Camryn Thompson's AP Gov Blog

1.The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides, inter alia , that “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” This legal standard means what it says. Certainly, Rob Porter and others who have been accused of sexual abuse or harassment are not being deprived of their life or their liberty as a result of the allegations made against them. 2. In short, there is a process — of charges, proof, and judicial decision when a legal action is brought. But when a business, a government entity, or a voter must decide whether someone is fit for his position, the decision process is of necessity much less formal, quicker, and truncated. A judgment call must be made, and it often must be made quickly. 3.It has two prongs: 1) The government cannot charge you with a crime or take other action against you without notifying you of the charges or proposed action. And 2) you must be given the opportunity to present your side of th...

1. One reason that the results are especially scary for Republicans — Democrat Conor Lamb is the apparent winner1 in a district that President Trump won by 20 percentage points — is because it came on reasonably high turnout, the sort of turnout one might expect in this year’s midterms. 2. Democratic swing is the difference between the special election result and the district’s partisan lean. 3.By contrast, the 16- or 17-point5 average Democratic overperformance in special elections so far suggests a Democratic mega-tsunami. 4.they trail Democrats by “only” 8 or 9 percentage points on the generic congressional ballot, which suggests a close race for control of the House this year that only narrowly favors Democrats. 5.Democrats also appear to have an enthusiasm advantage — 60 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Clinton voters say they have a high degree of interest in the 2018 midterms. Fifty-four percent of Republicans and 37 percent of independents say the same. Young...

1.  The district court is a trial court within the Ninth Circuit; the appellate court is one step higher on the ladder and oversees all individual districts. 2.  the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the appellate court to which the case proceeds now. (The district court is a trial court within the Ninth Circuit; the appellate court is one step higher on the ladder and oversees all individual districts.) 3. The Court’s reputation arguably derives from its transformation under President Jimmy Carter. While Carter was the only the fourth president to make no appointments to the Supreme Court, he did appoint  15 people to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals , out of 23 judges total at the time. (It’s since expanded.) 4.  Stephen Reinhardt, a Carter appointee who’s still serving, is widely viewed as one of the most liberal appellate judges on federal courts. He wrote the  Ninth Circuit’s opinion  striking down California’s same-sex marriage ban Proposition 8 in 20...

1. He’s steering the EPA’s work at an agonizingly slow   pace,   delaying and slowing the implementation of laws and running interference for many of the sectors EPA is supposed to regulate. 2.  By stalling, Pruitt can effectively shift policy by doing nothing. If he leaves regulations in limbo or delays their implementation, industries get relief from environmental rules while the EPA retains plausible deniability.   The result is a drastic slowdown in the pace of work at an agency that faces a constant churn of new rules, regulations, enforcement actions, and lawsuits that affect the health, safety, and livelihoods of millions of Americans. 3.  Environmental law enforcement has declined. By September, the Trump administration launched 30 percent fewer cases and collected about  60 percent fewer fines  than in the same period under President Obama. 4.  Pruitt said he’s aiming to take 27 to 30 sites fully or partially off the list this year. th...

1.    this time, Congress failed to pass a new government funding law before the old one expired. 2.    Military and law enforcement activities continue. Social Security checks still go out. Air traffic controllers still go to work. However, activities the government has deemed “nonessential” stop, and employees tasked with those activities are furloughed — they’re told not to come to work, and that they won’t be paid until the shutdown is resolved. 3. these activists argued that Democrats shouldn’t vote for any government funding bill without a DACA deal. 4.  The Democratic worry was that keeping the government shut down on behalf of unauthorized immigrants — even the DREAMers — is a political loser. 5.Th e bill to keep the government open for the next two-and-a-half weeks also includes a six-year extension of CHIP’s budget. (Indeed, Republicans had offered this before the shutdown, and this time it was Democrats who wouldn’t accept it.) This means that sta...

1. Then the vice president would immediately become “Acting President,” and take over all the president’s powers. 2. One vice president and any eight Cabinet officers can, theoretically, decide to knock the president out of power at any time. 3. If the president wants to dispute this move, he can, but then it would be up to Congress to settle the matter with a vote. A two-thirds majority in both houses would be necessary to keep the vice president in charge. If that threshold isn’t reached, the president would regain his powers. 4. The chaos and instability that followed John F. Kennedy’s assassination finally spurred Congress to move toward solving these problems. For once, it moved quickly, passing what became the 25th Amendment to the Constitution in 1965 and winning its ratification in the states by 1967. 5. How to fill a vice presidential vacancy in the middle of a term (in practice, the answer was interpreted as “you can’t”). 6. The power to sideline the presid...

1. The White House said that “many states have refused to provide the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity with basic information relevant to its inquiry.” So the White House backed off, arguing that it was better than the alternative of “endless legal battles at taxpayer expense.” 2. Trump similarly claimed on Twitter, without any evidence whatsoever, that “millions” of people voting illegally had cost him the popular vote in the 2016 election. 3. Loyola Law School professor Justin Levitt studied voter impersonation, the type of fraud that strict voter ID laws (which Trump supports) aim to curtail. Levitt found 35 total credible accusations between 2000 and 2014, constituting a few hundred ballots at most. 4. Another, more recent investigation in North Carolina by the State Board of Elections similarly found just one — out of nearly 4.8 million total votes in 2016 — credible case of in-person voter fraud. That amounts to just 0.00002 percent of ...