AP News: The Georgia Supreme Court refused to issue a ruling, leaving the legality of Cobb County Commissioners electoral districts uncertain. The County is Georgia’s third-largest. While the Court agreed “that someone needs to issue a legally final ruling on whether county commissioners can override state legislators and draw their own electoral districts,” and one Justice urged the commissioners themselves to file for a declaration, a unanimous Court held that the “it would be improper to rule on the legal issue” where the plaintiff’s lacked standing.
“Trump is gagged. So his surrogates say the forbidden stuff for him.”
From the Washington Post:
“Three GOP senators have appeared with Trump in court and conveniently proceeded to say precisely what he can’t.”
J.D. Vance’s tweets today attacked the credibility of Michael Cohen and the impartiality of New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan. Tuberville, among others, did the same.
Biden Invests in Organizing Rural Voters
Access to the vote is essential, but so is getting people to the polls. Axios reports that the Biden campaign gets this: It is already “investing in dozens of field offices in some of the nation’s reddest counties, pressing its early money advantage to establish political beachheads in hostile territory.” The goal is not to win these counties. It is to find or cultivate what support might exist and turn that support into votes on Election Day.
The Procedural Train Wreck Before the Court This Week in the LA Congressional Redistricting Case
The stay applications before the Supreme Court this week on Louisiana’s congressional map represent the biggest procedural quagmire in a Voting Rights Act I can recall seeing:
1. One federal court held that Louisiana’s newly enacted map, after the 2020 Census, violated the VRA.
2. When LA then then enacted a remedial map, a different federal court held the remedial map violated the Constitution. So right now, LA has no valid map for this year’s congressional elections.
3. But on top of this, LA’s Secretary of State has told the Court she has to have a map in place by May 15th — Wednesday — to meet critical election deadlines that start rolling out.
The stay issues will be fully briefed before the Court this am. LA asks the Court to stay the second federal court decision, let it use a map this fall which that lower court has has held unconstitutional, but also hear the case on the merits down the road.
4. On the merits, if the Court agrees to hear the case this fall, the case presents the tension between the use of race in redistricting that the VRA might require and the constitutional constraints that also apply to the use of race in redistricting (particularly when a State is creating a remedial map after a judicial finding that the VRA requires a remedy). This is the search for what Chief Justice Roberts called, in the case I argued on these issues from Alabama, “the sweet spot” on the use of race in redistricting.
Update: Now that the opposing briefs have been filed, I can report that the respondents take issue with the Secretary of State’s assertion that a map must be in place by May 15th. They also argue that remedial proceedings are currently going on before the second federal court, which has committed to adopting a remedial map by June 4th.
“Wisconsin Supreme Court to revisit ruling that banned most ballot drop boxes”
NBC News: The Wisconsin Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in a case that could result in the use of absentee ballot drop boxes for the upcoming presidential election. The case provides an opportunity for the Court’s liberal majority to reverse a decision made in the last election cycle that only the legislature can introduce absentee ballot drop boxes. Voting Rights Activists argue that is not correct and that the Wisconsin Elections Commission has discretion to make the decision. Wisconsin requires that absentee ballots be returned by mail or in person, but they argued it is unclear if the latter is limited to returning ballots to the election clerk’s office.
The Law of Assembly on Campus
Democratic politics involves far more than voting in elections. Yet, while we spend endless hours preoccupied with largely fabricated problems with elections, few pay any attention to the law of protest and assembly or its inadequacies. When we do, the question is essentially, “when would it be legal to disband the inconvenience and disruption that is protest?” This past week, I had the pleasure of engaging in an informal discussion with John Inazu (Wash U.), Ashutosh Bhagwat (UC Davis) and Tim Zick (William and Mary) about the legal and constitutional dimensions of recent campus protests and the problem with this narrow conception of the question. Beyond those issues that John identifies in his linked blog, our conversation discussed the problems with policing protests and the role of universities and colleges in our democracy.
“Johnson’s ‘intuition’ clashes with data on illegal voting”
The Hill: The numbers, agreed on by both left- and right-of-center institutes, speak for themselves:
“The Brennan Center study from the 2016 general election showed an estimated 30 incidents of suspected — not confirmed — noncitizen votes out of… Continue reading
“In top races, Republicans try to stay quiet on Trump’s false 2020 claims”
Washington Post reports that while those auditioning for Vice President maybe embracing Trump’s narrative, Republican candidates in tight races are being intentionally vague, redirecting the focus on election rules. Also not good.
“[Unlike in 2022], many of the Republicans running… Continue reading
“Montana’s Tribal Voters Could Determine the Makeup of the Senate”
Politico.
Native Americans are always an important voting bloc in Montana, where they make up 6.5 percent of the population, per U.S. Census data. But this November, their involvement could potentially impact the entire nation.
Control of the Senate… Continue reading
“Will You Accept the Election Results? Republicans Dodge the Question.”
NYT.
Less than six months out from the presidential contest, leading Republicans, including several of Donald J. Trump’s potential running mates, have refused to commit to accepting the results of the election, signaling that the party may again challenge the… Continue reading
“Meta’s oversight board backs takedown of Australian voter fraud posts”
Reuters.
Meta’s oversight board upheld a decision to remove two Facebook posts calling for Australians to vote multiple times in an indigenous rights referendum, but noted the social media giant had not adequately explained its ban on encouraging voter fraud.… Continue reading
“Nevada Supreme Court strikes down independent redistricting commission ballot questions”
Nevada Independent. It’s disappointing to see Nevada Democrats fighting to preserve gerrymandering, especially at the state legislative level where there’s no unilateral disarmament rationale for the status quo.
The Nevada Supreme Court on Friday unanimously affirmed a district court ruling… Continue reading
“Inside the unusually aggressive Arizona grand jury that indicted Trump’s allies”
The Arizona grand jury that recently indicted 18 people for their roles in former President Donald Trump’s scheme to subvert the 2020 election cast a far wider net than state prosecutors had publicly foreshadowed.
The panel of 16 Arizonans displayed… Continue reading
“Felons or dupes? Treatment of Trump’s fake electors has varied wildly by state”
Politico.
Eighty-four Republicans in seven states falsely claimed to be Donald Trump’s presidential electors in December 2020. Three and a half years later, dozens of them are facing criminal charges that could land them in prison for years.
Dozens of… Continue reading