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The United States has not updated the Electoral College system since the Twelfth Amendment was ratified in 1804, despite public opinion polls showing a majority of Americans are in favor of changing or outright abolishing it. So why hasn't the United States reformed this system? Electoral College Reform brings together new essays examining all aspects of this crucial debate, including the reasons for reform, the issues surrounding a constitutional amendment, the effect of the Electoral College on political campaigns and the possibilities for extra-constitutional avenues to change. The authors consider both the Federalists' vision of balanced representation and a more democratic and equality-based ideal. These competing frameworks, perhaps more than any other factor, account for centuries of American indecision on this key issue. By offering an unprecedented and carefully researched analysis of an always controversial subject, this volume explores the potential for changing a system that many contend is long overdue.
"In the first work of its kind, Incorporation of the Bill of Rights provides a detailed account of the Supreme Court's application of federal rights to the state level. Approaching the Bill of Rights amendment by amendment and right by right, Professor Gary Bugh's content analysis of Court opinions reveals what justices regard as the incorporation status and most relevant case for each right. Along with finding that the Court has incorporated nearly the entire Bill of Rights, Professor Bugh offers new insights into unincorporated rights and addresses the judiciary's various theoretical defenses for protecting civil liberties from state infringement. This definitive inventory of incorporated rights is an essential resource for law and government scholars, teachers, and practitioners at all levels of government"--
While the presidency has always been a political office, the distinction between campaigning and governing has become increasingly blurred in recent years. Yet no one until now has documented the phenomenon of the "permanent campaign" and analyzed its impact on the executive office. In this eye-opening book, Brendan Doherty provides empirical evidence of the growing focus by American presidents on electoral concerns throughout their terms in office, clearly demonstrating that we can no longer assume that the time a president spends campaigning for reelection can be separated from the time he spends governing. To track the evolving relationship between campaigning and governing, Doherty exami...
My Life as a Great Lakes Broadcaster is a true story that takes the reader back more than six decades to when the author and electronic communication were both in their infancy. It is a recollection of stories from Michigan broadcaster Bill Thompson, as he returns to his roots growing up on the family farm in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. It shows readers how he was proficient at performing music in band and orchestra, then became interested in speech at Remus Chippewa Hills High School. From there he moved on to five active years at Central Michigan University where Bill describes his broadcast and journalism training. That college training helped to combine all of those earlier interests into o...
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A New Statesman Book of the Year “America’s greatest historian of democracy now offers an extraordinary history of the most bizarre aspect of our representative democracy—the electoral college...A brilliant contribution to a critical current debate.” —Lawrence Lessig, author of They Don’t Represent Us Every four years, millions of Americans wonder why they choose their presidents through an arcane institution that permits the loser of the popular vote to become president and narrows campaigns to swing states. Congress has tried on many occasions to alter or scuttle the Electoral College, and in this master class in American political history, a renowned Harvard professor explains...
Since established by the Founding Fathers, the Electoral College was designated to be appoint the president to ensure that the voting process was anti-majoritarian in nature. However, with the advancements of technology allowing for a meaningful and engaged popular vote to ensure the U.S. is led by a president who received the most votes, the Founders concerns about the inability for the country to run a meaningful nationwide election are no longer relevant, leaving room for change. In The Constant Two Plan: Reforming the Electoral College to Account for the National Popular Vote, Jay Wendland explores a novel approach to reforming the Electoral College to allocate for two electoral votes pe...
There has been much important work done in the past two decades in America on issues of under representation based on social differences such as race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and age. While this scholarship has examined the ways in which women and racial, ethnic, and sexual minorities suffer disproportionately on measures of full citizenship, social class and culture have received relatively little attention. This new study addresses various manifestations of social class and cultural difference as well as their implications for political representation. The analysis demonstrates how three of the most influential feminist theorists who write about political representation conceive of group representation, identify the problems that group representation claims to remedy, and assess the strengths and weaknesses associated with these models. Using theoretical argument, the volume suggests practical electoral reform in order to encourage new and emancipating forms of political engagement. It will be of value to those interested in public policy and governance, political theory, gender studies and law and society in general.
Political Parties and Elections presents a comparative analysis of the ways in which advanced industrial democracies seek to regulate the activities of political parties in electoral contests. Actual political practice suggests that parties are crucial actors in democratic elections, yet the nature and extent to which parties are regulated, or even recognized, as participants in the electoral process varies greatly among nations. Author Anika Gauja analyzes the electoral laws of five key common law democracies with similar parliamentary and representative traditions, similar levels of economic and political development, yet with significantly different electoral provisions: the United States...
While numerous books and articles examine various aspects either of democratic theory or of specific topics in election law, there is no comprehensive book that provides a detailed and scholarly discussion of the political and democratic theory underpinnings of election law. Election Law and Democratic Theory fills this important gap, as author David Schultz offers a scholarly analysis of the political principles and democratic values underlying election law and the regulation of political campaigns and participants in the United States. The book provides the first full-length examination of the political theories that form the basis for many of the current debates in election law that structure both Supreme Court and scholarly considerations of topics ranging from campaign finance reform, voting rights, reapportionment, and ballot access to the rights of political parties, the media, and other players in the system. It challenges much of the current debate in election law and argues for more discussion and development of a democratic political theory to support and guide election law jurisprudence.