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CALIFORNIA -- Last week turned out to be a good one for California political reform and direct democracy. Early in the week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on an Arizona case that upheld the constitutionality of the state's independent redistricting commission. California and Arizona are part of a handful of states that have taken the power to draw political districts out of the hands of elected officials and given it to a citizen panel. Californians actually approved the idea twice. In 2008, vo

This week, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge by the Arizona legislature, which was seeking to invalidate an Independent Redistricting Commission established by Arizonans through the initiative and referendum process. The Arizona Legislature asserted that they, not a voter created independent commission, had the right to draw congressional district lines. They based their arguments on a literal reading of the constitution. But in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the S

A coalition led by the Independent Voter Project (IVP) filed a petition for Writ of Certiorari with the Supreme Court of the United States on Tuesday in a case challenging the constitutionality of New Jersey’s closed primary system. The coalition, which includes IndependentVoting.org and 7 individual plaintiffs, argues that the current election process in New Jersey gives political parties and their members a decided advantage in the election process at the expense of individual voters, includ

On June 26, I attended an event in Cambridge, Massachusetts called the City Dance Party. Every year thousands of people flock to this event from all over the Greater Boston Area. The streets ringing City Hall are closed down, and for a few hours the square in front of City Hall is turned into an enormous dance party. At night, the front of City Hall is lit up with swirling lights while colored spotlights pan over the jubilant crowd. As the event neared its end, the energy of the crowd was surgi

The average voter turnout in New Jersey’s primary elections is just 8 percent, and it costs taxpayers $12 million to administer each election cycle. Despite these facts, Governor Chris Christie’s administration defends its taxpayer-funded, exclusive, and private closed-primary election process against a legal challenge asserting the right of all voters to be treated equally. In its brief, the Christie administration argued: “…a voter who feels disenfranchised because of a regulation that condi

On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the constitutionality of independent redistricting commissions to redraw electoral districts. The ruling was a major victory for voters, because it also validated the citizen initiative process and the voter's right to decide how they are governed. But the legal battle over redistricting is far from over. Politico reported Tuesday that major litigation remains in key battleground states ahead of the 2016 elections. Continued redistrictin

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

On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the use of an independent redistricting commission to decide how electoral districts are drawn in Arizona. The 5-4 decision validated the citizen initiative process, which Arizona voters used to implement the state's independent redistricting commission in 2000, ruling that it was "invented in full harmony with the Constitution's conception of the people as the font of government power." "Both parts of the Elections Clause are in line wit

The 2012 presidential election was certainly the most expensive in American history. President Obama's re-election effort cost $1.1 billion, including nearly $700 million spent directly by his campaign. Mitt Romney's campaign spent over $400 million, but he received almost $800 million in additional outside help. The cost of the 2016 presidential election, however, is expected to surpass these figures. One estimate reaches as high as $5 billion, and Hillary Clinton's campaign might spend as muc

In December 2014, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed by Congress to provide the budget and appropriations to sustain the Department of Defense. Tucked into the bill at the last minute – and without public debate – was a provision to hand thousands of acres of protected land in Arizona to an international mining company. The deal nationalized 5,300 acres of land belonging to Resolution Copper Mining, an Australian-British jointly owned corporation, in ex