Give the People What They Want

In my forthcoming Drake Law Review symposium piece on political dysfunction and constitutional change, I take on a number of arguments about whether the current federal government is dysfunctional. Among the arguments I consider is Jonathan Rauch’s argument that the people prefer divided government.  I look at both Gallup and NES data to show that the country is actually divided on this question too—and those who are not in the president’s party tend to be more likely to want divided government (as a check on the president) than those who are in the president’s party.  A new poll out from Quinnipiac (h/t TPM) supports this view, though the numbers differ significantly from both Gallup and NES (likely because of the different wording of the questions):

quin-poll

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