In the aftermath of an election that included dozens of changes to voting laws, states have seen a surge in legislation that could further alter the voting process — or unwind some of the advancements made in response to Covid-19.
The pandemic prompted more Americans than ever to vote by mail last year. Seeing broad success with this and other alternative voting methods, Democrats want to make absentee and early voting both permanent and more widespread. But Republicans want stricter voting rules to protect against fraud — even though no significant allegations were proven true last fall.
A report released Tuesday by the Brennan Center for Justice, a liberal public policy institute at New York University Law School, found that just a month into the new year more than 500 voting rights bills have already been introduced in 37 state legislatures — more than double what had been proposed by this time last year. While a majority of this legislation is aimed at expanding access to the ballot box, more than 100 measures across 28 states would restrict voting access.
Of course, increased volume does not necessarily translate into legislative success. A study of 2013-14 state legislation by CQ StateTrack, which monitors bills in every legislature, found that one-quarter of state-level bills became law. The political leanings of individual states is more predictive than the overall volume.
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
Legislation to restrict voting access
The Brennan Center's analysis found that legislators have introduced three times the number of restrictive voting bills this year. These 106 bills are mostly aimed at limiting mail voting and adding more stringent voting requirements. At this time last year, only 35 such bills had been proposed.
While a lot of these bills won't succeed, in GOP strongholds they could gain serious traction. Missouri, Mississippi and New Hampshire are among the red states considering these types of measures.
In battleground Pennsylvania, lawmakers have introduced 11 different bills that would restrict voting access, the most of any state so far. Three would eliminate the state's recently adopted no-excuse absentee voting policy and another would make it harder to obtain a mail ballot by removing the permanent early voting list.
Ten states have proposals to add new or more strict voter ID requirements for those who wish to vote in person early or on Election Day. And four states are considering doing away with in-person registration on Election Day.
Legislation to expand voting access
Meanwhile, state lawmakers are also considering many more proposals to make voting easier and more accessible. There are currently more than 400 bills pending in 35 states — more than double the amount introduced at this time last year, according to the Brennan Center's analysis.
These bills are mainly focused on expanding access to mail voting and in-person early voting, bolstering voter registration and fortifying voting rights policies. Democratic-controlled states will try to piggyback on the success of these reforms in the 2020 election and establish more permanent policies moving forward.
Solidly blue New York leads the pack with 56 reform bills introduced so far. Texas is not far behind with 53 such bills, but passing voting reform in the Lone Star State will be much more of an uphill battle.
Lawmakers in 11 states want to adopt permanent no-excuse absentee voting policies. Bills in eight states would require local officials to provide drop boxes for absentee ballots. And 13 states may consider allowing election officials to process mail ballots earlier than in past years.
Legislation to establish early in-person voting, extend the early voting period or add early voting sites has been introduced in 14 states. Six states have bills to adopt same-day voter registration, five have bills for automatic voter registration and seven have legislation to adopt both.
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.