“Kansas Redistricting Was on the Fast Track. Then Some Republicans Said No.”

redistricting

NYT:

The top Republicans in Kansas were ready to join President Trump’s redistricting push and redraw the state’s political map to deliver another seat in Congress to Republicans. Democrats feared that a special session to pass new district lines was inevitable.

Then something surprising happened. Some Republicans refused.

The pushback on the Plains leaves in place, at least for now, the one Democratic-leaning congressional district in Kansas. It comes as a small but rising number of lawmakers across the country, Republicans and Democrats, have balked at joining the drive to carve up congressional districts to boost their side’s odds in the midterm elections.

The national flurry of remapping, set off this summer when Texas Republicans drew a new one at the president’s behest, happened quickly in several states. But growing resistance from state lawmakers, for reasons both practical and philosophical, has put a chill on the effort.

When the Republican governor of Indiana called a special session for redistricting last month, the Senate Republicans said the votes were not there. Maryland Democratic leaders are divided. And in Kansas, where top Republicans had hoped to meet about a new map last Friday, House leaders failed to get enough support.

The debate over remapping in Kansas is not over, and new boundaries could still pass when lawmakers return for their regular session in January. Some Republican legislators were stripped of committee leadership roles on Friday, a punishment for bucking the party line on redistricting. And several lawmakers said they had considered the possibility of more political repercussions if the president were to become more involved.

But the depth and breadth of Republican skepticism, both conservative and moderate, from both rural areas and cities, suggests that redistricting faces an uphill climb in Kansas even if political pressure continues to increase….

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“Johnson to Seat Grijalva, Seven Weeks After She Was Elected”

chicanery, legislation and legislatures

NYT:

Speaker Mike Johnson plans to swear in Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona as a member of Congress on Wednesday, according to his office, 50 days after her election, as the House returns from an extended recess.

Ms. Grijalva, a Democrat, won a special election on Sept. 23 for the Arizona seat left vacant by the death of her father, Representative Raúl Grijalva. Mr. Johnson had since refused to seat her, despite several opportunities to do so, public pleas, a Democratic pressure campaign and, eventually, a federal lawsuit brought by Ms. Grijalva and the attorney general of Arizona that argued that Mr. Johnson had no authority to continue to stall.

The delay prevented Ms. Grijalva from freely entering and moving about the Capitol complex, or having access to the budget or the materials she needed to do her job. As recently as Tuesday afternoon, she told NPR that she had not heard directly from Mr. Johnson’s office about the swearing-in and that she was “90 percent” confident it would happen at last. She said on social media on Monday that she was traveling to Washington after hearing from news reports and Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader, that she could soon be seated.

“For seven weeks, 813,000 Arizonans have been denied a voice and access to basic constituent services,” Ms. Grijalva said. “This is an abuse of power that no Speaker should have.”

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“Texas Latino civic group sues to block AG Ken Paxton from shutting it down”

chicanery, Voting Rights Act

Texas Tribune:

Jolt Initiative, a nonprofit that aims to increase civic participation among Latinos, is suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to block his efforts to shut them down. Paxton announced Monday that he was seeking to revoke the nonprofit’s charter, alleging that the group had orchestrated “a systematic, unlawful voter registration scheme.”

This is not the first legal back-and-forth between Jolt and Paxton’s office. Last year, the organization successfully sued to stop the state’s investigation into their voter registration efforts. In the new suit, Jolt’s lawyers argue Paxton’s efforts to shut them down are retaliation. The attorney general’s office has also in recent years targeted other organizations aiding Latinos and migrants, such as the effort to investigate and shut down El Paso-based Annunciation House.

“Jolt is simply the latest target of his unlawful campaign to undermine and silence civil rights groups in Texas,” said Mimi Marziani, a lawyer representing the nonprofit.

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At NYU Democracy Project, an International Perspective on Immigration

Uncategorized

Niels Petersen is Professor of Public Law, International Law, and EU Law at the University of Münster. His essay is titled Supporting Democracy by Fixing the Asylum System:

The Alternative for Germany (AfD), a right-wing populist party, was founded in response to the euro crisis. Its initial focus was the abolition of the euro, the single currency of most EU member states. While hostility to immigration was present from the outset, it was not yet a defining trait. The party failed to enter the German federal parliament in the first federal elections after its founding in 2013. However, after pushing out some of the more moderate founders, the party raised its profile as an anti-immigrant force, particularly in opposition to Angela Merkel’s decision to admit more than one million refugees in 2015. Today, it is the main opposition party in the German parliament and, in opinion polls, it rivals the governing Christian Democrats for the top spot.

While the rise of the AfD is a distinctly German story, the underlying dynamic is not. Discontent with immigration has fueled the ascent of right-wing populist parties across the globe. Any discussion of democracy’s future, therefore, cannot ignore this discontent….

Fixing the asylum system, therefore, has become an urgent concern. Recently, The Economist proposed scrapping the asylum system to build something better. Today, most refugees remain in poor countries bordering conflict zones. Only the better-off attempt the dangerous journey to richer countries in Europe and North America to claim asylum. This arrangement has serious flaws: it benefits relatively few, exposes people to peril, fuels human smuggling, and is often exploited by those seeking economic opportunity rather than fleeing persecution. A more effective approach would prioritize improving conditions for refugees in states near conflict zones and abolishing the right to asylum for those arriving from safe third countries. Wealthy nations, however, should not evade responsibility. They should contribute financially to support refugees’ integration into host societies.

It is probably unrealistic to expect the conclusion of a multilateral treaty on this issue. However, the model could be implemented through a series of bilateral agreements….

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“Spending Bill Would Pave Way for Senators to Sue Over Phone Searches”

chicanery

NYT:

A spending package expected to be approved as part of a deal to reopen the government would create a wide legal avenue for senators to sue for as much as half a million dollars each when federal investigators search their phone records without notifying them.

The provision, tucked into a measure to fund the legislative branch, appears to immediately allow for eight G.O.P. senators to sue the government over their phone records being seized in the course of the investigation by Jack Smith, the former special counsel, into the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The provision would make it a violation of the law to not notify a senator if their phone records or other metadata was taken from a service provider like a phone company. There are some exceptions, such as 60-day delays in notification if the senator is considered the target of an investigation.

The language of the bill states that “any senator whose Senate data, or the Senate data of whose Senate office, has been acquired, subpoenaed, searched, accessed, or disclosed in violation of this section may bring a civil action against the United States if the violation was committed by an officer, employee, or agent of the United States or of any federal department or agency.”

Because the provision is retroactive to 2022, it would appear to make eligible the eight lawmakers whose phone records were subpoenaed by investigators for Mr. Smith as he examined efforts by Donald J. Trump to obstruct the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Each violation would be worth at least $500,000 in any legal claim, according to the bill language. The bill would also sharply limit the way the government could resist such a claim, taking away any government claims of qualified or sovereign immunity to fight a lawsuit over the issue…..

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My New One at Slate: “The Supreme Court Just Took a Scary Voting Case That Has Trump Salivating. He Might Be Disappointed.”

absentee ballots, election subversion risk, The Voting Wars

I have written this piece for Slate. It begins:

President Donald Trump’s obsession with mail-in balloting reached the Supreme Court on Monday through a bonkers 5th Circuit opinion written by Trump appointee (and Trump Supreme Court auditioner) Andrew Oldham. Disagreeing with plain statutory text, statutory history, Supreme Court precedent, and the practice of many states, Judge Oldham’s opinion held that Mississippi violates federal law when it accepts ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrive within five days of the election. If the Supreme Court upholds the 5th Circuit in Watson v. Republican National Committee, 29 states and the District of Columbia would have to change their laws to require receipt of virtually all ballots by Election Day, aside from a small class of ballots including those from military and overseas voters….

We should look at the 5th Circuit in the broader context of a war on voting. It is unsurprising that Oldham reached such a voter-hostile and Trump-friendly conclusion. Back in 2021, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, Oldham dissented from a 5th Circuit decision on whether it violated federal law—not Texas law—for Harris County, Texas, to allow drive-through voting in 2020, something very much appreciated by those who did not want to get sick when voting.

That dissent, like his majority opinion in Watson, seems written for an audience of one, Donald Trump, who I expect will get at least one more Supreme Court appointment next summer when either Justice Samuel Alito (who Oldham clerked for) or Justice Clarence Thomas retires.

We have seen many Federalist Society and conservative judges hold the line on blatantly political and unsupported arguments advanced by Trump and his allies to make voting harder and election subversion easier. Judge Oldham’s opinion shows that not only will some judges not hold that line, they are ready to be partners with Trump and his allies in a new wave of voter suppression.

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Register for Free Safeguarding Democracy Project Webinar on November 18: “The Supreme Court, the Voting Rights Act, and the 2026 Elections”

Supreme Court, Voting Rights Act
Tuesday, November 18 The Supreme Court, the Voting Rights Act, and the 2026 Elections (webinar) 12:15pm-1:15pm, PTRegister here.Samantha Blencke, Native American Rights Fund, Ellen Katz, University of Michigan Law School, and Deuel Ross, Legal Defense FundRichard L. Hasen, moderator… Continue reading