“Appeals court throws out massive civil fraud penalty against President Donald Trump”

chicanery

AP:

An appeals court has thrown out the massive civil fraud penalty against President Donald Trump, ruling Thursday in New York state’s lawsuit accusing him of exaggerating his wealth.

The decision came seven months after the Republican returned to the White House. A panel of five judges in New York’s mid-level Appellate Division said the verdict, which stood to cost Trump more than $515 million and rock his real estate empire, was “excessive.”

After finding that Trump engaged in fraud by flagrantly padding financial statements that went to lenders and insurers, Judge Arthur Engoron ordered him last year to pay $355 million in penalties. With interest, the sum has topped $515 million.

The total — combined with penalties levied on some other Trump Organization executives, including Trump’s sons Eric and Donald Jr. — now exceeds $527 million, with interest.

“While the injunctive relief ordered by the court is well crafted to curb defendants’ business culture, the court’s disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” Judges Dianne T. Renwick and Peter H. Moulton wrote in one of several opinions shaping the appeals court’s ruling.

I will update this post with a link to the opinion when I have it.

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“Adams Adviser Suspended From Campaign After Giving Cash to Reporter”

chicanery

NYT:

A close adviser to Mayor Eric Adams was suspended from his re-election campaign on Wednesday after giving a journalist cash tucked inside a potato chip bag.

The adviser, Winnie Greco, who was the mayor’s former director of Asian affairs at City Hall and one of his best fund-raisers, had returned to the campaign trail as a volunteer during Mr. Adams’s run for a second term. She had been at the center of controversy after the F.B.I. raided her homes last year as part of a federal investigation into possible Chinese government interference in the 2021 mayor’s race.

On Wednesday, Ms. Greco attended an event with Mr. Adams in Harlem and gave more than $100 in a red envelope stashed inside the snack bag to a reporter for The City, according to an article in the online news outlet. The City promptly reported the incident to the city’s Department of Investigation, and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn contacted the newspaper’s lawyers, according to the newspaper’s account….

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“Obama applauds Newsom’s California redistricting plan as ‘responsible’ as Texas GOP pushes new maps”

direct democracy, redistricting

AP:

Former President Barack Obama has waded into states’ efforts at rare mid-decade redistricting efforts, saying he agrees with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s response to alter his state’s congressional maps, in the way of Texas redistricting efforts promoted by President Donald Trump aimed at shoring up Republicans’ position in next year’s elections.

“I believe that Gov. Newsom’s approach is a responsible approach. He said this is going to be responsible. We’re not going to try to completely maximize it,” Obama said at a Tuesday fundraiser on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, according to excerpts obtained by The Associated Press. “We’re only going to do it if and when Texas and/or other Republican states begin to pull these maneuvers. Otherwise, this doesn’t go into effect.”

While noting that “political gerrymandering” is not his “preference,” Obama said that, if Democrats “don’t respond effectively, then this White House and Republican-controlled state governments all across the country, they will not stop, because they do not appear to believe in this idea of an inclusive, expansive democracy.”

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“Supreme Court denies Republicans’ effort to stop California redistricting . . . for now”

direct democracy

David Ettinger:

This afternoon, the Supreme Court denied the original writ petition — filed Monday (see here) — by four Republican state legislators seeking to prevent the super-majority Democratic Legislature from enacting bills that would allow for the temporary redrawing of the state’s congressional districts.

But that is likely not the final word on the topic. I don’t read the denial as a decision on the petition’s merits.

The court’s denial order in the case — Strickland v. Weber — says, “Petitioners have failed to meet their burden of establishing a basis for relief at this time under California Constitution article IV, section 8.”

The key words, I believe, are “at this time.” The petition sought to prevent voting on redistricting bills, alleging action on the bills violate article IV, section 8(a), which generally prohibits action on legislation “until the 31st day after the bill is introduced.” But, when the petition was filed, and when the court denied the petition, the Legislature hadn’t voted on the bills. Those votes are expected tomorrow (Thursday).

If, as seems likely, the Legislature enacts the bills and Governor Gavin Newsom signs them, petitioners will then have a stronger argument that they have “[met] their burden of establishing a basis for relief . . . under California Constitution article IV, section 8.” But, until then, the lack of definitive positive action on the bills probably, in the justices’ eyes, renders premature a claim of a section 8 violation….

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“Mississippi Supreme Court election map dilutes Black voters’ power, judge rules”

Voting Rights Act

Reuters:

A federal judge has ordered Mississippi to redraw its election map used in voting for state supreme court justices after finding the current one dilutes the power of Black voters in violation of a landmark federal voting rights law.

U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock in Greenville sided with a group of Black citizens of the state in finding on Tuesday that the map in place since 1987 for Mississippi Supreme Court elections violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The court’s nine justices are elected in nonpartisan races from three districts to serve eight-year, staggered terms. The map’s lines are drawn by the state legislature and have changed little in over a century, according to the plaintiffs.

Black people make up about 40% of the state’s population, but Aycock noted that the Mississippi Supreme Court has had only four Black justices, none of whom have served at the same time. Each held the same seat in District 1, which includes the city of Jackson and part of the Mississippi Delta, and all four were first appointed by a governor….

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“Voting officials are leaving their jobs at the highest rate in decades”

election administration

NPR:

Turnover among the country’s election officials has continued to increase — now nearly five years after Donald Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 contest led to voting officials facing more pressure and harassment.

Some 2 in 5 of all the local officials who administered the 2020 election left their jobs before the 2024 cycle, according to research out Tuesday from the Bipartisan Policy Center. The trend was especially pronounced in large jurisdictions, where the Trump campaign’s misinformation about voting often focused.

“This is in alignment with the challenges, burnout, threats and harassment that election officials are facing,” said Rachel Orey, who oversees the center’s Elections Project.For the past two decades turnover in the elections field had been increasing gradually, but the new report, which Orey worked on with UCLA researchers Joshua Ferrer and Daniel Thompson, shows how 2020 amplified the trend.

Orey first worked with Ferrer and Thompson last year to analyze a novel dataset that included more than 18,000 local election officials across more than 6,000 jurisdictions. Their initial report showed a turnover rate that rose from 28% in 2004 to 39% in 2022.

In 2024, the turnover rate increased to 41%, the highest it’s been in at least the last 25 years.

“Rising turnover is almost like a canary in the coal mine, indicating that something deeper and more structural in the way that we conduct elections needs to be fixed,” said Orey, noting specifically that elections in the U.S. are chronically underfunded….

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