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Scott Walker emerging on the right as top government reform voice

Scott Walker, the onetime national Republican favorite ousted from the Wisconsin governor's mansion last year, has found another new political platform: He will be the figurehead for a new group that seeks promote government reform from the right.

The 18-month-old Institute for Reforming Government announced Monday that Walker will be its national honorary chairman as the group "seeks to simplify government at every level by offering policy solutions to thought leaders in American government in the areas of tax reform, government inefficiency, and burdensome regulations."


Since losing his bid for a third term last fall, the 52-year-old Walker has put together a portfolio of positions designed to keep him relevant in conservative governing circles. He is finance chairman of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, which will coordinate the party's redistricting strategy after the 2020 census, and national chairman of the Center for State-led National Debt Solutions, which is seeking to convene a constitutional convention with the aim of adding an amendment requiring a balanced federal budget.

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A better direction for democracy reform

Denver election judge Eric Cobb carefully looks over ballots as counting continued on Nov. 6. Voters in Colorado rejected a ranked choice voting and open primaries measure.

Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images

A better direction for democracy reform

Drutman is a senior fellow at New America and author "Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America."

This is the conclusion of a two-part, post-election series addressing the questions of what happened, why, what does it mean and what did we learn? Read part one.

I think there is a better direction for reform than the ranked choice voting and open primary proposals that were defeated on Election Day: combining fusion voting for single-winner elections with party-list proportional representation for multi-winner elections. This straightforward solution addresses the core problems voters care about: lack of choices, gerrymandering, lack of competition, etc., with a single transformative sweep.

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Clionadh Raleigh

Political polarization has become entertainment: A conversation with Clionadh Raleigh

Berman is a distinguished fellow of practice at The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, co-editor of Vital City, and co-author of "Gradual: The Case for Incremental Change in a Radical Age." This is part of a series of interviews titled "The Polarization Project."

Clionadh Raleigh, a professor of political violence and geography at the University of Sussex, has been studying violence for more than 20 years and has come to a depressing conclusion: Global rates of conflict are rising dramatically. Raleigh tracks global conflict with the help of researchers at Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, an organization she helped to create when she was a PhD student.

According to Raleigh, the rise in violence reflects the chaotic politics we are living through at the moment. “The most potent and growing forces in the world are political competition and authoritarianism, not inclusion, democracy, or a desire for peace,” she argues.

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Silhouette of an American politician speakting , with the country's flag on the left
Andrea Nicolini/Getty Images

Coming to terms with elitism and intellectual arrogance

Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.”

Over the past 11 months I have written more than 30 essays for The Fulcrum’s A Republic if we can keep it series. My charge was “to assist American citizens on the bumpy road ahead this election year,” and to remind readers of the matchless quality of our unique experiment in democracy. The process of putting these constitutional thoughts on paper has been exceedingly rewarding, and I hope readers have learned a thing or two along the way.

Sadly, though, I now fear that I failed miserably in my one crucial task.

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