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In  the last month, federal district courts in Idaho and South Carolina  have handed down rulings on Republican party lawsuits challenging the  constitutionality of each state’s open primary system.  Idaho’s open  primary system was struck down, but South Carolina’s was upheld. On  March 2, Chief Judge for the District of Idaho, B. Lynn Winmill, issued a ruling that  declared the state’s nearly forty year-old open primary system  unconstitutional.  The Idaho Republican Party had argued in its s

"The revolution is alive and well." That's what The Politico reporter Andy Barr wrote this Tuesday in his article summarizing the extraordinary fundraising feat Congressman Ron Paul's supporters pulled off the day before, raising $730,000 online in just 24 hours for Paul's Liberty PAC. The single day fundraising effort- called a "money bomb" by the Internet activists who pioneered it- echoed the days of Ron Paul's presidential bid, during which followers raised a staggering $4.3 million in one d

Though  the mainstream political press has naturally focused on the stinging  Democratic losses and sweeping Republican gains in last week's  elections, 2010 has proven to be an historic year for third party and  Independent politics in the United States. One  of the primary motifs in media coverage of this year's elections has  been the public’s deep discontent with both the Democratic and  Republican parties.  In poll after poll, record numbers of  Americans opted to identify themselves as In

Either this has been one of the strangest elections in recent history, or else having the Internet around has simply made it possible to nationally ruminate over the strange goings-on in elections throughout the country. Here are ten of the weirdest moments during the 2010 midterm elections: 1. Demon Sheep Ad Carly Fiorina, the Republican nominee to challenge U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer ran the now infamous "Demon Sheep Ad" during her Republican primary battle against Tom Campbell. It went vira

On July 1, the federal government and dozens of states set up temporary “high-risk” health insurance pools for people denied health insurance due to so-called pre-existing conditions. These pools were one of the major provisions included in federal health care reform signed into law early this year. However, this is only a temporary fix intended to provide health insurance to individuals without coverage until the law goes fully into effect in 2014, when insurance companies will no longer be ab

Fusion voting was once ubiquitous in the United States, legal in every state of the union.  With the rise of relatively powerful third party and independent political movements in the late nineteenth century, state legislatures dominated by the Democratic and Republican parties began banning the practice, and today it is prohibited in all but eight states. Fusion voting allows a candidate for public office to obtain the nomination of more than one political party.  This article will provide a s

A significant – and often overlooked -- result of what’s been dubbed the Great Recession is that in just over half of the 50 states, the programs that pay unemployment insurance to workers who’ve lost their jobs are insolvent, leading states to borrow more than $39 billion from the federal government to keep writing checks. California, which has the largest unemployment program in the country, has the dubious distinction of leading 34 other states and the Virgin Islands in borrowing:  $8.5 bil

California has once again become a Favored Nation in the eyes of Washington.  After eight years in the political doghouse, we have been returned to our national leadership position - at least as far as auto emissions standards are concerned. "For the first time in history, we have set in motion a national policy aimed at both increasing gas mileage and decreasing greenhouse gas pollution for all new trucks and cars sold in the United States of America," said President Obama, flanked by two gove

The economic scholar Ronald Coase once characterized themarket as "islands of butter in a pail of buttermilk." Similarly,President Obama's stimulus package could be characterized as islands of sensein an ocean of politics-as-usual. And one of those islands happens,fortunately, to be the Congress's efforts to remove $70 billion from thealternative minimum tax, a cruelly designed trap for the successful, with theexpress purpose of maximizing bracket creep while minimizing upward mobility. If Pres

The percapita income in Californiawas $33,749 in 2005, according to U.S. Census Bureau Data. If thealternative minimum tax fix that expired in December isn't renewed, taxpayersmaking as little as $30,000 to $50,000 could be hit by a levy aimed 40 yearsago at making sure the creative and well-heeled pay up, according to the TaxPolicy Center. Yet thereare people - important people, such as the No. 3 Democrat in the U.S. House ofRepresentatives - who insist on painting the AMT fix the Senate adde