The Fulcrum is debuting a new feature, summarizing the latest legislative activity affecting voting and elections. This weekly update is powered by the Voting Rights Lab. Sign up for VRL’s weekly newsletter here.
The Voting Rights Lab is tracking 2,363 bills so far this session, including 548 bills that tighten the rules governing voter access or election administration and 1,062 bills that expand the rules.
The biggest action last week took place in Georgia, where an elections omnibus bill passed the House and is expected to be heard in the Senate Ethics Committee this week, and Arizona, where 11 bills died on the Senate floor last week, the most during one session in recent history.
Looking ahead: A new pro-voter package of bills may be introduced in Michigan this week. In Missouri, the House Committee on Elections and Elected Officials will hear bills requiring ballots to be counted by hand and modifying the requirements for votes necessary to implement a constitutional amendment.
Here are the details:
Georgia omnibus crosses over to the Senate. H.B. 1464 – which would allow for public ballot inspections, limit private donations for election administration, establish strict chain-of-custody requirements for ballots (voted and unvoted), amend the number of voting booths to at least one per 250 voters, and allow the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to look into claims of election fraud without a referral from state election officials – passed the House and is expected to be heard in a Senate committee this week. H.B. 1464 builds on Georgia’s elections overhaul in 2021, which significantly limited ballot drop boxes and led to the state’s current attempts to take over Fulton County elections.
Restrictive bills die in Arizona Senate floor vote. Eleven restrictive election bills died last week. A few bills did pass the floor vote, including a bill that would make it easier for people who receive mail ballots but do not return them to cast regular ballots in person. VRL is still watching bills that would require documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration, limit the use of drop boxes, and limit early voting on the last weekend before Election Day.
Three election bills sent to Utah governor. The Utah Legislature passed three election bills last week, including legislation that requires at least one drop box per municipality, prohibits the use of private donations to fund elections, and expands the protections of the voter address confidentiality program. The governor has until Thursday to sign these bills.
Michigan Democrats announce expansive election bills. Democrats announced a package of bills they intend to introduce, including a push for nine days of early voting and notification to voters of signature issues on mail ballots and applications.
Texas ballot rejections disproportionately affected Black voters. In the state’s primary election held earlier this month, portions of Harris County with large Black populations were 44 percent more likely to have ballots rejected than heavily white areas. Over 18,000 voters in the state’s largest counties (by population) – and majority-Black counties – had their mail-in ballots rejected this year as a result of legislation passed last year.
Arkansas judge enjoins restrictive voting laws. In a lawsuit filed by plaintiffs including the League of Women Voters and Arkansas United, a judge found that four laws passed in 2021 placed unconstitutional burdens on voting. The court also found that the defendant’s concerns about election integrity and insecurity were based entirely on conjecture and speculation.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.