“The liberal failure of political reform”
Matt Grossman and David Hopkins for Vox. … Continue reading
Category Archives: theory
“Abdication and Federalism”
Justin Weinstein-Tull has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Columbia Law Review). Here is the abstract: States abdicate many of their federal responsibilities to local governments. They do not monitor local compliance with those laws; they disclaim responsibility for the actions … Continue reading
“The Boundary Problem and the Changing Case Against Deference in Election Law Cases: Lessons from Local Government Law”
David Schleicher has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This essay for the 2016 AALS Section on Election Law Program, “Election Law at the Local Level,” applies lessons from local government law to election law problems. Both … Continue reading
“Federalism and State Democracy”
David Schleicher has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Texas Law Review). Here is the abstract: When scholars, judges and politicians talk about federalism, they frequently praise the qualities of state and local democracy. State and local governments, it is said, … Continue reading
“The Value of the Right to Vote”
Stephan Tontrup and Rebecca Morton have posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: We conducted a mixed lab and field experiment during a naturally occurring election. We offered subjects the opportunity to relinquish their voting rights for money. … Continue reading
“Democracy for GrownUps”
I have written this review of Bruce Cain’s Democracy More or Less for the New Rambler Review. It begins: Modern American democracy is often messy, increasingly polarized, sometimes stupefying, and surprisingly decentralized. Our Congress functions (or doesn’t) mainly along party … Continue reading
Today’s Must Read: Mann and Dionne, “The Futility of Nostalgia and the Romanticism of the New Political Realists”
Tom Mann and EJ Dionne take on Rauch, Pildes, Cain, LaRaja and Persily. This is a very important contribution to a key debate about the reform project. It is the best explanation of the ironic romanticism in the anti-reform camp. … Continue reading
“Ritual and Rhythm in Electoral Systems: A Comparative Legal Account”
The great Graeme Orr has written this new book. Here is the description: ‘Why do we vote in schools?’ ‘What is the social meaning of secret balloting?’ ‘What is lost if we vote by mail or computers rather than on … Continue reading
“Political Powerlessness”
Nick Stephanopoulos has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming NYU Law Review). Here is the abstract: There is a hole at the heart of equal protection law. According to long-established doctrine, one of the factors that determines whether a group … Continue reading
The Political Safeguards of Horizontal Federalism
Over at Balkinization, I’ve been blogging (here, here, here, and here) about the benefits associated with spillovers, which occur when one state’s policies affect citizens of another state. Most of those arguments have to do with my other field, federalism. … Continue reading
“The RightsCast, Episode 7: Josh Douglas, “How Should Courts Police Election Laws?””
The latest in Nancy Leong’s YouTube series. … Continue reading
“Naiveté and Modesty in Political Reform Thinking”
Bauer blogs. … Continue reading
“Democratic Romanticism and Its Critics; Everything you thought you knew about fixing American politics might be wrong.”
Mark Schmitt writes for Democracy. … Continue reading
“The Realities of Electoral Reform”
Nick Stephanopoulos, Eric McGhee and Steven Rogers have posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Vanderbilt Law Review). Here is the abstract: What good are theories if they cannot be tested? Election law has wrestled with this question over the last generation. … Continue reading
Must-Buy: Bruce Cain’s “Democracy More or Less”
The book is out today, and you can’t be in the election law field without reading it. Here are the blurbs, including my own: “Everyone talks about the dysfunction of American politics, but very few people have practical or thought-through … Continue reading
Two from Ellen Katz
Hobby Lobby and the Pathology of Citizens United (forthcoming Duke J. Constitutional Law and Public Policy). Abstract: This Essay explores a distinct way Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission promises to influence pending challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable … Continue reading
“The right to vote in a 21st Century democracy: Thoughts from my new book”
David Schutlz: “Note: I am pleased to announce the publication of my latest book, Election Law and Democratic Theory, published this month by Ashgate Publishing. This blog draws upon some of the themes presented in chapter three of the book … Continue reading
“Democracy and Renewed Distrust: Equal Protection and the Evolving Judicial Conception of Politics”
Bertrall Ross has posted this draft on SSRN (California Law Review). Here is the abstract: Judicial interpretations of the Equal Protection Clause have undergone a major transformation over the last fifty years. A Supreme Court once suspicious of the democratic … Continue reading
“Partitioning and Rights: The U.S. Supreme Court’s Accidental Jurisprudence of Democratic Process”
Jim Gardner has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In democracies that allocate to a court responsibility for interpreting and enforcing the constitutional ground rules of democratic politics, the sheer importance of the task would seem to … Continue reading
Quadratic Voting and Campaign Vouchers
Eric Posner and E Gley Weyl have posted a paper on SSRN, Voting Squared: Quadratic Voting in Democratic Politics. They recommend quadratic voting as a way to solve preference aggregation problems by taking intensity of preference into account. Quadratic voting … Continue reading
“Democracy and the Problem of the Partisan State”
Yasmin Dawood has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, NOMOS). Here is the abstract: This article addresses the following question: when, and under what conditions, should partisanship play a role in democratic politics? I examine this question by focusing on … Continue reading
“The Posterity Project: Developing a Method for Long-Term Political Reform”
Ned Foley has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Oklahoma Law Review). Here is the abstract: Akhil Amar, at the end of AMERICA’S UNWRITTEN CONSTITUTION (2012), mentions the idea of postponing for a long while the date on which newly … Continue reading
“Elections and Alignment”
Nick Stephanopoulos has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Columbia Law Review). Here is the abstract: Election law doctrine has long been dominated by rights-and-interests balancing: the weighing of the rights burdens imposed by electoral regulations against the state interests … Continue reading
“The Democratic Disconnect and Political Reform”
Bob Bauer blogs. … Continue reading
“Exit, Voice and Disloyalty”
Heather Gerken has posted this draft on SSRN (Duke Law Journal). Here is the abstract: Much of constitutional theory is preoccupied with a single question: What does a democracy owe its minorities? And most of the answers to this question … Continue reading
“The Incompatible Treatment of Majorities in Election Law and Deliberative Democracy”
Jim Gardner has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract [update: it appears that only an abstract appears right now with no paper to download]: Deliberative democracy offers a distinctive and appealing conception of political life, but is … Continue reading
Two Responses to Teddy Rave’s “Politicians as Fiduciaries” Well Worth Reading
Déjà Vu All Over Again: Courts, Corporate Law, and Election Law Heather K. Gerken and Michael S. Kang Translating Fiduciary Principles Into Public Law Ethan J. Leib, David L. Ponet & Michael Serota … Continue reading
Politicians as Fiduciaries
The final version of Teddy Rave’s article (about which I blogged here) has now posted at the Harvard Law Review website. … Continue reading
“Obama Campaign General Counsel Criticizes ‘Anti-Reform’ Movement in Election Politics”
UVa report: “Robert Bauer ’76, general counsel to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign and a former White House counsel, said Monday that an anti-reform movement has been dismantling rules that aim to protect confidence and integrity in government.” … Continue reading
“Veil of Ignorance Rules in Election Law”
Chad Flanders has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Election law struggles with the question of neutrality, not only with its possibility – can election rules truly be neutral between parties? – but also with its definition. … Continue reading
“Election Law as Applied Democratic Theory”
Jim Gardner has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, St. Louis U. L. Rev.). Here is the abstract: Democracy does not implement itself; a society’s commitment to govern itself democratically can be effectuated only through law. Yet as soon as … Continue reading
“Strategic voting in open primaries: evidence from Rush Limbaugh’s ‘operation chaos'”
E. Frank Stephenson has written this article for Public Choice. Here is the abstract: Open primaries create the possibility of strategic crossover voting. On his March 3, 2008 program and subsequent broadcasts, radio personality Rush Limbaugh called on his listeners … Continue reading
“Why the Center Does Not Hold”
The California Law Review has now published a symposium including Rick Pildes’s important article on the rise of partisanship and responses from Paul Frymer, David Kennedy, Michael McConnell, and Nolan McCarty. … Continue reading
“Why Party Democrats Need Popular Democracy and Popular Democrats Need Parties”
Ethan Leib and Chris Elmendorf have posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming California Law Review). Here is the abstract: Too often popular political power – whether it is in the form of direct democracy or other more innovative forays in … Continue reading
“Spelling Murkowski: The Next Act – A Reply to Fishkin and Levitt”
Chad Flanders has posted this draft on SSRN (Alaska Law Review). Here is the abstract: Both Joey Fishkin’s and Justin Levitt’s responses to my article, “How Do You Spell MURKOWSKI?” deal thoughtfully with the deeper questions raised by the Murkowski … Continue reading
“Elections as a Distinct Sphere Under the First Amendment”
Rick Pildes, with a new piece on elections exceptionalism. From the abstract: This essay asserts that the strongest legal arguments for justifying regulations of election financing, such as electioneering paid for out of a corporation’s or union’s general treasury funds, … Continue reading
“Changing the People: Legal Regulation and American Democracy”
Tabatha Abu El-Haj has published this article in the NYU Law Review. I just received a copy in the mail and I can’t wait to read it. Here is the abstract: The world in which we live, a world in … Continue reading