Steven Rosenfeld: The Independent Media Institute’s Voting Booth project obtained a copy of Iowa’s RFP and asked industry and academic experts in remote voting and election cyber-security to assess Iowa’s envisioned telephone-based system. The experts’ top concerns—based on observing similar … Continue reading
Category Archives: political parties
Rick Pildes has posted this draft on SSRN (Forthcoming in The Best Candidate: Presidential Nomination in Polarized Times (E. Mazo ed.)) Here is the abstract: The presidential-candidate nomination process is increasingly a train wreck. Voters are now asked to sort … Continue reading
Michael Morley has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Tulsa Law Review). Here is the abstract: This invited essay reviews Jesse H. Rhodes’s book Ballot Blocked: The Political Erosion of the Voting Rights Act. The book’s main thesis is that Republican officials … Continue reading
Tabatha Abu el-Haj in the Columbia Law Review Online: Despite finding my diagnosis of the ills of contemporary American parties and my indictment of responsible party government and its hold over First Amendment doctrine “almost undeniable,” Professor Kang raises two fundamental … Continue reading
BuzzFeed reports. … Continue reading
Balkinization: Here are the collected posts for our Balkinization symposium on Neal Devins and Lawrence Baum’s new book, The Company They Keep: How Partisan Divisions Came to the Supreme Court (Oxford University Press, 2019). 1. Jack Balkin, Introduction to Balkinization Symposium on Neal … Continue reading
NYT’s The Upshot reports. … Continue reading
Dave Daley and Rob Richie oped: Step aside, Super Tuesday — and say aloha to ranked-choice voting.While contests in 11 states on March 3 will elect the most delegates in the 2020 presidential primaries, it’s April 4 — and the … Continue reading
NYT: The House Democratic campaign arm is nearing open warfare with the party’s rising liberal wing as political operatives close to Speaker Nancy Pelosi try to shut down primary challenges before what is likely to be a hard-fought campaign next … Continue reading
The Seattle Times reports. … Continue reading
John Myers for the LAT: In the days leading up to California’s primary three years ago, the complaints from unaffiliated independent voters started pouring in. They were promised they could vote in the closely watched Democratic race for the White House, but … Continue reading
WaPo: The fallout from the Senate’s so-called nuclear option has largely dissipated.And without much fallout, the fate of the once-revered process known as the legislative filibuster faces its greatest peril in more than a century.Senate Republicans are using a complex … Continue reading
Yesterday, Nick offered some thoughts on the arguments in the Rucho and Benisek partisan gerrymandering cases, and several Justices’ fixation on whether all of this litigation is just a Trojan horse for achieving proportional representation. Nick’s post highlights the fact … Continue reading
Good news from Nevada. Caucuses are inherently undemocratic, as I’ve been arguing for years. … Continue reading
Salt Lake Tribune: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ended five years of legal battles by the Utah Republican Party to quash a 2014 election law that allows candidates to qualify for the ballot by collecting signatures and/or through the … Continue reading
A Politico update on the impact of new rules for Democratic primary debates. … Continue reading
A fascinating mapping of estimates of affective polarization (how Americans feel about members of the opposing major party). The polling question isn’t new, but I think that mapping the results onto counties by their demographic composition might be. (Note: this … Continue reading
The Springfield News-Leader reports: Last fall, Missouri voters approved a one-of-a-kind plan to root out partisan gerrymandering with 62 percent of the vote. Republicans unhappy with the changes are now trying to roll them back. Five GOP lawmakers, including Senate … Continue reading
Behind a paywall, the Economist reviews an apparent shift in Texas legislators’ priorities. … Continue reading
Sigh. … Continue reading
Steven Rosenfeld sees parallels between a 2017 Alberta provincial leadership campaign and the NC09 scandal, with lessons for 2020 primaries considering means to further participation online or by phone. … Continue reading
Three new white papers on California’s top-two primary out of the USC Schwarzenegger Institute, by Charles Munger, Jr., a financial and political backer of the top-two system. … Continue reading
NYT reports on opposition to the N.Y. Democratic Party’s resolution to eliminate fusion voting. … Continue reading
Newsday: The state Democratic Party approved a resolution Monday to ban New York’s oft-criticized practice of fusion voting.The resolution was nonbinding and has no legal impact. But Democratic leaders said they hope lawmakers in the Democratic-controlled State Legislature hear the … Continue reading
Order here in case challenging the state’s candidate-selection process. Prior coverage here and here. … Continue reading
NYT: Senate Republicans are preparing to detonate a mini-nuke.Angry over Democratic delaying tactics that have slowed the conveyor belt of Trump administration nominees plodding toward confirmation, the Senate majority is preparing to strong-arm a rules change that would reduce required … Continue reading
Utah Democratic Party brief. Lt. Gov. Brief. Here’s my earlier coverage. … Continue reading
The Salt Lake Tribune reports. … Continue reading
Here is the minor party brief. Here is the Lee/Cruz brief. My earlier coverage is here, where I suggest this would be a very interesting case for the Court to hear. … Continue reading
Updated version of the paper out in May in the Annual Review of Political Science. Abstract: The period of increased polarization in the United States among the political branches and citizenry affects the selection, work, perception, and relative power of state … Continue reading
Guy-Uriel Charles and Luis Fuentes-Rohwer have a new piece forthcoming in the Harvard Law Review, on partisan gerrymandering and justiciability: This paper examines the Court’s decision in Gil v. Whitford. It advances two claims. First, it provides a comprehensive account … Continue reading
NY Times: Democratic Party officials, after a yearslong battle between warring ideological wings, have agreed to sharply reduce the influence of the top political insiders known as superdelegates in the presidential nomination process. Under the new plan, which was agreed … Continue reading
You can find the opinion here. … Continue reading
NYT: [I]n the California Senate [top-two] primary last month, Ms. Feinstein crushed Mr. de León in her bid for a sixth term, drawing 2.9 million votes compared to 804,000 votes for him. But on Saturday night, the executive committee of … Continue reading
The Economist: America’s various disproportional representations are the result of winner-takes-all voting and a two-party system where party allegiance and geography have become surprisingly highly correlated. Places where people live close together vote Democratic, places where they live farther apart … Continue reading
Dan Howle and Rob Richie oped in the SD Union-Tribune: We, the Independent Voter Project and FairVote, have and continue to have our different perspectives and opinions about what is the “best” way to conduct our elections. But at a … Continue reading
Richard Winger oped in San Diego Union-Tribune. … Continue reading
Tenth Circuit Chief Judge Timothy Tymkovich, who regularly teaches election law (and has used our casebook), wrote this interesting statement today concurring in the denial of rehearing en banc in the Utah Republican Party case: I concur in the court’s … Continue reading
Politico: The controversial issue of “superdelegates” and their future in the Democratic Party led to an angry confrontation on Tuesday night between Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and House Democrats, according to several lawmakers. But the members’ angst may … Continue reading
John Myers for LAT: Gamesmanship was everywhere. Could a feared opponent be shut out of a spot on the fall ballot? Might a political party’s leaders convince some hopefuls in crowded races to step aside and thus avoid splitting the … Continue reading
Reid Wilson reports for The Hill. … Continue reading
Dan Balz: Eight years ago, California voters approved a ballot initiative establishing a new open primary system. The new system called for primary contests in which all candidates from all parties would be listed on the same ballot. The top … Continue reading
NYT: With so many Democrats running, the party’s fear is that the vote will be splintered, allowing Republicans — who have fewer candidates — to dominate some primaries. The party and allied groups are spending more than $4 million on … Continue reading
NYT: It was supposed to be a cutting-edge election reform, a way to take the party out of politics: an open primary in which labels like Republican and Democratic were tossed out and candidates were chosen, presumably, on their merits. … Continue reading
David Wasserman for the Cook Political Report: Republicans badly need a few lucky breaks to hold their House majority in November. So far in 2018, it’s been the opposite story — from an unfriendly new Pennsylvania map to Speaker Paul … Continue reading
Alex Burns in the NYT: But in some areas, Democratic leaders have concluded it is worth enduring backlash to help a prized recruit or tame a chaotic primary field. They are moving most aggressively in California, where the state’s nonpartisan primaries present a … Continue reading
John Myers for the LAT: The California primary that’s now less than three months away promises to be the system’s most important test, and possibly its most controversial. Although Democrats have largely consolidated their power behind just a few formidable … Continue reading
The Salt Lake Tribune reports. … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
Richard Winger: The opinion says that the March 27 petition deadline is too early, especially given winter weather in South Dakota. It also says the 2.5% (of the last gubernatorial vote) is also too high, given the historical record of … Continue reading