Yesterday at the Balkinization blog, I put up this perspective on the Court’s Census decision. Here is a bit of that analysis: Today’s decision in the Census case is a powerful example of what I call an “institutionally realist” approach… Continue reading

From this Washington Post piece by Amber Phillips: That’s what redistricting advocates in North Carolina plan to do next. “North Carolina can’t force redistricting reform on its legislature, but it can take it to the state courts, and we will… Continue reading

That’s the title on Larry Bartel’s op-ed in today’s NYT about reforming the presidential primary process. It’s noteworthy that there’s been an outpouring of commentary and academic work in the past few years urging re-consideration of the nominations process we… Continue reading

Justice Alito has always had a particularly keen interest in redistricting, which I assume traces to his father’s involvement with the redistricting process during his work with the New Jersey legislature.  Thus, I am not surprised he wrote the dissent… Continue reading

This is a long, extensively detailed story from the Guardian Australia about the rapid spread on social media, in the closing days of the Australian election, of a completely false claim that the Labor Party had a secret plan to… Continue reading

Stanford University has released one of the most detailed reports thus far, involving work by numerous experts in cybersecurity and digital communications, about what the U.S. needs to do to ensure the security of American elections. Some of the major… Continue reading

I found it noteworthy that when Stacey Abrams was asked in her NY Times interview whether polarization was an “irreconcilable” problem, her immediate answer was to talk about the end of earmarks. I have written many times (e.g., here)… Continue reading

The Mueller report makes one legal judgment, in particular, that I find extremely puzzling. I think this judgment is going to cause endless confusion in the public and political debate about the report, and indeed, is doing so already. I… Continue reading

Over at the Balkinization blog, I have a post with historical perspective on emerging debates among some Democrats over whether, if they have the political power to do so after 2020, they ought to increase the size of the Supreme… Continue reading

From Brendan Nyhan, at Medium: For anyone concerned about democratic norms and the rule of law, the 2016 election offered a clear lesson: Parties need to exercise more control over candidate selection. In this era of high partisanship, the official… Continue reading

At oral arguments in yesterday’s partisan gerrymandering cases, several Justices raised questions about whether partisan-gerrymandering challenges implicitly appeal in one way or another to a baseline of proportional representation (PR).  This is an idea introduced by Justice O’Connor in her… Continue reading

On this subject, I have a new essay, along with others writing on the same theme, published in the current edition of The American Prospect.  Here’s an excerpt on one issue I think has not received enough critical discussion: … Continue reading

As readers of this blog know, I’m no fan of how far the radical changes that were made in the 1970s to the presidential nominations process went in eliminating any special weight that elected party officials, from throughout the country,… Continue reading