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With the health care debate taking center stage during the first half of primary season, the field of Republican candidates is overwhelmed with proposals aimed at repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), but often with no specific plan to replace it. Only Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio have put forth semi-specific plans to repeal and replace Obamacare. On the other side of the aisle, Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and

FairVote and The Center for Competitive Democracy (The Center) have filed an amici curiae brief with the Supreme Court in a case that challenges the constitutionality of New Jersey's closed primary system. A coalition of 7 individual plaintiffs and nonpartisan organizations, including the Independent Voter Project (a co-publisher of IVN.us), filed a petition for Writ of Certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in July, arguing that the current election system in New Jersey gives the Republican an

The first question in the GOP primetime debate was a revealing one. When asked whether the candidates would pledge to support the eventual nominee, only one of the ten candidates on stage raised his hand to signal he would not: Donald Trump. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-oi2Z2g0e4 Moderator Bret Baier tried several times to elicit a response of partisan loyalty: he reminded him he was on a "Republican primary debate stage" and suggested that "an independent run would almost certainly hand

The first round of the Republican primary debates will be held Thursday night at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. The field of Republican presidential candidates stands at 17, but only 10 will be included in the primetime debate at 9pm ET, while the other seven will compete in an undercard debate at 5pm ET. The 10 candidates who will appear at the prime-time debate are: Donald Trump, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, retired n

California's existing election system for Congress and state office could be improved with the following ideas. The problem with the status quo is that ever since it went into effect in 2011, there has been very limited choice on the November ballot. So far, no independent or minor party candidate has appeared on the November ballot for statewide office. Each statewide office in November has been between one Democrat and one Republican, with no write-in space. In November 2014, California vote

The Senate Appropriations Committee took a 16-14 vote Thursday to approve a measure that would make it easier for marijuana businesses to obtain basic banking services with financial institutions. The amendment, proposed for the Marijuana Businesses Access to Banking Act of 2015, was authored by U.S. Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.). The amendment would prevent federal funds from being used to prohibit or penalize financial institutions that provide services to marijuan

From the time of the Founding Fathers to the Civil War, there was always a very vocal, though sometimes small in numbers, opposition to creating national banks. One of the strongest reasons against a national bank was that many of the Founders had seen what had happened in the Bank of England during the century prior to the American Revolution. To pay for endless wars, the Bank of England manipulated the currency, offered fiat currencies that the public distrusted, and often engaged in unscrup

With the Looking to the Founders series running its natural course, it seemed appropriate to move to the next stage of American History. Not that there was a lack of material, but a realization that the 2016 presidential election is going to be an all out brawl over the concept of federalism. Looking at the origins of federalism can help us understand many of the problems we still have today, and sometimes, just sometimes, we might actually find some common ground when we have an honest introsp

When it comes time to vote in the 2016 congressional primary elections, will you be allowed to vote in the primary of your choice? We’ve updated our analysis on every state’s rules for its primary elections: open primaries, closed primaries, “semi-closed” primaries, and the handful of states that do something else entirely. Click here to see the updated page. The use of publicly funded primary elections to nominate candidates who then appear on the general election ballot is common in the U.S.

Arizona Public Media reported last week that former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson is once again leading an effort to implement a top-two primary in Arizona similar to the electoral systems in California and Washington state. Johnson led the push to put the top-two system on the 2012 ballot, and voters rejected it by a two-to-one margin. He thinks putting a top-two ballot measure in front of Arizona voters in 2016 would have different results. “The grassroots, nonpartisan movement is really a natio