According to 3 U.S. Code § 15, only Congress can object to electors, if both chambers of Congress agree to the objection. There is “zero chance such a maneuver by Pence or the Republicans will succeed if they are bold enough to try this,” Larry Sabato, director of UVA’s Center for Politics, said.
(Commentary co-written by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, practitioner senior fellow at UVA’s Miller Center) Since the early days of the republic, presidents have had the ability to temporarily fill federal roles that need Senate confirmation with acting officials, a vital practice in the transition from one leader to the next. But serious flaws with the law that governs federal vacancies, combined with Senate inaction, have enabled Donald Trump to fill numerous critical jobs with acting officials indefinitely, a practice that has destabilized the work of federal agencies and undermined the role of the S...
Today, we unveil the 2021 RHSU Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings, ranking the university-based scholars in the U.S. who did the most last year to shape educational practice and policy. Stanford placed two scholars in the top five and five in the top 20. Harvard, USC, the University of Virginia and the University of Pennsylvania all had multiple scholars in the top 20.
If it seems like there’s a lack of informed and intelligent debate in politics these days, UVA’s Center for Politics is hoping to change that impression with its new Democracy Dialogues series. Larry Sabato, a nationally known political pundit and the center’s director, will host the first installment in its series Wednesday at 6 p.m.
(Podcast) UVA alumnus Matt Olsen held so many important and difficult jobs in federal law enforcement and national security that it is hard to know where to begin, but his work as a civil rights prosecutor was particularly fascinating and vital. There, he focused on enforcing the Voting Rights Act – a landmark civil rights statute – in several Southern states to ensure that minority citizens were not disenfranchised.
(Commentary by Russell L. Riley, Miller Center professor of ethics and institutions and co-chair of the Presidential Oral History Program) Presidential transitions have become major productions.
In a 2020 paper, Shigehiro Oishi, a UVA professor of psychology, proposed a new dimension for understanding a life well lived: psychological richness. That term underscores the value of variety, interest and novelty.
Sporting Kansas City and the Kansas City soccer community lost one of their own this past week as former Kansas City Wizards defender and local youth soccer coach, Scott Vermillion passed away on Christmas at the age of 44. Vermillion had joined the Wizards in 1998 as a Project 40 (the precursor to Generation Adidas) allocation out of the University of Virginia.
Author Ed Tarkington, a graduate of Furman University with advanced degrees from UVA and Florida State, teaches English at the Montgomery Bell Academy in Nashville. Working at one of Nashville’s oldest private schools provided him with plenty of detail, and his portrayals of quirky teachers, black tie galas and mysterious benefactors are biting and real.
While the numbers are impressive, J. Miles Coleman with the UVA Center for Politics says McAuliffe shouldn’t pop the champagne just yet. “Money definitely isn’t everything,” Coleman said.
“It wasn’t so much a surprise that we’re having a run-off in Georgia, the surprise is what the stakes are,” said J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at UVA Center for Politics.
Many analysts view the Georgia races as nail-biters, and some have warned that winners might not be declared for days, as happened in the 2020 presidential contest. “This election is about as close as you can get,” wrote J. Miles Coleman and Niles Francis in a recent analysis for UVA’s Center for Politics. “It’s hard to tell who has the edge, but undoubtedly, the party that does a better job turning out the base will be the party that carries the day.”
Kyle Kondik of the UVA Center for Politics said both races were “toss-ups” but that Republicans would need “impressive day-of-election performance” to win their seats.
Perhaps, post-George Floyd, these white rappers are reading the room and realizing they need to embrace a sound that speaks more honestly to their experiences. “White anger and confidence is something rap audiences just don’t want to hear as much of any more,” says AD Carson, an author, rapper and assistant professor of hip-hop at the University of Virginia. He argues that the shift “has everything to do with the current political landscape.”
The General Assembly is not and never has been a full-time job. What if it were? Del. Sally Hudson, a Democratic lawmaker who represents Charlottesville, thinks it could be. As she enters the second year of her first term in the legislature, she considers herself fortunate to have been able to balance her position as a professor at the University of Virginia with her service to her district politically – but, she said, the part-time nature of her elected seat is not without shortfalls and can be exclusionary to others who may wish to serve.
(Video) For Rayshawn and Josh, two students in the Class Of 2025 who are Black, their parents say they’re doing better learning at home than they were in school. This episode, we hear what things were like for Rayshawn and Josh at school, how they’re doing now, plus get some insight from two University of Virginia professors.
Dr. Bill Petri, an infectious disease professor at UVA Health, says a new variant of COVID-19 first identified in the United Kingdom is highly transmissible, but believes the COVID-19 vaccine will still work against it.
Is it even possible to charge a sitting president? The U.S. Justice Department says no. The group’s current position, dating back to a 1973 memo during Watergate, is that a sitting president cannot be indicted for a crime. UVA law professor Saikrishna Prakash is an expert in presidential power and the author of “The Living Presidency,” which argues against the persistent expansion of executive powers. Prakash pointed out that of all federal officials, the president alone enjoys this type of legal immunity.
(By Dr. Amita Sudhir, associate professor of emergency medicine) Imagine sitting in close quarters with COVID-19 patients in the poorly ventilated interior of an ambulance multiple times a day. Now imagine transporting those patients to a hospital where all the staff have been vaccinated against COVID-19, but you have not. That is the situation that many emergency responders in my state find themselves in today.
(Commentary by Ken Hughes, research specialist at the Miller Center of Public Affairs) At least Donald Trump’s “smoking gun” tape is simpler than Richard Nixon’s. Schoolchildren can easily grasp Trump’s high crime, in contrast to the complex, Machiavellian plot immortalized on the tape that led to Nixon’s downfall. It will be harder to explain to them why congressional Republicans decided to hold Nixon accountable, but not Trump.