New America on Political Reform

There's little chance that the state budget eventually passed in Sacramento will actually rid California of its stubborn $15.2-billion deficit. But in the improbable event that the Legislature and governor balance the budget without resorting to such gimmicks as raiding other accounts, enjoy the moment. In just 10 weeks, California voters will likely throw it out of whack again. California has two budgets. One is passed by lawmakers. The other is improvised at the ballot box. The state's Constitution requires that the budget put together in Sacramento… more

After a fiercely fought primary election, no winner emerged in last week's election in the LA County Supervisor race between City Councilmember Bernard Parks and State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas. With barely one-sixth of all voters participating, millions of dollars spent, and a race that turned increasingly negative, neither Ridley-Thomas nor Parks could muster a majority (50 percent plus one) in the nine-candidate field. As a result, both candidates must now duke it out for another five months until the November… more

In late March, Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig came to DC to draw back the curtain on the second act of his career. Lessig, with his placid mien and quiet voice, does not exude the aura of a star, but over the past decade he's become one of the most influential public intellectuals of the Internet age. Along with a small group of activists, legal academics and computer geeks, Lessig has built from scratch a global grassroots movement to reform… more

In Thousand Oaks, the owner of a local chain of home improvement stores called Do It Centers is locked in fierce, expensive competition with Home Depot. But the contest has nothing to do with which can offer the lowest prices and the friendliest service, or which will sell you the better chain saw.

No, even though this war is all about business, it's being fought on a political battlefield, and will come to a head on June 3, when the residents… more

Education cuts and reform campaigns can be the drinking and driving of California politics. Each carries certain risks when pursued separately. Combined, they can be deadly.

This is a truth that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has found hard to accept. Three years ago, just as he launched his breakneck drive to win voter approval of budget and political reforms, he decided to withhold part of a mandated increase in education funding from his 2005-06 budget proposal. The delay in Proposition 98 funding… more

With Ralph Nader in the race, Democrats are fuming and no doubt preparing to use the same legal tricks they used in 2004 to keep Nader off the ballot in many states. Republicans are cackling with glee.

But Republicans shouldn't cackle too loudly. They've also been hurt by the spoiler dilemma.

In fact, the GOP lost control of the U.S. Senate due to Libertarian Party candidates in Montana, Washington, Missouri, Nevada and South Dakota spoiling things for Republicans. And many observers… more

"The most troublesome task of a reform President," wrote Henry Adams, is "bringing the Senate back to decency." Adams was writing about the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, which began with an Obamaesque promise of national reconciliation and reform but was dragged into scandal by the senatorial kleptocrats of the day.

The Senate has changed since then -- its members are elected now, though no less likely to be millionaires -- but it's still true that the Senate is where ambitious… more

With Super Duper Tuesday looming on Feb. 5, the presidential horse race is about to move into its mid-game. At the end of this process, we may end up with the first president in history who is a woman, or an African American, or a former prisoner of war, or a Mormon or an ordained Southern Baptist minister.

Beyond the headlines and election results, when you lift up the hood of our nation's nominating process, you see a pretty gnarly… more

In the aftermath of Iowa and New Hampshire, many Americans have begun to question the nominating process itself. Are two tiny rural states really the place to kick off an all-important national selection process? According to a survey conducted for the Associated Press and Yahoo News, fewer than 1 in 5 voters favors Iowa and New Hampshire's "favored state" status, and nearly 80 percent would rather see other states get their chance at the front of the line. more

While the United States and Europe share much in common, they also exhibit basic differences, an "American Way" and a "European Way," that are diverging and had been leading to frequent clashes even before the U.N. rift over Iraq. In a globalized capitalist world, where all nations are seeking models of development that allow "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" for its people, this clash within the West is every bit as elemental as the clash with Arab-Islam because… more

It's ba-aaaaack! Like the hockey masked assailant in the Friday the 13th movies that refuses to die, the GOP ballot measure designed to ensure that their presidential candidate wins nearly half of California's electoral votes has been revived. And it's got Democratic leaders nervous.

GOP operatives have found a new sugar daddy to bankroll their proposition that would award one electoral vote for each congressional district won by a presidential candidate, instead of giving 100 percent of electoral votes to the candidate that wins the… more

In the movie Groundhog Day, the Bill Murray character, a weatherman who is doomed to repeat the same day over and over, asks a question that haunts redistricting reformers in California: "What would you do if you were stuck in one place and everyday was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?"

With the recent failure of the Legislature to place redistricting reform on the ballot -- for the second year in a row -- reformers are scrambling for… more

These are anxious times for election security and voting equipment. The system is truly broken, starting at the federal level with a lack of national standards, a chaotic testing regimen, untrustworthy vendors, a revolving door between the industry and government regulators, and a decentralized hodgepodge of election administration from coast to coast.

Into that abyss has stepped Debra Bowen, California’s secretary of state. Many of us have supported her call to make elections more secure, and Bowen came into office with… more

Who would have predicted that the defining difference in the Democratic presidential campaign would involve not Iraq but reform of the political process, particularly the role of lobbyists? At the candidates’ joint appearance at the YearlyKos convention of netroots activists in August, the question of taking money from lobbyists earned Barack Obama and John Edwards -- who don’t -- their biggest cheers, and Hillary Clinton -- who does -- her biggest boos. Since then, the fight has only escalated.

Most Democratic… more

California is used to power grabs, as are other states of electoral significance, like Ohio and Florida. All three states have seen partisan attempts at redistricting reform, which treated them as pawns on the national political chessboard.

Now in California comes the latest power grab, an attempt to manipulate the Electoral College vote to help Republican candidates for president. GOP operatives are seeking to pass a ballot proposition that will award one electoral vote for each congressional district won by… more

With all the controversy swirling around embattled San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew regarding FBI investigations and his in-district residency, some have asked the question: How did this guy ever get elected?

Ironically the answer reveals a new dynamic in San Francisco elections that may diminish the nastiness of mudslinging campaigns, to the relief of all. San Francisco has seen its share of vicious political races. Campaign mailers showing Nazi swastikas, cockroaches and pornography, along with accusations of anti-Semitism, slum landlordism… more

The most confusing political phenomenon of recent times is "big-government conservatism." The lines on every graph show the same pattern: Government -- whether measured by spending, the deficit, the number of employees, or earmarked appropriations -- expanded through the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Bush Senior administrations; declined steadily under Clinton; then shot rapidly northward after Republicans took control of the White House in 2001.

For conservatives, the story of big-government conservatism has become a chapter in their own self-satisfied mythology.… more

The Bush administration seems to be reeling from policy failure to scandal.

Key administration officials have resigned, President Bush’s approval ratings are in the high 20s, with support dwindling even among Republicans and high-ranking military officers. Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist who ran Ronald Reagan’s 1984 presidential campaign, has said, "The country doesn’t believe George W. Bush, it doesn’t trust him, and with 19 months to go it’s only going to get worse." The government of George W. Bush clearly has… more

The sound of hissing air leaking out of Los Angeles democracy is unmistakable. A check-in at one precinct by 2:00 p.m. on election day revealed that only two voters out of the 1,073 registered in that precinct had turned out to vote. By the close of the polls, it was up to four. This makes the 10% overall turnout in the March 6 elections -- already the lowest in decades -- look like a democratic flood.

Each of the 122,436 ballots… more

Ten years ago, the United States held its first billion-dollar election -- that was roughly the amount spent by all candidates for Congress and the presidency put together. The same year brought the first large-scale campaign finance scandal since Watergate, best remembered for the almost accurate metaphor of President Bill Clinton selling overnights in the Lincoln Bedroom in exchange for large contributions to the Democratic Party. And both took place at a time when Americans were deeply disconnected from politics;… more