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
Category Archives: political polarization
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
I have written this post for a Balkinization symposium on a terrific new book by Devins & Baum, The Company They Keep: How Partisan Divisions Came to the Supreme Court (Oxford University Press, 2019). My post begins: In an eye-opening 2013 … 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
Behind a paywall, the Economist reviews an apparent shift in Texas legislators’ priorities. … 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
Nate Persily has written this report for the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age. From the executive summary: In the span of just two years, the widely shared utopian vision of the internet’s impact on … 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
Amanda Frost at SCOTUSBlog: Common sense tells us that increased political polarization affects the U.S. Supreme Court as well as the political branches, and now legal scholars have the data to prove it. In a forthcoming paper, “Polarization and the … 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
Adam Bonica NYT oped: Once again, the nation is on the cusp of a generational revolution. As a group, millennials favor Democrats by nearly a 2 to 1 margin. Millennials are unlikely to trend Republican as they age so long as … Continue reading
I just got a copy of what looks to be a very interesting new book by Daniel J. Hopkins: In a campaign for state or local office these days, you’re as likely today to hear accusations that an opponent advanced … Continue reading
NYT: In Pennsylvania, a Republican lawmaker unhappy with a State Supreme Court ruling on gerrymandering wants to impeach the Democratic justices who authored it. In Iowa, a running dispute over allowing firearms in courthouses has prompted bills by Republican sponsors … Continue reading
Ned Foley blogs. … Continue reading
I have posted this draft on SSRN, which is forthcoming in a special symposium issue of the University of Memphis Law Review commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. (More about that symposium here.) Here is … Continue reading
NYT: “I don’t think the Lord Jesus could win as a Democrat in Alabama,” said Brad Chism, who runs a Democratic communications firm in Mississippi that has conducted surveys of female voters in Alabama in recent weeks. “They’re just waiting … Continue reading
Larry Diamond in The American Interest: The most promising change is ranked choice voting, sometimes called “the instant runoff.” Imagine that Arizona’s voters had serious options beyond a Democrat and a Republican, and that instead of voting for a single … Continue reading
What is the connection between Republican Party extremism before Trump and the rise of Trump? What kinds of economic and political reforms can best preserve American democracy? What will life after Trump, and Trumpism, look like in the United States? … Continue reading
Eric McGhee and Bors Shor in Perspectives on Politics: Party polarization is perhaps the most significant political trend of the past several decades of American politics. Many observers have pinned hopes on institutional reforms to reinvigorate the political center. The Top … Continue reading
Lee Drutman for Vox. … Continue reading
This is expected, and it will mean a big shift in the courts to the right. … Continue reading
Jeet Heer in TNR: Richard Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, wondered in a 2013 article whether this called for drastic measures: “The partisanship of our political branches and the mismatch with our structure of government raise the fundamental question: Is the … Continue reading
Release: (my emphasis) The Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) today is releasing a new study entitled Party Contribution Limits and Polarization. The study refutes one of the policy solutions put forward in recent years for a problem that almost everyone acknowledges to … Continue reading
Eric (“Efficiency Gap”) McGhee and Boris Shor have posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Party polarization is perhaps the most significant political trend of the past several decades of American politics. Many observers have pinned hopes on … Continue reading
Read it here. … Continue reading
I have posted this draft on SSRN, for the forthcoming symposium on Redistricting after 2020 at William and Mary. I think this piece brings together a lot of my thinking (and others’ thinking) on the “race or party” question in … Continue reading
New Lee Drutman report for the New America Foundation: Executive Summary The United States is a politically divided nation. These divisions have only grown deeper in the past decade. They are increasingly paralyzing our democratic institutions, which rely on cooperation … Continue reading
Heather Gerken has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Houston Law Review). Here is the abstract: In his Frankel Lecture, “Outsourcing Politics: The Hostile Takeovers of Our Hollowed Out Parties,” Sam Issacharoff suggests that legal changes have systematically disabled the leadership … Continue reading
Sean McElwee, Jesse Rhodes, and Brian Schaffner for Monkey Cage: Across the board, we find that donors as a group are more partisan than non-donors who share their party affiliation. For example, Democratic donors were 10 percentage points more supportive … Continue reading
Interesting Daniel Stid for Washington Monthly. … Continue reading
Open Secrets reports on today’s Excellent Sidley forum at NYU in DC: Should we restrict political contributions? How have weakened political parties impacted this election? Can public financing work? President-elect Donald Trump pledged to “drain the swamp,” yet has not proposed changes to the … Continue reading
Christopher DeMuth, former head of OIRA in the Reagan OMB and former President of AEI, has a long, thoughtful essay in the weekend Wall Street Journal in which he explores whether the separation of powers might see a revival in … Continue reading
Last week, Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post reported that there was “significant support” within the House Republican conference for bringing back earmarks. Republicans eliminated earmarks when they took the House majority in 2010 as part of “political reforms” that … Continue reading
NYT: But some members of the Freedom Caucus seem to have another agenda in mind. They strategized behind closed doors on Wednesday about how to press for their priorities during the lame-duck session, as well as under a potential President … Continue reading
Important read from Paul Waldman: I know, my conservative friends will say that this kind of talk is just fear-mongering and exaggeration. But there is something deeply troubling happening right now, and it goes beyond the ordinary trading of blows in … Continue reading
Must-read Lee Drutman NYT oped: Reading the nonstop coverage of what may well be a close presidential election, one might be forgiven for thinking that political competition is alive and well in America. But look at the majority of states … Continue reading
NYT: A major criminal-justice overhaul bill seemed destined to be the bipartisan success story of the year, consensus legislation that showed lawmakers could still rise above politics and take on a serious societal problem. Then the election got in the … Continue reading
WSJ reports. … Continue reading
Ornstein and Mann for Vox. … Continue reading
Tom Mann: The new Pew Research Center report on polarization is a gold mine of insights into how the sharp partisan polarization, so pronounced in Congress and among political elites, has penetrated the broader public. Pew researchers trace significant increases … Continue reading
Has the country moved from a period of deep political dysfunction to something bordering on authoritarianism, with the rise of Donald Trump? Does the rise of Bernie Sanders on the left mean Democrats are moving to the extremes like Republicans? … Continue reading
Betsy Wright Hawkings for the Democracy Fund blog. … Continue reading
WSJ: Donald Trump’s first attempt to seize some control over the Republican National Committee and the course of the GOP convention is creating a showdown over a little-noticed election for a powerful internal post that helps determine who can become … Continue reading
Ezra Klein: But don’t laugh it off. John Boehner was the Speaker of the House as recently as a single year ago. He is, himself, a conservative Republican. And he is saying, flatly, that the Republican Party has been captured … Continue reading
Julie Bykowicz for AP. … Continue reading
Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein are out with a new version of their book, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks (on the cover “Looks” is crossed out and the word “Was” is written in). It has a new afterward, which … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
Carl Hulse for the NYT. … Continue reading
WaPo on the nub of the problem of targeting red Senators in blue/purple states: Despite Democratic organizing efforts, right-leaning activists care more about the Supreme Court vacancy right now than liberals do. In the current climate, most conservatives – even … Continue reading
The Court’s order (without any explanation or noted dissent) is here. Given how close this came to the election, the denial of relief for now is not a big surprise. But this is a case to keep an eye on … Continue reading