Articles by Harry Kresky

Few people would characterize the conservative South as enlightened when it comes to electoral politics. But the truth is that in some respects it is more advanced than many Democratic strongholds. ...

It has become clear that there is not even close to the 2/3 majority needed in the Senate to vote to convict. While the House vote to impeach helped the Democrats shape the post capitol incursion, post inaugural narrative, it has left the Democratic leadership “all dressed up......

Democrats, if they acted out of more than pique and the need to feed red meat to their base, hoped that the second impeachment would prevent Trump from running again, legally disqualifying him. Justice Roberts put the lie to that when he signaled that he would not preside because it was not, constitutionally speaking, an impeachment, as Trump was no longer in office. Moreover, if anything, the impeachment will keep Trump’s base engaged and in sympathy with their leader. It has become clear that...

2020 is already a year to remember – a world-wide pandemic, militant Black-led protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer, and a presidential election. It is fair to ask what the election has to do with the other two. Will it bring anything more than efforts by both major parties and their less than inspiring candidates to use these devastating events to their advantage? Those who call themselves reformers cannot ignore this question. At a minimum, we n...

I recently had the pleasure of watching Slay the Dragon, Barak Goodman and Chris Durrance’s stunning documentary on the fight against partisan gerrymandering in Michigan and Wisconsin. It played before a full house at Betaworks Studios in lower Manhattan. The film tracked parallel efforts in the Courts and on the ground. In Wisconsin a group of Democratic Party activists put together a high-powered legal team to sue in federal court, arguing that in 2011 the Wisconsin legislature enacted a redi...

I’ve been practicing law for almost 50 years. And I am still surprised when a court lets you know that the road you want to take is blocked. You may have the best arguments in the world, your client’s cause may be just, but you aren’t going to get there. This is what happened recently in New Mexico where I was part of a team of lawyers put together by the Open Primary Education Fund. We challenged the state’s closed primary system on the grounds that the funding of a primary election that barre...

On June 18, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the “gerrymander” case. In Gill v. Whitford, 2018 U.S. LEXIS 3692, 138 S. Ct. 1916, 2018 WL 3013807, Democratic Party members claimed that their rights were violated because there was a gap between the percentage of votes the Party secured in statewide elections and the number of legislators it was able to elect. The disparity was attributed to the work of partisans who drew district lines custom made to maintain Republican control of the legislature. ...

All eyes in political reform circles are on the Wisconsin gerrymandering case (Gill v. Whitford) argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on October 3, 2017. The case was brought by a group of Democrats challenging the redistricting plan adopted by the state legislature’s Republican majority and signed into law by its Republican governor. The plaintiffs claimed that their constitutional rights to equal protection and freedom of association were violated because of the disparity between the vote to...

One of the most interesting and important legal fights going on right now centers around the scope of the First Amendment rights of political parties. In a variety of contexts, the parties have asserted their rights over the rights of the people. How can it be, however, that the rights of parties formed by the people can trump the rights of the people, through their elected government or otherwise, to determine how their elections for their public officials can be organized? What are the right...