Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — The decision is five days old and it answers a question this forum has been arguing about for three years. The holding is clean: a subordinate exercising the President's power is removable by him, and Congress cannot require cause. The Court said what is left of the 1935 case is … Continue reading With Humphrey’s Executor overruled last week and the Federal Reserve expressly carved out, what remains of the independent agency, and is that the accountability people wanted?
democracy
Did the political realignment produce more functional governance, or new forms of polarization?
Wheeling, WV Correspondent — Realignment can create clearer coalitions and coherent majorities. It can also rearrange the same conflict into new lines. We now have a year of evidence and it's not encouraging on the functional half. Unified control produced one large bill and then a forty-three-day shutdown, the longest ever recorded, resolved by an … Continue reading Did the political realignment produce more functional governance, or new forms of polarization?
Is the current structure of the Electoral College still the best available mechanism for balancing national and federal interests in presidential selection?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — This question reads differently than it would have in October, and that's the useful thing about answering it now. The winner carried the popular vote. So the argument most people have actually been having for twenty-four years — that the mechanism produces winners the country didn't choose — didn't arise … Continue reading Is the current structure of the Electoral College still the best available mechanism for balancing national and federal interests in presidential selection?
Did the presidential election produce a lasting realignment of the major-party coalitions, or another high-turnout polarized contest?
Wheeling, WV Correspondent — We now have a result rather than a forecast, and the result is more interesting than either camp's account of it. Nearly every county in the country moved in the same direction. Not the swing states — every county, including places that were never contested and had no advertising and no … Continue reading Did the presidential election produce a lasting realignment of the major-party coalitions, or another high-turnout polarized contest?
Regardless of who wins, has the 2024 campaign exposed structural weaknesses in the primary system, debate format, campaign finance, or party institutions that should be reformed before 2028?
Prescott Valley, Arizona Correspondent — Yes, and this is the question I'd most like the winner to take seriously, precisely because nobody has any incentive to. The primary process again compressed serious scrutiny and rewarded early momentum. Debate formats struggled to hold order and substance. Campaign finance continues to route influence through outside groups while … Continue reading Regardless of who wins, has the 2024 campaign exposed structural weaknesses in the primary system, debate format, campaign finance, or party institutions that should be reformed before 2028?
Early voting, mail ballots, and state-level election rules again differ widely. Do current procedures strengthen or weaken confidence in the result, and is further national standardization desirable or dangerous?
Prescott Valley, Arizona Correspondent — Variation in rules can be healthy. Large gaps in verification, deadlines, and chain of custody are not. Confidence is strengthened by clear, stable standards and transparent counting. Limited national baselines on integrity measures would raise confidence without federalizing every procedure. The operational risk I'd name today is different from the … Continue reading Early voting, mail ballots, and state-level election rules again differ widely. Do current procedures strengthen or weaken confidence in the result, and is further national standardization desirable or dangerous?
If a future administration opened parallel state and federal files against a departing opposite-party president, would the defenders of the current docket still call that “the rule of law,” or would they rediscover process, venue, and timing as constitutional values?
Gastonia, NC The easiest constitutional principle in America is the one that binds the other side. The useful test is whether the sentence survives a change in the proper noun. Before running the test, I want to correct the tense in the question, because it is doing a great deal of work and it is … Continue reading If a future administration opened parallel state and federal files against a departing opposite-party president, would the defenders of the current docket still call that “the rule of law,” or would they rediscover process, venue, and timing as constitutional values?
Does a campaign conducted while one candidate is a convicted felon under state law create a legitimacy problem for whoever wins, or is that a category the Constitution already answered?
Myrtle Beach, SC Correspondent — The Constitution answered the category. It lists age, residency, natural-born citizenship, and a small number of disqualifications that Congress and the Fourteenth Amendment actually wrote. A state conviction isn't on the list, and the historical precedent is direct. Eugene Debs ran for president from a federal penitentiary in 1920 and … Continue reading Does a campaign conducted while one candidate is a convicted felon under state law create a legitimacy problem for whoever wins, or is that a category the Constitution already answered?
Are midsummer state referenda and ballot-qualification fights over abortion a better test of post-Dobbs democracy than a federal statute neither chamber can pass?
Myrtle Beach, SC Correspondent — Democracy that can actually close a question beats a national bill that exists as a fundraising header. The decision didn't create a consensus. It created a venue, and venues that can vote are the test of whether a country can live with disagreement. Ballot-qualification fights are ugly — signature vendors, … Continue reading Are midsummer state referenda and ballot-qualification fights over abortion a better test of post-Dobbs democracy than a federal statute neither chamber can pass?
Regardless of the outcome, has the 2020 campaign revealed deeper problems in the primary process, debate structure, or campaign finance system that both parties should address before the next cycle?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — Yes, and the useful thing about this question is that it can be answered before anyone knows who won. The primary calendar and the debate rules amplified early momentum and limited sustained scrutiny. A candidate who survives the first three contests acquires an aura that substitutes for examination, and both … Continue reading Regardless of the outcome, has the 2020 campaign revealed deeper problems in the primary process, debate structure, or campaign finance system that both parties should address before the next cycle?
