Arizona Democrats voted late Wednesday to boot their embattled party chair, Robert E. Branscomb II, ending a brief tenure that was defined by infighting. Statewide officials had already redirected their campaign efforts through a county party amid the squabbling.
The party voted 476-56 after hours of delays, clearing the required two-thirds threshold by eight votes.
Branscomb defended himself until the very end, telling attendees on the call that the effort to remove him was “rooted in misrepresentation, divisive tactics and does not reflect our democratic values.”
The controversy surrounding Branscomb dates back to April, when he sent a letter to members of the state committee that attacked Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego and aired private disagreements among them.
In response, all of the state’s top elected Democrats said in a letter that Branscomb “lost their trust.”
Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here’s an offering of the best of this week’s crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.
The Trump administration detained former Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, center, for more than two months and is seeking to revoke his lawful permanent resident status.Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images
Since the 1950s, Congress has removed some of this sprawling federal law’s most discriminatory features, such as racist national origins quotas. But other key provisions remain on the books. Now they are the primary legal basis for some of President Donald Trump’s most controversial immigration crackdowns.
Author and reporter Clay Risen discusses parallels between anticommunist fears in the 1950s and the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies.
Foreign policy trumps free speech
In March 2025, the White House invoked the McCarran-Walter Act to justify arresting and deporting Mahmoud Khalil, a legal permanent resident who had participated in pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. Officials pointed to Section 237(a)(4)(C) of the law, which states that any “alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States is deportable.”
The Trump administration cited the same provision to justify detaining Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk in March. Ozturk came under government scrutiny because she co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts student newspaper criticizing the university’s position on the Israel-Gaza war.
Surveillance footage of a terrified Ozturk being arrested by masked Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents on a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, drew criticism from government officials and civil liberties advocates. In response, Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged that Ozturk had harmed U.S. interests by supporting “movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus.”
Khalil and Ozturk both were released after weeks in detention, pending final resolution of their cases. Their lawyers argue that their clients’ treatment violates free speech protections and that the defendants were punished for expressing their political beliefs.
On Jan. 20, 2025, Trump issued an executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to enforce an “alien registration requirement.” The agency issued a final rule in April requiring all noncitizens over the age of 14 to register and be fingerprinted. Parents or guardians must register noncitizen children under age 14. The rule also requires adult noncitizens to carry “evidence of registration” at all times.
Such policies aren’t new. Noncitizen registration was codified in the Alien Registration Act of 1940, on the eve of U.S. entry into World War II. The law was designed to regulate the foreign-born population and encourage eligible noncitizens to join the U.S. armed forces. Its requirements were written into the McCarran-Walter Act.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration created the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, which targeted noncitizen males age 16 or older from 25 Muslim-majority countries. It required registrants to submit biometric information, check in regularly with immigration authorities and use specific ports of entry for travel.
The Trump administration says it will strictly enforce a long-standing requirement for immigrants in the country more than 30 days to register with the federal government.
During his first term, Trump invoked these sections of the law to justify a travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately upheld this action in 2018 by a 5-4 vote in Trump v. Hawaii. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that the travel ban was well within broad powers over immigration granted to the president under the McCarran-Walter Act. He added that the court had “no view on the soundness of the policy.”
Trump’s new ban is more carefully crafted than earlier versions and more likely to withstand legal challenges. But his efforts to use the McCarren-Walter Act to ban international students from attending Harvard University face stiff legal headwinds.
On May 22, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem notified Harvard officials that the agency was revoking the school’s certification to participate in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, which grants visas to international students to come to the U.S. In a June 4 proclamation, the White House claimed that foreign students at Harvard had behaved in ways that threatened U.S. national security.
A federal judge in Boston quickly blocked the revocation, holding that it violated core constitutional free speech rights. “The government’s misplaced efforts to control a reputable academic institution and squelch diverse viewpoints seemingly because they are, in some instances, opposed to this administration’s own views, threaten these rights,” wrote Judge Allison D. Burroughs.
The latest step came on July 9, when the Trump administration subpoenaed Harvard for information on its foreign students, including their disciplinary records and involvement in campus protests.
Broad power over noncitizens
Ironically, congressional sponsors of the McCarran-Walter Act were at odds with the White House when the law was enacted in 1952. They overrode a veto by President Harry S. Truman, who thought the law’s nativist ideas were unfitting for a nation of immigrants and global defender of democracy.
However, the expansive executive powers created by this law have endured largely unaltered over time, through waves of immigration reform.
Now they are a boon to the Trump administration’s ambitious immigration crackdown. It’s a telling reminder that repressive old laws can come back to life – even when they don’t reflect the current views of many Americans.
Daniel Tichenor does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Pro-Palestinian supporters march outside Columbia University in September 2024.AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura
In spring 2024, pro-Palestinian student encampments that began at Columbia and Harvard spread to university campuses throughout the U.S. as Israel invaded Gaza in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack. At least 100 campuses had encampments for at least a few days during this period.
In spring 2024, Ohio State University’s College Impact Laboratory, where we all work, surveyed universities to learn more about whether their campuses experienced protests, what happened and how they handled them. Part of our goal was to understand how spiritual leaders played a role, if any, in managing the protests. We’ve been analyzing the data ever since. The results from those who responded point to several lessons universities could learn from to avoid violence in future protests.
Often, these protests reflect broader societal tensions, and how universities respond has played a significant role in shaping their outcomes.
Historically, protests have been most likely to escalate when students feel unheard. In contrast, institutions that adopt proactive strategies, such as facilitating conversations or including students in decision-making, often experience better outcomes.
A George Washington University student carries a Palestinian flag at a student encampment protesting the Israel-Hamas war in May 2024. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana
Snapshot of the pro-Palestinian protests
As our survey data shows, the pro-Palestinian protests illustrate this dynamic.
To gather data, the College Impact Laboratory sent questionnaires to administrators at the 329 universities that participate in our Interfaith Spiritual, Religious and Secular Campus Climate Index, also known as the INSPIRES Index, as well as hundreds of colleges and universities in our recruitment database.
In all, 35 schools responded to our 23-question survey. Of those, we found that most protests were led by students, half lasted less than a week, and the vast majority were nonviolent. Fifteen did not have protests, while the rest did. While the number of institutions that participated in this survey is relatively small, it does give us key insights into what schools were thinking.
Half of the campuses with protests reported law enforcement involvement – either campus police or city officers – with 20% experiencing physical altercations between protesters and police. Other disruptive actions such as academic interruptions, vandalism, physical violence and doxxing were reported with varying frequencies.
Protests at campuses that participated in our survey peaked during April and May 2024, with 70% of them experiencing demonstrations in these months.
Here are three takeaways from the survey, suggesting steps universities can take before and during future protests to avoid escalation:
1. Involve students in guidelines for engagement – early
At every surveyed institution that reported protests, students were at the forefront of organizing and leading these efforts.
Yet, despite this clear student leadership, about one-third of institutions said they didn’t consult with students to establish guidelines for engagement. Those that did invited representatives from student organizations or student government officers into the policymaking process to determine what protocols would be followed to manage protests and keep them peaceful.
On campuses where administrators didn’t engage with student leaders, tensions tended to escalate, and protests disrupted the institutions for weeks, often after police were called in or curfews were imposed.
While many of the protests lasted only one to seven days, we found that institutions that opened lines of communication early between administration and student protest leaders were more likely to deescalate tensions quickly. In contrast, campuses where administrators did not engage early on saw protests lasting weeks or involving greater disruptions.
Also, institutions that engaged early with student leaders were less likely to face stronger demands, such as calls for administrators to be fired, divestment from Israeli companies or calls to defund the campus police.
Our survey results suggest it’s important for administrators to engage with students early to establish clear guidelines to make it less likely future protests spiral into violence.
2. Communicate openly, often and before protests
Discussion of difficult topics, such as the conflict between Israel and Palestinians, shouldn’t wait until protests break out to begin. We found that every school in our survey that proactively supported dialogue between Jews and Muslims – before the war broke out – didn’t see violence result from the protests.
Dialogue isn’t just a strategy for preventing protests from spiraling out of control; it is fundamental to intergroup learning in higher education. These events create safe spaces for students − whether Arab, Jewish, Palestinian or members of different ethnic or religious groups − to engage with classmates with different points of view.
But even once protests begin, dialogue can help. When institutions engaged in dialogue, during or as a result of a protest, the protests were less likely to involve violence. At half of the campuses that participated in our survey and experienced protests, protests were ended peacefully through dialogue.
Brown, for example, modeled the power of institutional listening in its response to its April 2024 encampment. Rather than escalating tensions, university leaders engaged directly with student activists, resulting in a peaceful resolution and a commitment to bring the students’ divestment proposal to a formal vote in October. It ultimately failed to pass the board of directors.
Demonstrators unfurl a banner on a lawn after an encampment protesting the Israel-Hamas war was taken down at Brown University on April 30, 2024, in Providence, R.I. AP Photo/David Goldman
3. Involve relevant groups in decision-making
Most administrators in our survey, as they considered how to engage with protesters, reached out to relevant student groups such as those that focus on Jewish and Muslim students to better understand their perspectives.
However, only 28% consulted a religious or spiritual life office staff member on campus.
Religious or spiritual life staff are present on both private and public campuses and may include university-employed multifaith chaplains, interfaith coordinators or directors of spiritual life. Unlike student-led religious groups, these professionals often serve as liaisons to the religious and nonreligious communities represented on campus.
The focus of such roles on serving students from all worldviews positions them as key resources for deescalation through community outreach, support and two-way communication. Additionally, these professionals have valuable expertise in religious pluralism and community relationships. This experience helps them to advise administrators on policy and potential courses of action in times of tension.
Consulting with university staff with a focus on religion or spiritual life makes particular sense given the nature of the protests and how religion is intertwined, but our data suggests they may be underutilized more broadly for their expertise in navigating tensions related to competing worldviews.
Proactive engagement with these leaders not only helps campuses navigate an immediate crisis but demonstrates a commitment to inclusivity and respect for different groups’ perspectives.
Leading by example
Put another way, our research suggests institutions can avoid the negative outcomes of protests by embodying the traits commonly associated with universities, such as showing mutual respect, fostering democratic debate and engaging in critical thinking even on divisive issues. Engaging from a mindset of goodwill with student leaders shows administrators value student voices and are willing to work collaboratively toward solutions.
But when campuses ignore peaceful protests or refuse to engage with student leaders, they risk turning manageable situations into prolonged crises.
At a time when divisions run deep, we believe campuses that lead by example by embracing dialogue and engaging student activists before, during and after protests take place are not only likely to see less violence, but are likely to help heal America’s great divides.
Matthew J. Mayhew receives grant funding for various research projects from the National Science Foundation, the ECMC Foundation, the Templeton Religion Trust, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, and Pew Charitable Trusts. Currently, Dr. Mayhew leads the College Impact Laboratory at The Ohio State University. He is the Principal Investigator for the INSPIRES Index project and is the current editor of the Digest of Recent Research.
Renee L. Bowling works for the College Impact Lab at The Ohio State University that produces the INSPIRES Index and serves as Chair of NASPA’s Spirituality and Religion in Higher Education Knowledge Community.
Anisha Gill-Morris and Hind Haddad do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis leads a tour of the new Alligator Alcatraz immigration detention facility for President Donald Trump and U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.Andrew Cabellero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
While touring Alligator Alcatraz on July 1, 2025, President Donald Trump said, “This facility will house some of the menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet.” But new reporting from the Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times reveals that of more than 700 detainees, only a third have criminal convictions.
To find out more about the state of Florida’s involvement in immigration enforcement and who can be detained at Alligator Alcatraz, The Conversation spoke with Mark Schlakman. Schlakman is a lawyer and senior program director for The Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights. He also served as special counsel to Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles, working as a liaison of sorts with the federal government during the mid-1990s when tens of thousands of Haitians and Cubans fled their island nations on makeshift boats, hoping to reach safe haven in Florida.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has characterized the migrants being detained in facilities like Alligator Alcatraz as “murderers and rapists and traffickers and drug dealers.” Do we know if the detainees at Alligator Alcatraz have been convicted of these sorts of crimes?
The Times/Herald published a list of 747 current detainees as of Sunday, July 13, 2025. Their reporters found that about a third of the detainees have criminal convictions, including attempted murder, illegal reentry to the U.S., which is a federal crime, and traffic violations. Apparently hundreds more have charges pending, though neither the federal nor state government have made public what those charges are.
There are also more than 250 detainees with no criminal history, just immigration violations.
Is it a crime for someone to be in the U.S. without legal status? In other words, is an immigration violation a crime?
No, not necessarily. It’s well established as a matter of law that physical presence in the U.S. without proper authorization is a civil violation, not a criminal offense.
However, if the federal government previously deported someone, they can be subject to federal criminal prosecution if they attempt to return without permission. That appears to be the case with some of the detainees at Alligator Alcatraz.
What usually happens if a noncitizen commits a crime in the U.S.?
Normally, if a foreign national is accused of committing a crime, they are prosecuted in a state court just like anyone else. If found guilty and sentenced to incarceration, they complete their sentence in a state prison. Once they’ve served their time, state officials can hand them over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. They are subject to deportation, but a federal immigration judge can hear any grounds for relief.
DHS has clarified that it “has not implemented, authorized, directed or funded” Alligator Alcatraz, but rather the state of Florida is providing startup funds and running this facility. What is Florida’s interest in this? Are these mostly migrants who have been scooped up by ICE in Florida?
It’s still unclear where most of these detainees were apprehended. But based on a list of six detainees released by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office, it is clear that at least some were apprehended outside of Florida, and others simply may have been transferred to Alligator Alcatraz from federal custody elsewhere.
To establish Alligator Alcatraz, DeSantis leveraged an immigration emergency declaration, which has been ongoing since Jan. 6, 2023. A state of emergency allows a governor to exercise extraordinary executive authority. This is how he avoided requirements such as environmental impact analysis in the Everglades and concerns expressed by tribal governance surrounding that area.
This presents a stark contrast to Gov. Lawton Chiles’declaration of an immigration emergency during the mid-1990s. At that time, tens of thousands of Cubans and Haitians attempted to reach Florida shores in virtually anything that would float. Chiles’ actions as governor were informed by his experience as a U.S. senator during the Mariel boatlift in 1980, when 125,000 Cubans made landfall in Florida over the course of just six months.
During my tenure on Chiles’ staff, the governor generally opposed state legislation involving immigration. In the U.S.’s federalist system of government, immigration falls under the purview of the federal government, not the states. Chiles’ primary concern was that Floridians wouldn’t be saddled with what ought to be federal costs and responsibilities.
Chiles was open to state and local officials supporting federal immigration enforcement. But he was mindful this required finesse to avoid undermining community policing, public health priorities and the economic health of key Florida businesses and industries. To this day, the International Association of Chiefs of Police’s position reflects Chiles’ concerns about such cooperation with the federal government.
Now, in 2025, DeSantis has taken a decidedly different tack by using Florida taxpayer dollars to establish Alligator Alcatraz. The state of Florida has fronted the US$450 million to pay for this facility. DeSantis reportedly intends to seek reimbursement from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program. Ultimately, congressional action may be necessary to obtain reimbursement. Florida is essentially lending the federal government half a billion dollars and providing other assistance to help support the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda.
You advised Florida Division of Emergency Management leadership directly for several years during the administrations of Gov. Charlie Crist and Gov. Rick Scott. Does running a detention facility like Alligator Alcatraz fall within its typical mission?
The division is tasked with preparing for and responding to both natural and human-caused disasters. In Florida, that generally means hurricanes. While the division may engage to facilitate shelter, I don’t recall any policies or procedures contemplating anything even remotely similar to Alligator Alcatraz.
DeSantis could conceivably argue that this is consistent with a 287(g) agreement authorizing state and local support for federal immigration enforcement. But such agreements typically require federal supervision of state and local activities, not the other way around.
Mark Schlakman served as special counsel to Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles and as a consultant to Emilio Gonzalez at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during his tenure as U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director during the George W. Bush administration.
A messy fight between the current and former leadership of Vote.org is escalating.
Debra Cleaver, the nonprofit’s founder, said she has filed complaints with four states’ attorneys general alleging that the high-profile voter registration group has defrauded donors, including by vastly inflating the number of voters it could register in 2024, financial mismanagement and using charitable funds for the personal benefit of its current CEO.
The allegations follow a wrongful termination suit from Cleaver over her firing in 2019 and have prompted a new threat of litigation from the group over what it called a “sustained and vindictive campaign rooted in misinformation.”
Vote.org counsel Vanessa Avery, a partner at McCarter and English, vigorously denied the claims by Cleaver, saying they were “categorically false.”
In the 28-page complaint, shared first with POLITICO, Cleaver alleged there was no serious plan for the group to deliver on its pledge to register 8 million voters for the 2024 cycle, which would have been more than the total number of voters it had registered during its entire 14-year history. Vote.orgended up registering 2.2 million voters in the 2024 cycle.
Cleaver, who now runs a similar group called VoteAmerica, filed the complaint with the attorneys generals of New York, California, Pennsylvania and Georgia. POLITICO independently verified all filings except the one in Georgia. Among her claims: that the group originally set an internal goal to register 6 million voters, but that was increased to 8 million to avoid the “symbolism of 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.”
“The fact that Vote.org ultimately failed to register 8 million voters is inconsequential to the organization, because that was never the true goal,” Cleaver said in the complaint. “The goal was staying afloat, attracting donor attention, and retaining relevance through the illusion of scale.”
The organization is one of the biggest nonpartisan voter registration vehicles in the country, but it has come under scrutiny in recent years over its internal management. The complaint points to the example of Taylor Swift, who previously worked with the group. But last year, when Swift endorsed Kamala Harris, she directed fans to go to Vote.gov to register instead of plugging Vote.org. The complaint alleges a Daily Mail story on internal turmoil at the group helped cause Swift to avoid touting the organization again. (A Swift spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.) Vote.org’s spending and alleged internal dysfunction was also the subject of a Chronicle of Philanthropy investigation last year.
The complaint also alleges that donor money was inappropriately used to pay for Vote.org CEO Andrea Hailey’s personal travel and notes a jump in expenses on Vote.org’s “travel conferences and meetings” totaling more than $275,000 in 2023. It also notes that IRS documents show that Vote.org spent almost $600,000 on legal fees in 2023 versus $89,000 in 2019 as the organization fought wrongful termination lawsuits from Cleaver and another employee.
In the Cleaver case, she sued Vote.org and one of its human resources vendors. The suit between Cleaver and Vote.org was dismissed with prejudice with both parties dropping their claims and no money was exchanged between Vote.org and Cleaver, according to the settlement agreement. The agreement shows the HR vendor paid her $50,000 in a separate deal which said Vote.org would not reimburse the vendor.
The attorneys general complaints also made claims, which POLITICO has not independently verified, that Vote.org has paid for private security for Hailey even though Cleaver says staff haven’t received any threats against Hailey. Vote.org told the Daily Mail that Hailey did receive threats.
“For the past six years, she has organized a sustained and vindictive campaign rooted in misinformation, aimed at discrediting this organization and its leadership,” Avery, the Vote.org counsel, said in a statement.
“Her wrongful termination lawsuit was withdrawn with prejudice, and she is now resorting to even more desperate and baseless tactics. We will be filing a defamation claim in the near future and will vigorously defend against these lies.” She also said that they have emailed the state attorneys generals to rebut her claims.
Avery defended the high voter registration target for 2024, which Vote.org did not meet. “Successful organizations set ambitious goals — no one aims for underperformance,” she said. “We set bold targets because the stakes are high.” She said the group has registered more voters than any other organization in American history; Score could not independently verify this.
When asked why she filed the complaints, Cleaver told Score in a statement: “As the founder, I would like nothing more than Vote.org to succeed. Unfortunately, for five years now Vote.org has been racked by a series of financial, governance, and ethical lapses.”
A spokesperson for the New York attorney general’s office said they’ve “received the complaint and are reviewing.” Spokespeople for the other states’ attorneys generals didn’t respond to a request for comment.
While the typical voter may not think much about judicial elections, political operatives and political scientists, like me, know they have consequences.
I think it’s important that voters understand what a retention election is and why state judicial elections are growing in political importance in the U.S.
Retention elections
Federal judges are appointed by the U.S. president, confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and can serve for the rest of their lives. State judges, however, are put in place in a variety of ways.
The most powerful state courts are the so-called “courts of last resort.” These are essentially the supreme courts of each state. The method for selecting judges in these courts has varied over time and across the states. Currently, states use either gubernatorial appointment, legislative appointment, partisan elections, nonpartisan elections, or a merit process for selecting the judges of their highest courts.
Pennsylvania has partisan elections, meaning judges run for office attached to political parties, just like a candidate would run for governor or president. However, it is only in their first race for office that a judge runs in a competitive partisan election. After they assume the bench, they participate in retention elections every 10 years. These retention elections are considered nonpartisan, since party labels do not appear on the ballot.
Essentially, a retention election is an up or down vote. If more than 50% of voters cast a vote in opposition to a sitting judge, that judge will be out of the office at the end of their term. The governor, who is currently Democrat Josh Shapiro, then makes a temporary appointment to fill the seat with a special election held in the next odd year – in this case, 2027. But any appointments would need to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled state Senate, which may not confirm his picks.
Politicization of the state courts
Judges win retention elections over 90% of the time. So why should people bother to cast their vote?
Courts, including state courts, have become highly politicized over the past several decades. A marked increase in politicization occurred for the U.S. Supreme Court after the failed nomination of Robert Bork in the 1980s.
State supreme courts have always made big decisions, but the nationalization of American politics – where national partisan politics drive voter behavior in local elections – has elevated the controversy over state supreme court decisions on issues such as reproductive rights, trans rights, COVID-19 restrictions, environmental protection and more.
This issue became more acute when courts in battleground states were thrust to the center of adjudicating false claims of election fraud during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. And judges have faced increasing threats, particularly when opposing actions of the Trump administration, as President Donald Trump is prone to calling out specific judges in decisions that he does not like.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has received additional attention, in part due to the outsized role it has played in recent redistricting. In 2018, the court threw out the congressional districts drawn by the General Assembly in 2011 and invited a new plan from the governor and General Assembly. The two came to a political loggerhead, so the Supreme Court ended up using its own map as a replacement.
In 2022, the state Supreme Court once again took control of redistricting after Pennyslvania’s then-Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed the congressional district map approved by the General Assembly.
Former prosecutor Susan Crawford won the highly politicized race for Wisconsin Supreme Court justice in 2025. It was the most expensive state supreme court race in U.S. history. Scott Olson via Getty Images
That was one seat.
Pennsylvania has three up for grabs in November 2025, with the potential to swing the current Democratic majority.
And retention elections are politically simple for opponents. As one Republican political consultant told investigative news outlet Spotlight PA: “This is a political consultant’s dream, because your message is just one thing, and that’s ‘No.’”
This can give some advantage to Republicans in a state that Trump won in 2024 and in a low-turnout election. The question will be whether there is more energy motivating opponents to turn out against the Democratic majority or supporters seeking to maintain the status quo.
The 2025 retention elections could change the balance of power in the court. AP Photo/Aimee Dilger
The stakes for Pennsylvania in 2025
Much is at stake for Pennsylvanians in the fall. Republicans see this as their best opportunity to break the firm 5-2 Democratic majority on the court. This would pave the way for very different judicial decisions. Many of the court’s recent election-related rulings were made on narrow 4-3 votes that could swing differently if the composition of the court changes.
Republicans have had their power in Harrisburg diminished with Shapiro in the governor’s mansion and a one-seat Democratic majority in the state House of Representatives over the past two terms.
A Republican majority on the court would significantly change the balance of power in Harrisburg.
But it is important to focus not only on the top court. The state’s two appellate-level courts – one step below the state Supreme Court – also have two important races and two retention votes in November that will decide the judiciary’s relationship with the governor and General Assembly.
Daniel J. Mallinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
It was a surrender widely foreseen. For months, rumors abounded that Paramount would eventually settle the seemingly frivolous lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump concerning editorial decisions in the production of a CBS interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2024.
On July 2, 2025, those rumors proved true: The settlement between Paramount and Trump’s legal team resulted in CBS’s parent company agreeing to pay $16 million to the future Donald Trump Library – the $16 million included Trump’s legal fees – in exchange for ending the lawsuit. Despite the opinion of many media law scholars and practicing attorneys who considered the lawsuit meritless, Shari Redstone, the largest shareholder of Paramount, yielded to Trump.
Specifically, when the Trump administration assumed power in January 2025, the new Federal Communications Commission had no legal obligation to facilitate, without scrutiny, the transfer of the CBS network’s broadcast licenses for its owned-and-operated TV stations to new ownership.
The FCC, under newly installed Republican Chairman Brendan Carr, was fully aware of the issues in the legal conflict between Trump and CBS at the time Paramount needed FCC approval for the license transfers. Without a settlement, the Paramount-Skydance deal remained in jeopardy.
Until it wasn’t.
At that point, Paramount joined Disney in implicitly apologizing for journalism produced by their TV news divisions.
Earlier in 2025, Disney had settled a different Trump lawsuit with ABC News in exchange for a $15 million donation to the future Trump Library. That lawsuit involved a dispute over the wording of the actions for which Trump was found liable in a civil lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll.
GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump said the CBS interview with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was ‘fraudulent interference with an election.’
It’s not certain what the ABC and CBS settlements portend, but many are predicting they will produce a “chilling effect” within the network news divisions. Such an outcome would arise from fear of new litigation, and it would install a form of internal self-censorship that would influence network journalists when deciding whether the pursuit of investigative stories involving the Trump administration would be worth the risk.
Trump has apparently succeeded where earlier presidents failed.
Presidential pressure
From Jimmy Carter trying to get CBS anchor Walter Cronkite to stop ending his evening newscasts with the number of days American hostages were being held in Iran to Richard Nixon’s administration threatening the broadcast licenses of The Washington Post’s TV stations to weaken Watergate reporting, previous presidents sought to apply editorial pressure on broadcast journalists.
But in the cases of Carter and Nixon, it didn’t work. The broadcast networks’ focus on both Watergate and the Iran hostage crisis remained unrelenting.
Nor were Nixon and Carter the first presidents seeking to influence, and possibly control, network news.
President Lyndon Johnson, who owned local TV and radio stations in Austin, Texas, regularly complained to his old friend, CBS President Frank Stanton, about what he perceived as biased TV coverage. Johnson was so furious with the CBS and NBC reporting from Vietnam, he once argued that their newscasts seemed “controlled by the Vietcong.”
Yet none of these earlier presidents won millions from the corporations that aired ethical news reporting in the public interest.
Before Trump, these conflicts mostly occurred backstage and informally, allowing the broadcasters to sidestep the damage to their credibility should any surrender to White House administrations be made public. In a “Reporter’s Notebook” on the CBS Evening News the night of the Trump settlement, anchor John Dickerson summarized the new dilemma succinctly: “Can you hold power to account when you’ve paid it millions? Can an audience trust you when it thinks you’ve traded away that trust?”
“The audience will decide that,” Dickerson continued, concluding: “Our job is to show up to honor what we witness on behalf of the people we witness it for.”
During the Iran hostage crisis, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite ended every broadcast with the number of days the hostages had been held captive.
Soon, Skydance Media will assume control over the Paramount properties, and the new CBS will be on the airwaves.
When the licenses for KCBS in Los Angeles, WCBS in New York and the other CBS-owned-and-operated stations are transferred, we’ll learn the long-term legacy of corporate capitulation. But for now, it remains too early to judge tomorrow’s newscasts.
As a scholar of broadcast journalism and a former broadcast journalist, I recommend evaluating programs like “60 Minutes” and the “CBS Evening News” on the record they will compile over the next three years – and the record they compiled over the past 50. The same goes for “ABC World News Tonight” and other ABC News programs.
A major complicating factor for the Paramount-Skydance deal was the fact that “60 Minutes” has, over the past six months, broken major scoops embarrassing to the Trump administration, which led to additional scrutiny by its corporate ownership. Judged by its reporting in the first half of 2025, “60 Minutes” has upheld its record of critical and independent reporting in the public interest.
If audience members want to see ethical, independent and professional broadcast journalism that holds power to account, then it’s the audience’s responsibility to tune it in. The only way to learn the consequences of these settlements is by watching future programming rather than dismissing it beforehand.
The journalists working at ABC News and CBS News understand the legacy of their organizations, and they are also aware of how their owners have cast suspicion on the news divisions’ professionalism and credibility. As Dickerson asserted, they plan to “show up” regardless of the stain, and I’d bet they’re more motivated to redeem their reputations than we expect.
I don’t think reporters, editors and producers plan to let Donald Trump become their editor-in-chief over the next three years. But we’ll only know by watching.
Michael Socolow’s father, Sanford Socolow, worked for CBS News from 1956 to 1988.
In a letter sent Monday, Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) are calling on the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General to launch an investigation into Secretary Kristi Noem’s cost control measures in the wake of the devastating flooding in Texas that left more than 120 people dead.
