All posts by Richard Pildes

“The Good That Ted Cruz’s Win Can Do”

May 18, 2022, 8:10 amUncategorizedRichard Pildes

David Frum in The Atlantic has a good piece on yesterday’s decision in FEC v. Cruz. The piece concludes by arguing that the focus of campaign-finance reform these days ought to be how to put candidates and their campaigns,… Continue reading

Dramatic Increase in Competitive Districts in Special Master’s NY Map

May 16, 2022, 12:12 pmUncategorizedRichard Pildes

As a proponent of competitive districts, I’m often asked how much the decline in competitive districts is due to intentional gerrymandering versus the realities of political geography, in which metro areas have become highly Democratic and rural areas highly Republican.… Continue reading

“Where megadonors are spending big money to shape the Democratic Party’s future”

May 16, 2022, 11:22 amUncategorizedRichard Pildes

When the main elections that matter are the primaries — from Politico: House Democratic primaries are drawing record cash — even as they’re almost guaranteed to lose their majority. Super PACs and other organizations have already dropped more than… Continue reading

Polarization and State Legislative Elections

May 15, 2022, 6:20 amUncategorizedRichard Pildes

New study from Sandy Handan-Nader, Andrew Myers, Andrew B. Hall. Abstract: U.S. state legislatures are critical policymaking bodies and the major pipeline of candidates to national office. Polarization in state legislatures has increased substantially in recent… Continue reading

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Comes out in Favor of RCV or Runoff Elections for Primaries

May 15, 2022, 6:06 amUncategorizedRichard Pildes

Editorial: According to current polling, the winner of the Republican primary for Pennsylvania Governor will receive less than a third of the vote. And on the U.S. Senate side, no major poll has a single candidate winning more than a… Continue reading

“The Twitter account defending Australian democracy”

May 15, 2022, 4:53 amcheap speech, comparative election law, election administrationRichard Pildes

A must-read story from the Wa. Post on how Australia combats election disinformation: In a Canberra office covered in computer screens, the alerts began pouring in. “This needs a #FactCheck,” one person tweeted. “Is this not illegal?” another asked. Tagged… Continue reading

“Betraying the Bench: Could the SCOTUS Leaker Face Criminal Charges?”

May 11, 2022, 12:14 pmUncategorizedRichard Pildes

From three former federal prosecutors, one of whom is a federal judge. In Bloomberg Law: Corruptly Influencing an Official Proceeding Enacted with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) makes it criminal to, among other things, corruptly… Continue reading

“Ranked-Choice Voting Is More Democratic, Not Less”

May 9, 2022, 4:00 amUncategorizedRichard Pildes

This piece, in American Purpose by Peter Ackerman, Larry Diamond, Cara Brown McCormick, responds to a critique of RCV by former member of Congress Mickey Edwards. Some excerpts: Edwards’ principled view is that a two-round runoff… Continue reading

More on How Internally Fragmented Our Political Parties Are

May 7, 2022, 12:04 pmUncategorizedRichard Pildes

The title of this Politico story is “Idaho GOP riven by primary civil war.” An excerpt: Idaho’s dominant Republican Party is at war with itself up and down the ballot ahead of its May 17 primaries. It’s not just Gov.… Continue reading

Fear of Being Primaried

May 5, 2022, 4:40 amUncategorizedRichard Pildes

The current structure of our primary elections is a significant factor in driving candidates and incumbents to the extremes. We know this, and I’ve written about some of the evidence for it here, but it’s always useful to hear… Continue reading

New Developments in Campaign Finance: Reverse Coordination in Ohio’s Senate Race

May 4, 2022, 1:42 pmUncategorizedRichard Pildes

Politico’s story on how JD Vance won the Republican primary contains what is a striking new development in campaign finance. Vance’s campaign itself was not raising large amounts of money, but the massive contributions from Peter Thiel and others were… Continue reading

Did Ending the Filibuster of Judicial Appointments Alter the Behavior of Lower-Court Judges?

April 30, 2022, 11:52 amUncategorizedRichard Pildes

Interesting speculation about that in this Axios story: What they’re saying: J. Michael Luttig, a former U.S. Court of Appeals judge appointed by the late President George H.W. Bush, told Axios: “Ideally, federal judges would make few, if any,… Continue reading

Confirmation of the Framer’s Decision to Create a Single-Headed Executive (ie, the President, not Presidents)

April 30, 2022, 5:52 amUncategorizedRichard Pildes

One of the most consequential, yet not fully appreciated, decisions when the Constitution was formed was the choice of a single-headed rather than plural executive branch. This was an issue much discussed at the time. Putting the power in one… Continue reading

Would Le Pen Be President of France if France Used Our Election System?

April 28, 2022, 6:06 amUncategorizedRichard Pildes

We use party primaries, followed by a single-round general election. Matt Yglesias speculates that, in our system, Le Pen would have won the primary among the party on the right, while Mélenchon would have won the primary among the party… Continue reading