UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the U.S. Supreme Court’s third rejection of Republican officials’ attempts to use Missouri’s 2025 redistricting map (HB1) for the 2026 congressional election, situating the ruling within the broader national redistricting conflict and analyzing what it reveals about the Court’s emergency docket practices. Professor Amar argues that the decision undercuts claims that the Court’s shadow docket favors Trump, demonstrates the Court’s insistence that lower federal courts respect its prior rulings and state supreme court authority under Rooker-Feldman and Moore v. Harper, and shows the Justices applying the Purcell doctrine while placing blame for the electoral confusion squarely on Missouri’s Republican Secretary of State rather than on the state courts.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the Eighth Circuit’s latest ruling reinstating Missouri's Republican-drawn HB1 congressional maps for the 2026 election, examining how this decision fits into the ongoing legal battle following the Supreme Court's September 10 stay of a similar lower court order. Professor Amar argues that the Eighth Circuit's ruling is legally untenable because it contradicts the Supreme Court’s implicit merits assessment from September 10 and violates the Purcell doctrine’s prohibition on late judicial interference with elections already underway, leading him to predict the Supreme Court will again intervene to block HB1’s maps from being used in November.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the Missouri Supreme Court’s ruling that blocks HB1, the state’s new congressional map, from taking effect until voters decide a referendum on it, and he explains why that ruling will probably withstand the state’s expected appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Professor Amar argues that Missouri’s federal constitutional objections are weak because the Missouri Constitution plainly permits the referendum, Supreme Court precedent has long allowed such referenda in congressional redistricting, and the U.S. Supreme Court is unlikely to disrupt the state court’s decision so close to the election.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. California staying a lower court injunction against an executive order that involves the Postal Service in regulating mail-in ballots ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Professor Sarat contends that the ruling abandons the Court’s established Purcell principle, needlessly injecting chaos into the upcoming election and undermining democratic integrity by favoring executive overreach.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses three unexpected aspects of the Supreme Court’s end-of-term decisions from its 2025-26 term, focusing on the late-arriving ballots ruling in Watson v. Republican National Committee, the Court's departure from constitutional avoidance in three separate cases, and its mootness ruling in Little v. Hecox. Professor Amar argues that the Watson outcome was correctly decided despite media mispredictions based on oral argument, that bypassing narrower statutory grounds was justified in the birthright citizenship and Federal Reserve cases given their pressing national importance, but that the Court’s refusal to dismiss Hecox as moot—despite the plaintiff's dismissal with prejudice—was legally unjustified and appeared driven by suspicion of strategic litigant behavior rather than sound doctrine.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the Virginia Attorney General’s emergency application for the U.S. Supreme Court to stay a state supreme court ruling that invalidated a redistricting-related constitutional amendment. Professor Amar argues that the challenge will fail because the state court’s decision rests on an independent interpretation of the Virginia Constitution and constitutes a routine exercise of judicial review that warrants deference under Moore v. Harper.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the Supreme Court’s role in enabling racial gerrymandering under the guise of partisan strategy and the resulting limitations of current legislative remedies like the Voting Rights Act. Professor Dorf argues that Congress should use its constitutional authority to mandate independent redistricting commissions or, more effectively, adopt a system of statewide proportional representation to ensure fair minority voice without using the specific racial classifications the current Court finds objectionable.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar examines the legal challenges facing President Donald Trump’s March 31, 2026 executive order directing federal agencies and states to cross-check voter lists against a federal citizenship registry to prevent non-citizen mail-in voting. Professor Amar argues the order rests on shaky constitutional footing because the Constitution assigns voter qualification authority to states rather than the President, the executive order’s primary statutory basis (18 U.S.C. § 611) has never been closely scrutinized and may not survive it, and several provisions exceed federal power even under the most favorable reading of existing law.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the constitutional, political, and practical implications of President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Republicans should federally “take over” voting in approximately 15 states for congressional elections. Professor Amar argues that while Congress does have constitutional authority under Article I, Section 4 to regulate federal elections (contrary to many media commentators’ claims), any geographically selective federal takeover would likely violate the Supreme Court’s “equal sovereignty” principle among states, and regardless, such a plan is extremely unlikely to pass Congress due to slim Republican majorities, lack of bipartisan support, and potential hypocrisy given Republican states’ rights principles.

Hofstra Law professor James Sample examines the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions on partisan redistricting, particularly in Texas, and the broader implications of these rulings on representative democracy and election integrity across the country. Professor Sample argues that the Court’s inconsistent and politically skewed interventions—exemplified by its tolerance of racially discriminatory maps and its manipulation of timelines—have enabled partisan gerrymandering, undermined judicial credibility, and created structural chaos in American electoral processes.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Abbott v. League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) to reinstate Texas’s new redistricting map, despite a lower court’s finding that it was likely an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Professor Dorf argues that the Court unjustifiably presumed good faith on the part of Texas legislators, ignoring strong evidence of racial motivations, and thereby undermining judicial scrutiny of racially discriminatory practices under the guise of partisan neutrality.

Touro University, Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center professor Rodger Citron explores the current legal and political challenges surrounding partisan gerrymandering and the future of the Voting Rights Act in a podcast interview with Harvard Law Professor Ruth Greenwood. Professor Greenwood argues that while the courts have increasingly stepped back from addressing gerrymandering—most notably in Rucho v. Common Cause—lasting reform must come from a combination of legal advocacy and grassroots political action, such as the establishment of independent redistricting commissions.

Amherst professor Austin Sarat discusses President Trump’s efforts to unilaterally alter federal election rules through executive orders, including mandates on voter ID and restrictions on mail-in voting, despite constitutional limits on presidential authority. Professor Sarat argues that these actions not only violate the Constitution’s allocation of election oversight to Congress and the states but also reflect a partisan attempt by Trump to influence the outcome of the 2026 congressional elections.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar and Illinois Law professor Jason Mazzone address the Fifth Circuit’s refusal to rehear a case challenging a Mississippi law allowing mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if received within five business days. Professors Amar and Mazzone explore the broader implications of that decision—especially in light of a recent Executive Order by President Donald Trump that adopts a strict interpretation of federal “Election Day” laws. The authors argue the Fifth Circuit’s reasoning is flawed, that longstanding state practices allowing some flexibility in ballot receipt are legally and constitutionally sound, and that both the court’s ruling and the Executive Order reflect an overly rigid and potentially partisan approach that should ultimately be reviewed and corrected by the U.S. Supreme Court.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar and Illinois Law professor Jason Mazzone analyze a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision ordering counties not to count undated/misdated mail-in ballots for the November 2024 election, specifically examining the broader implications of courts claiming exclusive authority to interpret constitutionality. Professors Amar and Mazzone argue that the court’s position that only judges can determine constitutional matters is problematic, as executive officials throughout American history have demonstrated the capacity to make sound constitutional judgments, and a decentralized system of constitutional review by multiple government actors can better protect individual rights.

Last week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued a ruling in Republican National Committee (RNC) v. Wetzel holding invalid, as conflicting with and thus preempted by federal law governing federal elections, a Mississippi statute that permits the counting of ballots that arrive at election offices by mail after Election Day—up…

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar analyzes a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling that allows voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected due to technical errors to cast provisional ballots in person, and examines the Republican National Committee's subsequent appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to block this ruling. Professor Amar argues that the RNC’s appeal lacks merit because it misapplies both the Purcell doctrine (which constrains federal, not state, courts from making last-minute election changes) and the Supreme Court’s Moore v. Harper decision, which actually supports states’ authority to interpret their own election laws through various governmental processes, including state courts.

University of Toronto visiting law professor and economist Neil H. Buchanan discusses a constitutional interpretation regarding the requirements for winning the U.S. presidency through the Electoral College, specifically addressing scenarios where some state electors are not appointed. Following up on an argument he has made with Professors Michael Dorf and Laurence Tribe, Professor Buchanan argues that, contrary to popular belief (the “House-decides error”), under the Twelfth Amendment, a candidate does not need 270 electoral votes to win the presidency but only a majority of actually appointed electors. Professor Buchanan points out this means that successfully blocking some state electors, as Donald Trump likely will try to do, would not automatically force the decision to the House of Representatives unless there is an actual tie or a third-party candidate prevents either major candidate from achieving a majority of appointed electors.

Cornell Law professor Michael C. Dorf discusses the current Supreme Court term and its potential implications for the 2024 presidential election. Professor Dorf argues that while the current docket seems relatively quiet, the Court’s history of partisan decisions favoring Republicans, combined with the possibility of election-related cases being added later, raises concerns about how the Court might handle potential challenges to the 2024 election results, particularly if Trump loses and uses his loyalists in state legislatures or other organs of government to declare him the winner anyway.

UC Davis Law professor Vikram David Amar discusses the legal arguments surrounding Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s attempt to remain on some state ballots for the 2024 presidential election, particularly focusing on the applicability to presidential elections of the Supreme Court’s U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton ruling. Professor Amar argues that invoking the Term Limits case in the context of presidential elections is logically flawed and historically inaccurate, as Article II of the Constitution grants states broad powers in selecting presidential electors, unlike the more restricted state powers in congressional elections addressed in Term Limits.