January 6, over 200 companies pledged to no longer donate to lawmakers who voted against certifying the election. In the months that followed, CREW began tracking corporate contributions to members of the Sedition Caucus, suspecting that the commitments would crumble as Washington returned to business as usual and corporations started to feel pressure to begin maximizing access and influence again. After more than four years of tracking this corporate capitulation to those who continue to undermine democracy, this particular project is wrapping up, but CREW’s efforts to hold corporations and the anti-democratic politicians they fund continue. With Donald Trump’s 2024 victory, the calculus for corporations changed, as the person who inspired the 2021 insurrection regained control of the executive branch of the government, and his supporters now control both houses of Congress. Perhaps more than ever, CREW believes that the risks posed by corporations supporting leaders who undermine democratic institutions are extremely severe—to all Americans, and to the stability needed for companies to thrive. Over time, this project documented how more and more companies sacrificed their support for fundamental democratic principles to political pressures, resuming or continuing support for lawmakers who tried to overturn an election or spread election lies. In 2021, the Sedition Caucus received nearly $22 million in donations from corporate PACs. In 2023, the next non-election year, this annual amount had increased by over 90 percent to more than $42 million. In 2024, corporations stepped up their support again, donating over $49 million to the Sedition Caucus. This increase in corporate money to seditionists is particularly concerning as political scientists and scholars have been sounding the alarm about the Trump administration’s slippery slope towards authoritarianism. By continuing to financially support anti-democratic lawmakers, these companies and trade groups fail to grasp the serious business consequences of such a dangerous political trajectory…

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“Shifting Attention to Internal Administrative Law in the States”

election administration

Chris Walker at Jotwell, reviewing Kevin M. Stack, The Internal Law of Democracy, 77 Vand. L. Rev. 1627 (2024):

In The Internal Law of Democracy, Professor Stack examines how internal administrative law has shaped election administration. After Part I of the article provides a cogent summary of the internal administrative law literature to date, Part II turns to election administration and presents three important case studies: local voting practices in the South during the Jim Crow era, the 2000 Bush-Gore presidential election recount in Florida, and the 2020 COVID-19-related mail-in ballot controversies in Pennsylvania. Through these case studies, Professor Stack effectively illustrates how internal law shapes elections. As he concludes from these case studies, “this internal law made by election officials and administrators to organize and guide their own discretion has determined who votes, how they vote, and whether their votes are counted.” (P. 1711.)

After presenting these case studies, Part III zooms out to document internal law’s status, variety, and sources in state and local election administration as well as how federal law regulates that internal law today. These state and local internal laws range from formal rules to informal guidance, and from state-mandated standards to local on-the-ground, in-the-moment decisions. At the federal and state levels, Professor Stack concludes that “the overall picture is of limited federal oversight and uneven (and often weak) state external checks on the internal law of democracy.” (P. 1689.)

Part IV—perhaps my favorite part—presents Professor Stack’s vision for internal laws governing election administration. He identifies four rule-of-law conditions that should guide a reform agenda for election administration: “internal law must be (1) consistent with external law, (2) public and accessible, (3) presumptively binding on lower-level officials, and (4) justified publicly.” (P. 1698.) He recognizes that this reform agenda is easier said than done, due to the unique circumstances of election administration. Among other things, “election administrators and workers require explicit answers in a time-sensitive and pressured environment,” and “election administration relies heavily on a unique personnel model” of “temporary workers who volunteer or serve for a nominal wage.” (P. 1692-93.) In light of these circumstances, Professor Stack concludes that “an internal law of democracy that prospectively guides the operational choices faced by those who administer elections is a necessary condition for election administration—and can contribute to the public’s perception of election fairness.” (P. 1695.) Part V concludes by addressing some obstacles and objections, including express local preemption to home rule, criminal sanctions for deviation from state election policy, partisan influence, and the potentially “existential threat” of the independent state legislature doctrine.

The Internal Law of Democracy demonstrates the value of administrative law scholars shifting their attention away from the federal bureaucracy and toward state and local government law. In that sense, it reminds me a lot of the terrific scholarship by Miriam Seifter and Maria Ponomarenko, among others. The article also shows the value of the fields of state and local government for administrative law. I wish our fields interacted more; local government law in particular has so much to offer to our field in terms of theory and framing. I hope this article sparks more cross-pollination and interaction between the fields. Administrative law would be better for it….

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The Downballot on Why the Texas Gerrymander is Likely to be Effective and Not a “Dummymander”

redistricting

Downballot:

Texas Republicans unveiled a congressional redistricting proposal on Wednesday that would, as Donald Trump asked, further gerrymander the state’s map by making five Democratic-held seats more likely to flip in next year’s elections.

The plan, which could change prior to passage, seeks to undermine Democrats by diluting the voting strength of Black and Latino voters, potentially in violation of the Voting Rights Act. It makes radical changes to do so, moving more than a third of Texans into new constituencies. Of the state’s 38 districts, only one, the Lubbock-area 19th, would remain untouched.

Below, we outline the most important changes to the five districts Republicans are targeting. In each case, we’ve also included data showing how each current district voted in the 2024 and 2020 presidential elections, as calculated by The Downballot, and how each proposed district would have voted in that same election, according to Dave’s Redistricting App and the Redistricting Data Hub (for 2024) and VEST (for 2020).

Notably, the proposal in no way resembles a “dummymander“—an overly aggressive map that winds up backfiring on the party it was meant to favor, which was a possibility some had forecast (or wished for). Republicans may not pick up all five of the seats they have their sights on should they adopt these new boundaries, but they’ve been careful not to weaken any of the districts they currently hold….

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As redistricting eyes turn again to California

election law and constitutional law, redistricting,

Justin here. I find much of the work of the UCLA Voting Rights Project to be really valuable — but I have to say, I agree with Rick’s take on their read of the California Constitution‘s provisions on redistricting. The California Constitution can be amended (as Rick says, it takes approval by the voters), but I don’t think current law permits the legislature to just draw maps on their own. And I think following the Project’s memo would end up putting the legislature in a worst-case bind.

Rick says that the memo uses a sort of “wooden textualism” — the same sort of methodology, giving overly short shrift to what drafters clearly intended, that has produced the 8th Circuit’s dead-wrong decisions on private rights to enforce the VRA. But I think it’s even less persuasive than that. The memo describes portions of the California Constitution that “retain for [the] Legislature the power to adopt ‘a statute establishing or changing boundaries of any legislative, congressional, or other election district.’” That’s not what I read those sections to be doing.

The memo cites two sections of Article IV of the California Constitution – section 8(c) and section 10(b) – as giving the legislature power to draw redistricting statutes (and override the state’s independent commission) whenever it wants. Article IV, section 8, subsection (c) is about effective dates for legislation. It has a default, a special exception (I think) for bills passed at the end of the first year of a two-year session, and an exception to the exception for redistricting statutes. Article IV, section 10, subsection (b) is about bills becoming laws without the governor’s signature if he sits on them long enough. It too has a default, and an exception for redistricting statutes.

Neither of those sections purports to assign the legislature a role in drafting redistricting statutes. It just says what the effective dates and law-without-signature timing might be for legislative redistricting statutes … if such statutes existed. And the best read of the constitution, I think, is that Article XXI just means there are none of those legislative redistricting statutes now (because the redistricting commission has the power to do that work instead). That doesn’t make these procedural bits superfluous: if the commission provisions are withdrawn or modified, they kick back in.

It’s very hard to read those small procedural exceptions in 8(c) and 10(b) to imply a giant substantive power when the much much much clearer provision on substantive power gives that power instead to the independent commission. Also, it sure seems weird for Article XXI of the California Constitution to go to all the trouble to specifically take the pen away from the legislature and prescribe a bunch of criteria for the commission to use, if a different part of the constitution just lets the legislature undo that work however they want whenever they want.

I am, of course, not a court. And maybe a court would disagree with me. But I think it’s far more likely that a court would read these provisions of Article IV as vestigial procedural caveats rather than affirmative authorization. And if that’s true, then a legislature acting on this theory (and not, say, putting a measure before the public if they really want to effectuate a retaliatory gerrymander) is putting itself in a worst-case scenario.

If the legislature draws a radically gerrymandered map on this theory, it ticks off all of the reform voters who put the commission in place in the first instance, and anyone who doesn’t love the idea of a Democratic gerrymander. And if a court (as I think most likely) then strikes the map down for lack of legislative authority, it ticks off all of the Democrats gunning for pure partisanship – because now the legislature has accomplished nothing, and it’s too late for a special election that would actually change the rules before 2026. I think this is a recipe to claiming action while actually affecting nothing, and ticking _everyone_ off in the process.

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“[County Executive] Sam Page indicted on election and theft charges over St. Louis County proposition mailer”

campaign finance, direct democracy

STLPR reports:

A St. Louis County grand jury on Wednesday indicted County Executive Sam Page on charges involving the use of public money to campaign against Proposition B ahead of the April election.

The measure would have allowed the St. Louis County Council to fire certain department heads with five of seven votes. Six of the council’s seven members are generally combative with Page.

The county sent out a mailer in the weeks leading up to the election outlining consequences of the issue. The front of the mailer listed groups that opposed Proposition B and included wording from a court ruling ordering a change in the language appearing on the ballot. The “paid for” line said St. Louis County.

…

State law forbids any elected official to spend public funds to campaign for or against a ballot measure. Page faces two misdemeanor election offenses and two counts of felony theft “by deceit” over the spending of county money.

Page has said the mailer was informational only and did not advocate a position.

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