Partisan Gerrymandering and Georgia: Red, White, and Blue Or Just Red and Blue? Michael C
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Quantifying the Level of Gerrymandering in Michigan
June 2018 | Report 402 102 YEARS OF UNCOMPROMISING POLICY RESEARCH Quantifying the Level of Gerrymandering in Michigan 38777 Six Mile Road, Suite 208 | Livonia, MI 48152 | 734.542.8001 115 West Allegan, Suite 480 | Lansing, MI 48933 | 517.485.9444 P.O. Box 1612 | Holland, MI 49422 | 616-294-8359 | crcmich.org BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chair Daniel Domenicucci Anne Mervenne Aleksandra A. Miziolek Ernst & Young LLP Mervenne & Company Terence M. Donnelly Aleksandra A. Miziolek Vice Chair Dickinson Wright PLLC Cooper Standard Michael P. McGee Randall W. Eberts Paul R. Obermeyer Treasurer W. E. Upjohn Institute Comerica Bank Richard A. Favor, Jr. James M. Polehna Laura Appel Deloitte Kelly Services June Summers Haas Julie Ridenour Todd Anderson Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP Steelcase Foundation Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Jim Holcomb Camilo Serna Laura Appel Michigan Chamber of Commerce DTE Energy Michigan Health & Hospital Association Marybeth S. Howe Carolee K. Smith Beth A. Bialy Wells Fargo Bank Consumers Energy Plante Moran, PLLC Wendy Lewis Jackson Christine Mason Soneral Lawrence N. Bluth The Kresge Foundation ITC Holdings Corp. Penske Corporation Harry Kemp Kathleen Wilbur Chase Cantrell Lear Corporation Michigan State University Building Community Value Michael P. McGee Stephan W. Currie Miller, Canfield, Paddock and Stone PLC Michigan Association of Counties BOARD OF TRUSTEES Chair David O. Egner Daniel J. Kelly James M. Nicholson Eugene A. Gargaro, Jr. Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation Deloitte. Retired PVS Chemicals David L. Eisler Mary Kramer Don R. Parfet Ferris State University Crain Communications, Inc. Apjohn Group LLC Terence E. Adderley Kelly Services, Inc. Fritz Erickson William J. -
1 in the United States District Court for the Middle
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA COMMON CAUSE, et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) v. ) ) CIVIL ACTION ROBERT A. RUCHO, in his official ) NO. 1:16-CV-1026-WO-JEP capacity as Chairman of the North Carolina ) Senate Redistricting Committee for the ) THREE-JUDGE COURT 2016 Extra Session and Co-Chairman of the ) Joint Select Committee on Congressional ) Redistricting, et al., ) ) Defendants. ) League of Women Voters of North ) Carolina, et al., ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) v. ) ) CIVIL ACTION Robert A. Rucho, in his official capacity as ) NO. 1:16-CV-1164-WO-JEP Chairman of the North Carolina Senate ) Redistricting Committee for the 2016 Extra ) THREE JUDGE COURT Session and Co-Chairman of the 2016 Joint ) Select Committee on Congressional ) Redistricting, et al., ) ) Defendants. ) ) Expert Report of Sean P. Trende I, Sean P. Trende, do hereby declare the following: 1 1. I am over 18 years of age and am competent to testify regarding the matters discussed in this declaration. 2. My areas of expertise include political history, United States voting laws, redistricting, and the study of campaigns and elections. 3. I have been retained in this matter to provide expert testimony explaining how the efficiency gap will likely operate in practice. I am compensated at a rate of $300 per hour, excluding travel time. All opinions contained in this declaration are offered to a reasonable degree of professional certainty. 4. My curriculum vitae is attached to this declaration as Exhibit 1. EXPERT CREDENTIALS 5. I have studied and followed United States elections on both a part-time and full- time basis for almost two decades. -
ABRAHAM LINCOLN Can You Name All of the Presidents? Presidents’ Day, February 20, 2017
THE DOCKETThe Official Publication of the Lake County Bar Association • Vol. 24, No. 2 • February 2017 GROVER CLEVELAND JIMMY CARTER JOHN F. KENNEDY HERBERT HOOVER JOHN ADAMS FRANKLIN PIERCE JOHN TYLER GEORGE H.W. BUSH ANDREW JOHNSON GERALD FORD THOMAS JEFFERSON CALVIN COOLIDGE FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT BARACK OBAMA DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER RUTHERFORD B. HAYES WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON RONALD REAGAN BENJAMIN HARRISON JAMES MADISON GEORGE WASHINGTON MARTIN VAN BUREN JOHN QUINCY ADAMS JAMES MONROE THEODORE ROOSEVELT JAMES K. POLK ZACHARY TAYLOR BILL CLINTON ULYSSES S. GRANT ANDREW JACKSON LYNDON B. JOHNSON CHESTER A. ARTHUR JAMES A. GARFIELD WARREN G. HARDING MILLARD FILLMORE DONALD TRUMP RICHARD NIXON HARRY TRUMAN JAMES BUCHANAN WILLIAM MCKINLEY WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT WOODROW WILSON ABRAHAM LINCOLN Can you name all of the Presidents? Presidents’ Day, February 20, 2017 Contents THE DOCKET • Vol. 24, No. 2 • February 2017 FEATURES LCBA EVENTS 12 Income Shares: New 3 The Calendar of Events Rules for Child Support 4 President’s Award Dinner Guidelines 7 New Members BY NANCY CHAUSOW SHAFER 9 LCBF Cabo Raffle Tickets Top Ten QDRO Issues 16 10 Doctor-Lawyer Dinner BY DOROTHY A. VOIGT A publication of the 11 Justice at Dachau 20 Meet Your New Circuit 14 Spring Membership Court Clerk Luncheons BY REBECCA J. WHITCOMBE 19 Family Law Conference COLUMNS 21 CLE Tek Webinars 23 The Grapevine 2 The President’s Page 300 Grand Avenue, Suite A 24 Monthly Committee Waukegan, Illinois 60085 President’s Dinner: A Night (847) 244-3143 • Fax: (847) 244-8259 to Celebrate Role Models Meetings www.lakebar.org • [email protected] BY DONALD J. -
Quantifying Partisan Gerrymandering: an Evaluation of the Efficiency Gap Proposal Benjamin Plener Cover1
Please cite to: 70 STAN. L. REV. ___ (forthcoming 2018). Draft dated August 15, 2017 Feedback welcome: [email protected] Quantifying Partisan Gerrymandering: An Evaluation of the Efficiency Gap Proposal Benjamin Plener Cover1 ABSTRACT For three decades, the Court has failed to settle on a legal test for partisan gerrymandering, and such claims have uniformly failed – until now. Leveraging a new measure and associated test for partisan gerrymandering called the “efficiency gap,” plaintiffs challenging Wisconsin’s Assembly plan have prevailed before a three-judge federal panel. The measure defines partisan gerrymandering in terms of two parties’ relative efficiency at translating votes for their party into seats in government. The case is now before the Supreme Court, which may embrace the efficiency gap approach and thereby remake the law of electoral districting. Through a synthesis of mathematical and legal analysis, this article examines the efficiency gap’s conceptual premises and real-world performance. The measure may produce counterintuitive results because it favors one democratic norm – partisan fairness – over other norms like electoral competitiveness and the proportionality between votes earned and seats won. A mapmaker can achieve a low efficiency gap by drawing a bipartisan gerrymander that carves up the state into safe seats for incumbents and confers a legislative supermajority on a party that earns only a modest majority of ballots cast. Efforts to promote electoral competitiveness or a closer fit between votes earned and seats won may produce a high efficiency gap. And because the efficiency gap is a single measure based on observed election data, it is vulnerable to manipulation: By suppressing turnout of its competitor’s supporters, a party can artificially reduce a plan’s efficiency gap. -
1 Michael S. Kang the Reality Television Show American Idol
VOTING AS VETO Michael S. Kang I. INTRODUCTION The reality television show American Idol chooses a winning contestant by measuring what I call the “affirmative preferences” of the show’s audience. American Idol gradually winnows down a large field of singers through a weekly process of elimination. After each week’s performances, American Idol invites viewers to vote for their favorite singer by recording their top choice through a telephone vote. The votes are “affirmative” in the sense that each voter registers her most preferred choice—the favorite competitor whom the voter most desires to be the ultimate winner. The competitor with the fewest votes during the week is eliminated from the show, and the process iterates in subsequent weeks until only one competitor, the winner, remains. The question that viewers answer by voting is, “Which competitor do you think is the best?” Affirmative preferences count in American Idol—what I call “negative preferences” do not. “Negative preferences,” as I treat them here, reflect the voters’ desires to avoid certain alternatives or outcomes. Rather than reflecting affirmative preference for a particular outcome, negative preferences represent an opposition against a particular outcome.1 Because American Idol counts only affirmative preferences in the voting process, a contestant’s objective on the show each week is to avoid being the contestant in the multi-competitor field with the fewest affirmative votes, irrespective of voters’ negative preferences. When only affirmative preferences are formally counted as votes, each competitor’s success depends primarily on having a dedicated base of fans for whom she is their favorite, regardless how many voters dislike her intensely. -
President in Comparative Perspective Elgie
1 The President of Ireland in comparative perspective ROBERT ELGIE Abstract There is long-standing belief that the Irish presidency is a unique or at least a very unusual institution. To what extent is this interpretation correct? This article compares the Irish presidency with other presidencies. It examines the spread of direct presidential elections and the gradual diffusion of constitutions with a mix of presidential and parliamentary features. It then compares the Irish president with 42 other presidencies, including countries with a directly elected president and those with an indirectly elected president. The article compares the powers of these presidents, the process of election, and the prospects for constitutional reform. The comparison shows that Ireland is now one of a small group of countries that have a directly elected but weak presidency and that while the Irish presidency may be unusual in almost all aspects of the electoral process the Irish case has equivalents elsewhere. The main conclusion is that the Irish presidency is not unique. In all significant respects, the presidency exhibits and has always exhibited commonalities with equivalent institutions. That said, in a number of regards the presidency has always been and/or remains relatively unusual. Keywords Ireland, president, direct election, powers, uniqueness 2 This article places the institution of the Irish presidency in comparative perspective. Is the very weak, directly elected presidency sui generis when compared with equivalent institutions elsewhere, or does it exhibit a set of characteristics that are common to other contexts? Certainly, there is long- standing belief that the Irish presidency is a unique or at least a very unusual institution. -
Government Formation and Removal Mechanisms
Government Formation and Removal Mechanisms International IDEA Constitution-Building Primer 17 Government Formation and Removal Mechanisms International IDEA Constitution-Building Primer 17 Elliot Bulmer © 2017 International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA) First edition International IDEA publications are independent of specific national or political interests. Views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of International IDEA, its Board or its Council members. The electronic version of this publication is available under a Creative Commons Attribute-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) licence. You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the publication as well as to remix and adapt it, provided it is only for non-commercial purposes, that you appropriately attribute the publication, and that you distribute it under an identical licence. For more information on this licence visit the Creative Commons website: <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/> International IDEA Strömsborg SE–103 34 Stockholm Sweden Telephone: +46 8 698 37 00 Email: [email protected] Website: <http://www.idea.int> Cover design: International IDEA Cover illustration: © 123RF, <http://www.123rf.com> Produced using Booktype: <https://booktype.pro> ISBN: 978-91-7671-122-4 Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 3 Advantages and risks ...............................................................................................