Category Archives: political polarization
“Congress Off for the Exits, but Few Cheer”
NYT:
By traditional measurements, the 113th Congress is now in a race to the bottom with the 112th for the “do nothing” crown, with members of both parties frustrated about the lack of action. As of Wednesday, it had passed… Continue reading
“Don’t expect campaign finance reform to reduce polarization”
Mann and Corrado respond to La Raja and Schaffner.
“Bad Readers: The judges who ruled against Obamacare are following Scalia down a terrible path of interpretation.”
I have written this new Jurisprudence essay for Slate. It begins:
Unless you are a lawyer or a glutton for punishment, you probably want to avoid reading the new D.C. Circuit and 4th Circuit opinions reaching conflicting results on the… Continue reading
“Obamacare Ruling: Congress’s Dysfunction Hands Power to the Courts”
David Wessel:
The appellate court ruling on Obamacare underscores an increasingly important side effect of today’s congressional dysfunction and gridlock: The rising power of the courts, particularly the U.S. Supreme Court. Congress, unable to agree on almost anything, is incapable… Continue reading
“End Partisan Primaries, Save America”
Sen. Schumer endorses Top-Two in NYT oped. The political science does not (at least not yet) seem to support what Sen. Schumer thinks about the effects of top two, however.
“Leadership war stymies Senate mission”
Paul Kane for WaPo:
The Senate went three months this spring without voting on a single legislative amendment, the nitty-gritty kind of work usually at the heart of congressional lawmaking. So few bills have been approved this year, and so… Continue reading
“Rumors of Bipartisanship’s Death are Greatly Exaggerated”
“More on the Mann-Corrado Brookings Paper: the Resistance to Campaign Finance Change as a Response to Polarization”
“Party Polarization and Campaign Finance”
New paper from Tom Mann and Tony Corrado. Here is the abstract:
There is a lively debate today over whether or not campaign finance reforms have weakened the role of political parties in campaigns. This seems an odd argument in… Continue reading
“Hewlett Foundation Launches $50 million Madison Initiative”
Press release: “The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced today that it is launching a new initiative to help alleviate the problem of polarization, with a special focus on the problem in Congress. The foundation will invest $50 million… Continue reading
“Koch Brothers group targets Iowa politics”
Des Moines Register/USA Today:
The main political branch of the conservative Koch brothers’ empire is mounting a full-scale mobilization to become a transformative political power in Iowa, the state where the battle for the presidency begins.
Americans for Prosperity… Continue reading
“What’s left of the political center?”
“How Supreme Court justices ‘benchslapped’ each other in the Hobby Lobby case”
Amanda Hollis-Brusky writes for The Monkey Cage.