One of the disadvantages of teaching in my law school, where there are no PhD students to work with, is that I get ideas for some potentially important projects, but no one to take them on. I recall blogging during Coleman-Franken about an idea for seeing if decisions on disputed ballots might be subconsciously influenced by partisan bias, and I was glad to see that Kyle Kopko and his co-authors took up the project (and did a splendid job, I might add).
Here’s another one: it would be great for a PhD student to try to gain access to the Prop-11 created California Redistricting Commission as an observer. The student would attend all the meetings and deliberations, without participating at all. It would give us great insight into how such citizen commissions work: what influences decisions, how do participants interact, etc.
It would be a great service to the field to know much more about the inner workings of these commissions. Now I’m not sure if the Commission would agree to be studied (perhaps upon some ground rules about what could be disclosed, and when). But I would sure love to send someone to try!