CNN [UPDATE: and ABC] will host presidential debate with Biden, Trump, but some questions about its criteria

campaign finance

Last November, I blogged some questions about the future of the Commission of Presidential Debates. And my instincts were right. We learned today that the Biden and Trump campaigns have privately back-channeled with one another about an alternative debate format. More at the New York Times. There are lots of political reasons for each campaign to do this–both have grievances with the CPD and apparently have the leverage to jettison it (aging candidates looking to have greater control over timing and conditions)–and have agreed to a debate hosted by CNN on terms they prefer.

To get around campaign finance restrictions, CNN has listed “pre-established objective” criteria to participate in the debate. And here’s where things get complicated.

Continue reading CNN [UPDATE: and ABC] will host presidential debate with Biden, Trump, but some questions about its criteria →
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Fusion as a Party-Centric Reform to Empower the Center-Right

third parties

What does it take to get a lefty union organizer and former director of the Working Families Party on stage with neo-liberals? Donald Trump. In “The Power of Fusion,” Dan Cantor provides a great overview of how fusion works and how it could empower the center-right. If we care about the future of democracy, he argues, our key goal should be to find a party home for the “politically homeless anti-Trump, pro-Constitution Republicans who continue to stand for democracy and freedom.” They still make up one-fifth of the Republican Party. What they need is a mechanism for leveraging those numbers. Fusion voting is that mechanism. The article is also just a great read.

“But here I was on a panel with a former Joe Manchin staffer and a former executive director of the Michigan GOP. I wasn’t sharing the stage with them because I had altered my views on the policies I’d like to see our government enact. But I’m traveling in more mixed company these days because I’m convinced that the threat of ethnonationalist authoritarianism must take precedence over everything else. My views on Reaganism, Bushism, and neoliberal corporatism haven’t changed, . . . But for the moment, I’m more interested in building bridges than barricades. The only way to defeat authoritarianism is with an electoral coalition that includes the center-right.”

. . . .

“If fusion voting were the norm today, it would provide a way for Republican and unaffiliated moderates and centrists to cast a vote for Biden without endorsing a Democratic party they mostly disagree with. . . . In the current moment, it will force GOP leaders to make a choice: risk more and more defections to a center party currently favoring Democrats, or change your behavior enough to warrant your share of a center party’s nominations. Either outcome should be welcomed by all supporters of pluralism and liberal democracy.”

Disclosure: I serve on the Center for Ballot Freedom’s voluntary Advisory Board and view fusion as a meaningful and achievable party-centric reform worthy of serious consideration for a variety of reasons.

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Trump’s Attacks on Judges Fan the Flames

Election Meltdown, ,

A Reuters Special Report analyzes posts on Truth Social since March 1, 2024, showing that Trump’s attacks on the integrity of the judges presiding over his cases are fanning the flames. Presumably, the tweets of his Republican colleagues who have been joining him in court this week will do the same. The images of the posts are worth a look.

“The rhetoric is inspiring widespread calls for violence. In a review of commenters’ posts on three pro-Trump websites, including the former president’s own Truth Social platform, Reuters documented more than 150 posts since March 1 that called for physical violence against the judges handling three of his highest-profile cases – two state judges in Manhattan and one in Georgia overseeing a criminal case in which Trump is accused of illegally seeking to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.

Those posts were part of a larger pool of hundreds identified by Reuters that used hostile, menacing and, in some cases, racist or sexualized language to attack the judges, but stopped short of explicitly calling for violence against them.”

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Republican Party of Nebraska Fails to Oust Incumbents

political parties, political polarization, primaries

AP News reported recently that after being taken over by loyalists to Trump, “[t]he Nebraska GOP . . . refused to endorse any of the Republican incumbents who hold all five of the state’s congressional seats.” In three instances, it endorsed challengers. In two, it simply declared it would not be endorsing the incumbents. Its efforts, however, have failed: All the incumbents won their seats, including Don Bacon, whose congressional district is “purple-ish” having gone for Obama in 2008 and Biden in 2020.

“It’s not a good look,” [Political Science Professor] Hibbing said. “You’d like the faces of your party, who would be your elected representatives, and the state party leaders to be on the same page.”

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“Maximum Convergence Voting: Madisonian Constitutional Theory and Electoral System Design”

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I’ve posted on SSRN this paper, to be published in the Florida Law Review. Here’s the abstract:

The Madisonian political philosophy upon which the U.S. Constitution rests did not supply the nation with a well-developed theory of electoral procedures. Instead, Madisonian philosophy concentrated on the separation of powers and other elements of constitutional architecture, including federalism, in order to prevent factions from subverting the common good. Subsequent history has demonstrated that Madisonian constitutional architecture, while necessary, is not sufficient for democratic government to operate in the interest of the people as a whole rather than on behalf of a faction and its own interests. Instead, it is necessary to supplement Madisonian constitutional architecture with a well-designed electoral system that accords with Madisonian values.

Maximum Convergence Voting, a method of electing a single winner when there are more than two candidates, is the method that most accords with Madisonian principles underlying the Constitution. Derived from the work of the Marquis de Condorcet, a French contemporary of Madison (and the Constitution’s other Framers), whose electoral theories Madison would have admired if he had studied them, Maximum Convergence Voting is the method that most avoids the election of a factional candidate and instead elects the candidate who achieves the greatest common ground among all the voters in the electorate. This essay describes how Maximum Convergence Voting operates, how it can take several different forms—including a Top-Three electoral system that is a variation of California’s existing Top-Two system (and Alaska’s existing Top-Four system)—and how it also can be used for presidential elections.

This paper, like my other recent work on electoral system design, is a preliminary sketch of ideas I am pursuing in a book on this topic. Comments, both on this specific paper and on the topic in general, are very welcome.

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Candidate-Centered Top-Two Non-Partisan Primary Vulnerable to Manipulation

political parties, primaries

UPDATE: Two of the three Bob Fergusons have since withdrawn their papers.

This obscure but fascinating story from the Seattle Times reveals the vulnerability of top-two non-partisan primaries to partisan manipulation. Democratic Governor Jay Inslee is stepping down, leaving Washington’s governorship an open race for the first time since 2012. A leading contender for the seat is Bob Ferguson, the state attorney general. Presumably concerned about his prospects, “conservative activist Glen Morgan recruited two people who share a name with the Democratic front-runner for governor to also seek the state’s highest office. ” These two Bob Fergusons officially filed to run last Friday, leaving Washington’s election officials scrambling about how to address the potential voter confusion. Obviously, in a party-centered primary, the party label would be the solution. The law leaves the Secretary of State the option of otherwise differentiating between candidates, such as by occupation or incumbency status. Apart from the question of how effective that will be, I wonder if that would raise bases for challenging the primary election results.

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