Politics in Question

How will COVID-19 impact the November elections?

In this week’s episode, Julia, Lee, and James ask what impact COVID-19 will have on the November elections. How can Americans vote safely during a pandemic? What are the long-term consequences of changing how they cast their ballots? Will Election Day become Election Month? Who wins and who loses when we reform how the United States conducts its elections? And what really happened in Wisconsin? These are some of the questions Julia, Lee, and James ask in this week’s episode of Politics In Question.

Julia references an Electoral Studies article by R. Michael Alvarez, Thad E. Hall, and Betsy Sinclair (“Whose absentee votes are returned and counted: The variety and use of absentee ballots in California”) when discussing the disproportionate way Americans’ votes are counted.

Lee references the work of MIT’s Charles Stewart on public opinion in elections and Rick Hansen’s new book, Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy, when discussing the extent to which both Democrats and Republicans feel that election outcomes are illegitimate.

Is there a better way to pick presidential nominees?

This week, Julia, Lee, and James talk about the process by which Democrats and Republicans pick their presidential nominees. Is there a better way to make that decision? What are the alternatives? And what role should the people play? These are some of the questions they consider in this episode.

James references Martin Van Buren’s 1827 letter to Thomas Ritchie in which he outlines his plans for the creation of a new Democratic Party.

Julia mentions her recent Mischiefs of Faction piece reacting to Super Tuesday.

Lee reminds listeners that the two-party system exacerbates the problems in how we pick presidential nominees and references his new book, Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America.

Should the House have more members?

This week, Julia, Lee, and James consider proposals to increase the size of the House of Representatives. Are 435 members able to represent effectively a diverse electorate comprised of almost 330 million people? If not, how many members should the House have? And will increasing the size of the House ameliorate or exacerbate its present dysfunction? These are some of the question they discuss on this week’s episode.

Lee reminds Julia and James that the original First Amendment to the Constitution proposed by James Madison in 1789 concerned apportionment and traces the present issue to the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. He also mentions the cube root law to highlight the extent to which the United States is a global outlier when it comes to the size of Congress’s lower chamber.

James cites Federalist 58 when suggesting that increasing the size of the House is unlikely to empower its rank-and-file members and argues that the reform will further centralize power in the party leadership. He references Thomas Jefferson’s idea of a ward republic and Hannah Arendt’s council system when considering what a truly participatory politics looks like. He mentions John Aldrich’s work on parties in the first Congress to highlight the impact of party heterogeneity on centralization in the House.

Lee cites Frances Lee’s book, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign when considering the impact that a bigger House could have on Congress and its two political parties. He references his new book, Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America.