Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Two prominent voting rights players upbraided by courts for 2020 behavior

​Democratic voting rights lawyer Marc Elias

Democratic voting rights lawyer Marc Elias was sanctioned by a federal court.

David Jolkovski for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Judges in recent days have slapped two of the most prominent figures in the fight for easier access to the ballot box, a fresh if mainly symbolic setback for the cause of voting rights.

The nation's most prominent Democratic elections attorney, Marc Elias, violated legal ethics rules as he pressed an ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit last fall to preserve straight-ticket voting in Texas, a federal appeals court decided.

And Michigan's top elections officer, Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, exceeded her authority last fall when she instructed local officials to presume the validity of all signatures on absentee ballot envelopes, the special court that handles suits against the state government ruled.

Conservatives hailed the pair of decisions last week as evidence that promoting the franchise too aggressively too often leads to the sort of corner-cutting and overzealous behavior that can incubate election fraud. But there's no evidence of anything beyond minimal and sporadic cheating anywhere in the nation surrounding the 2020 presidential contest, including in Texas and Michigan.


Some of the most vigorous fights over how to alter election rules last year in light of the coronavirus occurred in Michigan, one of the biggest battleground states. One tussle was over a state law preventing the processing of mailed ballots until the Monday before Election Day, boosting the likelihood of significant delays in reporting final results of a close election given the surge in mail voting brought on by the pandemic.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Benson was rebuffed when she asked the GOP Legislature to permit ballot processing to get started earlier. So a month before the election she told local clerks they could speed things along by starting with the assumption that signatures were authentic on 2.8 million envelopes — which ended up containing half of the state's votes.

The result was far fewer time-consuming arguments as handwriting on the ballots was compared with what was on file. And only one of every 1,000 absentee ballots were tossed out, just 1,800 — far fewer than in past recent elections, when the rate was closer to one out of every 500 or so statewide.

President Biden nonetheless secured the state's 16 electoral votes by a margin of 154,000 votes, or 3 percentage points, and Democratic Sen. Gary Peters won re-election by 55,000 votes, so the shortcut was highly unlikely to have affected either outcome.

Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray rejected the Republican Party's demand for an audit of all absentee ballots, and he did not find that Benson had violated state election law. Instead, he said she wrongly ignored the proper rulemaking procedures for making such a substantive decision.

Unless she goes through that process, the judge said, her directive will not apply in future elections.

There were also plenty of legal fights about voting rules in Texas, which looked purple in the polls all fall before Donald Trump extended the GOP winning streak to 11 presidential contests. One lawsuit sought to prevent the state from carrying out its newly enacted ban on straight-ticket voting. Opponents of the ban argued that preserving the "one punch" system would keep the lines moving on Election Day, especially in big cities, and not disenfranchise Black and Hispanic voters by making them wait excessively to cast their ballots.

Elias was one of the main attorneys pursuing that argument, part of his portfolio of three-dozen lawsuits on behalf of various Democratic campaign organizations. And, along the way, he filed papers in federal court that were essentially identical to a motion of his that had been rejected earlier by the same judge.

Asking for a do-over in that misleading manner, rather than file an upfront appeal, "unreasonably and vexatiously" dragged out the litigation by creating more work for the court, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday. It sanctioned Elias for violating his "obligation of candor to the court" by ordering him to pay Texas double its expenses arguing against the misleading and duplicative motion.

Elias won a wave of rulings or settlements that eased access to the ballot in several swing states — prompting Trump to label him on Twitter as an "Election stealing lawyer." But the straight-ticket voting suit was ultimately rejected by the 5th Circuit.

His law firm, Perkins Coie, said after the sanctions ruling that it believed Elias had acted properly.

Read More

People holding signs against Project 2025 and Donald Trump

Protestors rally against Project 2025 and Donald Trump in New York's Times Square.

Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images

Project 2025: How anti-trans proposals could impact all families

This is part of a series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during the first 180 days of a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.

Willie Carver has been a teacher in Kentucky since 2007, now working with college students. For over two years, he has worked with the American Federation of Teachers’ National LGBTQ+ Task Force, an advocacy arm of the influential labor union created to counter the rise and repression brought by anti-LGBTQ+ laws.

One of the country’s most draconian anti-trans measures became law in Carver’s home state last March. The law has required teachers to put politics before the wellbeing of their own students and reshaped how students see and treat each other. It bans them from being taught about gender identity or sexual orientation, using restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity and learning about human sexuality. The law also made gender-affirming care illegal for trans youth.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump at a podium

Former President Donald Trump's campaign exploits racist dog whistles, demonizing immigrants and endorsing white nationalist rhetoric, writes Johnson.

Adam J. Dewey/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Contending with whiteness in 2024

Johnson is a United Methodist pastor, the author of "Holding Up Your Corner: Talking About Race in Your Community" and program director for the Bridge Alliance, which houses The Fulcrum.

The 2024 presidential campaign is shaping to be a racial reckoning for America.

With Vice President Kamala Harris positioned to shatter the glass ceiling as the first woman and person of color in the Oval Office and Donald Trump's candidacy fanning the flames of racial hatred, the election is laying bare the nation's ongoing struggle with whiteness and racial justice. As a pastor and advocate for racial reconciliation, I believe this moment will test our democracy's commitment to liberty and justice for all.

Keep ReadingShow less
Kamala Harris and Donald Trump

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump

Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu, Andrew Leyden/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Where Harris, Trump stand on issues is less important than you think

Anderson edited "Leveraging: A Political, Economic and Societal Framework," has taught at five universities and ran for the Democratic nomination for a Maryland congressional seat in 2016.

Candidates for president of the United States typically run for office as though they were running for prime minister in a parliamentary democracy where their own party would have a clear majority in parliament. In such systems, which make up the vast majority of democracies in the world, the prime minister has enormous power to set policy.

In the United States, you would think that presidents are prime ministers because they always talk about what "I" will do as president based on where "I" stand on a great range of issues. While the president admittedly has much more power to set foreign policy, all major domestic policies must be passed by Congress. Indeed, Congress makes laws, while the president and the Cabinet execute them.

Keep ReadingShow less
Young man looking angry at display of his smartphone.

The inflammatory rhetoric, meaningless speculation and lack of fact checking by the media may result in young adults rejecting traditional platforms in favor of their well-being.

urbazon/Getty Images

By focusing on outrage, the media risks alienating younger audiences

Rikleen is executive director of Lawyers Defending American Democracy and the editor of “Her Honor – Stories of Challenge and Triumph from Women Judges.” Beougher is a junior at Amherst College and a co-founder ofStudents Strengthening American Democracy.

As attacks on democracy and the rule of law continually increase, much of the media refuses to address its role in intensifying the peril.

Instead of asking hard questions and insisting on answers, traditional media outlets increasingly trade news and facts for speculative commentary that ignores a story’s contextual significance. At the same time, social media outlets and influencers stoke anger as an alternative to thoughtfulness.

Keep ReadingShow less
House members taking the oath of office in the chamber

Members of the House of Representatives are sworn in by Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Jan. 6, 2023.

Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

Call them ‘representatives,’ because that’s what they are − not ‘congressmen’ or ‘congresswomen’

Wirls is a professor of politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

For most of the nation’s history, members of the U.S. House of Representatives have been addressed as “Congressman” or “Congresswoman.” By contrast, a senator is referred to as, well, “Senator.”

These gendered terms for House members dominate in journalism, everyday conversation and among members of Congress.

The name Congress refers to the entire national legislature, composed of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Gender identity aside, congressman and congresswoman are fundamentally inaccurate terms.

Keep ReadingShow less