Tomorrow’s US midterm results could have serious consequences for constitutional rights and the health of democracy in the United States

Posted on November 7, 2022 by The Constitution Unit

Tomorrow’s midterm elections in the United States will see voters cast ballots to elect members of the House of Representatives and a third of the membership of the Senate. James Cleaver analyses the state of the campaign, explains the potential consequences should Republicans regain control of either chamber (or both), and draws our attention to some of the key individual contests.

The United States will hold its midterm elections tomorrow. At the federal level, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 out of 100 Senate seats are being contested. There are also a large number of significant state-level races taking place across the country.

Understandably, much attention has been paid to what these elections might mean for President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda or for attempts to reinstate abortion rights across the country following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Yet these midterms will have other constitutional ramifications, from the health of the United States’ democracy to the composition of its judiciary.

House of Representatives

The most visible work of the House of Representatives in the current Congress has been undertaken by the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6^th Attack on the United States Capitol. The committee has reviewed documents, interviewed witnesses, and held nine public hearings about the events leading up to and including 6 January. Most recently, it has subpoenaed former President Donald Trump, although he is unlikely to ever testify.

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How Italy experienced (yet another) electoral system and why it may soon change it again

Posted on May 8, 2018 by The Constitution Unit

This year saw the Italian electorate vote under a new electoral system for the first time. However, this is the fourth time in 25 years that legislative reform has been passed by the Italian parliament. Gianfranco Baldini, Andrea Pedrazzani and Luca Pinto discuss how the new law came about and analyse how it operated in practice.

On 4 March 2018, Italy went to the polls using the fourth new electoral law (the Rosato law) approved since 1993, when Italy created a mixed-member majoritarian system selecting 75% of MPs in single-member constituencies, and the remaining 25% via proportional representation. The Mattarella Law, named after Sergio Mattarella, who now serves as President of the Republic, helped to bring about a bi-polarization of the party system along two main centre-right and centre-left coalitions. This year, no coalition or party obtained an absolute majority of seats in parliament. More than two months has passed since the vote and no government has yet been formed. If and when one emerges, a possible consensus could rise on a new electoral law, before calling fresh elections to break the deadlock.

Matthew Shugart has assessed the first effects of the new electoral law and here we analyse the main reasons behind this continuous change of provisions, some of the effects with regard to party system fragmentation, and two controversial aspects of the Rosato law, namely the provision for multiple candidacies and gender parity.

Why so many reforms?

The record number of electoral reforms over the last quarter of a century is due both to partisan reasons and to some Italian peculiarities. Among the latter, two (intertwined) factors stand out: the uncertain path of institutional reforms over the same period and the lack of institutionalisation of the party system that emerged after the 1994 election. Continue reading →

Selecting the US presidential candidates: a short guide to the primary system

Posted on January 28, 2016 by The Constitution Unit

The selection of the Republican and Democratic candidates for November’s US presidential election, beginning on Monday with the Iowa Caucus, will be followed with interest around the world. Daniel Goldstein and Jennifer vanHeerde-Hudson explain how an eclectic mix of caucuses, primaries and superdelegates will decide who gets to run for the White House.

Ten months out from the US presidential election and, amidst one of the most unpredictable presidential election campaigns in recent memory, the process of selecting the Democratic and Republican nominees via state-level primaries and caucuses will begin on February 1 with the Iowa Caucus. A splintered Republican Party currently has two frontrunners for the nomination, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, both of whom lack support from current party leaders. Further, the seemingly inevitable nomination of Hillary Clinton looks less assured as younger Democrats are supporting the distinctly more liberal Bernie Sanders, with recent polls showing Sanders could win the first two contests (Iowa and New Hampshire). The nomination season will serve to gauge the legitimacy of candidates with the voting public.

The process of selecting the party’s nominee is relatively straightforward. The two major parties allocate a certain number of ‘delegates’ to each of the 50 states and territories in which there are contests. Delegates are then allocated to candidates based on the results of state-level voting. Delegates cast their vote for a candidate during their party’s national convention where the official party nominee for president is selected. To win the nomination, a candidate must win a majority of delegates. In 2016, the Republican nominee will require 1,237 of 2,472 total delegates and the Democratic nominee will require 2,383 of 4,764 delegates. This year the Iowa Caucus will have 52 Democratic delegates and 30 Republican delegates at stake. Should Clinton, for example, win Iowa she will receive a plurality of the 52 delegates (but almost certainly not all 52), who will then be ‘bound’ to vote for her at the Democratic National Convention held in July of this year.

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