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 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.

Julia argues that we need to pay greater attention to the informal norms surrounding the filibuster and cites a 2012 article she authored with Jennifer K. Smith (“Unwritten Rules: Informal Institutions in Established Democracies”). She also references a 2016 book by Matt Grossman and Dave Hopkins, Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats.James references work by Gregory J. Wawro and Eric Schickler (Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the U.S. Senate) to highlight the fact that the Senate was able to legislate before its members adopted the current cloture rule to end debate in 1917. He also cites Frances Lee’s book, Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign, to support his claim that the observed behavior of senators at present does not align with the conventional wisdom on how we think they are behaving. Finally, James contends that there are numerous ways that Senate majorities can get around the filibuster and cites Molly Reynolds ' book, Exceptions to the Rule: The Politics of Filibuster Limitations in the U.S. Senate.Lee mentions Jonathan Bernstein’s proposal to give the majority party one “Superbill” in each Congress that cannot be filibustered.The open letter written by 70 former senators is available here. James’ response is available here.

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.

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.

This week, Lee and James ask special guest Matt Glassman what is unprecedented about our politics. Matt is a senior fellow at the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University and a co-host of the podcast, Congress, Two Beers In. Is American politics in an unprecedented era? Is the decline in civility overstated? Has politics always been rough and tumble? These are some of the question we discuss on this week’s episode.

This week, Julia, Lee, and James court a debate over the role of our third branch, the federal judiciary. Has the long arm of the law reached too far beyond its robes? Are unelected judges legislating from the bench? Are we looking to the courts too much to break our deadlocked politics? What if anything should we do about it?