Alex Burness
Reporter for @boltsmag.org covering voting rights, democracy, and criminal justice at the local and state levels. Previously @denverpost.com. Support local journalism.
Signal: burness.02
- OK, *now* it's safe to say Spanberger ended Virginia's state/ICE contracts. New today in @boltsmag.org: boltsmag.org/virginia-spa...
- Exactly. A lot of people rightly note that Bezos could easily afford to fund the Post until infinity, but that misses the point that those in the ruling class have generally, correctly assessed that quality, righteous journalism is a problem for them
- Reposted by Alex BurnessAs the @51st.news's first full-time reporter, I don't actually disagree with this. We're building something new one brick at a time, but at this point it's simply not a one-for-one replacement for what's being lost at the Post. (Please read and support us, though!)
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- 1. Shame on Jeff Bezos. 2. Donate to @51st.news today if you can. DC is starving for good local journalism and it’s not going to pay for itself.
- Reposted by Alex BurnessSometimes you have to say it out loud to appreciate how dire t all is: The president just openly declared his plans to steal the midterm elections — in an interview with the former number two person at the FBI.
- Trump: "These people were brought to our country to vote, & they vote illegally. The Republicans should say, we should take over the voting in at least 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. We have states that I won that show I didn't win. You're gonna see something in Georgia"
- Reposted by Alex BurnessThis story is a Kafkaesque nightmare. One of several examples: the government does not give you the option to identify yourself correctly in the paperwork, and then shows up to arrest you for failing to identify yourself correctly in the paperwork. Maddening, and well worth the read.
- Reposted by Alex BurnessMayor Mamdani names criminal justice reformer Stanley Richards as NYC’s new Department of Correction commissioner Richards is the first formerly incarcerated person to lead the city’s jails system @gothamist.com @wnyc.org gothamist.com/news/mamdani...
- “Democrats hold the narrowest of majorities in Maine and Pennsylvania’s state Houses. They now need to defend vacant seats to retain their edge in each through the end of the year.” That and a bunch more in @taniel.bsky.social’s What’s on the Ballot guide for February:
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- I’ve interviewed many politicians who are nervous to publicly oppose felony disenfranchisement. Average voters, I’ve found, are much less timid. We can learn something here from Virginia: Lawmakers proposed expanding re-enfranchisement and, whaddya know, the “yes” side is polling *34* points ahead.
- West Virginia House just passed a bill to change its definition of human trafficking “to include transporting, isolating and harboring an ‘illegal alien’ to avoid law enforcement.” The bill calls for a 3-year minimum prison sentence for anyone who “traffics” an undocumented person.
- Reposted by Alex BurnessNEW: There are 2,400+ elections for DA & sheriff this year. These matter hugely to criminal justice & policing—including: *these are often officials who decide ICE collaboration.* So I took a dive into these 2,400+ races to identify early hotspots and battlegrounds. Read, & check out our maps:
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- Colorado voters will be deciding this year on a conservative-backed constitutional amendment to require collaboration with ICE. The SOS just announced that this proposal qualified for the ballot, background on it here from @coloradosun.com: coloradosun.com/2025/12/22/w...
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- 1. State supreme courts are really important and it’s wild how overlooked they usually are 2. Sooooo many offices all over the country go uncontested, including in very winnable/swingy locations Here, in what sure looks like a blue wave year, two NV conservative justices go totally unchallenged:
- I chatted with @andrewgrayak.bsky.social about Alaska’s prosecution of American Samoans on the East Anchorage Book Club podcast. Listen here: open.spotify.com/episode/2YvV...
- Eleven American Samoans in Alaska face serious prison time for voting in the only country they’ve ever known. Theirs is a wild story of colonialism, cops, “voter fraud” panic, small-town beef, and family. I spent months on this + am so glad to now be able to share it: boltsmag.org/prosecuted-f...
- Abigail Spanberger did not end Virginia’s 287(g) partnership with ICE yesterday, despite reports to the contrary. What Spanberger did do is rescind Glenn Youngkin’s order that required the state police + DOC to sign ICE contracts. She terminated the requirement, but not the contracts themselves.
- Pay for prison labor—labor that is in many cases mandatory or coerced, hence the popular argument that this is modern slavery—are so incredibly low that they’d be illegal in any other setting. Read @prisonjournalism.bsky.social on Tennessee’s 1st tiny (literal pennies) prison wage hike in 33 years:
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- Here's Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell explaining, moments ago on the Senate floor, why Democrats today moved to ask voters to allow temporary gerrymandering of Virginia in response to GOP gerrymandering elsewhere: "All of us should be disturbed by the necessity of what we're doing."
- New in @boltsmag.org: Virginia voters will decide this year whether to repeal the state's exceptionally harsh Jim Crow-era policy of banning anyone with any felony from voting for life. This will be the country's first statewide vote on felony disenfranchisement since 2020.
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- New: The Bucks County (PA) sheriff this morning officially terminated its 287(g) agreement with ICE. The sheriff, Danny Ceisler, is a Democrat who flipped the office blue in November, having campaigned on a promise to end the office’s formal collaboration with ICE. Background here:
- New Jersey jury pools and juries are extremely unrepresentative, because the state has excluded hundreds of thousands with past convictions. An estimated *25%* of Black N.J. adults have been banned from jury service. Gov. Murphy just ordered major reform on this. I wrote about it in @boltsmag.org:
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- ICYMI: Alaska is prosecuting 11 American Samoans for violating election laws so confusing and poorly explained that, crucially, the state itself did not even understand or enforce them. boltsmag.org/prosecuted-f... More in this thread:
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- In 2023, two cops knocked at the door of Tupe Smith, a humble volunteer at the school in her small Alaska town. They handcuffed her in front of her young kids and took her to jail 72 miles away, where she was ordered naked and searched. She cried; she had no idea she’d broken any law. Thread:
- The month before her arrest, Tupe Smith had been elected to her local school board. Unbeknownst to her at the time, however, she was not eligible: Smith, who was born in the U.S. and has a U.S. passport, is actually not a U.S. citizen, so can't vote or run for office almost anywhere in the country.
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- Speaking of U.S. imperialism and how this country and its police treat non-citizens… Do not miss a very troubling situation in Alaska, where a family of American Samoans faces many years in prison just for participating in local politics. My deep dive is out today: boltsmag.org/prosecuted-f...
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- Eleven American Samoans in Alaska face serious prison time for voting in the only country they’ve ever known. Theirs is a wild story of colonialism, cops, “voter fraud” panic, small-town beef, and family. I spent months on this + am so glad to now be able to share it: boltsmag.org/prosecuted-f...
- I had a chance in 2024 to visit with Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who died last week at 92, at his home on the Southern Ute reservation. He had a lot to say about Native voting rights and representation, and lack thereof—some of which you can read here: boltsmag.org/automatic-vo...
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- “Grace periods” for late-arriving mail ballots were not controversial until very recently. (Kansas lawmakers voted *163-1* for a grace period in 2017!) But Trump wants them banned, so red states have lately rushed to help him. Ohio just joined the list: boltsmag.org/ohio-ends-gr...
- Serious allegations against the (soon to be former) sheriff of Chesapeake, VA, who we’ve covered closely at @boltsmag.org: Washington Post reports Dave Rosado is accused of using his position to boost his campaign, including by coercing his staff. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
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- Reposted by Alex BurnessCan't say I ever expected to see a "That Font was No Angel" headline. But here we are.
- Democrats flipped 25 state legislative seats this year—more than a 1/5 of all GOP-held seats that were up for election. Republicans flipped *zero* seats. @taniel.bsky.social’s year-end statehouse analyses are always must-reads: boltsmag.org/legislative-...
- To ward off a primary of John Hickenlooper by progressive Julie Gonzales, a power player in the Colorado Democratic Party allegedly offered a "guarantee" of future consulting contracts if the Gonzales team backed off. Great reporting by @sethklamann.bsky.social: www.denverpost.com/2025/12/09/c...
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- Essential reporting from @laurengill.bsky.social on federal death row under Trump. It’s a topic often buried way down in the news cycle but it urgently deserves attention: boltsmag.org/death-row-cl...
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- Yes, and I’ll add: I think non-journalists would be shocked by how hard it can be to contact government media folks. The people who are paid by tax $ to provide info to the public often make themselves almost invisible. (To say nothing of the stonewall you may run into when you *do* reach them.)
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- Fayette County, Tennessee, is more than 1/4 Black, but all 19 of its county commissioners are white. Important @pascalsabino.bsky.social piece here about representation and fair maps: boltsmag.org/voting-right...
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- A notable election result you might have missed: Somerville, Mass., became the first in the country to pass a ballot measure divesting locally from Israel. Via @prismreports.org: prismreports.org/2025/11/18/s...
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- After the Bucks County sheriff election, one immigrant rights organizer told me: “I know ICE will still be here, but at least in our community we get some sense of peace. People haven’t wanted to go church, to concerts, to public events, because everybody is thinking they’re going to be taken.”
- A Republican sheriff in a swing county that Trump won by 0.1% signed a contract to help ICE, then lost last week by 11. New by me in @boltsmag.org: boltsmag.org/sheriff-of-b...
- A Republican sheriff in a swing county that Trump won by 0.1% signed a contract to help ICE, then lost last week by 11. New by me in @boltsmag.org: boltsmag.org/sheriff-of-b...
- In addition to military/overseas voters, young people and non-white people tend to vote later, and thus are more vulnerable to bans on counting late-arriving ballots. That is why Trump wants this change, and why plenty of red states have lately rushed to do his bidding: boltsmag.org/restrictions...
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- Gerrymandering Virginia will be “one of the 1st orders of business” for the legislature in January, the state’s senate majority leader tells @boltsmag.org. That was only made possible by Tuesday’s results. This + other democracy-related election effects explained here: boltsmag.org/five-ways-20...
- I wrote about how this election affected voting and democracy, new in @boltsmag.org: boltsmag.org/five-ways-20...
