Monthly Archives: October 2024

I Voted

Posted on October 28, 2024 by Michael Froomkin

I voted via dropbox and it seems Miami-Dade elections accepted my ballot:

“Ballot 1” huh?  Does that mean I can have more please?

Posted in 2024 Election | 3 Comments

“Textual Tensions in the Vesting Thesis”

Posted on October 28, 2024 by Michael Froomkin

Looks familiar somehow

Some guy named David B. Froomkin has a nice piece up at the Regulatory Review arguing that the Constitution’s Vesting Clause is not a broad grant of presidential power. It begins:

The Vesting thesis is back in the news.

Aditya Bamzai and Saikrishna Prakash recently published an article in which they returned to their exchange with Andrea Katz and Noah Rosenblum last year in the Harvard Law Review about the President’s power to remove executive officials from office. The debate centers on the Vesting Clause in Article II of the U.S. Constitution, which states that “the executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” The debate is primarily a historical one about which sources to rely on and how to interpret them in reconstructing Founding-era understandings of the meaning of “executive power.”

It is worth taking a step back from the historical discussion to appreciate the debate’s premises about how one ought to read the Constitution’s text.

Read the rest of Textual Tensions in the Vesting Thesis.

Posted in Administrative Law, Law: Constitutional Law | Leave a comment

Quisling Wannabes

Posted on October 25, 2024 by Michael Froomkin

(I cancelled my subscription today.)

‘Washington Post’ won’t endorse in White House race for first time since 1980s — even though they editorialized that Trump is unfit to be President, and their news columns (frequently, if not frequently enough) make it obvious.

It’s not hard to imagine why owner Jeff Bezos did this: fear and greed. As Josh Marshall put it,

in the case of the Post, this is a bad and cowardly development. We can’t know for certain what went into these decisions. But the most obvious explanation is that they have billionaire owners who, especially in the case of Jeff Bezos, have other business interests which are vulnerable to adverse regulatory and contracting decisions as well as government harassment of other kinds. Those are very real threats and ones that a lawless president has a lot latitude to exact without much if any real prospect of redress. […]

The calculus is straightforward. If Harris wins the election, it doesn’t matter. Democratic administrations don’t play that way. Donald Trump’s do.

The big money is betting that there’s a real chance Trump gets elected. And in so doing helping make it so.

Kudos to Robert Kagan for immediately resigning, as an editorial contributor. Obviously these decisions will be harder for those employed by the Post full-time, and who find themselves in a dying industry where jobs are scarce. Even so…

Posted in 2024 Election, The Media, Trump | Leave a comment

Hiding in Plain View? No: Not Hiding at All

Posted on October 25, 2024 by Michael Froomkin

Via TPM, a link to this 2018(!) video by Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley on whether Trump is a fascist:

Posted in Trump | Leave a comment

You’ll Need a Strong Stomach for this One

Posted on October 23, 2024 by Michael Froomkin

NYT, For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment

Sometimes lost amid all the shouting of a high-octane campaign heading into its final couple of weeks is that simple if mind-bending fact. America for the first time in its history may send a criminal to the Oval Office and entrust him with the nuclear codes. What would once have been automatically disqualifying barely seems to slow Mr. Trump down in his comeback march for a second term that he says will be devoted to “retribution.”

In all the different ways that Mr. Trump has upended the traditional rules of American politics, that may be one of the most striking. He has survived more scandals than any major party presidential candidate, much less president, in the life of the republic. Not only survived but thrived. He has turned them on their head, making allegations against him into an argument for him by casting himself as a serial victim rather than a serial violator.

…and it then details the scandals for two full newsprint pages.

Vote, already.

Posted in The Scandals | Leave a comment

Election 2024 Summary & Downballot Voter’s Guide

Posted on October 22, 2024 by Michael Froomkin

[This post will remain on top of the blog until after polls close in Florida on Nov. 5.]

This is a critical election.  You really should vote, and soon. Early voting has begun, so why wait.

Here’s a crib sheet with some suggestions about the downballot, plus links to the posts that explain them.

County Offices

Clerk of Court: Annette Taddeo (Line 71)
Sheriff: James Reys (Line 73)
Property Appraiser: Marisol Zenteno (Line 75)
Tax Collector: David Richardson (Line 77)
Supervisor of Elections: “J.C.” Planas (Line 79)

Judicial Retention Elections

Justices of the Supreme Court
Justice Renatha Francis: NO (Line 81)
Justice Meredith Sasso: NO (Line 83)

3rd DCA
Judge Kevin Emas: YES (Line 84)
Judges Ivan Fernandez: YES (Line 86)
Judge Norma Shepard Lindsey: YES (Line 88)

County Court
Christopher Benjamin (Line 90)

Miami-Dade Commission, District 7
Cindy Lerner (Line 92)

Constitutional Amendments
NO on Amendment 1. (Line 251)
NO on Amendment 2. (Line 253)
YES on Amendment 3. (Line 254)
YES on Amendment 4. (Line 256)
YES on Amendment 5. (Line 258)
NO on Amendment 6. (Line 261)

Reasoned comments are always welcome.

Posted in 2024 Election, Florida, Miami | 1 Comment