William Myers
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themyersproject.bsky.social
William Myers
@themyersproject.bsky.social
360 followers 450 following 82 posts

Political Scientist talking judicial politics, political behavior, and federalism. IRB Chair. Book Review Co-Editor at Publius. Otherwise football, Legos, and board games. Show me pictures of food.

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William, Wil, Bill, or Billy Myers may refer to:

Source: Wikipedia
Political science 39%
Art 13%
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Reposted by William Myers

mjsdc.bsky.social
Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · 11h
When liberals secured a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2023, they changed internal procedures—over the objection of the conservative chief justice, who claimed they were taking away her power. Today the justices released MESSY details about the affair...
www.wicourts.gov/sc/rulhear/D...
BRIAN HAGEDORN, J. (concurring). The Wisconsin Supreme Court is composed of seven justices who are supposed to be members of the same team. Unlike trial courts, when we act, we do so collectively. To accomplish this, over the last 175 years, this court has established various practices and traditions, both formal and informal. These practices ensure all voices are heard, create clear lines of decision-making authority, and establish consistent and neutral processes to govern our case-deciding and administrative work. Some of these are reflected in formally adopted Supreme Court Rules, and some in our Internal Operating Procedures. But the true currency of a court like ours is trust. When trust is broken like it has been here, every aspect of our work suffers. ¶2 This all began in the summer of 2023 when four justices wished to make significant changes to how this court functions. Fair enough. These modifications could have been pursued through a process built on collegiality and mutual respect. Instead, my colleagues pursued a more destructive path. ¶3 The morning our then-newest justice was sworn into office——August 1, 2023——my four colleagues at that time set off to reshape our court and the operation of the court system. They had apparently engaged in significant discussions in the months prior and decided to force through these changes during our summer recess, and to do so via email with or without the input of their other colleagues. They issued a press release triumphantly announcing that these changes were all about transparency, accountability, and inclusivity. This was true in the same way Pearl Harbor was a strike for peace in the Pacific. I will not rehash every detail (Justice Ziegler's excellent writing recounts much of the history), but the reader deserves a taste. ¶4 The first shot sounded when my four colleagues fired the Director of State Courts, who functions as the CEO of administrative matters for the entire judicial branch. Without following any established process, one of my colleagues sent an email proposing that we fire our Director and install a new, preselected interim Director in his place. This happened through email, over the course of two business days, while the Director was out of town on state business, during our summer recess. He never received a performance review indicating concerns; he was simply told his employment was over. This came just months after some of these same colleagues emphasized the importance of having all justices participate in hiring key staff. ¶5 Later that same week, my colleagues proposed dramatic changes via email affecting both our case-deciding and administrative responsibilities. The email invited justices to attend a new, unscheduled meeting of the court later that week to discuss the proposals. One justice said she could not be there; another objected to the meeting as outside our court calendar. The meeting would go forward no matter what, we were told. I implored my colleagues to reconsider, to treat their fellow colleagues with the respect they would want if circumstances were reversed. They refused. The meeting went on as expected, and with only four members present, they voted to fundamentally remake our court. ¶7 Among their changes, my colleagues radically altered the role of the chief justice. They created a new, three-person administrative committee (on which the chief justice would ostensibly sit) to take over nearly all of the chief justice's most important administrative duties. And they did so in the face of serious objections that these changes violated the Wisconsin Constitution, which says the chief justice "shall be the administrative head of the judicial system." Wis. Const. art. VII, § 4. One justice who in the past championed the constitutional role of the chief justice suddenly changed course. Again, these actions stripping the chief justice of powers she had exercised for as long as anyone could remember were proposed via email, and were voted on a few days later during an unscheduled meeting of just four justices during our summer recess. Not exactly transparent, accountable, and inclusive. ¶8 Another significant series of amendments to our internal rules involved modifying the way we consider certain kinds of cases, essentially making it much easier for this court to expedite cases coming to us outside the normal appeals process. Why the change? As everyone understood, my colleagues had the not-sosecret goal of swiftly hearing particular politically charged cases. This was all by design. ¶9 And how did this experiment go? Not well. Administratively, it was not clear who was in charge. We experienced significant breakdowns in communication amidst a lack of clarity about who was doing what. Our staff was often caught in the middle of a court that did not have established lines of communication and authority. And when the Director of State Courts was unceremoniously fired for what many perceived as political reasons, it sent a shockwave through the system. Furthermore, my colleagues' changes were not one and done. Throughout the past two years, they continued to modify the court's procedures in a similar ad-hoc fashion, often after realizing problems with their earlier ill-considered changes. This only added to the confusion. ¶10 Finally, at one of the court's internal conferences this past June, my colleagues shifted course. One of the four announced she was "withdrawing" her prior votes from the past two years (which, by the way, is not a thing) with the idea that every disputed change was now, all of a sudden, reversed. What changed? Again, it was no mystery. My colleagues wanted to take power away from then-Chief Justice Annette Ziegler. Such a move ensured that my colleagues would run the court through the administrative committee. Following the April 2025 election, they concluded they would have the votes to elect a chief justice of their choosing and have a block of votes to support her, so they no longer needed to seize those powers. This is not a cynical take. It is exactly what happened. ¶11 What's past is past, however. I have no desire to hold this against my colleagues, and I am grateful they have changed course. In fact, I was happy to work collaboratively on many operational changes reflected in this order, most of which I

Reposted by Will Jennings, William Myers

scottlgreer.bsky.social
Scott L Greer @scottlgreer.bsky.social · 1d
This piece is really good- on why rural hospitals close, why there are a lot more closures coming, and what happens next (accelerating economic and population decline)

Reposted by William Myers

espinsegall.bsky.social
Eric Segall @espinsegall.bsky.social · 1d
“Originalism's Racist Birth and Subsequent Death.” www.dorfonlaw.org/2025/11/orig...
Originalism's Racist Birth and Subsequent Death
A few weeks ago at the Federalist Society National Convention,  Judge Patrick Bumatay of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit decla...
www.dorfonlaw.org

Reposted by William Myers

boltsmag.org
Bolts @boltsmag.org · 3d
This spring, Missouri adopted a law that ends St. Louis’ ability to run its own police, transferring control to the GOP-run state government. The law also requires St. Louis to commit 25% of its budget to policing.
Missouri Officials Seize Control of St. Louis Police, in Latest Bid to Shutter Local Reforms
The takeover returns St. Louis to a Civil War-era arrangement of state control. A local official calls the move "a clear gesture of white men wanting to control urban areas."
boltsmag.org

Reposted by Marc Lynch, Juan Cole, William Myers

mbazzi.bsky.social
Mohamad Bazzi @mbazzi.bsky.social · 6d
After the Jan 6 attack, when the Trump brand became toxic, Saudi Arabia became one of the most important sources of new deals for the Trump Organization.

My latest for @theguardian.com on how Trump and MBS bailed each other out | www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Reposted by Michael J. Nelson, Philip N. Cohen, Jacob Montgomery , and 3 more

cmwitko.bsky.social
Big Data Kane @cmwitko.bsky.social · 7d
A new article with @mjnelson.bsky.social in PRQ, using a conjoint, CPS ASES and medical residency application data, finds that abortion bans make states less desirable places to live for young women, college graduates and doctors.

This law is more extreme.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Reposted by William Myers

olbermann.bsky.social
Keith Olbermann @olbermann.bsky.social · 7d
Btw about this from Lizza's reply: Olivia and I lived together for 4+ years (4 b'days, 4 Xmases, 4 anniversaries). That's like $1250 of jewelry per celebration. And her apartment was a writing studio. And I made an f-ton then. What was I supposed to do? Get her a lot of Gift Certificates from Kmart?

Reposted by Meredith Broussard, Naomi Klein, Marco Festa‐Bianchet , and 10 more

mollycrabapple.bsky.social
Molly Crabapple @mollycrabapple.bsky.social · 8d
Hey authors! Check to see if Anthropic stole your book to train their slop generator on. You’re entitled to $1500 per stolen Work.

Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/
Submit a Claim
secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com

themyersproject.bsky.social
William Myers @themyersproject.bsky.social · 8d
Is this art?

Reposted by Andrew Scott, Rosemary A. Joyce, Ian Campbell , and 5 more

andylevy.net
andy™ @andylevy.net · 8d
oh my god you have to read this until the end www.telos.news/p/part-1-how...
Part 1: How I Found Out
Olivia had just returned from a reporting trip—at least that’s what she told me it was—and her Herschel backpack, the one with the flap that never quite closed properly, was tossed beside our bed, its...
www.telos.news

Reposted by Dominik Vogel, William Myers, Dan Immergluck , and 1 more

thomaszimmer.bsky.social
Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 8d
What is really going on in this society that elected Donald Trump president a second time?
 
I wrote about three stubborn myths about Trump’s support – and why America has experienced a de-alignment rather than a rightward realignment.
 
My new piece for @zeit.de – and some thoughts in English:
Unterstützung von Donald Trump: Die Irrtümer über Donald Trumps Rückhalt
Rechtsruck, multiethnische Koalition, Held einfacher Leute: Trump gilt als fest verankert. Doch diese Überzeugung beruht auf drei großen Missverständnissen.
www.zeit.de

Reposted by Cas Mudde, Anna O. Law, Kim L. Scheppele , and 48 more

aaronparnas.bsky.social
Aaron Parnas @aaronparnas.bsky.social · 9d
NEW: Epstein survivors release the most powerful PSA I have ever seen.

Make this go viral so every member of the House of Representatives sees it.

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Rebecca Solnit, Nicholas A. Christakis , and 14 more

zacheverson.com
Zach Everson @zacheverson.com · 12d
“Housing shortage – Jews to blame," letter sticker, German Reich, 1938

zwangsraeume.berlin/en/context
A stamped letter saying "Die Wohungsnot Schuld Der Juden"

Reposted by Karen Benjamin Guzzo, Jacob T. Levy, William Myers , and 1 more

ruraldemography.bsky.social
Matthew M. Brooks @ruraldemography.bsky.social · 12d
Ever wonder about what’s it like to grow up in rural America? So did we! @shelleydclark.bsky.social and I tackle two basic—but essential—questions in our new Journal of Marriage and Family article, just out today. Who do rural kids live with today? How likely are rural kids to grow up in poverty?

Reposted by Jonathan A. Eisen, Mark A. Lemley, Steve Peers , and 25 more

paulgp.com
Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham @paulgp.com · 13d
For folks (and journalists) who want to search the Oversight Committee email texts, I made a database for searching the 20k text files:

splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app
Epstein Document Search
splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app

Reposted by William Myers, Tabitha Bonilla

adambonica.bsky.social
Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 14d
What’s the difference between compromise and capitulation? Compromise trades concessions. Capitulation pays ransom to stop deliberate suffering, and teaches your opponent that coercion works. There are effective responses to coercive bargaining. What we saw was not one of them.
The Compassion Trap: How the Shutdown Weaponized Democratic Values Against Democracy Itself
When Opposition Parties Stop Fighting Because the Cruelty Becomes Unbearable. And Why They Shouldn't.
open.substack.com

Reposted by Allen Hicken, William Myers

darinself.com
Darin Self @darinself.com · 14d
Here is a new article just published co-authored w/@grantmitchell.bsky.social & @sharilfranke.bsky.social

We developed new measures of party institutionalization & party strength that cover both democracies & autocracies around the world since 1970. #polisky

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com

Reposted by William Myers

kimlanelaw.bsky.social
Kim Lane Scheppele @kimlanelaw.bsky.social · 16d
Read every word. This is what the US government is doing to terrorize a major American city. Authoritarianism is here. aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
I Want You to Understand Chicago
aphyr.com

Reposted by Steven S. Smith, Benjamin Braun, Sebastian Karcher , and 1 more

adambonica.bsky.social
Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 18d
Did you know gov shutdowns aren’t in the Constitution, any law, or Court ruling?
They exist because of a 1980 OLC memo—a lawyer’s opinion that everyone just went along with. Before 1980, funding gaps didn’t cause shutdowns.

What one memo created, another can undo. How the next D admin can undo it:
Why America’s Government Shutdowns Exist and How to End Them
One Legal Memo Created The Shutdown Era. Another Can End It.
open.substack.com

Reposted by James Q. Wilson, Gavin A. Schmidt, Ian Campbell , and 6 more

reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 22d
In Chicago, a woman was driving to get coffee when a DHS vehicle fleeing an angry crowd crashed into her car. Armed agents jumped out of the vehicle, yanked her door open, pulled her by the legs out of her car at gunpoint, held her incommunicado for hours, then released her with no charges.
Dayanne Figueroa was on her way to get coffee before heading to work when she encountered a chaotic scene in West Town: heavily armed, masked federal agents making arrests on a residential street. People yelled as vehicles honked their horn — a sign now used to alert neighbors that immigration federal agents are in the area — and witnesses said federal agents had arrested several landscaper workers presumed to be in the country without authorization. As Figuero tried to drive through the 1600 block of West Hubbard Street on Friday, Oct. 10, an unmarked vehicle driven by federal agents collided with Figueroa’s as it tried to speed away from a hostile crowd, multiple videos reviewed by the Tribune show. Seconds after the crash, agents abruptly stopped their vehicle and exited with weapons in hand pointing at Figueroa, a U.S citizen. Agents then forcibly opened her door and pulled her out of the vehicle by her legs without identifying themselves, presenting a warrant or informing her that she was under arrest. As bystanders yelled, “You hit her! We have it on video!” agents ignored the crowd and forced Figueroa into a red minivan and drove away. Her car was left behind in the middle of the road, her coffee still in the cup holder, and her keys in plain view.

Reposted by William Myers

jnovkov.bsky.social
Julie Novkov @jnovkov.bsky.social · 22d
Hi, fellow faculty teaching undergrads. As we are getting into law school application season, please encourage your students to interact with good data sources. Steer them away from USNWR. They should instead be doing comparisons through lawschooltransparency.com.
LawHub — Law School Transparency
Find the best law school for you using the most comprehensive source of law school data.
lawschooltransparency.com

Reposted by John Kane, William Myers, Maksym Polyakov

andrew.heiss.phd
Andrew Heiss @andrew.heiss.phd · 23d
Wrote up a little intervention post/explanation for my class about why using LLMs for trying to learn programming (as first time learners!) is bad and detrimental datavizf25.classes.andrewheiss.com/news/2025-11...
In the first week of class, I had you read an article about how ChatGPT is philosophical “bullshit”, as well as this other post about AI and LLMs in this class. I’ve seen a surprising increase in the amount of ChatGPT-based weekly check-ins and graph interpretations in the exercises. (In the past, I’ve even had students tell me they PDFs of the slides into ChatGPT to generate interesting and confusing things.) Don’t do this! LLMs cannot find three things that you personally found interesting from the readings. LLMs are not you. It’s a huge waste of time for all of us to for me to spend time evaluating and grading output from ChatGPT. I want to read what you think and do, not what a computer invents. NoteMy personal stance on AI and LLMs Many of you have asked about how I think about and use LLMs in my own work (and in the class materials). Please check this short little page where I explain what I do with text, images, code, research, and learning. In short, I do not use LLMs to create any of the materials for this class, and I do not use them to grade or evaluate any of your work. I’ve even had several students submit completely made up stuff for mini projects and final projects. In your final project, your job is to take a dataset, make three different plots with it, and combine the plots into one graphic that tells some sort of story. I’ve (really truly) received projects like this: (a ChatGPT-generated plot of completely made up data from gapminder) At a very quick glance, that looks like a plausible image. But holy crap it falls apart fast, both comically and tragically. Comically because, like, look at the y-axis in the scatterplot; or the x-axis ticks in the population grown chart that are sometimes spaced every 20 years, sometimes every 10 years, and has 1980 there twice; or the weird blobs in the map. Tragically—and most importantly—literally nothing in this image is real and none of the annotations make sense and none of the colors make sense and everything here is completely meaningless and devoid of any information. It’s pure philosophical bullshit—an image “produced without concern for its truth.” That’s what I mean when I say that it’s a forgetful and unreliable resource. Lots of that code is helpful as an illustration of what’s going on. Lots of the explanation is good and fine. But it subtly changed its mind halfway through and didn’t realize it (because it can’t realize it! it’s just a chain of statistically likely text!) Hopefully you can see where this is dangerous for learning. It can often “teach” you wrong, and you can only recognize that if you know stuff already. It’s extra dangerous if you then take that example output, paste it into your exercise, and submit it. I’m not even concerned about the plagiarism aspect of that—code is code and there are only a few ways to write {dplyr} code that will do this, and it’s easy to adapt from real human-based examples online, so I’m less worried about stealing other people’s work here. I’m concerned that it’s not real data. It made up values of 1, 2, 3, and 4 for some countries to illustrate grouping and summarizing. That’s good and normal. None of that is real. Don’t treat it as real.

Reposted by William Myers

governorwalz.mn.gov
Governor Tim Walz @governorwalz.mn.gov · 26d
Amid national economic insecurity, Minnesota just ranked as a top three state in the nation for job seekers.

That includes nation-leading job benefits, worker protections, and a diverse economy.

If you need a job, we want you here.

bringmethenews.com/minnesota-bu...
bringmethenews.com

Reposted by Rosemary A. Joyce, David R. Miller, William Myers

helenkennedy.bsky.social
Helen Kennedy @helenkennedy.bsky.social · 27d
When he's finally gone, there is going to be this flood of books and tell all interviews from Republicans about how hard it was to be a Republican in Washington during this time and I am going to be galatically furious about it.

Reposted by William Myers, Seth Masket, David Darmofal

mattyglesias.bsky.social
Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 27d
Here with yellow checkmarks we have five examples of real things that Gavin Newsom and leading California Democrats espouse. Not a straw man.

My take is Democrats should drop these ideas, ideas that do not sound at all like economic populism to me.

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Scott L. Greer, Michael A. Clemens , and 8 more

bgrueskin.bsky.social
Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · Oct 26
We have reached the point where the *American Bar Association* cannot find attorneys willing to represent them in litigation against the Trump administration.

www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
Trump’s orders unnerved many in the industry and appear to have discouraged some large firms from taking on cases they would otherwise have backed, lawyers say. That has dried up a formerly reliable supply of help from large law offices for people and institutions challenging government policies. The American Bar Association, which joined or filed four lawsuits against the Trump administration, “has experienced difficulty finding previously willing law firms to represent it,” its attorneys wrote in court papers. In one case, the organization said, it was unable to join a lawsuit challenging the administration because it could not get attorneys in time.

themyersproject.bsky.social
William Myers @themyersproject.bsky.social · Oct 26
Semaj Morgan now tackling teammates. Epic performance. #goblue

themyersproject.bsky.social
William Myers @themyersproject.bsky.social · Oct 24
I think about this article way too often.
jakemgrumbach.bsky.social Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · Oct 24
The most Republican guy is the guy who owns the used car dealership, a tanning salon, and a boat in a place that has been economically decimated by deindustrialization

See, for instance:

themyersproject.bsky.social
William Myers @themyersproject.bsky.social · Oct 24
Calling senior federalism scholars.
simonhix.bsky.social Simon Hix @simonhix.bsky.social · Oct 23
We have just advertised a Full Prof position in the Political and Social Sciences department at the EUI (@eui-sps.bsky.social). Here are the details. Please spread the word, and get in touch if you have any questions.
www.eui.eu/Documents/Se...
www.eui.eu

Reposted by Scott L. Greer, Jon Green, William Myers , and 2 more

jakemgrumbach.bsky.social
Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · Oct 24
The most Republican guy is the guy who owns the used car dealership, a tanning salon, and a boat in a place that has been economically decimated by deindustrialization

See, for instance: