Suchergebnisse

An assessment is conducted of the quality of state legislative representation over the past 35 years, focusing on significant areas of change in representation. Legislative self-interest is presented as a problem in representation, with a position taken that state legislatures should not engage in lawmaking over issues of self-interest. Documentation is provided on the decline in choice in state legislative elections, on how the doctrine of "one person, one vote" has not translated into equal representation of voters, on the relative cost of state lawmaking, on campaign financing of state legislative elections, on the current state of ethics & financial disclosure regulation, & on the regulation of lobbying. Prescriptions on how to cure the ills of the current representation system are offered. 2 Tables, 5 Figures, 23 References. Adapted from the source document.

This article assesses the impact of three types of change factors—legal, political, and technological—on increases in litigation and judicial activism in the congressional and state legislative redistricting arena of the 1990s. Analyzing a data set composed of redistricting outcomes in the states, the author demonstrates that litigation challenging redistrictings is on the increase and that judicial activism has also grown. Judicial activism has occurred particularly where the courts have declared political impasses to exist and have imposed court-drawn plans. The author concludes by discussing new developments in law coming out of the recent redistricting litigation.

In this reply to Brunell's critique of their article "Do Democrats & Republicans Pay the Same Price for Seats in the US State Lower House Elections?" (2005), Wink & Weber further elaborate on their earlier proposition that turnout bias is important in American legislative elections, & take issue with Brunell's assumptions in which he argues in favor of "sweetheart gerrymandering" as a solution to the partisan gerrymandering woes that have accompanied recent legislative redistricting. The authors argue that application of real-world conditions to Brunell's hypothetical unwittingly reveals a potential source of government sponsored pro-Democratic turnout bias. The determination of whether or not measurable amounts of partisan turnout bias existed in state lower-house elections as identified in U.S. House races by Campbell is investigated to conclude that legislators should also take into account the level of partisan bias produced during legislative redistricting, & the rejection of the notion of sweetheart gerrymandering is a substitution of contemporary redistricting. Turnout bias should be added to the list of considerations that currently include distributional bias & the maximizing of minority voting rights in the effort to create "fair" & responsive legislative systems in the US. References. J. Harwell

Thomas Brunell (2006a) critiques our article, "Do Democrats and Republicans Pay the Same Price for Seats in U.S. State Lower House Elections" (Wink and Weber 2005). We found that partisan turnout bias exists in state lower-house elections, and mostly the turnout bias favors Democratic Party candidates. Brunell does not dispute our findings on distributional bias or take issue with our methodology; rather, his main argument is that turnout bias is not significant enough to warrant concern from legislative parties or the courts. In our reply, we elaborate on our earlier proposition that turnout bias is important in American legislative elections. We also take issue with some of the assumptions made by Brunell in which he argues in favor of "sweetheart gerrymandering" as a solution to the partisan gerrymandering woes that have so frequently accompanied recent legislative redistrictings. Far from being tangential to our argument about turnout bias, Brunell's affinity for the sweetheart gerrymander reveals his understanding of the broader context in which redistricting concerns should be addressed, and his position on a remedy for partisan gerrymandering is one with which we disagree.

We apply Campbell's "Cheap Seats" approach to measuring partisan bias in U.S. House races to elections in forty-four state lower houses from 1968 to 1999. We find that using partisan voter turnout differences as the basis for calculating partisan bias reveals generally pro-Democratic Party biases & that in many states the size of these biases is growing. States with a large number of contested seats & with a large number of marginal districts had higher levels of turnout bias than their counterparts in the 1970s. Partisan turnout bias may, on some occasions, affect party control of the house. We discuss possible efforts to alleviate these biases. Tables, References. Adapted from the source document.