Nate Ela
@nateela.bsky.social
Law prof + sociologist thinking and writing about property, land, cities, democracy, sometimes Philly. Posts ≠ speaking for the institution where I work (obvs).
nateela.net | SSRN: bit.ly/ElaSSRN
(Views are mine, not those of any institution.)
nateela.net | SSRN: bit.ly/ElaSSRN
(Views are mine, not those of any institution.)
Pinned
Nate Ela
@nateela.bsky.social
· Nov 15
A Path to Multiparty Democracy
Americans are sick of the two-party system. Yet in almost every state, a crucial ballot access restriction denies them any meaningful alternative. A century ago
papers.ssrn.com
Here’s a piece on how we could get from here to multiparty democracy in the U-S-A, via state courts. Revising some this month, all ears 👂if you have thoughts… papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Reposted by Nate Ela
Social science takes time. Here, social scientists analyze a decade of evidence to show that a Supreme Court decision designed to suppress the black vote actually did. SCOTUS may soon obliterate the rest of the Voting Rights Act and we should not be shy about calling out what's going on here.
As we all wait for Callais to come down, our piece showing that Shelby County increased the racial turnout gap in most of the covered parts of the country has cleared the replication check and is incoming at JOP.
Gutting the VRA was bad, actually.
Gutting the VRA was bad, actually.
November 26, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Social science takes time. Here, social scientists analyze a decade of evidence to show that a Supreme Court decision designed to suppress the black vote actually did. SCOTUS may soon obliterate the rest of the Voting Rights Act and we should not be shy about calling out what's going on here.
Oh, how so much do I miss my @washingtonpost.com @postopinions.bsky.social subscription. Missing out on some really 🔥 opinion pieces...
At this point, the Washpost edit page is just trolling its readers.
This is today's actual house editorial.
This is today's actual house editorial.
November 25, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Oh, how so much do I miss my @washingtonpost.com @postopinions.bsky.social subscription. Missing out on some really 🔥 opinion pieces...
Reposted by Nate Ela
A major problem for PA, and Philly in particular
November 24, 2025 at 7:56 PM
A major problem for PA, and Philly in particular
Reposted by Nate Ela
🚨We analyzed 138 million geocoded property tax records to quantify how municipal boundaries spatially overlap onto economic segregation in every US metro area—creating disparities in localities’ ability to fund public goods. And we made an interactive map of our results! [1/16]
November 24, 2025 at 4:31 PM
🚨We analyzed 138 million geocoded property tax records to quantify how municipal boundaries spatially overlap onto economic segregation in every US metro area—creating disparities in localities’ ability to fund public goods. And we made an interactive map of our results! [1/16]
Reposted by Nate Ela
The Epstein/Summers emails made last week especially tough week for some of us - a reminder that serial offenders only survive within an enabling culture. @rlswrites.bsky.social gets it. Plse read & share her powerful piece @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/22/o...
Opinion | The Real Epstein Cover-Up
www.nytimes.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:05 PM
The Epstein/Summers emails made last week especially tough week for some of us - a reminder that serial offenders only survive within an enabling culture. @rlswrites.bsky.social gets it. Plse read & share her powerful piece @nytimes.com: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/22/o...
Someone’s ordering a bunch of pizza near the pentagon…
November 24, 2025 at 4:33 AM
Someone’s ordering a bunch of pizza near the pentagon…
Reposted by Nate Ela
As we all wait for Callais to come down, our piece showing that Shelby County increased the racial turnout gap in most of the covered parts of the country has cleared the replication check and is incoming at JOP.
Gutting the VRA was bad, actually.
Gutting the VRA was bad, actually.
November 24, 2025 at 12:47 AM
As we all wait for Callais to come down, our piece showing that Shelby County increased the racial turnout gap in most of the covered parts of the country has cleared the replication check and is incoming at JOP.
Gutting the VRA was bad, actually.
Gutting the VRA was bad, actually.
Sharing this because it’s good and I recommend it:
Hashed Brussels sprouts… such a nice contrast to the heavier stuff on the plate, and such a pain to prepare it’s perfect to do just once a year.
🎁 🔗:
🎁 🔗:
Hashed Brussels Sprouts With Lemon (Published 2006)
cooking.nytimes.com
November 22, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Sharing this because it’s good and I recommend it:
Reposted by Nate Ela
Preview of coming attractions in the American Southwest.
'Iran’s capital must be moved because the country “no longer has a choice,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday in remarks carried by state media, warning that severe ecological strain has made Tehran impossible to sustain'
#Iran 🇮🇷
#Iran 🇮🇷
Iran president says capital move now a necessity as water crisis deepens
Iran’s capital must be moved because the country “no longer has a choice,” President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Thursday in remarks carried by state media, warning that severe ecological strain has mad...
www.iranintl.com
November 21, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Preview of coming attractions in the American Southwest.
Reposted by Nate Ela
Published today—at the start of Transgender Awareness Week—in the American Journal of International Law, my new book review, "International Law as a Site for Queer Joy?" arrives at a moment that feels both personal and profound.
Now up at @ssrn.bsky.social : papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Now up at @ssrn.bsky.social : papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
International Law as a Site for Queer Joy?
This essay reviews two recent edited volumes—Queer Engagements with International Law: Times, Spaces, Imaginings and Queer Encounters with International Law: Li
papers.ssrn.com
November 14, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Published today—at the start of Transgender Awareness Week—in the American Journal of International Law, my new book review, "International Law as a Site for Queer Joy?" arrives at a moment that feels both personal and profound.
Now up at @ssrn.bsky.social : papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Now up at @ssrn.bsky.social : papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Reposted by Nate Ela
It's not a sophisticated reaction, but my response to both "quiet, piggy" and the Coast Guard okaying swastikas and nooses is a deep sadness that the compassion we're working so hard to foster in our children will not just be challenged by schoolyard bullies but by the highest levels of society.
November 20, 2025 at 9:01 PM
It's not a sophisticated reaction, but my response to both "quiet, piggy" and the Coast Guard okaying swastikas and nooses is a deep sadness that the compassion we're working so hard to foster in our children will not just be challenged by schoolyard bullies but by the highest levels of society.
Reposted by Nate Ela
Imagine being Sotomayor & Jackson reading all these headlines, and thinking back to this exchange
November 20, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Imagine being Sotomayor & Jackson reading all these headlines, and thinking back to this exchange
ngl just applying for a national geographic society grant feels like realizing a nerd dream from my state-geography-bee childhood; think i'd completely lose it if the thing actually gets approved and i get to put Explorer on the cv
November 20, 2025 at 5:05 AM
ngl just applying for a national geographic society grant feels like realizing a nerd dream from my state-geography-bee childhood; think i'd completely lose it if the thing actually gets approved and i get to put Explorer on the cv
I’m old enough to remember when Covid achieved the same feat. But it didn’t tweet “You’re welcome.”
DHS takes credit for seemingly less traffic in Charlotte because their masked goons are making people afraid to leave their homes
November 20, 2025 at 12:43 AM
I’m old enough to remember when Covid achieved the same feat. But it didn’t tweet “You’re welcome.”
Reposted by Nate Ela
Escape room where the thing you are trying to escape is reading about Olivia Nuzzi
November 18, 2025 at 2:59 AM
Escape room where the thing you are trying to escape is reading about Olivia Nuzzi
Reposted by Nate Ela
I once listed on my annual activities report the time I spent on things like
strategizing with a fellow junior prof about how to avoid her harasser at a conference while still getting to network,
etc
just to make a point
strategizing with a fellow junior prof about how to avoid her harasser at a conference while still getting to network,
etc
just to make a point
Imagine the things we could do with our time if we didn’t have to do this bsky.app/profile/chan...
I did my job. And then I did a job that never should have been my responsibility afterwards, sending emails and having meetings about how this was allowed to happen in the first place. Other women scholars had to spend their time explaining to Aspen leadership why this was not ok.
November 16, 2025 at 7:54 PM
I once listed on my annual activities report the time I spent on things like
strategizing with a fellow junior prof about how to avoid her harasser at a conference while still getting to network,
etc
just to make a point
strategizing with a fellow junior prof about how to avoid her harasser at a conference while still getting to network,
etc
just to make a point
Reposted by Nate Ela
November 14, 2025 at 3:45 PM
👀
Looks like the new VA governor will have some straightening out to do at UVA.
Looks like the new VA governor will have some straightening out to do at UVA.
Former UVA president Jim Ryan, who resigned over the summer due to pressure from the Trump Administration, just shared this 12-page letter with the Faculty Senate, detailing his experience with the Board of Visitors and DOJ.
It's a surreal--and troubling--read.
drive.google.com/file/d/1Is6x...
It's a surreal--and troubling--read.
drive.google.com/file/d/1Is6x...
November 14, 2025 at 3:45 PM
👀
Looks like the new VA governor will have some straightening out to do at UVA.
Looks like the new VA governor will have some straightening out to do at UVA.
Reposted by Nate Ela
Here is the statement on the initial TAMU system proposal. The adopted rule apparently prohibits "advocacy" of "race and gender ideology" without approval.
November 14, 2025 at 12:47 AM
Here is the statement on the initial TAMU system proposal. The adopted rule apparently prohibits "advocacy" of "race and gender ideology" without approval.
Reposted by Nate Ela
If you have to get permission to teach in your area of expertise from people who are definitionally not qualified to adjudicate your expertise then you are no longer working at a university.
You’re working at a state propaganda factory.
You’re working at a state propaganda factory.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M adopts policy requiring professors to get OK from school president to discuss certain race and gender issues.
November 13, 2025 at 11:48 PM
If you have to get permission to teach in your area of expertise from people who are definitionally not qualified to adjudicate your expertise then you are no longer working at a university.
You’re working at a state propaganda factory.
You’re working at a state propaganda factory.
Reposted by Nate Ela
Look, I know we’re all rightfully pissed about the current Epstein stuff, but you should really set aside some time and read this piece. There’s a reason “mitigating the effects of climate change” is one of my key policy positions.
November 13, 2025 at 4:28 AM
Look, I know we’re all rightfully pissed about the current Epstein stuff, but you should really set aside some time and read this piece. There’s a reason “mitigating the effects of climate change” is one of my key policy positions.
Reposted by Nate Ela
“By cutting aid for permanent housing by 2/3 next year, the plan risks a sudden end of support… beginning as soon as January. All are disabled — a condition of the aid — and many are 50 or older. The document does not explain how they would find housing.”
This is far worse than anyone expected.
Trump's HUD plan would cut *two-thirds* of permanent housing and push as many as 170,000 formerly homeless people back onto the street—redirecting funds to work mandates, forced treatment, and encampment sweeps.
All as mass internment camps are being built.
Trump's HUD plan would cut *two-thirds* of permanent housing and push as many as 170,000 formerly homeless people back onto the street—redirecting funds to work mandates, forced treatment, and encampment sweeps.
All as mass internment camps are being built.
Trump Administration to Drastically Cut Housing Grants
www.nytimes.com
November 13, 2025 at 4:05 AM
“By cutting aid for permanent housing by 2/3 next year, the plan risks a sudden end of support… beginning as soon as January. All are disabled — a condition of the aid — and many are 50 or older. The document does not explain how they would find housing.”
You love to see it: excellent collaboration btw
econ soc 🤝 local gvt law 🤝 am pol econ
For folks crossing those boundaries, a must-read by @robertmanduca.bsky.social @bhighsmith.bsky.social & @jacobwaggoner.bsky.social
econ soc 🤝 local gvt law 🤝 am pol econ
For folks crossing those boundaries, a must-read by @robertmanduca.bsky.social @bhighsmith.bsky.social & @jacobwaggoner.bsky.social
Very cool article about how our fragmentation of local tax bases allows some suburbs to effectively act as tax havens at the expense of central metro areas.
(The link preview is bad, but it's:
Tax base fragmentation as a dimension of metropolitan inequality
by Manduca, Highsmith, & Waggoner)
(The link preview is bad, but it's:
Tax base fragmentation as a dimension of metropolitan inequality
by Manduca, Highsmith, & Waggoner)
Validate User
academic.oup.com
November 12, 2025 at 7:35 PM
You love to see it: excellent collaboration btw
econ soc 🤝 local gvt law 🤝 am pol econ
For folks crossing those boundaries, a must-read by @robertmanduca.bsky.social @bhighsmith.bsky.social & @jacobwaggoner.bsky.social
econ soc 🤝 local gvt law 🤝 am pol econ
For folks crossing those boundaries, a must-read by @robertmanduca.bsky.social @bhighsmith.bsky.social & @jacobwaggoner.bsky.social
Reposted by Nate Ela
postdoc/research fellow opportunity for aspiring law profs and legal scholars! If you want to spend some time in Toronto, we have two such open positions (good for up to 2 years) - deadline for applications is March 6, 2026 jackmanlaw.utoronto.ca/sites/defaul...
November 12, 2025 at 5:13 PM
postdoc/research fellow opportunity for aspiring law profs and legal scholars! If you want to spend some time in Toronto, we have two such open positions (good for up to 2 years) - deadline for applications is March 6, 2026 jackmanlaw.utoronto.ca/sites/defaul...