“Texas Republicans aim to redraw House districts at Trump’s urging, but there’s a risk”

July 20, 2025, 5:25 amredistrictingDan Tokaji

AP: Texas has 38 seats in the House. Republicans now hold 25 and Democrats 12, with one seat vacant after Democrat Sylvester Turner, a former Houston mayor, died in March…. The fear of accidentally creating unsafe seats is one… Continue reading

Charles, Fuentes-Rohwer & Peale, “Reconstructing (the Law of) Democracy”

July 19, 2025, 3:22 pmelection law and constitutional lawDan Tokaji

Guy Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, and Farris Peale have posted this paper on SSRN. The abstract: American democracy is experiencing a stress test, but the field that ought to be preoccupied with democracy seems to have little to say about it. The… Continue reading

In-person voting rebounded in 2024

July 19, 2025, 3:18 pmabsentee ballotsDan Tokaji

Votebeat: After years of speculation about the “death” of in-person voting, the latest national data shows a bit of a rebound: Americans are returning to the polls in person. According to a new MIT report titled “How We Voted… Continue reading

“Trump’s DOJ has fired dozens of prosecutors, upending decades-old norm”

July 19, 2025, 7:18 amauthoritarian threats in US, Department of Justice, election subversion riskDan Tokaji

WaPo reports: The Department of Justice under the Trump administration has fired dozens of career prosecutors during the past six months, making the dismissal of federal attorneys — generally a move reserved for cases of misconduct — almost commonplace.… Continue reading

“Gabbard Claims Obama Administration Tried to Undermine Trump in 2016”

July 19, 2025, 4:23 amauthoritarian threats in US, election subversion riskDan Tokaji

NYT: “The Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Friday issued the latest in a series of reports from the Trump administration attempting to undermine the eight-year-old assessment that Russia favored the election of Donald J. Trump in… Continue reading

Remembering Bob Stein

July 19, 2025, 4:20 amUncategorizedDan Tokaji

Rice political scientist Bob Stein died yesterday. The Lena Gohlman Fox Professor of Political Science, he served on the Rice faculty for 46 years. Bob was an expert in voting behavior and an active member of the election scholar… Continue reading

“Wisconsin elections officials find clerk broke laws over uncounted ballots”

July 18, 2025, 9:17 amelection administrationDan Tokaji

AP, with news from here in Madison: Wisconsin elections officials declared Thursday that the former clerk of the state’s capital city broke several laws related to not counting nearly 200 absentee ballots in the November presidential election, but they… Continue reading

The recent rash of DOJ voter file “requests”

July 18, 2025, 7:44 amDepartment of Justice, voter registrationprivacy actJustin Levitt

Recent reports have disclosed that DOJ has now “asked” at least nine states for copies of their voter rolls, and I know that there are at least a handful of counties that have separately also received requests/demands for the county’s… Continue reading

“The Court’s Liberals Are Trying to Tell Americans Something”

July 18, 2025, 5:36 amauthoritarian threats in US, Supreme CourtDan Tokaji

Aziz Huq in The Atlantic: In recent Supreme Court terms, Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson have issued defiant dissents that push back against a seemingly endless cascade of conservative opinions. The three tend to take… Continue reading

“The Supreme Court Is Writing a Slow-Motion Eulogy for One of America’s Greatest Achievements”

July 18, 2025, 5:27 amVoting Rights ActDan Tokaji

Maureen Edobor in Slate: Next month marks the 60th anniversary of the passing of the Voting Rights Act—a law often celebrated as the “crown jewel” of the Civil Rights Movement. Signed in 1965 after years of organizing and unimaginable sacrifice,… Continue reading

“Ohio must draw a new congressional map. Republicans hold all the cards”

July 18, 2025, 5:17 amredistrictingDan Tokaji

Cincinnati Enquirer: “Republicans control every aspect of the redistricting process in Ohio. They have a supermajority in the Ohio Legislature, which gets the first opportunity to draw a new congressional map. They hold five of the seven seats on… Continue reading

“Crypto Industry Reaches Milestone With Passage of First Major Bill”

July 18, 2025, 5:12 amcampaign finance, legislation and legislatures, lobbyingDan Tokaji

NYT: “The big bipartisan votes on the legislation reflected the industry’s success in cultivating powerful allies in government. Crypto firms financed a network of super PACs that spent more than $130 million backing pro-crypto candidates in the 2024 election.”

Edsall: Trump Is Winning

July 18, 2025, 5:08 amauthoritarian threats in USDan Tokaji

The incomparable Thomas Edsall in NYT: Capitalizing on Democrats’ weakness, President Trump is winning his battle to undermine democracy in this country. But he has not won the war…. The brutality of Trump’s anti-democratic policies is part of a… Continue reading

The Impoundment Act, Polarization, Bipartisanship, and the Budget

July 17, 2025, 3:52 pmUncategorizedRichard Pildes

The Impoundment Act of 1974 was passed with strong bipartisan support in the pre-polarization era. It was designed to reassert congressional control over the budget, while ac acknowledging there might be circumstances in which Presidents had good reasons not to… Continue reading