Almost inevitably, the president’s party loses congressional seats during a midterm. Between 1934 and 2018, there were 22 of these elections and the incumbent party shed House seats in 19 of the 22 and Senate seats in 16 of them. The average loss per chamber was 28 in the House and 4 in the Senate…. (Read more)
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Alaska’s election results do not discred
Various conservatives are upset that Sarah Palin was defeated by Democrat Mary Peltola in the recent special election to fill Alaska’s lone House seat. Some of them point out that the former governor and vice-presidential candidate got the most votes in the June primary, and lament that a majority of voters picked a Republican in […]
What’s going on with ranked choice votin
Utah is a very conservative state. Its two senators and four House members are Republicans, as are its governor and attorney general. The GOP holds majorities in both the state’s legislative chambers. The right has been in charge for decades. The state prides itself in running elections that make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. […]
Democrats are fooling themselves about t...
Recent Democratic rhetoric and the longer history of Congress and midterm elections remind us that parties on their way to losing congressional majorities often talk the following way about their legislative agendas: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York declared last week that the party-line passage of the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act… (Read more)
What is Final Four Voting?
Does the House need so many rules?
The other week I found myself testifying before the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. Someone on the committee had seen my column grousing about the crazy process used to pass a half billion debt increase last autumn. I was asked to show up and discuss why I thought the People’s House was drowning in a surfeit of […]