From your blogger (+ sidekick) for the week: we are Bruce Cain & Emily Zhang. Bruce needs no introduction; he’s been around long enough that Re-apportionment was still a puzzle before his days. Emily is one of Bruce’s many students and will start teaching in the fall at Berkeley Law.
New Survey on Negative Partisanship
Lots of interesting survey data to pour through from this piece in the Morning Consult about how the left and right perceive each other, but worth highlighting that “Democratic voters were most likely to overestimate the share of Republicans who believe abortion should be illegal nationwide without exceptions, while GOP voters were most likely to overshoot the share of Democrats who believe non-U.S. citizens should be allowed to vote.”
Last Nevada county approves primary results after hand count
SF Chronicle (via the AP):
Counties across Nevada on Friday certified the last outstanding results of the state’s June 14 primary election after critics questioned the tallies by describing their own experiences at the polls and repeating conspiracy theories that nearly derailed certification in New Mexico last week.
With violent rhetoric and election denial, podcaster becomes GOP force
Oltmann, a businessman who gained a national profile on the far right after he claimed he had personal knowledge that the 2020 presidential election was rigged, is hardly a fringe figure. He now leads an influential and growing political movement in Colorado that is shaking up the state Republican Party.
“New York City’s Noncitizen Voting Law Is Struck Down”
I blogged last year about a legal challenge to a new extension of voting rights to non-citizens in two Vermont cities. A much more significant expansion took place last fall in New York City, which also faced a similar legal challenge. Per the New York Times, a state court recently concluded that the law violated the state constitution:
“The New York State Constitution expressly states that citizens meeting the age and residency requirements are entitled to register and vote in elections,” the judge wrote in his ruling. “There is no statutory ability for the City of New York to issue inconsistent laws permitting noncitizens to vote and exceed the authority granted to it by the New York State Constitution.”
The text of the court’s ruling is here.
“State Institutions and Democratic Opportunity”
Appropos of the post from Bruce Cain and Emily Zhang about abortion politics at the state level and the more majoritarian options that exist at that level for policymaking, see this excellent recent article by Miriam Seifter that analyzes exactly this set of issues in some detail. Here’s the abstract: The burgeoning commentary on democratic decline in the United States focuses disproportionately on the national level. And seeing a national problem, reformers understandably seek to bolster democracy through large-scale federal solutions. Although their efforts hold popular appeal, they face strong institutional headwinds. As scholars have extensively documented, the Senate, the Electoral College, and the Supreme Court today are skewed against majority rule. Despair grows.
This Article urges legal scholars and reformers to turn their gaze to state-level institutions. State institutions, the Article shows, offer democratic opportunity that federal institutions do not. By design, they more readily give popular majorities a chance to rule on equal terms. Utilizing these opportunities can help stave off democratic decline in the short term and build a healthier democracy in the long term. But these opportunities are not guarantees, and they are in danger. State majoritarian institutions today face active threats from antidemocratic forces. These attacks—on state courts, ballot initiatives, and elected executives—have largely flown under radar or been noticed only in isolation. Their proponents, moreover, have sought to disguise them as good-governance reforms, exploiting the muddled dialogue surrounding democracy generally.
After highlighting the vital role of state institutions in American democracy, the Article provides a holistic account of the attacks they face today. It then offers a theoretical framework for distinguishing appropriate constraints on popular majorities from those that should be out of bounds— because, for example, they would install minority-party rule. The Article suggests steps that state courts, state officials, and organizers can take to protect state institutions. At the highest level, it shows how a richer theory and discourse surrounding state institutions can advance both state and national democracy.
Watch Archived Video of Aspen Ideas Festival with Nina Perales, Sean Trende, and Me, Moderated by Jacob Soboroff: “Power to the People? Free and Fair Elections in a Deeply Divided America”
This was a great discussion where we talked a lot about Jan 6 and the risk of election subversion, along with questions about voting rights and redistricting.
July 25 Conference: “Democracy for All: What’s Next for Building Equity in California’s Elections?”
New conference from the Future of California Elections (registration required):
We are thrilled to bring back the annual Future of California Elections (FoCE) Network Conference in 2022! The FoCE Conference brings together elections officials, election reform advocates, researchers, organizers, and… Continue reading
ELB Book Corner: George Thomas: “The Constructed Constitution”
I am pleased to welcome to ELB Book Corner George Thomas, author of The (Un)Written Constitution. Here is the second of three posts:
In the first post, I pointed to the unwritten ideas that constitutional interpretation necessarily rests… Continue reading
Shifting the Abortion Debate to the States: The Gerrymandering Angle?
(From Bruce E. Cain)
As people come to grips with the seismic political impact of the Dobbs v Jackson decision last week, the question of partisan skew in the state government landscape has come up. An example is this recent … Continue reading
2020 was not like 1876
In a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal (June 22, 2022), John Eastman cites, among other scholarly works, two that I have written (including one coauthored piece) as support for his theory that Vice President Pence was entitled… Continue reading
UNH Law Review Symposium announcement
I’m delighted to be writing a paper for this symposium, the announcement for which I’ve been asked to share with others who might be interested:
University of New Hampshire Law Review
Fall 2022 Symposium
Request for Submissions
Deadline: July 29,… Continue reading
Poll of the Day
From NPR:
Majorities of Americans say they disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, think it was politically motivated, are concerned the court will now reconsider rulings that protect other rights, and are more likely… Continue reading
The Strange Tale of Tina Peters
NYTimes:
The strange tale of Tina Peters — a once-ordinary public servant consumed by conspiracy theories and catapulted to minor stardom by believers — will take its next twist on Tuesday, when voters decide whether to make the indicted… Continue reading