In the fight over deploying National Guard troops to Portland, Ore., Democratic leaders in the city and state have pleaded with President Trump and the courts to trust law enforcement records, both local and federal, that describe the demonstrations as small and comparatively calm.
But in the bifurcated media world of 2025, one side’s comparative calm is the other’s “hellscape” — as the White House described Portland on Wednesday — and the narrative that the Trump administration has wanted has been supplied by a coterie of right-wing influencers elevated by Mr. Trump himself.
On Thursday, the repercussions of those dueling versions of reality became clear as judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit questioned a district court’s finding that the protests in Portland were likely too minor to justify the National Guard deployment. The appeals court judges instead cited federal reports of demonstrators spitting on federal officers and shining flashlights in their eyes, behavior that has been captured, amplified and sometimes even prompted by pro-Trump personalities eager to counter local police.
“The Portland Police Chief did an interview today attacking independent journalists for exposing the violent terrorists that he allows to run the city,” Benny Johnson, a popular pro-Trump podcaster, wrote Tuesday on social media after accompanying Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, in Oregon. “He’s humiliated and knows Portland is under siege.”
To some extent, the right’s assertions of chaos in Oregon have been self-fulfilling. The administration’s close ties to a small but well-followed group of influencers and conspiracy theorists has amplified their voices, and they in turn have encouraged administration efforts to crack down on demonstrators. The portrayals of a city on fire have angered protesters.
And sometimes, left-wing activists have risen to the bait, leading to scuffles and injuries conservative streamers then promote on the internet. One right-wing commentator, Katie Daviscourt, said she received a black eye when a demonstrator hit her with a flag pole.
“Certainly over the last 10 days, the energy level has gone up, the amount of conflicting points of view have increased greatly,” Chief Bob Day of the Portland Police Bureau said at a news media briefing Tuesday. “And this has created an environment that’s equally, if not more, challenging for us.”
Pro-Trump provocateurs have gotten more open about their efforts as the stakes in the battle over how to police protests grow. Ms. Noem has threatened to quadruple the number of federal law enforcement agents in Portland if she is not satisfied with the city’s crowd-control efforts. Troops from the Oregon and California National Guards are awaiting deployment. Another group of guardsmen from Texas could be summoned at the president’s request….
Spencer Overton Blogging Weeks of October 13 and 20
Please send your tips and queries to Spencer.
“Grand jury indicts N.Y. Attorney General Letitia James, a Trump opponent, on bank fraud charge”
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat who has clashed with President Donald Trump, was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Virginia, three sources familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News.
James was charged with one count of bank fraud after Trump publicly called for his Justice Department appointees to bring charges against her.
As NBC News reported in August, Attorney General Pam Bondi appointed a special attorney to probe mortgage fraud allegations against the New York attorney general, who brought a successful civil fraud case against President Donald Trump before he retook the presidency. Though the text of the indictment is not yet public, the bank fraud charge appears to be related to the mortgage claims.
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte had referred the case to the Justice Department, alleging that James had made false statements on mortgage loan applications. But the case hit a standstill last month because federal agents and prosecutors didn’t believe they had the evidence to secure a conviction, two senior federal law enforcement officials told NBC News last month.
Trump then named one of his personal attorneys, Lindsey Halligan, to be acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, though she lacked any prosecutorial experience.
Trump has repeatedly sought charges against his political enemies, including James and former FBI Director James Comey, who was indicted in September on charges of lying to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding.
“Dominion, Company at Center of False 2020 Voting Conspiracies, Is Sold; The election machine manufacturer was bought by a little-known company whose founder is a former Republican election official.”
NYT:
Election machines that were at the center of multiple false accusations and conspiracy theories after the 2020 election, has been sold to Liberty Vote, a new group run by a former local election director.
Liberty Vote announced the acquisition in a brief news release that proclaimed the mission of the new company would be “to restore public confidence in the electoral process.” It featured language favored by conservatives, professing to “improve election integrity in America” and “leveraging hand-marked paper ballots enabling compliance with President Trump’s executive order,” a reference to the president’s effort in March to overhaul electoral processes that has been largely blocked by courts.
The founder of Liberty Vote, Scott Leiendecker, is a former Republican election official from St. Louis with years of experience in elections. He also is the chief executive officer of KNOWiNK, a company that produces electronic poll books, digital devices that are used across the country to help election workers upload and maintain voter rolls at voting sites. In July, KNOWiNK announced that its Poll Pad “was the first electronic poll book to earn certification from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.”
There is little public information regarding Liberty Vote….
“Advancement Project, Georgia NAACP File Lawsuit Challenging Racial Vote Dilution in Georgia”
Today, a federal voting rights lawsuit challenging the redistricting of Meriwether County, Georgia, was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Georgia NAACP and two Black Meriwether County registered voters by Advancement Project, along with the law firm Podolsky Law LLC. The lawsuit alleges that the district boundaries for the Meriwether County Board of Commissioners violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting strength of Black voters and leaving the Board with no Black representation, even though there had been two Black Commissioners in Meriwether County in the past.
The redistricting plan dilutes the voting strength of Black voters, drastically cutting the Black voting age population in the only district that had a Black commissioner at the time the plan was created in 2022. The new map gives the white voting age population an unbeatable majority in that district of more than 65 percent, resulting in a Black candidate losing to a white opponent in the subsequent election. The County’s leadership did not hold any public hearings addressing redistricting before adopting the current map even though the only Black commissioner on the Commissioners Court at the time requested one….
To read the full complaint, please click here.
California Will No Longer Allow Payments to Induce People to Vote to Boost Turnout (Sometimes Selectively) in State Elections
Back in my 2000 California Law Review article, Vote Buying, I wrote about how some jurisdictions, such as California permitted payments for people to register or to vote (so long as those payments were not made to induce people to vote for or against a particular candidate or ballot measure). Such payments were only allowed when there were no federal candidates on the ballot, because payments for turnout violate federal law.
Now, in the wake of Elon Musk’s controversial (and I’ve argued, illegal) lotteries to get people to vote in the 2024 elections, California has passed a new law, to be codified in Elections Code section 18107.5 that bans the practice of payments for turnout. The new law reads in part:
(a)(1)A person who knowingly or willfully pays or offers to pay money or other valuable consideration to another person with the intent to induce the person to vote or to register to vote, or where the payment is contingent upon whether the person voted or the persons voter registration status, is guilty of a crime.
(2)For purposes of paragraph (1), other valuable consideration includes, but is not limited to, a chance to win a lottery or similar prize-drawing contest.
(3)This section does not apply to any of the following:
(A)Transportation to or from a voting location.
(B)Compensation provided to an individual by a governmental entity.
(C)Granting time off to an employee to vote.
(b)A violation of subdivision (a) shall be punishable by a fine of up to ten thousand dollars ($10,000), by imprisonment pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 of the Penal Code for 16 months or two or three years, or in a county jail not exceeding one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment.
For some reason, the law did not amend or repeal the old California law that implicitly allowed payments for turnout.
Here’s my analysis from the California Law Review on the experience with such payments for turnout:
Watch Archived Video of Nate Persily’s Must-Watch Presentation for the Safeguarding Democracy Project on Lessons for 2024 and Risks to the 2026 Midterm Elections
Nate packs a lot of data and important observations into this talk, which was held on October 7, 2025. Watch:
“Congresswoman-in-limbo Adelita Grijalva on the dilemma she faces”
WaPo:
Every office along the second floor of the Longworth House Office Building looks welcoming, flags lined up nicely, most with visitor sign-in logs out front.
Except for the one where the plaque out front reads, “Representative Adelita S. Grijalva,… Continue reading
“Justices Appear Open to Challenge of Mail-In Ballot Rules by Illinois Politician”
NYT:
A majority of the Supreme Court appeared sympathetic on Wednesday to arguments by an Illinois congressman that political candidates should be able to challenge their states’ election laws.
During the approximately two-hour argument, the justices grappled with what… Continue reading
“VP Vance to visit Indiana Friday to meet with Senate GOP amid redistricting standoff”
Indiana Capital Chronicle:
Vice President JD Vance is slated to return to the Hoosier State on Friday to meet with Indiana’s Senate Republican caucus as redistricting deliberations appear to be at an impasse.
Multiple sources, including two Republican state… Continue reading
“It’s Time to Reform the National Emergencies Act”
At the NYU Democracy Project, William Galston publishes an essay today on reining in presidential emergency powers. Here’s an excerpt:
The most important and urgent constitutional issue of our era is the relentless growth of executive power under presidents of… Continue reading
“‘The stakes are quite large’: US supreme court case could gut Voting Rights Act”
Sam Levine with a deep dive on Callais for The Guardian.
Dan Weiner on the Brennan Center’s Interesting Amicus Brief in the NRSC Case
I asked Dan Weiner of the Brennan Center to write a bit about the interesting position they’ve taken in the NRSC campaign finance case. Here is his guest post:
On Monday the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law filed… Continue reading
Big Voter Registration Gap in Youth Voter Registration in Pennsylvania and Elsewhere
New data from The Civics Center: