The date was shortly after last November’s presidential election. Mr. Meadows, then President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, was replying to a member of Congress who had asked whether the White House was urging GOP state lawmakers to send alternate pro-Trump electors to Washington.

“The White House was not simply a bystander in the activities at the Capitol building. They were central in coordinating and fomenting it,” says Cornell Clayton, a professor of government at Washington State University and director of the Thomas Foley Institute of Public Policy.

In Arizona, Republican legislators passed a law that takes authority over election lawsuits away from the secretary of state, who’s currently a Democrat, and hands it to the governor, who’s a Republican. In Georgia, Republican lawmakers have weakened the powers of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who refused Mr. Trump’s entreaties to change his state’s results. A candidate endorsed by the former president is running to replace Mr. Raffensperger in 2022.

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The Christian Science Monitor

The Supreme Court is more conservative than it’s been in almost a century. ​​Its new term begins today (Oct. 4), and by next June, when the term ends, Americans might finally understand what that means. Public opinion of the court is already at a record low after the court allowed a strict abortion law to go into effect in Texas in early September. Now, the justices are preparing to hear the court’s first major gun rights case since 2010 as well as a case on the future of abortion in the U.S. Both cases could result in decisions that are far more extreme than most Americans want.

“In the past, even if the court was trending conservative overall, it wasn’t like the conservatives always won and the liberals always lost,” said Michael Salamone, a political science professor at Washington State University who studies the Supreme Court and public opinion. “Now it’s looking like conservative victories are going to be a lot more consistent and a lot more far-reaching.”

In that sense, this new term might be a turning point — and not just because of the importance of the cases or the risk of a backlash to an individual decision. The next few months might be the beginning of a new era in which the conservative justices move sharply away from where most Americans stand on major issues, and dare politicians to do something about it.

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FiveThirtyEight

Research explains when political financing works — and when it doesn’t

By Ragnhild Muriaas and WSU political science professors Amy G. Mazur and Season Hoard

Early voting is opening in Virginia and Democrats are determined to retain control of the legislature. In the first state elections since President Biden took office and Texas adopted the most restrictive abortion law in the nation, 50 of 97 Democratic nominees are women.

Many female nominees are backed by seed money from political organizations dedicated to fight for more diversity in elected office. Such programs have helped female candidates winning seats before. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), before she became a member of Congress, was recruited by Justice Democrats, an organization that offered her training, a platform and some campaign funding.

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Washington Post