"The long-term goal is to achieve statehood and autonomy," says Kymone Freeman, the Green Party candidate for Washington, D.C.'s nonvoting delegate seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. "The short-term leverage to achieve that is tax resistance."
Like many D.C. locals, Freeman believes it's unfair that residents of the nation's capital pay federal income taxes without a voting representative in Congress. Freeman has made it a key plank in his policy platform that D.C. residents should be exempt from paying federal income tax until the district is granted statehood. "We're celebrating the 250th anniversary of America's resistance to taxation without representation, so I think it's time," says Freeman. The nation's capital is a federal district, not a U.S. territory like Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, so D.C. residents are still subject to federal income tax requirements.
Federal district or not, imposing income taxes on D.C. residents without representation would likely offend America's Founders, who met in New York in October 1765 and proclaimed that it is "inseparably essential to the freedom of a people…that no taxes be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given personally, or by their representatives." Taxation is a form of theft. Compounding the issue, D.C. residents have little recourse to challenge their tax burden.
The U.S. is the only democratically governed nation to withhold voting representation from citizens living in its capital. Worse, local officials—such as the city's mayor and the D.C. Council—must solicit congressional approval for the district's budget and laws with little more than a figurehead serving as their lone representative in the federal legislature. Reason's analysis of the Internal Revenue Service's latest available adjusted gross income data shows that D.C. tax filers paid more federal income tax per return than residents in any other state, about $26,900, compared to a national average of roughly $14,300.
While that's partly because the city has many high-income earners, data show that excluding those in the city earning over $1 million, D.C. residents still paid more in income tax per return than filers in any state, about $16,500 compared to $8,900 nationally.
"We don't have a system where public policy is determined by public input because of the status quo," says Freeman. But challenging that status quo has proven difficult, as Congress resists attempts to make D.C. the 51st state. In 2021, the House of Representatives passed a party-line bill sponsored by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D–D.C.) to establish D.C. as the 51st state. It later died in the (barely) Democratically controlled Senate.
Democrats once opposed D.C. becoming the 51st state; however, they've since warmed to the idea, unlike Republican lawmakers at the federal level, who have been reluctant to support statehood for D.C., viewing it as a move that would give Democrats an electoral stronghold. That argument has some truth: No elected Republicans serve on the D.C. Council. The city hasn't had a Republican mayor since its local government was established, and the district has reliably voted for a Democrat in every presidential election since 1964.
Even though Republicans at the national level do not support statehood for D.C., the District's local GOP does support ending taxation without representation. Denise Rosado—the Republican candidate for D.C.'s delegate seat—thinks statehood for the district is "unlikely" and "undesirable." That hasn't stopped her from campaigning for an end to federal income taxes in D.C., an outcome she claims can be "accomplished quickly."
That's doubtful given Congress' pace. Still, there's no logic in making statehood a prerequisite to abolishing the federal income tax requirement for district residents.
Will Bibi survive? Israelis head to the polls today for the first election since the October 7, 2023, attacks. The election is widely seen as a referendum on Benjamin Netanyahu's, or Bibi's, governance. Supporters say the last few years have been a success, as he "seized half of Gaza, dramatically expanded West Bank settlements, decimated Hezbollah in Lebanon and coaxed President Donald Trump into going to war against Iran," perThe Washington Post—"all while offering a full-throated defense of Israel against accusations of war crimes and genocide."
But "many of those who seek change have rallied around the bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot, a centrist former military chief who, according to final polls this week, was running slightly ahead of Netanyahu," reportsThe Washington Post. "Heading a sprawling bloc that ranges from Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister who once managed a West Bank settlement council, to Yair Golan, a retired general known for his dovish views toward Palestinians, Eisenkot has pledged to investigate Netanyahu over his response to Oct. 7, to force the ultra-Orthodox to enlist and to rein in violent settlers in the West Bank." Eisenkot says the war against Hamas has been a failure, since the terrorist group is still in power. He is in opposition to some of the far-right alliances Netanyahu has made and broadly critical of Netanyahu's wartime leadership.
So far, turnout has been extremely high, the highest in 45 years—though the day isn't over yet; at publication time, it's about 3:30 p.m. in Israel. Polls close at 10 p.m. An estimated 70,000 Israelis have returned from overseas to cast their votes.
Here's how Israeli elections work, courtesy of The New York Times: "Every party creates a ranked list of its candidates, and voters choose a party or slate. The leader of the party with the most votes could become the country's next prime minister—though it is not automatic—if that candidate can form a government, but the parliamentary system is complicated and involves extensive negotiations.…No single party has ever won a majority of votes, which means parties must form factions and party leaders try to forge a governing coalition of at least 61 lawmakers. Within seven days of the official election results being announced, Israel's president, who plays a mostly symbolic role, meets with elected representatives of the parliamentary factions. Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, will assign a member of the Knesset—usually the leader of the party or faction that has won the most seats—to form a government." That person gets roughly a month to negotiate with potential allies and form a government; if they fail, another person gets picked to attempt the process.
"If a candidate who has been selected to form a government can propose one, along with a policy agenda," continues the Times, "and their proposal wins a plurality of votes in the Knesset, the government is formally invested, and that candidate becomes the prime minister."
"If neither Netanyahu nor Eisenkot can form a governing coalition in the 120-seat parliament," reports Reuters, "Netanyahu could stay on as caretaker until another election is held. His opponents have managed to wrest him from the premiership only once since 2009, and that took four inconclusive elections in two years. He was back 18 months later." So, Netanyahu seems unlikely to win outright, but likely to still be in charge at the end of all this—very much not a mandate, and something that would probably trigger elections again next year.
Kalshi and Polymarket betting markets seem fairly confident that Eisenkot will emerge victorious; polls are less optimistic.
Who's in charge in Israel, and how much of a mandate they believe themselves to have, matters an awful lot when it comes to American policy in the Middle East; tensions with Iran are still high, and though it's receded from view to some degree, shipping is still snarled in the Strait of Hormuz, with no resolution in sight. Given the complexities involved with forming a government, we're not going to get a clear answer for a while, but we will get some indications over the next few days as to how Israeli citizens are thinking about Netanyahu, his legacy, and the path forward.
Scenes from New York: "Many young professionals in their 30s have reached a breaking point in recent years and moved away in droves to raise families—contributing to an enrollment crisis in New York City's school system," reportsThe New York Times in an interesting reported piece on people in their 30s struggling to make ends meet and delaying milestones like getting married, having kids, and owning their own places. "Am I entitled to have what my parents had? I'm not sure," said one 31-year-old schoolteacher out in Queens. "But it's hard to know that I can't [have it]."
I don't think these people are totally off base; the tradeoffs are intense right now, with rental costs growing ever more wild. It's a shame most New Yorkers don't seem to understand the relationship between market-distorting policies (like rent control and stabilization) and housing costs getting so out of whack, and increasingly favor handouts (free daycare) to alleviate the strain they feel from the high cost of living.
QUICK HITS
DoorDash is in talks to acquire Instacart; will someone please do a wellness check on Elizabeth Warren?
"While global tech stocks teeter, in China they have already crashed as lofty valuations collapse under worries about AI demand and curbs on Chinese exports," reports Reuters. "The meltdown, tanking the mainland STAR50 index, of AI and semiconductor leaders by 40% in less than four months and vaporising some $480 billion in market value, is an ill omen for wobbly world markets and a dampener on China's efforts at encouraging its savers into stocks to fund the AI boom."
"Most classrooms, most of the time, are nonideologically muddling along with a mix of lecture and activities—just like most classrooms, most of the time, are nonideologically muddling along with a mix of phonics and guess-and-bluff reading strategies," writes Kelsey Piper for The Argument on school curricula. "That means that fixing classrooms takes more than bold truth-telling about what works. It's going to take changing how we teach teachers, acquire curricular materials, and measure results."
"Clashes erupted in Paris as a mass march drew to a close Saturday, with more than 400,000 people rallying across France over school funding and soaring living costs in a fresh challenge to President Emmanuel Macron," reports the Associated Press. "Police made nearly 1,000 arrests, the government said."
Don't miss this week's Reason Roundtable!
As for me and my house, we will cook up amazing hockey-themed parties and never let the AI overlords take this from us:
I cannot be replaced by A.I. became I come up with extremely niche and/or ridiculous themes. i.e. Fourth birthday party for my son was "Miracle on Ice, USA vs. Soviets 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid" (we painted the hockey players together, which is why they're, uh, imperfect) https://t.co/P4NvKaIPjypic.twitter.com/JhwJCTDdYa
When the White House rolled back tariffs on coffee, fruit, beef, and farm equipment, it was effectively an admission that the tariffs were raising prices—and that Americans, not foreigners, had been paying for them.
Now, in the closing stages of the midterm campaign, the White House is once again rolling back some of those import taxes—and once again making an awkward implicit admission.
President Donald Trump's tariffs have become politically toxic.
The administration announced late last week that it would lift the 50 percent tariffs on some Canadian imports, apparently in an attempt to help Sen. Susan Collins (R–Maine) survive a tough reelection campaign in which the tariffs have played a significant role.
If this is indeed an attempt to sway voters in Maine, it is not a very convincing one. The Trump administration is removing tariffs on some agricultural and mechanical goods, as well as packaging and plywood, The Wall Street Journalreports. But Trump is also imposing new 50 percent tariffs on "other Canadian goods, including carpet, certain valves, and waste products."
Collins issued a statement thanking the White House for the changes. This is what members of the U.S. Senate have been reduced to—begging the president to cast his capricious, tariff-happy eyes toward products that will hurt people in other states more than in your own. (In fairness to Collons, she has voted repeatedly to roll back Trump's tariffs, but not enough of her fellow Republicans went along with it.)
Still, it's worth asking: What exactly is the pitch to voters here? Here's a tariff cut, now vote for Republicans so the president can continue to arbitrarily tax imports whenever the mood strikes?
It's easy to see why Trump's tariffs have become so unpopular. They are a huge and broad tax increase—the Tax Foundation estimates that 54 percent of imports are subject to Trump's tariffs, which are costing the average household about $1,000 annually—that was imposed without congressional authorization or popular support. They create more losers than winners, as downstream businesses and consumers pay the price for the protectionism offered to American manufacturers. Even the supposed "winners" of the tariff policy tend also to be "losers," since so much manufacturing depends on importing raw materials and intermediate goods.
Perhaps more surprising is how unwilling Republicans are to defend the president's signature economic policy. Or to even talk about it.
The Wall Street Journal's Greg Ip crunched the numbers and found that House GOP candidates have not run a single ad talking about the tariffs during this election cycle.
That silence speaks volumes. Trump says "tariff" is "the most beautiful word in the dictionary." But it is now "one of the most hated words in politics," writes Ip.
The only Republicans to mention trade or tariffs in a campaign ad, as far as I've seen, is former Rep. Mike Rogers, who is now running for the Senate seat in Michigan (and thus was not included in Ip's analysis). And he's calling for an end to the "tariff war."
There is a lesson here that hopefully will linger beyond the next week: If you support a policy that deliberately and unlawfully raises taxes and prices, voters will not reward you for it.
It's a lesson that the Republican Party learned long ago, but apparently forgot.
Against economists' advice, a Republican-led government in 1930 implemented a huge tariff hike intended to protect American farms and factories at the start of the Great Depression. Instead, those tariffs worsened economic conditions and triggered foreign retaliation.
When voters went to the polls in 1930, the first midterm after the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were passed, they registered their displeasure. The GOP lost 52 seats in the House that year. Two years later, an even larger landslide would sweep Democrats into power in Congress and the White House, ushering in the New Deal era that reshaped the federal government forever. The two lawmakers who lent their names to the legislation were among those who lost their seats, fittingly.
The most notable difference this time around is that Congress didn't actually pass a tariff bill. The trade barriers were instead imposed directly by the executive. Voters don't seem to care. Republicans were too cowardly to stand up to Trump's unilateral power grab, and now they seem too ashamed to try to defend that policy (and their largely complicit response) on the campaign trail.
As they say, those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And "doomed" may be a fitting way to describe the Republican majority in Congress right now, thanks in no small part to Trump's tariffs.
Alaska's U.S. Senate race features four candidates. Two are named Dan Sullivan: the Republican incumbent, and a political neophyte.
Republicans say the presence of two Dan Sullivans on the ballot is an illegal act of election interference. The federal government is now suing to keep Alaska from certifying the election results, but only if their guy loses.
"One of the biggest election scandals in history has been the Democrats' installation of a fake Dan Sullivan (not the US Senator) to deceive voters in Alaska," White House advisor Stephen Miller wrote on X. President Donald Trump called it "a disgrace."
"Democrats pulled a dirty trick by enlisting a decoy, Daniel J. Sullivan, to run against Republican Alaska Sen. Dan S. Sullivan," TheWall Street Journaleditorialized. "Please spare us the lectures about election interference."
Last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the state of Alaska and its election authorities.
"Should Alaska certify any electoral results tainted by the inclusion on the ballot of Daniel J. Sullivan," the filing warns, "the State and its officers will fail in its obligation to protect the integrity of its election. The United States accordingly brings this lawsuit to protect the integrity of the 2026 Senate election in Alaska."
Alaska uses a ranked choice ballot, in which voters are given four candidates and rank each one in order of preference. Along with the Sullivans, the candidates are Mary Peltola, a Democrat who is polling narrowly ahead, and Gerald Heikes.
The Justice Department lawsuit says Republican voters would be too confused by the presence of two Dan Sullivans to properly fill out their ballot: "Some supporters of Senator Sullivan likely will inadvertently vote for Daniel J. Sullivan. Other supporters of Senator Sullivan likely will be confused as to how to rank the three Republican candidates as to defeat Peltola."
Given this, "there is a substantial likelihood that a certification of the election will reflect an electoral process that lacked integrity," the lawsuit proclaims. "To guard against this danger, it is vital that [Alaska] not certify any election result" in which "(1) Senator Sullivan does not win the election; and (2) had all votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan been cast instead for Senator Sullivan and Alaska's rank-choice process played out accordingly, Senator Sullivan would have won the election."
In other words, the state of Alaska should only certify the election if Sullivan wins; if Peltola wins, but it's close, then that could suggest it "lacked integrity," and the state must instead conduct "an investigation to determine whether votes cast for Daniel J. Sullivan were meant to be cast for Senator Sullivan."
The lawsuit has a number of problems. First and foremost, it's completely inappropriate to treat an election as fair only if your candidate wins, even if it is what Trump believes.
It's also too late to bring an action of this kind: The state elections division decided in June to bar Daniel J. Sullivan from the ballot, but a state superior court reversed and the Alaska Supreme Court upheld the reversal before the end of that month.
And yet the feds waited until less than two weeks before Election Day—when ballots have been printed and tens of thousands of Alaskans have already voted—to bring this suit.
If the Justice Department was truly concerned about voter confusion, it should have brought a lawsuit months ago. But even then, it's not clear what it could have done: "DOJ has no power to decide which candidates can appear on the ballot," writes UCLA School of Law professor Richard L. Hasen.
Besides, it's not illegal to mislead or even outright lie to voters. "If 'voter confusion' were a legitimate reason to overturn election results, that would imperil a great many election winners, as voter ignorance—and exploitation thereof by candidates—is a widespread and longstanding problem," writes George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin.
It does seem more likely than not that Daniel J. Sullivan is indeed running just to pull votes from the senator with the same name.
But as I pointed out earlier this month, the ranked-choice ballot itself can take care of this problem: Republican voters who wish to reelect Sullivan can simply rank both Dan Sullivans first and second; if and when Daniel J. Sullivan fails to capture more than 50 percent of all votes, he will be eliminated, and his votes will transfer to all their second choices.
The ballot itself makes it clear which Sullivan is which: The sitting senator is labeled as both Registered Republican and incumbent.
Alaska Division of Elections
Despite Miller's claim that letting two Dan Sullivans on the ballot "reveals pure contempt for voters," it's the objecting Republicans who appear to lack faith in their voters.
"People are totally confused," Trump told reporters. "A lot of people don't know what 'incumbent' means."
When CNN's Dana Bash asked Attorney General Todd Blanche what crime is being alleged, he replied that "it depends." He elaborated: "There could be a crime, but the real wrong here is that Alaskans are going to be confused and will not have their vote heard."
This isn't even Alaska's most complicated election in recent memory. In 2010, after Sen. Lisa Murkowski lost the Republican primary to Joe Miller, she announced that she would still run as a write-in candidate—requiring voters to not just know about her ahead of time but to add her name by hand.
Improbably, Murkowski prevailed, defeating Miller by more than 10,000 votes.
If Trump, Blanche, Miller, and others are truly concerned that the ballot will be too confusing for Alaska Republicans, they could expend some energy showing them how to use the ranked choice ballot.
In fact, Sullivan has done just that, posting a video on X explaining how to rank all candidates except Peltola.
What they can't do is force a state to reject the results if their guy loses.
"Alaskans don't need any help voting for their preferred candidates, and the State of Alaska has already handled this by clearly distinguishing the candidates on this year's ballot," Murkowski wrote on X. "The Department of Justice should never have filed this lawsuit."
"I believe that this lawsuit is abusive in its intentions and borders on frivolous in its arguments, and that it is destined for defeat in the courts should it reach the merits," Cato Institute senior fellow Walter Olson noted in a statement. "This lawsuit is an assault on the constitutional design by which states, not the federal government, run elections. The issue in question is one for the Alaska Supreme Court to decide under Alaska law, and the Alaska court did just that."
California's experiment: Will California's proposed wealth tax, Prop 40, pass next week? And if it gets passed, will it end up actually costing the state money instead of generating revenue?
The basics: The proposal features a one-time 5 percent tax on people with net worths over $1 billion who lived in the state on January 1, 2026 (with the net worth amount calculated as of December 31, 2026). The idea for the snapshot date is presumably to prevent capital flight once the tax passes. The tax's supporters say the tax's revenues will amount to $100 billion and will fund California's health care system, which need to make up for federal Medicaid cuts.
Seven billionaires, representing 30 percent of the total billionaire wealth in the state, left California before January 1, 2026, when news of the possible tax broke. Peter Thiel, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin are among the deserters. The French economist Gabriel Zucman—an intense defender of the wealth tax—seems committed to the idea that this flight won't matter too much. He argues that while removing those seven brings down revenue estimates to $89 billion, adding in less-prominent small-time billionaires raises revenue to $115 billion.
This is silly. As The Washington Post's Megan McArdle points out, there's no reason to believe those less-famous billionaires would stay put. We have a hard time estimating what the total preemptive flight looks like, and how many billionaires have successfully taken up residency elsewhere.
"Either the tax is annual—and in that case it generates revenue annually, and some billionaires leave," claims Zucman. "Or the tax is one-time—in that case it generates revenue in just one year, and there is no incentive to leave. It can't be both at the same time." Zucman doesn't seem to consider that billionaires have already left, as soon as the idea was seriously floated, thus taking early steps to shield their wealth from the state.
Will it pass? "Likely voters are essentially where they were a month ago," reportsPolitico, based on recent polling data, "with 46% in favor of Proposition 40 and 43% opposed—despite a recent push by backers of the measure, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, to rally support." Interestingly, "a strikingly high share of registered voters (84%) said they'd been exposed to advertisements or messages about the tax, but a 45% plurality said the communications had not swayed them, and those whose views had shifted were just as likely to be more opposed as more supportive."
There's another complication: On that very same ballot, voters will decide on Propositions 41 and 42, competing measures that could keep Prop 40 from taking effect. Prop 40 will be nullified if either one gets more votes; but Prop 40 will nullify both of them if it gets more votes. Prop 42 would bar new taxes on personal property such as businesses, investments, retirement accounts, trusts, and art collections—things Prop 40 targets. It also bans retroactive taxes, thus making Prop 40 impossible to pull off.
Back in January, Pirate Wires' Mike Solana spoke with a bunch of billionaires who were worried about the tax and making plans to flee, partially out of distrust that the tax would be one-and-done. "Three men I spoke with in the largest billionaire Signal chat said they ran an informal poll, and seventy percent of the chat (around sixty people, not all of whom were billionaires) indicated they would leave the state if the ballot proposition passes," reports Solana. "According to that same poll, around 15% have already left the state."
"There is now real danger in appearing successful in the state of California," writes Solana, "as the far left, imbued with a great deal of power, and benefiting now from several years of wealth scapegoating throughout the mainstream press, attempts to liquidate its perceived enemies in business."
Scenes from New York: I'm fully aboard this train these days, though open to being convinced why I'm wrong:
If you truly *love* American cities, you MUST support strict enforcement of laws against anti-social behavior. Paying bus fares, red light cameras, camping on sidewalks, smoking on trains, off-leash dogs, etc etc
"Brazilian markets are heading for a major rout when local trading begins after President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva pulled off a stunning comeback to defeat Flávio Bolsonaro, the right-wing candidate that many investors preferred," reportsBloomberg. This will be da Silva's fourth term.
Is dynamic pricing on the rise? Customers say yes, but most companies say they're wrong. My thought: Even if it's not currently happening to the degree angry customers claim, it certainly will be big in the future, as online shopping takes over and AI makes implementation easier. Consider the upside, though, noted in this Wall Street Journal piece: "Much current angst is focused on electronic shelf labels, which have replaced the printed labels that dotted shelves at groceries and other stores. Research on digital shelf labels in the U.S. and Europe, where grocers have widely used the technology for more than a decade, found the labels don't lead to surge pricing, in part because price changes are obvious to anyone walking by. Rather, research found, grocers have used the labels to discount goods that are about to expire, reducing food waste."
Great Washington Post headline: "Europe is running out of other people's money."
President Donald Trump claims the ships passing past Cuba on their way home from Iran will just, uh, handle the situation there. Sure.
Interesting:
Striking detail in the big NYT piece on Taiwanese families adjusting to working at the huge new TSMC chip plant in Arizona: their surprise at the lack of rigor in US schools. pic.twitter.com/YkSPzbHCuE
Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan's Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, is the latest politician to suggest that the Second Amendment might shield the right to bear arms, but only those that existed at the time that it was adopted: namely, flintlock muskets. It's a not-so-clever way of trimming back the Constitution's protections. The argument's flaws should be clear: the U.S. Supreme Court has already dismissed that line of reasoning, and a world in which the Bill of Rights applies only to 18th century technology would be one where freedom exists only in museum exhibits.
"Everyone Should Have Equal Rights to a Musket"
"I'm gonna swear an oath to the Constitution. The Constitution has a Second Amendment in it, but the Second Amendment, just so we all are clear, even the most conservative folks, they hew to this idea called originalism, and originalism is the idea that you should interpret the Constitution in the context in which the Constitution was written," El-Sayed insisted at a campaign rally. "When they promised the right to bear arms, they had muskets. So, yeah, everyone should have equal rights to a musket."
So clever. The Bill of Rights passed in the 1780s, so it must only apply to 1780s things. Except that the courts have thoroughly dismissed that ridiculous line of reasoning.
"Some have made the argument, bordering on the frivolous, that only those arms in existence in the 18th century are protected by the Second Amendment," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008). "We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications…and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search…the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding."
The Founders Lived in a Time of Rapid Innovation
The reason for this should be obvious. The founders were not unaware of progress. Many of them were scholars and innovators. They were certainly aware of (and enthusiastic about) continuing advancements in technology. During the then-recent revolution, American troops had faced off against a small unit of redcoats armed with Ferguson breech-loading rifles. A decade before the Bill of Rights was adopted, the 22-shot Girandoni repeating air rifle was introduced, one of which was later sent along on the Lewis and Clark expedition. And Kalthoff and Lorenzoni repeating flintlock firearms had existed for well over a century.
Not to mention, the founders made extensive use of printing presses to distribute pamphlets and official government documents, including the new Constitution, rather than having them hand-copied as they would have been a few centuries earlier. Technology marches on.
That last point illustrates the foolishness of the only-1780s-tech argument, as Scalia pointed out. What use is a First Amendment that applies only to hand-cranked printing presses and unamplified voices? That would leave the internet, television, radio, telephones, and all post-revolutionary means of communications unprotected from government censorship.
By the same token, a Fourth Amendment stuck in the 18th century might shield us from government agents kicking in the door and rifling through our papers. But it would have nothing to say about wiretaps, computer searches, surveillance cameras, thermal imaging, and the like.
The Founders Sought To Limit Government, Not Create Small Carve-Outs for People
Founders who were well aware of innovation and often contributed to it themselves (think Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson) knew that science and technology constantly advance—because they helped it do exactly that—as would the government's intrusive capabilities. And they believed they were creating protections for broad natural rights against limited government, not small carve-outs from the authority of an all-powerful state.
"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others," Jefferson wrote in 1819. "I do not add 'within the limits of the law'; because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual."
The Bill of Rights isn't an ancient artifact to be applied only to a snapshot of life as it existed around 1789. Its amendments are intended to protect timeless individual rights, however those rights might be expressed in an always-evolving world.
El Sayed: "To Protect People From Government Tyranny"
El-Sayed went on, in his increasingly incoherent monologue, to acknowledge that the Bill of Rights was intended "to protect people from government tyranny," and "the idea was that you had the right to bear arms against your government should they become tyrannous." He floated the idea, for some reason, that "the Coast Guard, and state militias" are how this idea was implemented. I don't want to delve too deeply into whatever argument is being presented here, because I've sacrificed enough brain cells by listening to him speak.
But kudos to El Sayed for admitting the Bill of Rights is intended to protect us from government. The only way that can possibly work is if, as government's capabilities become increasingly sophisticated, the protections of the Constitution's first 10 amendments extend to safeguarding our rights from ever more advanced potential intrusions.
The Second Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights don't preserve a snapshot of life in the 1780s. They were written to protect eternal principles of individual liberty. And they're certainly not limited to muskets.
West Des Moines, Iowa—Iowa voters may disagree on immigration, taxes, and the economy, but government surveillance is drawing opposition from across the political spectrum.
An Emerson College poll of 750 likely Iowa voters, conducted between late August and early September, found that 61 percent opposed police use of automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras, compared with 26 percent in support.
The backlash comes as police departments across the state increasingly rely on surveillance technology supplied by private companies such as Flock Safety and Motorola Solutions. Their cameras record license plates and vehicle information, feeding searchable databases that allow law enforcement to piece together motorists' movements, including those of people suspected of no crime.
As Iowa's gubernatorial and congressional campaigns enter their final stretch, voters are increasingly pressing candidates on whether they intend to place limits on the technology. Jacqueline Thompson, an ordained elder in the Iowa Conference of the United Methodist Church and a self-described centrist Democrat, said she has been concerned about government surveillance for years.
"It's always been important to me [and] I've always thought that was a problem," she said before a campaign rally at a senior living community in Des Moines earlier this month. "So, when people started jumping on the bandwagon saying it, I was like, 'Hello, I've been here already!'"
Thompson pointed to two Democratic candidates, Nate Willems, who is running for Iowa attorney general, and Taylor Wettach, a candidate for state auditor, as having caught her attention with their emphasis on corporate oversight and access to government records.
For Thompson, the renewed attention to privacy is a welcome development in a political environment where Democrats and Republicans rarely find common ground. "It's kind of nice to hear the people come back to the middle [and discuss this]," she said.
Flock Does Not Have Enough Guardrails
Police surveillance technology has spread across Iowa faster than the rules governing its use.
A recent study identified at least 62 Iowa law enforcement agencies that had accessed other agencies' Flock databases, including departments that did not operate cameras of their own. Police departments can therefore search information collected well beyond their jurisdictions without having to install a single camera themselves. The study (led by Megan Graham, a clinical associate professor and director of the Technology Law Clinic at the University of Iowa College of Law) found significant gaps in transparency surrounding ALPRs.
The constitutional implications are already being tested in court. On October 1, a federal judge in Oklahoma ruled that a sheriff's deputy violated the Fourth Amendment by searching a motorist's location history through automated license plate reader systems operated by Flock Safety and Motorola Solutions without a warrant.
The search turned up more than 50 records of the driver's whereabouts across multiple states over a month. In the 38-page ruling, the judge ordered the resulting evidence suppressed, describing the technology as a form of "indiscriminate mass surveillance." The decision is not binding in Iowa, and legal challenges to ALPR surveillance still face an uphill battle, but it adds to the legal scrutiny of police tracking motorists without warrants.
The University of Iowa study also raised concerns about unauthorized database access, erroneous alerts, and the potential use of locally collected information for federal immigration enforcement.
Flock Safety says it has not provided U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol with direct access to its systems. But the researchers found that local law enforcement agencies elsewhere in the country had conducted searches on behalf of federal authorities, effectively allowing them to obtain information without direct access.
Taxpayers are also footing the bill. Cedar Rapids reported operating 76 cameras at a combined average cost of more than $20,000 a month, according to the study.
Researchers struggled to determine the full extent of surveillance across Iowa. Some agencies refused to disclose the number or locations of their cameras, while others withheld records concerning unauthorized access or erroneous alerts, citing confidentiality.
The cameras are not limited to Iowa's largest cities. Becca Eastwood, deputy policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, said they have spread across large, midsize, and smaller communities, prompting a surge in opposition over the past year.
The backlash "has just exploded, like no other issue that I have seen in my time at the ACLU," Eastwood told Reason in an interview. Candidates running for state and federal offices are increasingly getting asked if they support police departments using ALPR cameras, she said.
Some local governments are already reconsidering their contracts. Indianola and Waukee suspended their Flock camera arrangements, Iowa Public Radio reported in August. Dallas County paused a planned rollout while awaiting guidance from state lawmakers. Ankeny, which operates 16 Flock cameras, is reportedly expected to reconsider a possible contract extension next year.
The backlash also cuts across the immigration debate. While concerns about federal immigration enforcement have helped draw attention to the cameras, critics argue the same surveillance infrastructure can be used against anyone, regardless of which party controls the government.
"This is a nonpartisan issue because people recognize that surveillance can be weaponized against anyone the government wants to weaponize it against," Eastwood said. "An increase in police surveillance impacts certain populations more, right now [but] nobody is immune."
Politicians Face Pressure To Cut Ties With Flock
The opposition is beginning to force Iowa's candidates to take positions on a technology that, until recently, attracted relatively little attention outside law enforcement and civil liberties circles.
Among the gubernatorial candidates, interviewed by Iowa Radio last month, Republican Zach Lahn has called for state-level regulation, arguing that the widespread collection of information about where people drive is unacceptable. Meanwhile, Democrat Rob Sand has expressed support for safeguards governing the collection and use of license plate data and said he would sign legislation if privacy concerns persisted. But he has also pointed to the cancellation of some Flock contracts as evidence that the market is responding to public concerns.
For now, neither approach offers much clarity on whether police should be required to obtain warrants before searching motorists' location histories or how far restrictions on data collection should go.
Ryan Johnson, a libertarian-leaning Republican who works as a machinist near Waterloo, said he could accept cameras in certain locations, such as downtown areas or near traffic signals. But he objects to their spread into residential neighborhoods and public spaces.
"Just having Flock cameras everywhere, [in] residential [areas], putting them at parks and pools, we don't need that," Johnson said while attending a Lahn rally earlier this month.
So far, some of the most concrete changes to ALPR practices have come from Flock itself. In August, the company announced that it would reduce its default data-retention period from 30 days to seven and require officers to enter a criminal case number or code for each search. The changes would not, however, require police to obtain a warrant before accessing the records.
Gary and Nancy Guthrie, a Democratic couple attending a Des Moines rally supporting Chris Jones for secretary of agriculture, remain skeptical of the cameras.
"I don't have a good feel for that," Nancy Guthrie said. "Personally, I'm very much against Flock cameras."
For all the attention the issue is receiving on the campaign trail, Iowa voters have yet to hear much about what legal limits candidates would actually impose on police surveillance.
New Yorkers won't be voting on any citywide offices this year, but they do have five ballot initiatives that could shape the city's future more than any politician on this year's ballot. Mayor Zohran Mamdani created a version of the Trump administration's infamous Department of Government Efficiency in New York called the Commission on Government Efficiency (COGE). The plan is for COGE to modernize city operations and accelerate public infrastructure and permitting—in that vein, COGE placed five proposals before voters on the November ballot, largely targeting the bureaucratic processes governing new construction and business activity across the five boroughs.
Questions 1, 2, and 3 on the ballot would end or reduce the use of public hearings in different city review processes. Question 1 would, according to the ballot language, "simplify [the] process to use public space for uses such as ramps, planters and cafes, by removing mandatory hearings and Council disapproval of sidewalk cafes, while maintaining community and Council input." Question 2 would "reduce paperwork for City contractors by authorizing [the] Procurement Policy Board to simplify [the] contractor questionnaire….[And] remove mandatory hearing for required client services report." Question 3 would "simplify review of street safety projects to reduce construction timelines," among other changes. Question 4 is about simplifying permitting.
These policies were not directly introduced by Mamdani, but they reflect a governing philosophy that New York City and other big cities desperately need: a local government that won't allow a small group of organized opponents to obstruct progress for the city at large indefinitely.
Nowhere is the bottleneck against much-needed development clearer than at public review hearings. In theory, a public hearing is democracy at its purest: Every voice is heard. But in practice, it usually becomes a slow-motion filibuster. The most persistent and best-organized opponents get a megaphone, with little to no input from the millions of New Yorkers who would broadly benefit from more housing, better infrastructure, and businesses that can open without getting wrapped in red tape.
The 2026 ballot questions, if approved, would take small steps toward addressing these problems. If they all passed, it wouldn't be a seismic change—a planter here or a parcel of land there. But that's kind of the point: Should routine administrative decisions require another round of formal public review hearings to hold up any change, big or small?
There has been much consternation this week about the use of fake polls in the media, with some government officials promising swift, and legally dubious, punishments for broadcasters that use them.
The use of these fake polls came to light on Wednesday, when The New York Timesreported that "well-known polling aggregators," including the paper itself, had been citing fake surveys by Wedgewood Polls. The fake polling scheme was revealed when the outlet FivePlusOne contacted Wedgewood Tuesday for comment about an investigation into the pollster. That night, Wedgewood posted a now-deleted statement declaring that it was an "experimental project to demonstrate the vulnerabilities, lack of oversight, and overall barrier to entry in the modern polling industry." The fake pollster claimed it was "far too easy" to be taken seriously in media and public commentary.
A similar "social experiment" was revealed in August, when the Los Angeles Times reported that a poll by Median Strategies showing Mayor Karen Bass "leading ahead of Councilmember Nithya Raman by a wide margin" was "bogus." An earlier poll by Median Strategies showed Francesca Hong, who lost her race for Wisconsin governor, up by more than 20 percentage points. Median Strategies told the Times that the firm was "created as a short term social experiment to examine how purported polling information could enter and spread through the political information ecosystem without independent verification."
If Wedgewood's polling stunts were in fact social experiments (pollster Nate Silver is very skeptical of this explanation), then the experiment worked. Nobody is completely immune to deceit. And while savvy media consumers have become more attuned to detecting AI writing and video fakes, masses of people still fall for more than fake polls, as they have for a long time.
In 2018, when the word "slop" meant food for pigs and before anyone wrote posts using ChatGPT, the Intelligencerasked the question: "How much of the Internet is fake?" The answer, the outlet concluded, was "a lot."
At the time, Reason's Nick Gillespie noted that the article was a "sobering and obvious revelation that much of what we browse, engage, and interact with is in some fundamental way, total bullshit." Gillespie solemnly observed, "we're living not in the disintermediated, utopian world chronicled in the early days of Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalfe's Wired, but something closer to the endlessly creative, weird, off-kilter, semi-insane world imagined by Philip K. Dick and, later, Neal Stephenson."
Eight years later, the "semi-insane" world is no less insane, and humans, as they always have, are falling prey to increasingly intricate schemes and hoaxes. In September, Semafor's Max Tani revealed that a large number of YouTube videos—several of which garnered hundreds of thousands of views—were made by "ghost creators." In these videos, presented as news reports, real actors were paid to read AI-written scripts "laced with misleading claims and outright falsehoods." According to Tani, these "accounts appear to be run not by political operatives trying to win, or foreign intelligence efforts seeking to destabilize the US, but by engagement junkies detached from the stakes of politics." While any semi-media-literate person in 2026 could tell you that not all YouTube videos should be taken as fact, the scale of the operation was staggering.
The deception crisis plagues the media as well. Recently, the platform Qwoted, which connects journalists with sources, had to remove a supposed art therapy expert from its website after her "details were found to be false," reported thePress Gazette. According to the Gazette, the fake therapist's insights had been cited in several outlets, including Psychology, Forbes, Glamour, and Vice. I have also raised concerns about news outlets and commentators citing polls published by EduBirdie, a Cyprus-based company that sells human-written academic papers to students for $8 a page (ethics aside, what a bold business model in the AI age).
So what is to be done? As Gillespie wrote in 2018, there are existing legal levers to root out fraud, but any top-down approach to squashing online lies "will be poorly applied, repressive, and ultimately arbitrary." Government-led crackdowns on COVID-19 "misinformation" have proven him right. Outsourcing the arbitration of truth would only diminish our access to information, and no one entity, particularly the government, should be trusted to determine what is true or false. Unfortunately, the Trump administration has not learned much from the pandemic era and has instead repeatedly tried to crack down on media coverage it doesn't like.
Ideally, media organizations would act as B.S. detectors, but clearly, they often fail to do so. So, consumers are left to wade through lies, AI hoaxes, and so-called "social experiments." This may be tedious work, but it is necessary for consumers to evolve as technologies change. This sleuthing for scams may even be enjoyable. Why pay to have your brain scrambled by Nathan Fielder's Elizabeth Holmes documentary when you can drive yourself insane by tracking down and scrutinizing widely cited statistics and polls?
To many people, but especially libertarians, voting can feel dispiriting: By definition, every person on the ballot wants in some way to exert control over your life.
Perhaps that's why it's refreshing to see a candidate for office who truly seems not to want the job.
Brady Rogers worked as a robotics engineer for four years, but he quit in 2019 after deciding the corporate world wasn't for him.
"It was just a bit unfulfilling," Rogers tells Reason. "I wanted to do something a little more impactful with my skills….So I left to find something else that felt worthwhile."
He started The Rogerie, a retail store in his hometown of Kelowna, British Columbia, a city of about 170,000 people. Rogers and his wife collect shredded plastic waste and extrude it into filament for 3D printers, which they use to create new housewares to sell in the shop.
Then earlier this year, Rogers again got the feeling that he could be doing something beneficial with his talents. This time, it meant running for the Kelowna City Council.
But he had to stand out in a crowded field—he would be one of 37 candidates running, and only the top eight would win a seat.
So, he settled on a strategy: openly admit his lack of qualifications and how little he even wanted the job.
"I guess I'm running for Kelowna city council," read his campaign website. "I don't like meetings, I don't like having to be certain places at certain times, and I'm allergic to stuffy offices. But unfortunately, I happen to like Kelowna, and think I can help do some good."
"Do I enjoy politics? No," he adds. "Do I know what I'm doing? No. But am I qualified? Also no."
That lackadaisical attitude carried over into his campaign signage: Yard signs featured pictures of Rogers with sullen, shrugging expressions, alongside slogans like "I barely want to do this" and "Let's see what happens?" In a winking reference to political gerontocracy, one sign even bragged that he was "Under 60!"
"I certainly thought it was clever. I thought it would work, but it was really just how I honestly felt when I started," Rogers admits. "I was pretty conflicted about committing to a four-year thing that I didn't even really fully understand the ins and outs of, but at the same time I saw the opportunity to have a bigger impact. So, I was conflicted, and I figured that's a good, honest place to start a campaign."
Ultimately, he won a seat: He placed fourth out of 37 total candidates and even beat three incumbents, one of whom lost her seat.
The irony of Rogers' outwardly indifferent attitude is that he actually does have a policy platform: On his website, he advocates finding solutions to homelessness not necessarily by spending more money but by making better use of the resources that the city and province already provide. He also notes that Kelowna taxes land and improvements at the same rate, which "means we tax someone for improving their property while relatively rewarding someone who sits on valuable, underused land." Writing this week at Reason, J.D. Tuccille made a similar point.
Of course, Rogers' underqualified and disinterested campaign persona is only partially true—he did, after all, want the job, or at least he saw it as a viable means of improving his city.
Still, it's refreshing for a candidate to treat public office as something less than a higher calling.
Ultimately, Rogers thinks that authenticity is why his campaign caught on and was ultimately successful with voters, when many campaigns struggle to create viral moments or capitalize on social media trends. Perhaps other people could even learn from him.
"I think why mine worked so profoundly is that it is a little bit of humor, but immediately behind it was a legitimate platform and me as a real person with the skills and a real desire to do something," Rogers says. "And I think that resonated. I think people [have] an appetite for a new kind of politics."
Today's guest is Ted Brown, the Libertarian Party candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas. Brown is facing off against Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico in a closely contested race. Brown received more than 267,000 votes in his 2024 Senate campaign and is now challenging both major parties on their commitment to individual liberty. He argues that Republicans have abandoned limited government while Democrats increasingly embrace economic policies that undermine the free market.
Nick Gillespie talks with Brown about Paxton's corruption scandals, Talarico's hostility toward billionaires, and why Texas ranks poorly on personal freedom despite its business-friendly reputation. Brown makes the case for returning to an Ellis Island–style immigration system, cutting federal spending to confront the $40 trillion national debt, and ending America's military involvement in the Middle East. They also discuss abortion rights, government surveillance, online age-verification laws, and how regulations drive up the cost of healthcare. Brown explains what it will take to rebuild the Libertarian Party and why he believes a senator could accomplish more by stopping bad legislation than by passing new laws.
Supporters of Proposition 39, the statewide ballot initiative that would implement additional Voter ID requirements for California elections, pitch the measure as a "common-sense reform to increase trust and participation in our elections." Its sponsor, Assembly member Carl DeMaio (R–San Diego), touts widespread support for such measures by Democratic, Republican, and independent voters.
Yet the latest polls show the measure tanking, with a Public Policy Institute of California survey last month showing it losing 55 percent to 43 percent—dismal numbers this late in the election season. The official ballot arguments provide some insight into the reasons. While supporters stick with their "nonpartisan" shtick, opponents tie the measure to President Donald Trump's election denialism.
"Stop Trump from rigging our elections. Don't believe the lies. Prop. 39 MAKES VOTING HARDER, MORE EXPENSIVE, AND LESS SAFE for Californians," per the "no" argument. It refers to the measure's funding from "MAGA rightwing billionaires." That point was reinforced by a recent CalMattersreport showing large donations from "deep-pocketed Republican donors." The publication says it's a "signal that conservatives view Prop. 39 as a test of support for future battleground states in the broader push by…Trump to tighten voter restrictions."
That's a fair assessment. In a Democratic state where the president's approval ratings are 24 percent in one poll, it's hard to imagine that most voters will spend much time thinking about the ins and outs of election policy and analyze the measure based on its specifics. They'll no doubt see it for what it largely is: a Republican Party effort to aid and abet Trump's unfounded election conspiracies. That said, its requirements aren't overly obtrusive, only unnecessary.
Currently, Californians must show a state identification or provide the last four digits of their Social Security Number when registering. No identification is needed to vote in person, but election officials use signature verification for vote-by-mail envelopes. Around 90 percent of Californians vote that way, so the main issue involves the requirement that voters add the last four digits from their government IDs on the outside of the envelope—thus adding an additional checkpoint (and sadly an additional opportunity for identity theft).
There's no need to worry about compliance costs for election agencies, as it's their job to administer elections. The measure likely will marginally reduce voter participation (by increasing disqualified ballots, even from legal voters if they forgot the ID they used when they registered), while marginally increasing security. It would force many Californians to re-register, which is a hassle. It would no doubt burden our excruciatingly slow ballot counting.
I don't have any theoretical problem with requiring an identification before voting, but California's elections are remarkably secure. There's no evidence of widespread fraud. Basically no one risks prison time by pretending to be someone else on a ballot. It's not about fixing a problem.
Since his defeat in 2020, Trump has traded in election conspiracy theories. The new GOP game is to trot out evidence-free election-fraud claims whenever they lose. We shouldn't play along. Despite the nonpartisan rhetoric, Proposition 39 is the state GOP's way of leaning into Trump's priorities and, as that CalMatters article noted, build momentum for less-defensible nationwide restrictions—apparently the only way Republicans think they can build a lasting majority. The measure won't do much damage in California as it's fairly modest, but it energizes the party's worst instincts.
Consider what DeMaio wrote in 2024 about his seven-point plan to overhaul the state GOP: "Do you remember a time when Republicans controlled a majority of statewide offices in California and were competitive in the state Legislature and congressional delegations?" He rightly blames the party itself, then offers his first item on a platform to revive it: "Make election integrity CAGOP's top ballot priority." I, too, would prefer more competitive California elections, but my first point would be for the GOP to make a better case for fixing California's messes.
Others see the measure as a means to gin up Republican turnout for a November election that's going to be a referendum on Trump by giving them some high-excitement issue to rally around. But some savvy political observers think that it might backfire. We'll see, but it reminds me that the California GOP has too long relied on cute strategies rather than good candidates.
What about supporters' main claim that Voter ID is necessary because it will restore voters' flagging trust in election integrity? Well, Republicans are the ones who don't trust our elections—and that's precisely because Trump spent the last six years poisoning the well. Do you really believe the people who think MAGA Republican Spencer Pratt could have only lost a Los Angeles mayoral primary (where only 15.9 percent of voters are Republicans) because of fraud will have their faith restored if Proposition 39 becomes law? Doubtful.
Republicans can restore their fortunes by acting normal again. The rest of us needn't enable them by backing a measure based on an election-integrity fantasy.
This column was first published in The Orange County Register.
Once again, a member of President Donald Trump's administration is threatening to punish private citizens for their speech using the power of the government.
Specifically, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) threatened broadcasters who dare to report on polls the president doesn't approve of. Even if the complaint were valid, it would be difficult to enforce without violating the First Amendment.
"During this election season, there has been a significant surge in entirely Fake Polls and Suppression Polls designed to do nothing more than interfere with the regular functioning of the electoral process and alter the normal patterns of voter turnout and enthusiasm," FCC Chairman Brendan Carr wrote on X. "Many journalists and broadcasters have been amplifying or airing these Polls without regard to basic journalistic ethics and without informing the public that those Polls lack a scientific, accurate, or even real basis."
Carr is directly adopting Trump's terminology, in addition to his erratic capitalization: The president often uses the term suppression polls to describe surveys that don't reflect in his favor. The implication is that these polls are manufactured to conceal or downplay enthusiasm for Trump or his preferred candidates, making it less likely that his supporters will turn out if they think it's a lost cause.
Carr doesn't single out any offenders, though there are some likely examples. This week, purported pollster Wedgewood Polls revealed that as part of an "experimental project," it had released surveys with "fabricated numbers" that were printed by outlets like FiftyPlusOne (which sussed out the fraud) and The New York Times.
Similarly, in August, Median Strategies withdrew two polls, then revealed that it had fabricated the results for a "social experiment."
Each scenario is deplorable. And depending on what promises were made, it's possible one firm or the other could face legal consequences.
But it's hard to see how a news outlet could face legal reprisal for just reporting the results of a survey it thought was conducted accurately.
"The FCC takes these issues seriously," Carr added. "Broadcasters are prohibited by the terms of their federal licenses from engaging in News Distortion or promoting Broadcast Hoaxes. It is important that broadcasters comply with their public interest obligations."
There are indeed rules against news distortion and broadcast hoaxes, but they're narrowly tailored to avoid conflicting with the First Amendment.
"News distortion 'must involve a significant event and not merely a minor or incidental aspect of the news report,'" according to the FCC. In addition, "broadcasters are only subject to enforcement if it can be proven that they have deliberately distorted a factual news report. Expressions of opinion or errors stemming from mistakes are not actionable."
The hoax rule, on the other hand, is even less applicable: It involves "broadcasting false information concerning a crime or a catastrophe," where the broadcaster "knows this information is false" and can foreseeably "cause substantial public harm" but airs it anyway, and the broadcast then "does in fact directly cause substantial public harm."
In other words, neither standard applies to a broadcaster that covered an inaccurate poll, especially without knowing at the time that it was wrong.
"Pollsters who intentionally mislead the public should answer for it, but broadcasters who report publicly available polling data should never be punished when a poll is wrong," Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic FCC commissioner, wrote on X. "FCC rules on news distortion or hoaxes do not apply to a station that reports this data in good faith."
Carr doesn't specify what he thinks should happen to any offenders, though since he tends to define "public interest" as whatever Trump says, we can make an educated guess.
Right before the 2024 presidential election, The Des Moines Registerpublished a poll that found then–Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa by three percentage points. Trump ended up winning the state by 13 percentage points, but he was apparently so upset by the poll that he sued both the Register and pollster Ann Selzer, claiming the inaccurate survey constituted "brazen election interference" that violated the Iowa Consumer Fraud Act.
It was clear at the time that the lawsuit was completely meritless. Just as Carr suggested this week in his social media post, Trump was trying to create an exception to the First Amendment for "fake news."
"In the United States there is no such thing as a claim for 'fraudulent news,'" Robert Corn-Revere, chief counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, wrote in a motion on the defendants' behalf. "No court in any jurisdiction has ever held such a cause of action might be valid, and few plaintiffs have ever attempted to bring such outlandish claims."
A judge agreed and dismissed the lawsuit last month.
"If someone is accurately reporting the results of a poll, that wouldn't be a false statement," UCLA law professor Rick Hasen told The Washington Post at the time. "The poll might have errors in it, but that wouldn't be a false statement."
That's as true then as it is now. Unless he can somehow prove that a broadcaster knew a pollster had faked a survey, there's no way Carr can punish someone for reporting on the results without running afoul of the First Amendment.
"Brendan Carr is not the journalism police. And he is just about the least qualified person in the country to lecture the press about journalistic ethics," Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said in an emailed statement. "News broadcasters have a First Amendment right to report polling data, even if it proves to be inaccurate, just like they have a First Amendment right to report on Carr and Trump's own countless lies and distortions, even when they turn out to be inaccurate. FCC policies about hoaxes and distortions must be applied narrowly to avoid clashing with the Constitution, if they can be constitutionally applied at all."
In this segment of Free Media, Reason Senior Editor Robby Soave and Daily Caller Editor in Chief Amber Duke discuss Vivek Ramaswamy's controversial attack ad against his opponent Amy Acton in Ohio's gubernatorial race.
If you enjoy Free Media, come watch Robby debate at our upcoming Reason Versus in Washington, D.C. Tickets are available here.
When Americans vote in the midterm elections next month, it seems likely that Democrats will see decisive victories across the country.
This trend seems likely to affect Georgia's two most high-profile races differently. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, is running for reelection against Rep. Mike Collins, a Republican who represents the state's 10th congressional district, while in the race to replace Gov. Brian Kemp, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms faces Republican billionaire Rick Jackson.
Ossoff and Bottoms may both be Democrats, but their prospects look very different: A recent poll put Ossoff nearly seven points ahead of Collins, but Bottoms was a point and a half behind Jackson, trailing the senator from her own party by more than five points.
Democrats hope that if Ossoff does well enough, it will boost their other candidates. But it's worth asking why Bottoms, who was feted as a possible vice presidential candidate, is struggling to break even against someone with no prior name recognition, in a year expected to be a boon for her party.
It's possible that the crime and protests of 2020 could be weighing down Bottoms' candidacy in an otherwise auspicious year for Democrats.
Mayor Bottoms and the 'COVID Crime Wave'
Bottoms' single term as mayor of Georgia's capital city would be defined by summer 2020. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, violent crime rose across the country, but it was worse in Atlanta—homicides were up 59 percent, while most other cities averaged 33 percent. Bottoms herself later called it the "COVID crime wave."
Then on May 25 in Minneapolis, a police officer killed George Floyd, an unarmed black man accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill. Footage went viral, and protesters across the country took to the streets.
In some places, including Atlanta, protests turned destructive, and the police responded in kind.
Bottoms called for peace. "If you care about this city, then go home," she exhorted rioters in a news conference. "When you burn down this city, you're burning down our community."
She won bipartisan praise. "Your passion, your composure, your balance, has been really incredible," then-presidential candidate Joe Biden told her.
But just days later, Atlanta police officers shot and killed a black man, Rayshard Brooks, in a Wendy's parking lot. Protesters gathered the next day and burned the restaurant to the ground.
Meanwhile, after the district attorney announced charges against the cops involved in Brooks' shooting, more than 170 officers called out sick in protest. Bottoms admitted that officer morale "is down tenfold."
Then on July 4, less than half a mile away from the site of Brooks' death, protesters shot into a car, killing 8-year-old Secoriea Turner.
The crime spike persisted into 2021, and in May of that year, Bottoms announced that she would not run for a second term.
Officially, she said, it was "time to pass the baton on to someone else," though her announcement "came as the city faces a homicide rate topping that of this time last year—a historically deadly one in Atlanta," Henri Hollis wrote at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Indeed, it seems the "COVID crime wave" had caught up with her: A September 2021 poll found that while 57 percent of city residents approved of the job she was doing, 53 percent also felt the city was on the wrong track, including 48 percent of Democrats. The top issue was crime, which 70 percent of respondents felt was headed in the wrong direction.
She later told New York that by stepping down, she was "putting my emotional and mental health first"—a worthy reason, though a bit odd since she now seeks an even higher office.
Then again, she also had higher aspirations. Bottoms was one of the first officeholders to endorse Biden for president in 2020, and she later made his shortlist of potential running mates. After the end of her term, she joined Biden's White House as director of the Office of Public Engagement, after which she moved over to the President's Export Council for the remainder of his term.
Bottoms announced her run for governor just four months after leaving Washington. And while she locked up the Democratic nomination easily, winning 56 percent of the vote among seven candidates, she didn't exactly fire up the base, and it seems like she just expected to coast to victory.
"It feels a lot like she gained the nomination…largely from name identification," progressive journalist Zaid Jilani tells Reason. "She really wasn't raising that much money or spending that much on television….It should be a high-profile race in many ways, but the ideas she's putting forward are fairly rehashed," and "she doesn't have that much creative advertising."
Rick Jackson's Deep Pockets and Shallow Record
Rick Jackson, meanwhile, seemed to come out of nowhere.
President Donald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in August 2025, and Jones led the Republican primary field at the end of that year.
While Kemp famously resisted Trump's efforts to subvert Georgia's presidential election results in 2020, Jones was a willing participant in the scheme.
"I've been the Trump guy since 2015, not '16," Jones bragged. "I've taken all the battle scars and everything else. I know who ran and hid during 2020 and everything else."
Then in February 2026, just three months before the primary, Jackson entered the race. He was a septuagenarian with no name recognition, but he was also quite wealthy, so he blanketed the state with ads to introduce himself to voters.
In six weeks, he spent over $30 million—"more than any candidate has ever spent in a primary race for Georgia governor, with more than two months before the May 19 election," wrote Jeff Amy of the Associated Press.
It worked: Jackson beat Jones in a primary runoff with 53 percent of the vote. By then, he had spent $108 million on his campaign while raising less than $400,000 from donors.
Jackson has made much of his background, as a child of poverty who entered the foster system at age 13 to escape a dysfunctional household. As an adult, he started in sales and worked his way up to entrepreneurship, starting Jackson Healthcare in 2000 and growing it to more than $1 billion in annual revenues. He is also a generous donor to charitable causes, particularly those relating to foster care.
But with no political record, Jackson can be hard to pin down on certain issues.
For example, one Jackson ad criticizes Bottoms for the rise of data centers in Atlanta, even though he has also spoken positively of their economic potential.
Georgia Democrats have tarred Jackson as a Trumpian election denier, singling out a comment he made at a campaign event: When asked if the 2020 election was stolen, Jackson replied, "That was totally ridiculous what happened in 2020 and our people really let us down." ("Just as Governor Kemp did, Rick acknowledges both Biden's win and that there were issues in the 2020 election that needed to be resolved in order to ensure Georgians have faith in our electoral system," a campaign spokesperson told CNN.)
During the primaries, he even took heat from both sides on abortion: Jones accused Jackson's company of working with Planned Parenthood, while Jackson himself seemed to suggest he wanted to change the state's abortion ban to remove exceptions for rape or incest. ("Rick believes we have a strong pro-life law in place and he wants to keep it as it is," his campaign said in a statement.)
And while he made Trump-like pledges, like to "make Georgia No. 1 in the nation for criminal deportations" and keep "the religion of woke ideology" out of schools, his platform calls for an "intelligent Medicaid expansion" in the state.
Jackson has also pivoted just over the course of the campaign.
He bragged in his campaign announcement video that he "donated a million bucks to Trump," and he's said that if elected, he would be "just like" Trump but "with a southern tone."
He said Trump had "no bigger supporter" than himself, and he could not name a single Trump policy he disagreed with. When Trump endorsed Jackson at a campaign rally in July, the candidate pointed to the president and said, "I'm going to be this man's favorite governor."
But like many other Republicans, Jackson has distanced himself from the president, whose approval rating is at an all-time low. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that in campaign appearances, Jackson has stopped mentioning Trump directly, preferring to compare himself to Kemp, the sitting governor who remains popular.
He apparently also scrubbed all mentions of the president from his campaign website.
But one thing that has remained consistent in Jackson's campaign strategy is criticizing Bottoms' record as mayor.
Will the 'COVID Crime Wave' Sink Bottoms?
Some of Jackson's campaign ads feature grateful children who grew up in foster care and benefited from his philanthropy, but for the most part, they have targeted Bottoms over her record.
One ad, titled "Disaster," paints Bottoms' tenure as exactly that, with the city becoming practically unlivable during summer 2020.
"Keisha ended cash bail, gutted the corrections budget, let Atlanta burn, and unleashed a crime wave," Jackson wrote on X to accompany another ad. "Then she walked away."
"If Keisha wants to run from her record," according to a campaign email, "we're going to make sure Georgia remembers exactly what that record was."
Many Jackson ads, flyers, and mailers have featured images of Secoriea Turner, the 8-year-old girl killed by gunfire. (Turner's parents have asked Jackson's campaign to stop.)
But is it fair to blame everything on Bottoms? While Atlanta was worse than most, many major cities saw large homicide spikes: Chicago's murder rate climbed more than 50 percent that year, while New York City's went up nearly 40 percent. Murders in Columbus, Ohio, rose a staggering 67 percent.
Regardless, Bottoms was in charge at the time. And the attacks do seem to have an effect, as she's locked in a dead heat against Jackson.
Granted, Bottoms was never a particularly strong candidate. When she ran for mayor in 2017, she won the runoff election by fewer than 800 votes, even with the endorsement of the outgoing mayor.
Georgia also has not elected a Democratic governor in nearly three decades, though it has elected Democrats to the U.S. Senate three times since 2020 and seems poised to reelect one this year.
There's also the fact of Jackson's money, saturating the state with eight-figure ad buys while Democrats were spending only a fraction of that.
Of course, money alone can't buy a victory: Kemp defeated Stacey Abrams in each of the last two races for governor, despite being comfortably outraised and outspent each time.
But Bottoms currently trails Ossoff by five points in an election cycle expected to be quite beneficial to their party.
It seems the race will serve as an indicator of how fresh the summer of COVID-19 still feels for Georgians.
"To the kind of voter that Jackson is courting, it probably is true that had Democrats [instead] nominated the mayor of Macon [a smaller Georgia city], they would be in a stronger position than nominating the mayor of Atlanta, especially one who was in power during those years," Jilani tells Reason. "If he wins, it demonstrates that that is still a fairly potent line of attack."
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidates running for the House of Representatives and endorsed by NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani are all but guaranteed to win their general elections this November, but that does not mean the midterm drama is over in New York. In the state's 17th congressional district, which includes the lower Hudson Valley, Democratic challenger Cait Conley, a combat veteran who served on the Biden administration's National Security Council, could unseat incumbent Republican congressman Mike Lawler in one of the most consequential races of the midterms.
The highly contested purple district voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election while reelecting Lawler for his second term. Now, Lawler is attempting to win a third term as support for President Donald Trump wanes ahead of the midterms. As of Friday, The Cook Political Report lists the race, which could determine control of the House, as a toss-up.
If elected, Conley would have far more in common with the "Badass Women" coalition of security state and military veterans than with DSA types (think more Sen. Elissa Slotkin from Michigan than Darializa Avila Chevalier). As Judge Street Journal's Timmy Facciolanotes, "Conley's candidacy is testing the viability of a tactful centrism that rebukes left-wing positions like abolishing ICE or restricting weapon shipments to Israel." Lawler is also vying for moderates, pitching himself as "one of the most bipartisan members of Congress" and emphasizing his willingness to break with Trump occasionally while still welcoming Trump's support.
While Lawler and Conley certainly are not pure MAGA acolytes or DSA members, both have leaned into a tech-critical position, much like that of more radical populists like Lina Khan or Steve Bannon, revealing how pervasive anti-tech sentiment has become in mainstream politics.
This tech skepticism was on full display during an October 14 debate, when each candidate made the case for why they were the most equipped to regulate AI, insisting that the industry needs guardrails.
Conley said members of Congress do not want to regulate AI because "they want to look out for their billionaire and trillionaire backers like Elon Musk, who is pouring over $260 million into this midterm election." She then added that Musk backed Lawler in his 2024 race.
Lawler then accused Conley, who previously consulted for Primer AI, of being "the AI candidate for the AI industry."
While Lawler and Conley disagree on specific data center regulations (Conley supports Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul's data center moratorium while Lawler supports local zoning control over data centers), neither wants to pitch themselves as an explicitly pro-data center candidate. During the debate, Conley claimed that, "On Mike Lawler's watch there have been five data centers built in Rockland County." Lawler has said that he had no say in the decision to build the data centers, and during the debate, he pointed out that the facilities were built for financial services. Lawler also attempted to attack Conley over data centers, slamming her in an ad for saying "we need data centers." Regardless of the candidates' specific policies on data centers, their attacks on one another demonstrate that cheerleading hyperscale data center development is a political liability. In their district, data center has presumably become a dirty term.
The candidates' tech-skeptical rhetoric did not end with unchecked data center development. After the debate, Reason asked both candidates about their positions on age-verification laws for social media and AI, since such regulations raise significant privacy and censorship concerns by age-gating the internet. Unsurprisingly, both Lawler, who votedfor the controversial KIDS Act, and Conley, who has proposed stricter age verification for AI tools, parroted platitudes about why such online safety regulations are necessary to protect children.
"We have watched how social media is literally hurting the mental health of children," Conley told Reason. "And when you talk about the power of AI and what that power could do, we have to regulate this."
Lawler gave a similar response, telling Reason that he respects free speech but that protecting children "is paramount."
This bipartisan consensus over social media regulation has long been brewing in Congress. The mainstream political conversations about AI and data centers, however, are relatively new this midterm election cycle. And it appears both Lawler and Conley have figured out which way Americans' sentiment toward AI is leaning, and they have waged their campaigns accordingly.
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