I’ve posted this essay, at the Yale Journal of Regulation, which is running a symposium on Peter Shane’s new book, “Democracy’s Chief Executive”. My essay is the first of what will be fourteen essays — one a day… Continue reading

The following is a guest post by Mike Parsons (Senior Legal Fellow at FairVote and Program Affiliate Scholar at NYU Law): On Friday, the Alaska Supreme Court issued an unanimous decision that could provide a significant boost to efforts… Continue reading

This is a guest post from Professor Michael Herz: In a recent Election Law Blog post regarding the Independent State Legislature doctrine, Rick Pildes observes that the term “Congress” in the U.S. Constitution sometimes means Congress acting alone and sometimes… Continue reading

A major issue in the Moore v. Harper case and about the independent state legislature theory (ISLT) more generally is whether the term “legislature” must mean the same thing in all the constitutional provisions that use it.  In addressing that… Continue reading

Georgetown’s Project on State and Local Government recently hosted a discussion of the Moore case and the independent state legislature doctrine. My contribution is now posted on their blog, here. I’ll also include a few excerpts here: As we… Continue reading

Sam Issacharoff and I have posted on SSRN this new essay. Here’s the abstract: Democracies grapple with the tension between the principle of majority rule and ensuring respect for the interest of political minorities, however those might be defined… Continue reading

The argument traversed a wide range of detail and touched on many important issues. The Court did not seem interested in the most sweeping challenges to the VRA that Alabama’s brief put forward. At the end of the day, I… Continue reading

I’ve written a number of times on what the ISLT would not do, as have Derek Muller, Pam Karlan, and Ned Foley, even if the Court were to adopt the most expansive version of the doctrine. In addition, we have… Continue reading

Intriguing experimental paper from Suthan Krishnarajan in the APSR: Democracy often confronts citizens with a dilemma: stand firm on democracy while losing out on policy or accept undemocratic behavior and gain politically. Existing literature demonstrates that citizens generally choose the… Continue reading

Like Rick Hasen, I was given homework by the House Committee on Administration after testifying in July on the independent state legislature theory. The Committee sent me a list of follow-up questions, and my written responses are available here.

North Carolina has now filed its opening brief.  I want to single out one aspect of that brief here.             As I’ve emphasized, there are at least two different versions of ISLT on the role of state constitutions.  The more sweeping… Continue reading

Fascinating decision of NC Supreme Court that requires a bit of unpacking: federal courts held that 28 NC legislators were elected from unconstitutional, racially-gerrrymandered districts. Courts permitted them to retain their seats until the next election. The NC legislature can… Continue reading

Alaska’s ranked-choice voting special election on Aug. 16th to fill its vacant, single seat in the US House is generating two issues I want to flag. First, in recently campaigning in a tele-rally for Sarah Palin, Donald Trump reportedly told… Continue reading

For the National Constitution Center’s podcast, the Center’s President and CEO, Jeff Rosen, moderated this discussion. Available at this link.