Surprised to learn that?  I know I was.  I discovered that from Justin Levitt’s blog post, here, which says: This is not a new piece of voter suppression devised by current elections officials: Ohio put the process in place… Continue reading

Ranked-choice voting (RCV) is getting a test on bigger stages these days, with the Mayor’s race in San Francisco and the upcoming statewide primaries in Maine now making use of it. SF used RCV on Tuesday in the race for… Continue reading

Now that Justice Gorsuch has issued a majority opinion from the Court’s October sitting, it is most likely that Chief Justice Roberts is writing the opinion for the Court in Gill (unless the Court decides to hold the case over… Continue reading

As Adam Liptak and others have reported, much of the questioning at oral argument in this important case focused on whether it was premature for the Supreme Court to be hearing the case now.  More specifically, it was the “liberal… Continue reading

After yesterday, the only two Justices who have not issued opinions for the Court from the October sitting, when Gill v. Whitford was argued, are Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Gorsuch.  This has given rise to speculation, including on this… Continue reading

This week, the Supreme Court will hear argument in the Maryland partisan-gerrymandering case, Benisek v. Lamone.  The case is the first to be framed exclusively as a First Amendment challenge to alleged partisan gerrymandering, and it thus raises new, complex… Continue reading

Trump is Right About This: President Donald Trump endorsed earmarks at a White House meeting on immigration reform on Tuesday, arguing that it would help build coalitions to pass legislation. Trump told congressional lawmakers, “I think we should look… Continue reading

For many decades the most significant organization in Alabama for mobilizing black turnout has been the Alabama Democratic Conference (ADC).  The ADC goes back deep into Alabama’s history, even pre-dating the Voting Rights Act.  It was founded after the successful… Continue reading

1. The significance for the justiciability issue.  Deciding to hear the Maryland case is a significant signal that a majority of the Court is not going to hold partisan gerrymandering claims to be non-justiciable (that is, inappropriate for judicial resolution). … Continue reading

Since the creation in the 1970s of the modern, primary-election dominated process for nominating presidential candidates, there has been little scholarly or public commentary devoted to large-scale re-assessments of that system or consideration of major structural changes to it. Discrete… Continue reading

A few weeks back, the Washington Post ran 38 short ideas from various commentators on fixing American democracy.  I wanted to flag Elaine Kamrack’s contribution, with the title above, which focused on changing the presidential nomination process.  It resonates with… Continue reading