Phil Rocco
politologue // yinzer // co-editor of Publius: The Journal of Federalism // author of "Counting Like a State" kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700638758/count…
Most posts are first drafts, comments welcome.
- On the requirement for state and local cooperation: state/local government already have authority to conduct investigations. But a binding statutory duty to share evidence would be (I think) new in this context. Requiring state/local consent for large scale ICE operations is obviously huge. 1/2
- The bigger problem here, as I see it, is that the Trump admin keeps trying to unconstitutionally coerce states and cities. They will continue to do that even if a statutory reform is enacted. The only question is what level of resources / force they’ll have to bring to bear when they act. 2/2
- Whenever I see rot like this, I’m going to keep referring people back to this excellent @brennancenter.org / State Futures brief on how states can guard against this kind of federal election subversion. www.brennancenter.org/our-work/res...
- Grindcore — you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
- Given how obvious it is that the Trump admin wants to use ICE / CBP to do election subversion , it’s surprising that it wasn’t already a demand in Dems’ list. But it absolutely should be now.
- Back when he promised the drawdown conditional on some vague kind of “cooperation”, it seemed strange to me how little clarity anyone apparently asked for on what that meant
- It's almost as if the *ideas and beliefs* of the people who operate these legacy institutions -- as opposed to the structure of those institutions themselves -- really define whether they can be a bulwark against authoritarianism.
- As I put it back in 2021, dealing w/ democratic deficits in state electoral institutions runs through localized struggles in the worst-offending states. At present, prospect of central authoritarianism also requires hardening local electoral institutions against threat in states targeted by Trump.
- A bit of my @slate.com piece. "At this point, American democracy is too weak and fragile to have centralized power over elections in the hands of a federal government that could be coerced or coopted by a president hell-bent, like Trump, on election subversion."
- Highly relevant read on states’ police powers.
- "Good Governing" by Daniel B. Rodriguez is a deep historical and legal analysis of state police power, examining its origins in the founding period of the American public through the 20th century. Out Now #OpenAccess #USLaw #USPolitics #Policing #NewBooks cup.org/3Dr6RPe
- Really excited to read this book based on this mini bibliographic essay alone.
- Reading the astounding preliminary report of Illinois Accountability Commission on the federal abuses of Midway Blitz. Every state touched by the ICE assault needs to create a body like this just to preserve / consolidate the factual record. ilac.illinois.gov/content/dam/...
