Farewell (So It Seems) to Pence Kobach

Bob Bauer — Thu, 04 Jan 2018 02:58:40 +0000

It ended on the most ironic of notes for a Republican administration. In disbanding the Pence Kobach “voter fraud” commission, the federal government put the blame on a lack of cooperation from states. The fault-finding would normally run in the reverse direction: The “feds” are supposed to be the culpable party, bulldozing over state sovereignty. […]

The post Farewell (So It Seems) to Pence Kobach appeared first on .

Professor Lessig’s Electoral College Litigation

Bob Bauer — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 13:45:25 +0000

It happens often that calamitous election outcomes are attributed to democratic dysfunction, and reform proposals follow from there. Those Republicans who are not deeply cynical about voter ID–and there are a fair number of those–sincerely and mistakenly believe that they lose elections because of illegal voting. Years ago, they convinced themselves that structural bias would […]

The post Professor Lessig’s Electoral College Litigation appeared first on .

Pence-Kobach, the First Day of Hearings, and the Von Spakovsky Affair

Bob Bauer — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 11:42:07 +0000

The Pence-Kobach Commission just conducted its first public hearing, and its leadership may have hoped to use the occasion to recover a degree of credibility or measure of respectability for its operations. If that was the plan, it did not work out well. The Vice Chair Kobach started the day in retreat from claims, published […]

The post Pence-Kobach, the First Day of Hearings, and the Von Spakovsky Affair appeared first on .

If “Love” Knows No Bounds: On Criminal “Intent” and the Scope of the Campaign Finance Law

Bob Bauer — Wed, 26 Jul 2017 13:11:59 +0000

This is a piece I posted yesterday on Just Security on the campaign finance law issues raised by the facts emerging about the Trump campaign-Russia contacts. It responds in particular to the constitutional and related concerns that some commentators have expressed about an ostensibly expansive application of the law in these circumstances. —- If the […]

The post If “Love” Knows No Bounds: On Criminal “Intent” and the Scope of the Campaign Finance Law appeared first on .

Writing about The Russian Matter and Campaign Finance–And Also Questions of Political Ethics

Bob Bauer — Tue, 18 Jul 2017 13:07:00 +0000

A reader has asked whether I am abandoning this site for others in writing about the campaign finance issues in the Russia-Trump campaign matter. Not so. But I did agree to write on this subject for Just Security, and I have touched on other related issues for Lawfare . Here are the various Just Security […]

The post Writing about The Russian Matter and Campaign Finance–And Also Questions of Political Ethics appeared first on .

Russian Intrusion and Partisan Pressures: Aspects of Election Administration Reform After 2016

Bob Bauer — Wed, 28 Jun 2017 12:47:59 +0000

In 2016, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson found that state election officials were suspicious of federal offers of assistance in defending their voting systems from cyber attack. He tried to persuade them to accept DHS designation of those systems as “critical infrastructure,” which would have given states access on a priority basis to […]

The post Russian Intrusion and Partisan Pressures: Aspects of Election Administration Reform After 2016 appeared first on .

Catastrophic Attack and Political Reform

Bob Bauer — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 13:16:25 +0000

Had the Alexandria shooter had his way and murdered a score or more legislators on a baseball field, the country would have witnessed horrifying carnage–and, as Norm Ornstein has argued, it would have entered into genuine constitutional crisis. The slaughter of the members of one political party would have changed, in minutes, the balance of […]

The post Catastrophic Attack and Political Reform appeared first on .

More on When Collusion with a Foreign Government Becomes a Crime

Bob Bauer — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 13:00:12 +0000

This is a follow-up to a first posting on this issue, now up on Just Security. The text is also reproduced below: ————- As a potential crime under the campaign finance laws, the Trump campaign collusion with the Russians is well documented. As I contended in a recent essay, there is ample evidence in plain […]

The post More on When Collusion with a Foreign Government Becomes a Crime appeared first on .

“When Collusion with a Foreign Government Becomes a Crime”

Bob Bauer — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 11:00:45 +0000

I wrote the following piece for Just Security on the campaign finance issues raised by what is known about Russian activities in the 2016 election. It also appears below. ——- Commentary on Russian intervention in the 2016 elections has included one confidently expressed and perhaps growing view: that there may be a scandal there, but […]

The post “When Collusion with a Foreign Government Becomes a Crime” appeared first on .

The Supreme Court and the Political Parties

Bob Bauer — Tue, 23 May 2017 12:04:16 +0000

The Supreme Court has turned Jim Bopp away, denying his wish to have the parties relieved of core McCain-Feingold restrictions. There could be any number of explanations. The Court may have no appetite at the moment for a major campaign finance case. Or, having chipped away at McCain-Feingold, the Justices may not be inclined to […]

The post The Supreme Court and the Political Parties appeared first on .