“As Political Violence Rises, Trump Condemns One Side”

political violence

NYT:

After the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, President Trump released a four-minute video from the Oval Office in which he condemned the killing as the “tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day.”

Then, instead of calling for Americans of all political stripes to lower the temperature, Mr. Trump rattled off a list of political violence only targeting Republicans or perpetrated by those he views as on the left: the assassination attempts against him; attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers; the assassination of a health care executive in New York; and the mass shooting of Republicans at a congressional baseball practice that nearly killed Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana.

Even though the authorities had not identified a suspect or motive, Mr. Trump placed the blame squarely on his political opponents.

“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” Mr. Trump said. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”

Missing from Mr. Trump’s list was any reference to political violence targeting Democrats or perpetuated by those on the right.

The president made no mention of the recent killings in Minnesota of a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband, who were on a hit list of dozens of left-wing figures; the arson attack on the home of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, while he and his family slept; a shooter’s attack on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a hammer assault on the husband of former Speaker Nancy Pelosi; the shootings at an Arizona campaign office of Kamala Harris; or the Jan. 6 pro-Trump mob attack on the Capitol that injured roughly 150 police officers.

In doing so, experts said, Mr. Trump captured the raw sentiment of his conservative base — the feeling of being under constant threat from the left in a country that is abandoning them. But the remarks addressed only part of the seemingly endless cycle of political violence America is experiencing.

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“Clarity about Callais and the fate of the Voting Rights Act”

Uncategorized

I’ve written a new “Justice, Democracy, and Law” column for SCOTUSblog. Here’s its summary:

There’s a widespread belief that the Supreme Court is poised to invalidate the core provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But that belief is based on conflating two distinct issues that need to be kept separate. Once that distinction is made clear, then the core provision of this landmark law can be preserved and enforced effectively even if the Court narrows the range of available remedies. 

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“America enters a new age of political violence”

political violence

WaPo:

A Minnesota state legislator killed in her home in June. The Pennsylvania governor’s house set afire in April. Candidate Donald Trump facing two apparent assassination attempts during last year’s campaign. And now conservative activist Charlie Kirk gunned down and killed Wednesday during a talk at Utah Valley University, horrifying a live audience and those who saw the shooting online.

America is facing a new era of political violence reminiscent of some of its most bitter, tumultuous eras, including the 1960s, which saw the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

“We are going through what I call an era of violent populism,” said Robert Pape, who heads the Chicago Project on Security and Threats at the University of Chicago. “It is a historically high era of assassination, assassination attempts, violent protests, and it is occurring on both the right and the left.”

He added: “This is way beyond the usual minor ebb and flow of militia group violence we have seen for 20 years. This is a different level, a different historical period of political violence, and that is what you see. This is a demonstrable fact.”…

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“Republicans invoke ‘nuclear option’ in push to change Senate rules”

legislation and legislatures

WaPo:

Republicans moved Thursday to speed up Senate confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominees by changing the chamber’s rules over the objections of Democrats.

Senators voted 53-45 to allow themselves to change the rules with a simple majorityinstead of 60 votes — a move known as the “nuclear option.”

The rules change will allow the Senate to confirm multiple people at once, helping to clear a backlog of nearly 150nominees awaiting floor votes. Republicans argue it is necessary because Democrats have held up the confirmation process by forcing time-consuming votes on each nominee rather than allowing some of them to be confirmed by voice votes, which is faster.

The change excludes Cabinet officials, Supreme Court justices and federal judges, who must be confirmed one by one.

“Democrats and their political base cannot deal with the fact that the American people elected President Trump,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said Thursday on the Senate floor. “And so they’re dragging out every confirmation in retaliation.”

The rules change is the latest instance of the majority party using the nuclear option to make it easier to confirm nominees without the consent of the minority. Senate Democrats changed the rules in 2013 to allow most nominees to be confirmed with a simple majority rather than 60 votes. Senate Republicans did the same for Supreme Court nominees in 2017 when they held the majority. The also reduced debate time for most nominees in 2019.

Some Democrats said they agreed that the nominations process was broken. But they said they had stalled Trump’s nominees becausethey believe they are “historically bad.”

Democrats argued that they tried to negotiate with Republicans last month to confirm more nominees in exchange for the Trump administration releasing some funding that it had held up. But Trump torpedoed the deal, encouraging Republicans to go home for their summer break and telling Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) on social media to “GO TO HELL!”…

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““Modernizing Voter List Maintenance: An Evidence-Based Framework for Access and Integrity”

voter registration

Michael Morse, Rachel Orey, and Joann Bautista have published a Bipartisan Policy Center report on list maintenance, based on Morse’s earlier article. Here’s an excerpt of the executive summary:

Voter registration lists are widely regarded as the backbone of election administration. To keep these lists up to date, election officials are responsible for identifying when voters move, die, or otherwise become ineligible to vote. The bureaucratic process known as “list maintenance” has long been a quiet feature of election administration, but has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. Some advocacy groups equate the removal of voter registrations with disenfranchisement, labeling it voter purging; others maintain that voter lists are plagued by errors, characterizing them as “dirty,” and argue that registrations aren’t being canceled often enough.

In reality, list maintenance doesn’t need to be a trade-off between access and integrity. Rather, well-crafted, evidence-based policies can advance both goals simultaneously. This report discusses two of the most salient topics in list maintenance policy discussions today:mobility and citizenship.

Mobility and citizenship present fundamentally different types of problems for election officials. Although voters move frequently, audits have found that very few registered voters are not citizens. Nonetheless, identifying when voters move and verifying citizenship present similar types of administrative challenges for election officials, who must coordinate with other officials in their state, between states, and in the federal government to gather the most up-to-date information.

Drawing on Michael Morse’s 2023 law review article, this report first addresses the recurring problem of voter mobility for list maintenance and suggests targeted reforms. It then turns to nascent efforts to verify the citizenship of voters, highlighting emerging challenges and urging caution to avoid premature policymaking.

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I Spoke to NPR’s Fresh Air: “An election law expert weighs in on Trump’s effort to reshape our democracy” (Link to Audio)

authoritarian threats in US, election administration, election subversion risk
Had a great conversation with Tonya Mosley for NPR’s Fresh Air: “Before 2026’s midterms, President Trump wants to ban mail-in ballots and electronic voting machines, and change voting rules. Legal expert Richard Hasen discusses the future of free and fair… Continue reading