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At no time in history has the issue of “open v. closed primaries” been so prominent in the national discussion as it is today. This is, in large part, because Bernie Sanders made it a plank of his presidential campaign. But it is also a consequence of an important reality: independent voters are the fastest growing segment of the electorate, by far. Yet, the first and highly important stage of our election process most often serves the exclusive benefit of the voters who choose to join one of t

The Arizona State Legislature passed HB 2302 by a vote of 34-24 in February. The bill adds two statutes to the Arizona constitution making it illegal for presidential electors to vote against their party’s candidate. An elector would be automatically ineligible to serve should they choose to put conscience above party loyalty. Once the elector's intentions are revealed, the state party chair would appoint a person to replace him or her, who would then cast the electoral vote. For those followi

Netflix is set to release a controversial and critically acclaimed video series on April 28. A trailer for the series, “Dear White People," released last week and has fueled outrage on the left and right, but for strikingly different reasons. Some critics on the right allege that the series is ‘anti-white’ and racist. What followed was a rash of discontent promoted via hashtags like #boycottNetflix. Conversely, left-leaning media outlets, including Vox, the Huffington Post, and BuzzFeed have pr

Benjamin Disraeli, one of Britain’s greatest prime minsters, once referred to his climb to the top of parliamentary power in England as the “long greasy pole.” What Mr. Disraeli achieved then, Maureen Dowd has achieved today -- not in politics, but in journalism as a columnist for The New York Times. Before you conclude that’s a weird pairing, Disraeli and Dowd, read on: Since Ms. Dowd became an op-ed columnist for The Times in 1995, she consistently has been the bane of presidents – as in Cl

Rules That Block Independent Candidates From Final Presidential Debates Now in Jeopardy; 2020 Election Could Open Up In blunt and highly critical language, a federal judge on Wednesday blasted the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and issued a ruling that lays the groundwork for removing the primary obstacle to a serious independent running for president in 2020. In her 28-page decision, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan said that, in rejecting a complaint by Level the Playing Field, a g

As a young guy it didn’t take me long to figure out how smart Lucy Killea was. She was an extraordinary intellect and a great politician. She was clever and capable of not getting stuck in the ruts that politicians of our generation have unfortunately gotten trapped in. Lucy would often remind me that "knowing WHEN to be right is often as important as simply being right." The words below are more than 25 years old. I was proud to stand by her in 1991, but I can't imagine any time when her words

This piece, written by Rob Richie, originally appeared in Cato Unbound as the lead essay in a series on ranked choice voting in December of 2016. American democracy today is working more poorly than it has in generations. Even as the toxic 2016 presidential campaign featured the two most unpopular major party candidates in modern history and Congress has historic lows in approval, minor party presidential challengers were marginalized, and nearly 98% of congressional incumbents won re-election.

Recently, Real Clear Politics extrapolated demographic trends to project which states are likely to gain or lose U.S. House seats in the reapportionment that will occur after the 2020 Census. Their forecast, shown below, has nine states losing one U.S. House seat and six states gaining seats. These are only projections, but given that we are now six years into the decade, many of the demographic shifts of the decade are already well advanced and difficult to reverse. Overall, we see a reduced n

Despite the GOP's initial distaste towards now President Elect Trump (see: Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Mitt Romney), party members seem to have come around to the idea of a Trump presidency and are willing to work with him to forward their policy goals. One week after election day, Ryan told reporters, "Welcome to the dawn of a new unified Republican government. This will be a government focused on turning President-elect Trump's victory into real progress for the American people." While the O

On Monday, December 19, electors from across the country gathered to cast the official votes for president. Of the 538 votes that were tallied, seven came from faithless electors – electors who chose not to vote for the nominee who won a plurality of votes in their state. These included four Democratic electors in Washington state, two Republican electors in Texas, and one Democratic elector in Hawaii. There were also three "would-be" faithless electors whose dissenting votes were not counted.