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      What Nebraska’s Electoral Votes Reveal About the Constitution

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      Here’s how rickety our constitutional system has become: The fate of the 2024 election could hang on the integrity of a single Republican state senator in Nebraska.To understand why requires getting a bit deep in the Electoral College weeds. Almost all states use a winner-take-all system to apportion their presidential electors, but Nebraska and Maine award some electors by congressional district. In 2020, Joe Biden won one of Nebraska’s five electoral votes, and Donald Trump won one elector from rural Maine. This year Kamala Harris’s clearest path to victory is to take the so-called blue wall states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, plus one electoral vote in Nebraska.One reason that both states have resisted partisan pressure to switch to winner-take-all is the assumption that if one did so, the other would as well, balancing out any Electoral College effect. But this year, Republicans waited until it was too late for Maine to change its rules before starting a push to change them in Nebraska. If they succeeded and Harris held the blue wall but lost the other swing states, there would be a tie in the Electoral College. For the first time in 200 years, the election would go to the House, where each state delegation would get one vote and Trump would almost certainly be installed as president.So far, one man, State Senator Mike McDonnell, who defected from the Democratic Party this spring, is standing in the Republican Party’s way. We should all be grateful for his courage. But the pressure on him from his new party will be intense, and he can still change his mind in the coming weeks.Whether or not McDonnell remains steadfast, this is a preposterous way to run a purportedly democratic superpower. The Electoral College — created in part, as the scholar Akhil Reed Amar has shown, to protect slavery — has already given us two presidents in the 21st century who lost the popular vote, and it continues to warp our politics. It is one reason Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the U.C. Berkeley School of Law and an eminent legal scholar, has come to despair of the Constitution he’s devoted much of his life to. “I believe that if the problems with the Constitution are not fixed — and if the country stays on its current path — we are heading to serious efforts at secession,” he writes in his bracing new book, “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.”Chemerinsky’s description of the way our Constitution thwarts the popular will — including through the Electoral College, the growing small-state advantage in the Senate and the rogue Supreme Court — will be familiar to readers of books like last year’s “Tyranny of the Minority” by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. The surprising part of his argument is his call for a new constitutional convention, which can be triggered, under the Constitution’s Article V, by a vote of two-thirds of the states.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At a Rally in North Carolina, Trump Avoids Topic A: Mark Robinson

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      Through an awkward quirk of scheduling former President Donald J. Trump found himself headlining a rally in North Carolina on Saturday just two days after the man he endorsed to become the state’s next governor, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, was accused of making a series of disturbing posts on a pornographic website.In the lead-up to the rally, there was a great deal of curiosity in political circles about how Mr. Trump, who had called Mr. Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids,” might react to an explosive CNN report that Mr. Robinson had once called himself a “black NAZI” and defended slavery years ago on a pornographic forum.The answer? He wouldn’t.Speaking for just over an hour at a boisterous rally on an airport tarmac in Wilmington, N.C., Mr. Trump made no mention of Mr. Robinson or the scandal surrounding him, even as he gave shout-outs to a number of the state’s officials and politicians. And Mr. Robinson, who has denied the accusations, was conspicuous by his absence.Instead, Mr. Trump delivered a fairly standard rally speech, attacking Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democrats on the economy and immigration while digressing to criticize Ms. Harris’s livestreamed event this week with Oprah Winfrey; to call her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, “weird”; to say that he would ask Elon Musk to help him send rockets to Mars; and to claim falsely that an Olympic boxer was transgender.One of the only speakers at Saturday’s rally to acknowledge the controversy engulfing Mr. Robinson was Representative Dan Bishop, the Republican candidate for state attorney general, who called the revelations “a meticulously timed and coordinated character assassination.”Building on his effort to make immigration, an area where voters are dissatisfied with Democrats, the central issue of the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump announced that he would push Congress to pass legislation outlawing so-called sanctuary cities, places that limit how local law enforcement can cooperate with federal immigration authorities. During his presidency, Mr. Trump issued an executive order that tried to withhold federal grants to such locales, an effort that was blocked by federal courts.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Marxist Leads Presidential Vote as Sri Lanka Rejects the Old Order

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      Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s strong showing reveals voter weariness with leadership that has led to a national economic crisis and crushing hardship for many people.The Marxist candidate, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, led the early counting in Sri Lanka’s presidential elections on Sunday, riding a wave of popular anger at the established political order that has run the South Asian nation’s economy into the ground.If Mr. Dissanayake, 55, is confirmed as president, it would be a remarkable turnaround for his half-century-old leftist party, Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, which had long remained on the margins. In recent years, he led a rebranding effort of an organization once known for deadly insurrections: building a large coalition, softening its radical positions, and pitching it as the answer to the politics of patronage that has brought only hardship to many of the island nation’s roughly 23 million people.Early results showed Mr. Dissanayake leading with about 50 percent of votes amid high turnout, estimated at 75 to 80 percent. His closest competitor had received about 20 percent of the votes cast.At least three senior leaders of his opposition, including Sri Lanka’s current foreign minister, had already put out messages congratulating him on his imminent victory, as dawn broke on overnight vote counting that is continuing.In Sri Lanka’s election system, voters can mark one candidate on their ballot or rank three candidates in order of preference. If no one candidate gets 50 percent or more of the vote in the first counting, a second round of counting factors in the second preference of voters whose first choice did not make it to the top two.Election officials carrying ballot boxes to a counting center in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, on Saturday.Navesh Chitrakar/ReutersWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How One Man’s Vote in Nebraska Could Change the Presidential Election

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      A single Republican state senator appears to be holding back a push by Donald J. Trump to net a potentially pivotal electoral vote even before ballots are cast.In Eastern Nebraska, far from the presidential battleground states, a drama is playing out that could, in a perfectly plausible November scenario, have history-altering repercussions for the nation’s future and the next president — and it may all come down to one man.A single Republican state senator from Omaha, Mike McDonnell, has so far stood firm against a push by former President Donald J. Trump, national Republicans and the Nebraska G.O.P. to change Nebraska from a state that divides its electoral votes by congressional district to one that awards all of them to the statewide winner. Maine is the only other state without a winner-take-all system.If Mr. McDonnell buckles, two other Republican senators in Nebraska’s unicameral legislature who have also not yet committed to changing Nebraska’s system are likely to follow his lead, according to a number of Republicans and Democrats involved in the discussions going on at the State Capitol.The tumbling dominoes would almost certainly give the single electoral vote of Omaha and its suburbs, which Vice President Kamala Harris is favored to win, to Mr. Trump.That might not sound like much, but if Ms. Harris were to win the so-called blue wall — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — while losing every other battleground state, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, that one electoral vote would be the difference between a 270-268 Electoral College victory for the vice president or a 269-269 tie. And in the event of a tie, the House of Representatives would determine the winner, not by raw votes of House members but by the support of each state delegation.With more delegations in Republican control, Mr. Trump would almost certainly win.As of Friday, Mr. McDonnell, who is barred by Nebraska’s term limits law from seeking re-election, had not changed his position.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      El posible segundo atentado contra Trump genera alarma en el extranjero

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      Existe la preocupación generalizada de que las elecciones de noviembre no acaben bien y de que la democracia estadounidense haya llegado a un punto crítico.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]En los nueve años transcurridos desde que Donald Trump entró en la política estadounidense, la percepción global de Estados Unidos se ha visto sacudida por la imagen de una nación fracturada e impredecible. Primero un atentado contra la vida del expresidente, y ahora un segundo posible atentado, han acentuado la preocupación internacional, suscitando temores de una agitación violenta que podría desembocar en una guerra civil.Keir Starmer, el primer ministro británico, ha dicho que está “muy preocupado” y “profundamente perturbado” por lo que, según el FBI, fue un intento de asesinar a Trump en su campo de golf de Florida, a menos de 50 días de las elecciones presidenciales y dos meses después de que una bala ensangrentó la oreja de Trump durante un mitin de campaña en Pensilvania.“La violencia no tiene cabida alguna en un proceso político”, afirmó Starmer.Sin embargo, la violencia ha tenido un lugar preponderante en esta tormentosa y tambaleante campaña política estadounidense, y no solo en los dos posibles intentos de asesinato. Ahora existe una preocupación generalizada en todo el mundo de que las elecciones de noviembre no acaben bien y de que la democracia estadounidense, que solía ser un modelo para el mundo, haya llegado a un punto crítico.En México, donde este año se celebraron las elecciones más violentas de la historia reciente del país, con 41 candidatos y aspirantes a cargos públicos asesinados, el presidente Andrés Manuel López Obrador dijo en una publicación en la plataforma social X: “Aun cuando todavía no se conoce bien lo sucedido, lamentamos la violencia producida en contra del expresidente Donald Trump. El camino es la democracia y la paz”.En un momento de guerras en Europa y el Medio Oriente y de inseguridad global generalizada mientras China y Rusia afirman la superioridad de sus modelos autócratas, la precariedad estadounidense pesa bastante.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cathy Merrick, Advocate for Indigenous People in Canada, Dies at 63

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      She was on the front lines of dogged fights against injustices, including a recent series of murders of Indigenous women by a white man.Cathy Merrick, a towering figure in the fight for Indigenous rights in Canada and the first woman to be elected grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, representing 63 First Nations, died on Sept. 6 in Winnipeg, the provincial capital. She was 63.The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs announced her death in a statement.Ms. Merrick died while doing what she had dedicated her life to: advocating for Indigenous people. She had just attended the trial of a corrections officer who had been charged in the death of an Indigenous inmate. The man had been acquitted, and Ms. Merrick was standing on the courthouse steps expressing her disappointment to the news media when she suddenly collapsed.She was taken to nearby St. Boniface hospital, where she was declared dead. The cause was not immediately known, and an autopsy was to be performed.Ms. Merrick’s death was met with deep grief across Canada. Hundreds attended her wake as she lay in state last week at the Manitoba Legislative Building, only the sixth person and the first woman ever to receive that honor.“Grand Chief Cathy Merrick was a relentless and incredibly effective advocate for First Nations peoples, especially for those most vulnerable,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said in a statement.Catherine Ann McKay, whose traditional Cree name was Kameekosit Ispokanee Iskwew, was born on May 31, 1961, at Cross Lake, the English name for the Pimicikamak Cree Nation, in northern Manitoba. She was the adopted daughter of Hazel and Thomas Spence. Her mother was a nurse, her father a carpenter.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      $50 Billion in Aid to Ukraine Stalls Over Legal Questions

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      U.S. and European officials are struggling to honor their pledge to use Russian assets to aid Ukraine.A long-awaited plan to help Ukraine rebuild using Russian money is in limbo as the United States and Europe struggle to agree on how to construct a $50 billion loan using Russia’s frozen central bank assets while complying with their own laws.The fraught negotiations reflect the challenges facing the Group of 7 nations as they attempt to push their sanctions powers to new limits in an attempt to punish Russia and aid Ukraine.American and European officials have been scrambling in recent weeks to try to get the loan in place by the end of the year. There is added urgency to finalize the package ahead of any potential shifts in the political landscape in the United States, where support for Ukraine could waver if former President Donald J. Trump wins the presidential election in November.But technical obstacles associated with standing up such a loan have complicated matters.Group of 7 officials grappled for months over how to use $300 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets to aid Ukraine. After European countries expressed reservations about the legality of outright seizing the assets, they agreed that it would be possible to back a $50 billion loan with the stream of interest that the assets earn.The solution was intended to provide Ukraine with a large infusion of funds without providing more direct aid from the budgets of the United States and European countries. It also allowed western allies to make use of Russia’s assets without taking the step of actually spending its money, which many top officials in Europe believed would be illegal.But differences in the legal systems in the United States and in Europe, which both plan to provide the money up front, have made it difficult to structure the loan.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More