Conservatives are currently pursuing a national strategy to ban grace periods for ballots sent through the mail. The U.S. Supreme Court will issue a ruling that could eliminate grace periods across the country.
Whittier, a suburb of Los Angeles, votes blue in national elections but its local politics are dominated by the GOP. Its Republican mayor is seeking reelection tomorrow against a challenger who promises to do more to stand up to ICE.
Terri Harper, who is serving life without parole in Pennsylvania, cheered a ruling that could create a pathway out of prison for over 1,000 people. “I still don’t know if there are enough words in all of creation to express the joy and level of HOPE I/we feel right now.”
If the U.S. Supreme Court weakens the Voting Rights Act in a pending case, Mississippi could eventually redraw the state’s congressional map and eliminate its majority-Black district.
A new Kansas law greatly impedes trans peoples’ access to the polls.
“It is making it unsafe for trans people to even be in Kansas,” says the chair of the Kansas Democratic Party’s LGBTQ caucus.
I think that lack of competition is one of the most important mini-beats we cover at @boltsmag.org. Here’s @taniel.bsky.social on Oregon, where 15 DA seats are up this year, and every one of them drew just a single candidate: boltsmag.org/oregon-uncon...
State supreme courts are a battlefield for pressing issues, from abortion rights to ballot access. But do you know how your court works?
Our guide breaks down the structure and procedures of every single state’s highest court.
Twelve incumbent DAs in Oregon are seeking new terms entirely unopposed this year. In the other three races, the chief deputy DA is running to replace their boss and won’t face any competition.
Chris Taylor ran ads in Wisconsin highlighting her support for abortion rights, which the state supreme court has defended since flipping to a liberal majority. Last year, the court struck down the state’s 19th-century ban on abortion on a 4-3 vote.
“Courts think that they can somehow get themselves out of the political arena entirely,” says a legal scholar. “These trials are always already politicized. The choice to charge is politicized. The action itself is obviously political.”
“The criminal justice system is too often done in secret, unless and until there’s an election, so I think it’s unfortunate for the residents of Oregon that no community in the state is going to be having that conversation this cycle,” says a former DA in Oregon.
Some trans people have decided to abstain from voting in Kansas, or even leave the state, as a result of a recent law cancelling the licences of many trans residents. “Kansas has been our home since we were born, and it’s no longer safe.”
An immigrant rights advocate in New Jersey applauds a new law that her state just adopted, saying “the state legislature and the [Sherrill] administration is recognizing that there is rising authoritarianism and there is a need to act.”
Prison Journalism Project reports on the vanishingly low rate at which South Carolina grants people parole.
As New York City officials seek to strengthen immigrant protections, they’re learning from other cities about how to respond to mass ICE deployments. One point of focus: public parking lots, which ICE used to stage operations in Minneapolis and Chicago.
Liberals have built large majorities on the supreme courts of the three “Blue Wall” swing states that play an outsized role in presidential elections: 5-2 in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and 6-1 in Michigan.
This year, all of Oregon’s 15 DA races are uncontested. “When you don’t have elections, most people are not getting representation from someone who’s aligned with their values,” says the former prosecutor of Deschutes County, Oregon.
After Verona, Wisconsin, removed Flock cameras, other neighboring towns have reconsidered their own agreements with the surveillance company. “It makes it easier for them to say, ‘Maybe we don’t need this tool,’” says Verona’s mayor.
A bill that would likely end local partnerships with ICE in Virginia is now awaiting Governor Abigail Spanberger's signature. She has until Monday to sign it.
A decade ago, Derek Lee was sentenced to life in prison without parole. In an appeal, he argued that it is cruel to automatically condemn someone to die in prison for a killing they didn’t commit. Pennsylvania’s supreme court last week ruled in his favor.
Chris Taylor, the former Democratic lawmaker who was elected to Wisconsin’s supreme court this week, won huge swaths of the state’s rural regions. Based on near-final results, she carried 29 counties that went for Donald Trump in the fall of 2024.
Only one candidate has filed to run in each of Oregon’s 15 DA races this year. Our review of election records shows that this is the only cycle so far this century in which every DA race in Oregon has been uncontested.
Many trans Kansans whose licenses were cancelled by a recent state law now face a kind of poll tax: To vote, they’ll have to pay $16 for a replacement license with a gender marker that doesn’t match their identity.
Maine’s supreme court ruled that expanding ranked choice voting to state elections would be unconstitutional, the Maine Morning Star reports.
A court-ordered injunction in Colorado would ban the state from punishing someone who refuses to work with solitary confinement for more than two or three days. It would also prohibit guards from threatening to isolate people for refusing work assignments.
The Texas Attorney General is suing Dallas for not spending enough money on police, D magazine reports.
“We’ve learned a lot in terms of, how has rapid response worked in other places, and what does that mean in terms of the role of the city?” says one New York City resident who is spearheading a series of audits of the city’s sanctuary policies.
