“Civil Rights Groups Secure Victory in LandmarkCase Challenging Racial Discrimination inLouisiana’s State Legislative Maps”

February 8, 2024, 3:30 pmredistricting, Voting Rights ActRick Hasen

Release: In a victory for fair maps, a federal court today ruled in favor of Louisiana voters, agreeing that the current state House and Senate district maps violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The plaintiffs who challenged the… Continue reading

Did Justice Gorsuch, Ever So Subtly Suggest He Thinks That Donald Trump is “the President” and Not “the Former President?” (Update: Probably NOT!)

February 8, 2024, 2:11 pmSupreme CourtRick Hasen

A careful listener pointed to to the exchange in the oral argument at around 2:30-31 on the audio. It’s not clear where the emphasis is from the transcript on the words “in your view,” but it sure sounded from the… Continue reading

“Some on the Right Flirt With a Voting Method the Left Loves”

February 8, 2024, 1:50 pmalternative voting systemsRick Hasen

Michael Wines for the NYT: Long viewed as an intriguing, if somewhat wonky, approach to conducting elections, ranked-choice voting — allowing voters to list candidates in order of preference instead of selecting just one — appears to be having a… Continue reading

“Domestic Disruptions Are Equal Risk to Foreign Interference in 2024 Election, Experts Say”

February 8, 2024, 12:36 pmelection subversion riskRick Hasen

Governing: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cautions that domestic actors have introduced new unknown factors into the 2024 election cycle. Its 2024 threat assessment warns that DHS expects the upcoming election cycle to be “a key event for possible… Continue reading

“Democrats sound alarm, take action against Biden’s third-party threats”

February 8, 2024, 12:30 pmballot access, third partiesRick Hasen

WaPo: Democratic alarm over third-party challengers spoiling President Biden’s reelection has been growing in recent weeks, prompting a new push both inside the party and among allied outside groups to step up their efforts fighting back. The Democratic National Committee… Continue reading

Special Counsel Report on Biden Classified Documents Probe Calls Him “a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”

February 8, 2024, 12:29 pmcampaignsRick Hasen

This is going to have big political implications. (quote is on p. 6 of the report) More detail: Special counsel report states that BIDEN “did not remember when he was Vice President” and did not remember “when his son… Continue reading

My New One at Slate: “A Grand Bargain Is Emerging in the Supreme Court’s Trump Cases, But Chaos May Be Ahead”

February 8, 2024, 11:39 amUncategorizedRick Hasen

I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: After oral arguments at the Supreme Court in Trump v. Anderson, a grand bargain that appears to make practical sense as a compromise is beginning to come into view: the Supreme Court… Continue reading

Rick Hasen Live Blog of Oral Arguments in Trump Disqualification Case at Supreme Court (Updates Complete)

February 8, 2024, 6:33 amballot access, election subversion risk, Supreme CourtRick Hasen

[This live blog is concluded. Stand by for thoughts on the argument.] Today the Supreme Court hears oral argument in Trump v. Anderson. The first thing I’ll be listening for is whether Trump’s lawyer gets any traction with the hyper-technical… Continue reading

“Partisan Gerrymandering Cases in State Supreme Courts in the 2020s Redistricting Round”

February 7, 2024, 5:47 pmredistrictingRick Hasen

Jonathan Cervas, Bernie Grofman, Scott Matsuda, and Justine Kawa have posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: After the U.S. Supreme Court opted out of any federal court role in policing partisan gerrymandering in its 2019 decision, Rucho… Continue reading

Conversation on Colorado Case

February 7, 2024, 2:53 pmUncategorizedNed Foley

On Monday, the University of Arizona law school held a conversation on the pending U.S. Supreme Court case from Colorado involving the question whether Trump is disqualified by section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Andy Coan, the director of the… Continue reading

Chuck Todd on the “FUBAR” Congress & What to Do about It

February 7, 2024, 2:37 pmUncategorizedNed Foley

Chuck Todd of NBC starts his new column: “Yes, democracy is messy. … But there’s messy — and then there’s the current state of American politics.” He astutely attributes the problem to the new information–and disinformation–ecosystem that has arisen… Continue reading

“How an ‘Ice Cream Truck’ for Voting Could Stop Pennsylvania Ballots from Being Tossed”

February 7, 2024, 12:23 pmUncategorizedRick Hasen

Bolts: Neil Makhija spent years promoting voter turnout in South Asian communities, and, as a professor of election law at the University of Pennsylvania, teaching new generations of attorneys about the fragility of the right to vote. But in 2020,… Continue reading

“Losing legitimacy: The challenges of the Dobbs ruling to conventional legitimacy theory”

February 7, 2024, 12:22 pmSupreme CourtRick Hasen

Jim Gibson in AJPS. Abstract: Extant research has established that displeasure with a Supreme Court ruling typically has negligible consequences for institutional support, largely because, as legitimacy theory’s positivity bias explains, judicial decisions are invariably delivered with the accoutrements of… Continue reading

I Will Be Live-Blogging Thursday’s Oral Arguments in Trump Disqualification Case at Election Law Blog, as Well as Providing Commentary on NPR’s Special Coverage

February 7, 2024, 11:43 amSupreme CourtRick Hasen

Readers will have to refresh the link I will post to get my comments on the case. I should be on NPR before and perhaps after the oral arguments start. And I’m tentatively set for some television appearances tomorrow as… Continue reading