“Justice Kavanaugh Stays District Court Order in Ohio Ballot Initiative Dispute”

April 11, 2025, 12:18 pmUncategorizedRick Hasen

Jonathan Adler: On Wednesday evening, in Yost v. Brown, Justice Brett Kavanaugh entered a stay of a district court order in requiring Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost to publish two contest ballot initiative summaries. Justice Kavanaugh also called for a response… Continue reading

“LDF Exits Meta’s Civil Rights Advisory Committee Over Harmful Content Moderation Practices, Urges Company to Reverse Course on DEIA Rollbacks”

April 11, 2025, 9:50 amUncategorizedRick Hasen

Release via email: In two letters sent to Mark Zuckerberg today, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) has removed itself from Meta’s external civil rights advisory group due to concerns over its content moderation and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policy… Continue reading

Rick Pildes: Johns Hopkins Agora Institute Event on Executive Power and the Courts

April 11, 2025, 8:37 amUncategorizedRichard Pildes

I’m happy to be doing this event shortly. The link to watch the event is here: https://hopkinsathome.jhu.edu/watch-now

“How DOGE may have improperly used Social Security data to push voter fraud narratives”

April 11, 2025, 7:28 amchicanery, fraudulent fraud squadRick Hasen

NPR: One of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency lieutenants working in the Social Security Administration has been pushing dubious claims about noncitizens voting, apparently using access to data that court records suggest DOGE isn’t supposed to have. The staffer,… Continue reading

Must-read NYT: “Trump Escalates Use of Official Power to Intimidate and Punish His Perceived Foes”

April 11, 2025, 7:02 amauthoritarian threats in US, Department of JusticeRick Hasen

Savage, Haberman, Swan, and Schmidt in the NYT: President Trump’s first-term efforts to spur law enforcement officials to pursue his political enemies were haphazard, informal and often hashed out in private. Now, his demands for investigations are starting to… Continue reading

“Trump is Already Undermining the Next Election”

April 11, 2025, 6:57 amauthoritarian threats in US, election subversion riskRick Hasen

Paul Rozenzweig for The Atlantic: An unfortunate reality now confronts Americans who value the rule of law: The court system has limited capability to act as a guardrail against Trumpist authoritarianism. And so elections matter—vitally. The final and most powerful… Continue reading

“At the Supreme Court, the Trump Agenda Is Always an ‘Emergency'”

April 11, 2025, 6:53 amSupreme CourtRick Hasen

Abbie VanSickle for the NYT: The Trump administration has in recent weeks asked the Supreme Court to allow it to end birthright citizenship, to freeze more than a billion dollars in foreign aid and to permit the deportation of… Continue reading

Historians Keyssar and Wilentz Put SAVE Act’s Proposed Disenfranchisement in Historical Perspective

April 10, 2025, 9:31 amThe Voting WarsRick Hasen

Democracy Docket: Voting-rights advocates and Democratic officials have already made clear the massive threat the SAVE Act poses to access to the ballot in the here and now, warning that it could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters. But in… Continue reading

“House passes bill that could make it harder for married women to vote” (SAVE Act)

April 10, 2025, 9:07 amUncategorizedRick Hasen

The 19th: The U.S. House has passed a bill that voting rights groups have repeatedly warned would make it harder for millions of Americans, including married women, to vote. The Republican-controlled House on Thursday voted for the Safeguard American Voter… Continue reading

An Important Reminder about the Special Danger of the Chris Krebs Trump Announcement

April 10, 2025, 7:01 amauthoritarian threats in US, Department of JusticeRick Hasen

Politico: A president ordering investigations of specific individuals whom he considers to be his political enemies is a remarkable breach of the traditional wall of separation between the White House and the Justice Department. Under that norm of separation,… Continue reading

Sixth Circuit on 2-1 Vote Lifts Stay in Longrunning Dispute over Ohio AG’s Failure to Approve Ballot Language Summary for Petition Circulation; AG Goes to SCOTUS

April 10, 2025, 6:55 amdirect democracy, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

You can find the Sixth Circuit’s order and dissent at this link. The AG is already off to SCOTUS.

“Fear and loathing over California ballot counting”

April 10, 2025, 6:47 amUncategorizedRick Hasen

Politico: California’s notoriously slow vote-counting process has led to a rare bipartisan realization in Sacramento — the state needs to dramatically pick up the pace in producing election results. But Democrats and Republicans are nowhere near in agreement on how… Continue reading

Trump Targets CISA’s Chris Krebs (and Miles Taylor)

April 9, 2025, 6:14 pmauthoritarian threats in USRick Hasen

AP: President Donald Trump intensified his efforts to punish his critics on Wednesday by signing a pair of memoranda directing the Justice Department to investigate two officials from his first administration and stripping them of any security clearances they… Continue reading

“Judge finds Newsmax aired false and defamatory claims about voting-tech company”

April 9, 2025, 6:10 pmUncategorizedRick Hasen

NPR: A Delaware judge, once again, has found that a conservative news outlet broadcast false and defamatory claims about the role a voting technology company played in the 2020 presidential election. This time, that network is Newsmax, Fox News’ upstart… Continue reading

Election Law Blog

The law of politics and the politics of law