A crisis of democratic legitimacy for the U.S.?

At National Review, Lyman Stone challenges the currently popular idea that American electoral processes are in the grip of a crisis of democratic legitimacy. While there is real room for process improvement, as with the issue of gerrymandering, it is less clear that imperfections in our electoral system 1) have worsened a lot or 2) are especially different from than those found in other mature democratic systems. It is also far from clear that over the long run the imperfections systematically benefit one “side”: at the moment Republicans hold more seats than their share of votes would predict, but one needn’t go far back in time to find periods when Democrats held the same sort of edge.

Two areas where the U.S. is unusual: we have low voter turnout, well below that of most advanced countries, and each member of our House of Representatives represents a very large number of people.


A crisis of democratic legitimacy for the U.S.? curated from Overlawyered

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Commentary, Media Hits, and Events (March 5 – May 30)

Image
Here are my commentaries, media hits, and speaking engagements from March 5, 2018 through May 30, 2018. The bulk of these hits concern the CUNY protest, as well as the travel ban.   Articles Defiance and Surrender , 59 So. Texas L. Rev. (2018).   Commentary Conservative and Libertarian Lawyers in the Era of Trump , Lawfare (May 29, 2018). Dueling Cosmic Injunctions, DACA and Departmentalism , Lawfare (May 22, 2018). The Easy Way Forward on Trump v. Hawaii , Lawfare (Apr. 25, 2018). CUNY Law students heckled my talk on campus free speech , NY Daily News (Apr. 21, 2018). Students at CUNY Law Protested and Heckled My Lecture about Free Speech on Campus , National Review (Apr. 12, 2018). Testing California’s “Sanctuary Law,” Wall Street Journal (Mar. 13, 2018) (with Ilya Shapiro) ( Reproduction ). Analysis of IRAP v. Trump Part I: The Fourth Circuit’s Reliance on Pre- and Post-Inauguration Statement s, Lawfare (May 27, 2017). Analysis of IRAP v. Trump Part II: Th...
Read more

Crime and punishment roundup

Fiasco of Cliven Bundy prosecution points up that even those who break the law are entitled to a fair trial. “In the Bundy case, Judge Navarro slammed the FBI for withholding key evidence. Unfortunately, this seems to be standard procedure for the FBI.” [ James Bovard, USA Today ; Mark Joseph Stern, Slate ; earlier ] Don’t undermine structural protection Double Jeopardy Clause provides against prosecutorial overreach [ Jay Schweikert on Cato amicus brief in Currier v. Virginia] Case gives SCOTUS chance to reconsider “dual sovereignty” exception to Double Jeopardy Clause [ Ilya Shapiro on Cato certiorari brief in Gamble v. U.S.] “The room he was in happened to fall within 572 feet of a park and 872 feet of a school,” within the 1000 feet set by Tennessee law, result misery [ C.J. Ciaramella and Lauren Krisai, Reason (“Drug-free school zone laws are rarely if ever used to prosecute sales of drugs to minors. Such cases are largely a figment of our popular imagination.”)] Missed la...
Read more

Maryland toughens “cyber-bullying” law yet further

“We’re not interested in charging children or putting them in jail or fining them,” says a campaigner for Maryland’s “cyber-bullying” law, “Grace’s Law 2.0,” which is drafted to do exactly those things. “What we want to do is change the behavior so the internet is more kind,” says the same campaigner regarding the new law, which would encourage online users to turn each other in for potential 10-year prison terms over single instances of certain kinds of malicious, abusive speech, and is being billed as going farther than any other law in the country, as well as farther than the earlier Maryland law passed in 2013. Bruce DePuyt at Maryland Matters reports that Senate Judiciary Chair Bobby Zirkin (D-Baltimore County): said the 2013 law required that abusive comments be sent to the individual and be part of a pattern of conduct. With the rise of social media, that proved to be too high a hurdle, he said. Under the new law, “a single significant act can land you in trouble,” he told ...
Read more