Sample Ballots
Sample Ballots

12/18 Updates

Dec 18, 2025

You may wish to look at the following videos/audios

 

 

  • December 17, 2025 MSN Now segment entitled, ‘Bad, fast-talking infomercial’: Psaki fact-checks Trump’s address. Jen Psaki shares her first reaction and offers some corrections and clarifications to Donald Trump’s address to the nation. MS NOW’s Catherine Rampell and White House correspondent Vaughn Hillyard join with further fact-checking an analysis.  A replay and transcript may be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IRgcAkqMgI

 

 

  • December 18, 2025 Ash Center program at 10:00 AM entitled Deliberating with the Public: Democratic Engagement Series Wrap Up.  Join Danielle Allen, Beth Simone Noveck, and Audrey Tang for a conversation on how AI can support structured public deliberation, from digital town halls to consensus-building platforms that bridge divides. The discussion will include pathbreaking projects in Taiwan and California and how Taiwan’s vTaiwan platform uses AI to facilitate national conversations on complex policy issues like Uber regulation and digital governance, enabling thousands of citizens to find common ground. Registration available at https://events.zoom.us/ev/AsyVb0keS6luK_V3lB9S1V6Y0eZw7SoD56-8p6YVdaWaui6bF9F2~Ak4h4ZpxztcprX77IFRIEGhxdVP1ndkbLVME5u9-VOymBQhn5Z1MM_5iIQ  Ignore the fact that you are registering for a series of events beginning in September of 2025.

 

  • December 18, 2025  ABA Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice segment at 2:00 PM entitled, Deaths in Custody: Civil Rights, Accountability, and Oversight. Deaths in custody raise urgent questions about accountability, transparency, and civil rights.
    • In this Chair Chat, Dr. Roger Mitchell Jr. and Dr. Cynthia Swann examine how deaths in custodial settings are investigated and addressed within legal and civil rights frameworks. Drawing on Dr. Mitchell’s experience as a forensic pathologist, former chief medical examiner, and contributing author to the recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) consensus report Advancing the Field of Forensic Pathology: Lessons Learned from Death in Custody Investigations, the conversation examines how death investigation practices influence legal outcomes, systems of oversight, and public trust.
    • Dr. Swann brings a medico-legal and public policy perspective grounded in her expertise across emergency care and carceral health systems, examining how gaps in independence, resources, and standards can obscure the truth and limit accountability. Together, the speakers underscore why rigorous, independent death investigation is essential to protecting constitutional rights and strengthening civil rights enforcement.
    • Dr. Roger Mitchell, Jr.–  President, National Medical Association (NMA); Immediate Past President Howard University Hospital; Former Professor of Pathology, Howard University College of Medicine.
    • Dr. Cynthia Swann (Moderator) – President and CEO, Swann Group Global; Vice Chair, ABA Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice; Vice Chair, NBA Civil Rights Law Section; National Medical Association.

The program may be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RucCfXYgys

 

  • December 18, 2025 Ash Center for Democratic Governance & Innovation event at 4:00 PM  entitled, The Breakdown with Erica Chenoweth and Steve Levitsky. Join Erica Chenoweth and Steven Levitsky for the third session of The Breakdown, a new webinar series on the ongoing struggle for American democracy. Each month, Chenoweth and Levitsky will break down key developments, reflect on this moment’s historical precedents both at home and abroad, and offer evidence-based reflections on the path forward. Registration is available at https://ash.harvard.edu/events/the-breakdown-with-erica-chenoweth-and-steve-levitsky/

 

 

You may wish to look at the following recent litigation documents:

 

  • December 17, 2025 Memorandum Opinion by Judge Jia M. Cobb of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in Neguse v. ICE giving the reason for staying the enforcement of newly adopted policies that require lawmakers to provide seven days notice before visiting detention facilities and entirely barring congressional visits to field offices being used to detain immigrants.  There is a separate stay order.

 

 

 

You may wish to look at the following items:

 

  • December 3, 2025 NYT column by David Broder entitled, They Were Supposed to Save Europe. Instead, They’re Condemning It to Horrors.  The author’s major point about the centrists which may be a warning for Democrats
    • These governments are different, of course. But they have all adopted their opponents’ antipathy to migration. In France, Mr. Macron — denouncing the “decivilization process” wrought by newcomers — has relied on National Rally lawmakers to limit immigrants’ welfare rights. In Britain, Mr. Starmer has apologized for the “incalculable damage” done by mass migration and introduced draconian changes to asylum rules. In Germany, Mr. Merz has increased deportations and pledged to “carry out expulsions on a very large scale,” casting migrants as a danger to women.
    • If this is meant to win over voters unhappy about immigration, it hasn’t worked. Instead of rewarding pale centrist imitators, they are turning, more and more, to the real thing.

 

  • December 8, 2025 Sherrilyn’s Newsletter segment entitled, Is It Too Late?No. But We Must Better Understand the Nature of the Battle. The author’s main points are
    • And so here we are. The agenda has been laid bare for any sentient person to see. It is a the literal hijacking of our democracy. The truth of this project and its danger have been the clanging bells that could easily have been heard by those best-positioned to derail it. But it so happens that those most positioned to have headed off this moment of Constitution-defying, democracy-defying, collapse have refused to believe it.
    • I confess this bothers me. Because we are late. Perhaps too late. Far too many leaders (including those in law, journalism, and business) have wasted precious time – pretending that this or that justice is an “institutionalist.” Insisting that support for Trump was stoked by “economic anxiety,” that it’s “class,” rather than white supremacist panic and moral collapse. Pretending that Trump was a “disrupter” rather than a destroyer of norms, of decency, of law. Indulging the fantasy of bipartisan solutions with a political party that has fully submitted itself to authoritarianism. Hoping that the MAGA fever will “break” in time. Counting on the business community to “wake-up” once the economy tanks, or the effects of the tariffs kick in. Refusing to see what is right before our eyes.
    • This is an oligarchic and authoritarian takeover of our democracy, yes. But it is fueled by white supremacist ideology. That is the seductive messaging through which so many have been lured into participating in this national betrayal. We can continue cutting off the many heads of the hydra. Or we can get to the source.

 

  • December 17, 2025 NYT report by Lisa Friedman, Brad Plumer and Jack Healy entitled, Trump Administration Plans to Break Up Premier Weather and Climate Research Center. Three key paragraphs are
    • Scientists said dismantling the center’s climate research would do irreparable damage to cutting-edge meteorology and advances in weather forecasting.
    • “It’s the beating heart of our field,” Kim Cobb, a climate scientist and the director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, wrote in a post on Bluesky. “Generations of scientists have trained there, and almost everyone I know relies on deep collaborations with NCAR scientists.”
    • Mr. Trump routinely mocks climate change as a hoax and his administration has labeled virtually all efforts to study climate change, reduce the level of dangerous greenhouse gases in the atmosphere or protect communities from the impacts of global warming as “alarmism.”

 

  • December 17, 2025 TIME Magazine article by Suzette Baker and Amanda Jones entitled, The Supreme Court Just Opened the Door to a New Era of Book Bans. The article is summarized in the first two paragraphs
    • Imagine that you decided to go to your local library to check out a book but you couldn’t find it on the shelf. You ask the librarian for help locating it, but they inform you it’s not available—not because someone else has checked it out, but because the government has physically removed it after deciding they don’t want you to read it.
    • This isn’t the plot of a dystopian novel, it’s the reality that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed in its recent decision to not hear arguments in the book ban case: Leila Green Little et al. v. Llano County. In leaving the Fifth Circuit ruling in place, SCOTUS effectively granted state and local governments in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas the authority to determine what materials you can and cannot read. This means people in these states do not have the same First Amendment rights as the rest of the country. And that should raise alarm for everyone.