Solutions I

 Just a reminder: If we had ranked-choice voting for president, nobody would be complaining about @justinamash being a potential spoiler.

— Lee Drutman (@leedrutman) April 29, 2020

For Wednesday, read the Sinclair-O'Grady article.

In your writeups this week, tell me what topics you would like to raise or revisit in the next two weeks.

The fruits of polarization:

House size

As of the 2020 census, there are 760,367 people per House seat .

Consequences

2020 data

Anomalies of allocating seats by state:

• Delaware, with 989,948 people, gets one seat.
• Montana, with 1,084,225, gets two.
• NYS lost a seat.  If it had just 89 more people, it would have kept it.

Case for enlarging the House

In CA, each state senate district will have 988,455 people -- about the same as the entire state of Delaware.

Thesis on expanding the House and the CA Legislature.

Examples of multiparty systems:  Canada, Britain, Israel

Review Causes of the two-party system:

• Duverger's "Law" (Hershey 39-40)
• Electoral college
• Ballot access

Types of Third-Party Movements

• Ongoing issue-based or ideological parties
• Short-lived movements
• Wallace 1968
• Anderson 1980
• Perot 1992

Reasons for Third Party Bursts

• Major party deterioration and issue responsiveness
• Economic decline
• Unacceptable major party candidates

Reasons for the brevity of the bursts

• Major parties coopt the third party agenda: Wilson coopts TR on Progressive reform, FDR coopts Socialists on social programs, Nixon coopts G. Wallace on law & order, Clinton coopts Perot on deficit control.
• Perception of spoiler effect:  Nader in 2000, Stein in 2016