This weekly update summarizing legislative activity affecting voting and elections is powered by the Voting Rights Lab. Sign up for VRL’s weekly newsletter here.
The Voting Rights Lab is tracking 2,195 bills so far this session, with 581 bills that tighten voter access or election administration and 1,048 bills that expand the rules. The rest are neutral or mixed or unclear in their impact.
With little legislative activity over the summer, much of the focus now is on executive action by state agencies. The highlights last week occurred in Wisconsin (where the Elections Commission reactivated thousands of voters’ registrations) and Iowa (where the secretary of state announced grants to improve accessibility in and around polling places.)
Looking ahead: The Voting Rights Lab is watching a number of state court cases that are moving, including two new lawsuits challenging Arizona’s new proof of citizenship requirement and an open question of whether North Carolina’s legislature had the authority to refer a voter ID amendment to voters.
Here are the details:
The Wisconsin Elections Commission reactivates more than 30,000 voters’ registration. In 2021, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the WEC unconstitutionally purged tens of thousands of voters from the rolls when it failed to give voters notice of, and opportunity to avoid, deactivation in July of that year. On August 12, the WEC reactivated the registrations of 30,554 voters in accordance with a stipulation filed by the parties last month. The stipulation also requires the WEC to notify voters facing deactivation before removing them from the rolls, providing them with the opportunity to take any necessary action to avoid deactivation if they so choose.
The North Carolina Supreme Court limits the authority of the state’s racially gerrymandered legislature. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court conclusively determined that 28 legislative districts in North Carolina were drawn in a manner that violated the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. Separately, in 2018, the General Assembly enacted legislation to put an amendment on the ballot that would create stricter state voter ID requirements. Last week, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that because the 2018 legislature was composed of a substantial number of legislators from districts that had been unconstitutionally racially gerrymandered, it lacked complete authority to refer the amendment to voters. The state Supreme Court remanded the ongoing litigation over the voter ID amendment back to the trial court for consideration of additional questions.
Iowa counties receive funds to improve access for voters with disabilities. Secretary of State Paul Pate announced that his office will make $1,000 grants available to each of the state’s 99 counties to fund improvements to polling place accessibility for voters with disabilities. Nearly 300,000 Iowans have a disability. Iowa counties may use the additional funding directly on accessibility infrastructure or to provide training on how to better meet the needs of voters with disabilities.
Lawsuits challenge Arizona’s new proof of citizenship requirement. On Tuesday, the Arizona Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander for Equity Coalition filed a lawsuit challenging two newly enacted bills, H.B. 2492 and H.B. 2243, for requiring voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship – and allowing county recorders to cancel a voter’s registration if that proof is unavailable or if there is suspicion that the voter is not a U.S. citizen. Last Monday, the Democratic National Committee and Arizona Democratic Party filed a separate lawsuit challenging H.B. 2492, which was promptly consolidated with other litigation. The plaintiffs in the other new suit have moved to similarly consolidate their case with ongoing litigation.
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.