Mathias Hong
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hongmathias.bsky.social
Mathias Hong
@hongmathias.bsky.social
2K followers 90 following 4.5K posts
Human Rights & Constitutional Law • Prof. of Public Law (Kehl) (private account; reposts ≤ endorsement) • 2005-2008: law clerk @BVerfG (Federal Constitutional Court of Germany) • https://verfassungsblog.de/author/mathias-hong/ • (Foto (c) U. Völkner)
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Reposted by Mathias Hong
katestarbird.bsky.social
I wrote this thread up into an article and revived my old Medium account to host: medium.com/@katestarbir...

I explain how Bannon's comments of "ICE surrounding polls" are a strategic attempt to exploit our outrage to advance his goals of voter suppression — and how we can redirect that attack.
February 8, 2026 at 12:13 AM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
katestarbird.bsky.social
Bannon (and his buddies) are using an informational strategy called reflexive control that intentionally exploits the reaction of his adversaries (on the left) to inflict damage on their own side. Don't become an unwitting agent in their information operation.
February 4, 2026 at 9:24 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
katestarbird.bsky.social
Third, journalists, non-profits, social media influencers, and everyday people need to be VERY discerning and careful about not amplifying unsubstantiated rumors about ICE or other law enforcement at or near the polls, because false rumors (even if well-meaning) WILL suppress the vote.
February 4, 2026 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
katestarbird.bsky.social
Bannon knows that deploying ICE to the polls constitutes illegal voter intimidation. So why is he encouraging Trump to break the law? Because he also knows this threat will work to suppress votes even if federal agents never get anywhere near the polls. The fear of ICE is enough to keep people home.
February 4, 2026 at 9:16 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
katestarbird.bsky.social
ICE at the polls! Bannon is basically yelling “fire” in a crowded theater here. His objective is to cause chaos (and suppress votes on the left). And it’s already working.

This threat works on multiple levels and doesn’t have to be “real” to serve its purpose.

Let me explain & offer some advice.
February 4, 2026 at 9:13 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
rickhasen.bsky.social
A bit of my @slate.com piece. "At this point, American democracy is too weak and fragile to have centralized power over elections in the hands of a federal government that could be coerced or coopted by a president hell-bent, like Trump, on election subversion."
In The Voting Wars, I argued that by joining other advanced democracies we could decrease the amount of partisan fighting and litigation over election rules, increase the competence of election administration, and assure we have a system run with integrity and fair access to voting. Donald Trump has caused me to abandon this argument. As I wrote in the New York Times last summer, when the president tried to impose his authority over various aspects of American elections via an executive order: “What I had not factored into my thinking was that centralizing power over elections within the federal government could be dangerous in the hands of a president not committed to democratic principles.” At this point, American democracy is too weak and fragile to have centralized power over elections in the hands of a federal government that could be coerced or coopted by a president hell-bent, like Trump, on election subversion. Courts have ruled that parts of Trump’s executive order are unconstitutional because the president has no role to play in the administration of elections. Trump’s comments on nationalizing elections ironically prove the point that we should not nationalize elections. He apparently wants to target the administration at blue states, doing who-knows-what to make it harder for people to vote for Democrats. He desperately fears a Congress controlled by Democrats that could check his and his administration’s power. As he did in 2020, when he unsuccessfully attempted to overturn the results of the fair presidential election that he lost to Joe Biden, Trump hangs it all on voter fraud. His comments to Bongino about noncitizens voting, just like his comments about mail-in balloting, show Trump as either a liar or delusional. The amount of election fraud of this type is extremely rare. We know it because states, including red ones like Georgia —have gone hunting for fraud and found very little.
February 3, 2026 at 11:17 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
rickhasen.bsky.social
My new one @slate.com : I Wrote a Book in Support of Nationalizing Elections. Trump Changed My Mind.

slate.com/news-and-pol...
I Wrote a Book in Support of Nationalizing Elections. Trump Changed My Mind.
President Donald Trump on Monday escalated his rhetoric against the American electoral system.
slate.com
February 3, 2026 at 8:12 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
rickhasen.bsky.social
“How to Protect the 2026 Elections from Donald Trump”—Glad to Join the New Yorker “Political Scene” Podcast. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...
How to Protect the 2026 Elections from Donald Trump
Podcast Episode · The Political Scene | The New Yorker · 02/07/2026 · 37m
podcasts.apple.com
February 7, 2026 at 3:26 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
rickhasen.bsky.social
“Trump, California and the multi-front war over the next election” electionlawblog.org?p=154200
"Trump, California and the multi-front war over the next election" #ELB
LAT: In recent weeks, Marin County Registrar Natalie Adona has been largely focused on the many mundane tasks of local elections administrators in the months before a midterm: finalizing voting locati...
electionlawblog.org
February 8, 2026 at 4:30 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
jeanjanyan.bsky.social
Excited to serve as a strategic interlocutor at HU Berlin's new RefLex Centre for Advanced Studies
@humboldtuni.bsky.social. For its launch, I have contributed to a @verfassungsblog.de debate on "Reflexive Globalisation and the Law", asking how we might engage reflexively with colonial slave law.
verfassungsblog.de Verfassungsblog @verfassungsblog.de · 2d
What does it mean to examine political modernity from below?

JEANETTE EHRMANN (@jeanjanyan.bsky.social) on the enslaved as political actors whose resistance reshapes how we think about modernity and the law.

verfassungsblog.de/the-code-noi...
Quote: “Foregrounding the position of the enslaved provides a productive point of departure for understanding how colonial and racial epistemologies, imaginaries, and institutions have shaped core Western concepts, such as democracy and the rule of law.”
February 7, 2026 at 10:41 AM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
tribelaw.bsky.social
The 12-axis graph is the best I’ve seen for tracking our descent from democracy to autocracy

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...htt
Opinion | ICE and Minnesota Have Pushed the U.S. Closer to Autocracy
Measuring America’s slide toward democratic erosion.
www.nytimes.com
February 7, 2026 at 11:12 AM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
alexanderthiele.bsky.social
Ich freu mich drauf. Es wird knallhart investigativ nachgefragt...☝️
February 7, 2026 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
stevevladeck.bsky.social
“Late Friday night, the Fifth Circuit adopted the extreme minority view—that the government can indefinitely detain without bond millions of non-citizens who have been here for generations; who have never committed a crime; and who pose neither a risk of flight nor any threat to public safety.”
208. The Fifth Circuit Jumps the Immigration Detention Shark
Late Friday, two of the nation's most right-wing circuit judges adopted an odious legal claim that district court judges from across the country (and ideological spectrum) have overwhelmingly rejected
www.stevevladeck.com
February 7, 2026 at 12:34 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
krajewskimarkus.bsky.social
Ich freue mich sehr, dass die Beiträge in Band 53 der Berichte der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Internationales Recht #OpenAccess zur Verfügung stehen. Danke an Christian Walter und den DGIR-Vorstand.
Mein Beitrag war zu "Flüsse, Berge und Wälder als Rechtspersonen?"
www.dgfir.de/berichtsband...
Band 53
53
www.dgfir.de
February 6, 2026 at 2:04 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
lsolum.bsky.social
Schulzke & Capodilupo on the Written Constitutionalism in the Founding Era

Lorianne Updike Schulzke (Northern Illinois University College of Law; Yale University - Law School) & Robert Capodilupo (Yale Law School) have posted Becoming Written Constitutionalism on SSRN. Here is the abstract:…
Schulzke & Capodilupo on the Written Constitutionalism in the Founding Era
Lorianne Updike Schulzke (Northern Illinois University College of Law; Yale University - Law School) & Robert Capodilupo (Yale Law School) have posted Becoming Written Constitutionalism on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Scholars have long recognized two kinds of constitutions. The British, or small-c variant meant the organization of governmental institutions and a broad swath of laws, customs, and principles pertaining to government and its relationship to the people it governed.
legaltheoryblog.com
February 5, 2026 at 4:55 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
ralfmichaels.bsky.social
My article on private law and (in-)equality (in German) has been published. Comments and criticism are very welcome.
www.mohrsiebeck.com/artikel/priv...
February 6, 2026 at 1:59 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
leoniedejonge.bsky.social
📣 Your daily reminder that copying the far right does not work ⬇️
tabouchadi.bsky.social Tarik Abou-Chadi @tabouchadi.bsky.social · 3d
For the FES, I wrote a short brief about how mainstream party strategies have fueled far-right success. They move toward more anti-immigration positions to win voters back. This does not work, but shifts public opinion to the right. Parties then react to shifts in public opinion. A vicious cycle.
February 6, 2026 at 9:04 AM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
jwmueller-pu.bsky.social
"It is at the very least inconsistent to warn against rule of law regression and violations while failing to police one’s own membership. We are where we are because too many in senior positions who had and have the power to act have failed to do so."

Important piece by Bodnar and Pech:
Immunising the Venice Commission Against Autocratic Contamination
verfassungsblog.de
February 5, 2026 at 12:44 AM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
pbump.com
Jeff Bezos’s wealth has increased an average of $70 million every day of 2026, meaning that he could have offset The Post’s losses with what he’s made since Monday.
February 5, 2026 at 2:48 AM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
tariktabbara.bsky.social
Indeed, the collective dimension of freedom of expression is surprisingly (and not surprisingly) underdeveloped under the First Amendment in the United States
jwmueller-pu.bsky.social Jan-Werner Mueller @jwmueller-pu.bsky.social · 4d
"Freedom of assembly has been the liberty most subject to prior restraint: states find it easier to control space than to control speech. In many countries, a jurisprudence of free assembly remains underdeveloped; in the US, there has not been an assembly case in front of the...Court for...decades."
Free Assembly for a Free People
A broad range of views on democracy to help break the stalemate caused by partisan conflict.
democracyproject.org
February 5, 2026 at 6:22 PM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
hplehofer.bsky.social
EGMR: Suspendierung der poln. Richterin und Richterfunktionärin Morawiec war prima facie eine Folge ihrer Kritik an den "Reformen", die die Unabhängigkeit der Justiz beeinträchtigten: Verletzungen der Art. 6, 8 und 10 EMRK: hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-24... PM: hudoc.echr.coe.int/app/conversi...
Screenshot einer Pressemitteilung des EGMR: Decision suspending judge from duties discouraged her, and other judges, from speaking out against judicial reforms In today’s Chamber judgment1 in the case of Morawiec v. Poland (application no. 46238/20) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been: a violation of Article 6 § 1 (access to court), Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights. Ms Morawiec is a judge. Since 2018 she has been the President of the Judges’ Association Themis, which has publicly criticised the Government’s reforms affecting the judiciary. The case concerns rulings by the Disciplinary Chamber of the Supreme Court (“the DCSC”) relating to Ms Morawiec’s immunity from prosecution and to her suspension from judicial duties, which she argues were taken in reaction to her public criticisms of the judicial reforms and a successful civil action she had brought against the Minister of Justice in 2017. The Court held, as it had in previous cases, that the DCSC was not a “tribunal established by law”. It found that the measures taken by the authorities to lift Ms Morawiec’s immunity and to suspend her from judicial duties could be characterised as a strategy aimed at intimidating her and that those measures must have had a “chilling effect”, discouraging not only her, but also other judges from participating in public debate on legislative reforms.
February 5, 2026 at 11:35 AM
hongmathias.bsky.social
BVerfG (Senat), 23.9.2025, 1 BvR 1796/23 (Altersgrenze Anwaltsnotare), www.bverfg.de/e/rs20250923...

1/11
February 5, 2026 at 2:31 PM
hongmathias.bsky.social
J.-W. Müller on the dangers of reactionary centrism:

"[T]he relentless drive to find fault with both sides equally results in a sense of (false) equivalence among those taking cues from supposedly trustworthy centrists ..."

1/10
us.theguardian.com Guardian US @us.theguardian.com · 5d
"In the 20th century, it was important to position oneself against fascism and authoritarian state socialism simultaneously," writes @jwmueller-pu.bsky.social.

"But today, a reflexive position in the middle...makes little sense in a completely asymmetrical political landscape."
Beware of ‘anti-woke’ liberals: they attacked the left and helped Trump win | Jan-Werner Müller
So-called ‘reactionary centrist’ pundits proclaimed that there was a global ‘vibe shift’ in favor of the right. They were wrong
www.theguardian.com
February 5, 2026 at 9:41 AM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
orinkerr.bsky.social
As I've written, this isn't a frivolous argument. But if you're litigating this before a judge, and this is your argument, you go in fully expecting to lose.

My posts on this:

(1) On Abel:
reason.com/volokh/2026/...

(2) On Lucas:
reason.com/volokh/2026/...
Can ICE Enter a Home To Make an Arrest With Only an Administrative Warrant?
The Associated Press reports: Immigration officers assert sweeping power to enter homes without a judge's warrant, memo says WASHINGTON (AP)…
reason.com
February 5, 2026 at 7:56 AM
Reposted by Mathias Hong
jwmueller-pu.bsky.social
👇
February 4, 2026 at 9:53 PM