Political Science 102G

The Laws of Politics:

Term Limits, Campaign Finance, Blanket Primaries and Redistricting

 

Prof. Thad Kousser                                                   Summer Session II, 2008    

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2-4:50p                            Center Hall 220

tkousser@ucsd.edu, 534-3239                                  Final: Saturday, Sept. 6th, 11:30am

                       

Required Reading

› All readings are either included in the course reader, available for purchase at AS Soft Reserves (in the Old Student Center complex, 534-7886), or posted online at the course website.

› Office Hours: Mondays, 10am-noon, SSB 369

› The course webpage, located at http://weber.ucsd.edu/~tkousser/PS102g.htm, will contain updates and assignments.

 

            This class studies the intersection of election law, politics, and academia.  We will look at major policy changes that affect the way that politics works, the legal decisions that govern them, and the academic research aimed at influencing policymakers and judges.  Our four areas of focus will be campaign finance, redistricting, blanket primaries, and term limits.  Students will make presentations summarizing cases and research, prepare legal briefs of their own, and argue their cases before a mock Supreme Court. 

 

Course Assignments

› 25% of your grade will be based on class participation.

› 25% will come from a five-page research legal brief due on August 21st.

› 10% is based on your presentation of one reading and discussion questions.

› 10% will come from your two-page reaction to “The Redistricting Game,” due on September 2nd.

› 30% comes from the oral argument that you will make on a fictional case before our mock Supreme Court on Saturday, September 6th. 

 

Course Outline

Tuesday, August 5th.  Introduction to the course and Campaign Finance Simulation.  Lecture Notes: Term Limits and the Future of the Legislature

 

Thursday, August 7th. The Term Limits Movement and the Anti-Term Limits Drive.

i.                    William Kristol “Term Limitations: Breaking Up the Iron Triangle,” Nelson W. Polsby “Some Arguments Against Congressional Term Limitations,” (both from the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, 1993) and Paul Jacobs, “From the Voters with Care,” from the Cato Institute, The Politics and Law of Term Limits, 1994 (Reader).

ii.                  Court filing in Rippon, Bergeson, and Johnston v McPherson and McCormack (Reader).

iii.                Proposition 93 packet (Reader).

iv.               Reference Reading for Oral Arguments:

Thad Kousser, 2008. “Term Limits and State Legislatures,” in Caroline Tolbert, Todd Donovan, and Bruce E. Cain, editors, Democracy in the States: Experiments in Election Reform (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press) (online).

 

 

Tuesday, August 12th. The History of Campaign Finance Through the FECA 1974, Buckley v. Vallejo and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act

i.                    “Contribution and Expenditure Limits: Buckley v. Valeo” taken from Election Law: Cases and Materials, Daniel Hays Lowenstein. Carolina Academic Press (1995), pp. 507-527 (Reader). 

ii.                  Michael J. Malbin, “Thinking About Reform,” in Life After Reform: When the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act Meets Politics, edited by Michael J. Malbin (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003 (Reader).

iii.                The Buying Time Controversy. (Packet of press articles in Reader)

 

 

Thursday, August 14th. McConnell v. FEC and the Future of Campaign Finance Reform

i.          Richard Briffault, “Decline and Fall? The Roberts Court and the Challenges to Campaign Finance Law,” The Forum, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2008, (Reader). 

ii.         Ray La Raja, “From Bad to Worse: The Unraveling of the Campaign Finance System,” The Forum, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2008, (Reader). 

iii.                Richard L. Hasen, “Political Equality, the Internet, and Campaign Finance Regulation,” The Forum, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2008, (Reader). 

iv.               Reference Readings for Legal Brief:

a.       Stephen Ansolabehere, Shanto Iyengar, Adam Simon, Nicholas Valentino, “Does Attack Advertising Demobilize the Electorate? The American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 4 (Dec., 1994), pp. 829-838 (online).

b.      Martin P. Wattenberg, Craig Leonard Brians, “Negative Campaign Advertising: Demobilizer or Mobilizer? The American Political Science Review, Vol. 93, No. 4 (Dec., 1999), pp. 891-899 (online).

 

 

 

Tuesday, August 19th. The Role of the Government in Primaries and Proposition 198.

i.                    “Obligations of Parties Under the Constitution,” through “Associational Rights of Parties,” taken from Election Law: Cases and Materials, Daniel Hays Lowenstein. Carolina Academic Press (1995), pp. 318-350 (Reader).

ii.                  California Democratic Party v. Jones, United States Supreme Court Decision, 1999 (Reader).

iii.                Nathaniel Persily, “The Blanket Primary in the Courts,” from Voting at the Political Faultline: California’s Experiment with the Blanket Primary, edited by Bruce Cain and Elisabeth Gerber (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). 

 

 

Thursday, August 21st. The Effects of the Blanket Primary and a New Proposal.

i.                    John Sides, Jonathan Cohen, and Jack Citrin, “The Causes and Consequences of Crossover Voting in the 1998 California Elections,” from Voting at the Political Faultline: California’s Experiment with the Blanket Primary, edited by Bruce Cain and Elisabeth Gerber (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). 

ii.                   R. Michael Alvarez and Jonathan Nagler, “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” from Voting at the Political Faultline: California’s Experiment with the Blanket Primary, edited by Bruce Cain and Elisabeth Gerber (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). 

iii.                The California Voter Choice Open Primary. (Packet in Reader)

 

 

Tuesday, August 26th. One-Person, One-Vote and Gerrymandering

i.                    Gary W. Cox and Jonathan Katz, Elbridge Gerry’s Salamander: The Electoral Consequences of the Reapportionment Revolution, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002) pages 3-28 (Reader).

ii.                  Bruce Cain, Iris Hui, and Karin MacDonald, “Sorting or Self-Sorting? Competition and Redistricting in California,” The New Political Geography of California (Berkeley Public Policy Press, 2008) (Reader).

iii.                Proposition 11 information, http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=California_Proposition_11_(2008)

 

 

Thursday, August 28th.

i.                    Familiarize yourself with the Redistricting Game at http://www.redistrictinggame.com/

 

 

Tuesday, September 2nd. Minority Voting Rights.

i.                    “The Right to Vote and its Exercise,” taken from Election Law: Cases and Materials, Daniel Hays Lowenstein. Carolina Academic Press (1995), pp. 21-33 (Reader).

ii.                  “Race Conscious Redistricting and the Constitution: Round II,” taken from Election Law: Cases and Materials, Daniel Hays Lowenstein. Carolina Academic Press (1995), pp. 216-225 (Reader).

iii.                J. Morgan Kousser, “Has California gone Colorblind?” The New Political Geography of California (Berkeley Public Policy Press, 2008) (Reader).

 

 

Thursday, September 4th. Team Meetings and Mock Court Preparation.

 

 

 

Capitol Fellows Program

     To learn more about a great opportunity to work as a legislative, executive, or judicial staffer after college, click on the Capitol Fellows Link

 

UC in Sacramento Center

Intern in Sacramento for Academic Credit

  http://uccs.universityofcalifornia.edu

*You must schedule a meeting with the AIP Sacramento counselor   

  in order to be eligible for application to the UCCS Program