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A view of destruction as Palestinians, who returned to the city following the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, struggle to survive among ruins of destroyed buildings during cold weather in Jabalia, Gaza on January 23, 2025.
Getty Images / Anadolu
The Fragile Ceasefire in Gaza
Jan 28, 2025
Ceasefire agreements are like modern constitutions. They are fragile, loaded with idealistic promises, and too easily ignored. Both are also crucial to the realization of long-term regional peace. Indeed, ceasefires prevent the violence that is frequently the fuel for instability, while constitutions provide the structure and the guardrails that are equally vital to regional harmony.
More than ever, we need both right now in the Middle East.
The ceasefire in Gaza, that seems to be holding, is cause for celebration and, for some, optimism. Every day that passes without the destructive violence of the past sixteen months, and every hostage that is released during the present truce, provides some hope that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict might ease a bit. Negotiators on both sides should be commended.
But the hard work of finding an enduring solution to a centuries-old dispute remains. And that is where constitutions come in. Constitutions in the region are certainly part of the problem; maybe they can also be part of a lasting solution.
No one should doubt that constitutions function differently in Middle Eastern countries than in many other parts of the globe. Nathan Brown has written that constitutions in most Arab states are “generally viewed as elegant but insincere expressions of aspirations that rulers issue in an effort to obscure the unrestrained nature of their authority. Constitutions are written not to limit authority…but to mask it.” He’s right, of course. If modern constitutions are meant to limit political power, establish government institutions, enumerate individual and group rights, and identify a nation’s most fervent aspirations, most Middle Eastern constitutions badly miss the mark. To paraphrase Brown’s primary take-away: constitutions perform only minimally in a nonconstitutional Arab world.
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And now consider that a written constitution does not even exist in Israel.
The story of why is familiar. In May, 1948, the National Council of the newly-established State of Israel issued a Declaration of Independence. In it was the promise of a fresh constitutional draft. It would take four months for the Israeli constitutional framers to whip up such a draft, declared the Declaration of Independence. Well, that four months came and went, and, despite efforts to resurrect the call for drafting a constitution over the next 77 years, supporters of Israeli constitutionalism are still waiting.
So, we have nonliberal constitutions in many Arab countries and an unwritten constitution in Israel. Sadly, both make sense. To suggest that Arab countries should all of a sudden become liberal republics is both foolish and parochial, and to condemn Israeli leaders for refusing to check their authority as guardians of Jewish statehood is arrogant.
And yet those Arab constitutions, and the lack of a written constitution in Israel, is a big part of the problem. Constitutions are not a source of accountability in the region. Any solution, whether it be two-state or one, has to reckon with these constitutional deficiencies. Even slight reform of the fundamental laws in the Middle East would make a difference. The strengthening of political accountability in authoritarian Arab regimes would make negotiations with Israel more productive. (There was some hope for progress after the Arab Spring more than a decade ago. That hope has faded.) Equally, the extension of additional freedoms to Palestinians in Israel will help to ease the impasse. Both adversaries must move their “constitutions” to the left. Not an easy task, for sure. But one that would have long term, positive ramifications.
Neither constitution has to fully resemble those in North America or Western Europe. But both have to move, ever so slightly, in those directions.
Modern constitutions are like ceasefire agreements. If followed, they can right the political ship, provide much needed time and space for reflection, and, yes, even save lives. The Middle East conflict appears intractable at the moment. Constitutional reform in the region is part of the solution.
Beau 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.”
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The Committee on House Administration meets on the 15th anniversary of the SCOTUS decision on Citizens United v. FEC.
Medill News Service / Samanta Habashy
Money Makes the World Go Round Roundtable
Jan 28, 2025
WASHINGTON – On the 15th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, and one day after President Trump’s inauguration, House Democrats made one thing certain: money determines politics, not the other way around.
“One of the terrible things about Citizens United is people feel that they're powerless, that they have no hope,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Ma.).
The roundtable discussion focused on the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision on prohibiting the government from restricting independent spending on political campaigns. The ruling unleashed corporate spending on elections and its impact was felt in the last election, where billionaire donors fueled Trump’s presidential win. Democrats on the Committee on House Administration convened the roundtable and only Democrats participated.
However, Ilya Somin, a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, said he supported the ruling in 2010 and still does now because the Supreme Court was correct in deciding that the First Amendment protected independent political spending by corporations and other groups.
He said Citizens United is not responsible for the “bad developments” in American politics.
“I think almost any constitutional right can potentially be destroyed by saying you're not allowed to expend resources in order to exercise the right. That's certainly true of the right of freedom of speech. If you say, ‘Well, you can say what you want, but you can't spend money to disseminate your speech or broadcast,’ that would clearly destroy the right of freedom of speech,” he said.
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According to PBS News, the 2024 presidential election was the second most expensive election since the 1980s. OpenSecrets reported that the amount spent was $5.5 billion.
Tiffany Muller, president of End Citizens United, an advocacy group, told the gathering of lawmakers that the wealth of the ten richest people in the world surged by $64 billion the day after Trump was elected. She added that Elon Musk’s net worth had “increased by $200 billion just this year.”
She said the Court’s Citizens United decision was “disastrous,” and it not only opened the floodgates to unlimited and undisclosed spending, but it shut the door on getting anything done.
She said that before Citizens United, there were 14 instances of Republicans joining with Democrats to address climate change, and after it passed, the oil and gas lobby became the number one spender in elections, and “there have since been zero instances of us being able to address that since.”
Muller said yesterday’s inauguration was the culmination of the consequences of the last 15 years and the start of what she referred to as “the Billionaire’s Ball” because “just seven people donated a billion dollars to elect Donald Trump.” Now, some of them sit at the head of government agencies, “like Dr. Oz, who made a fortune as a snake oil salesman.”
In his last address to the nation, former President Joe Biden warned that rich people were having so much sway in politics that “an oligarchy is taking shape in America.”
McGovern, however, argued that the word ‘oligarchy’ should not be used because “people don’t know what that means.”
He suggested, instead, that lawmakers keep drawing the connection to show how big money influences particular policies.
“If you're on a committee that deals with healthcare, tie the fact that Trump is trying to undo efforts to lower the cost of pharmaceuticals. We have to keep making the connection,” he said.
Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) contradicted McGovern, “The reality is that we need to tell the truth, and if people don't understand the language we're using, it doesn't mean that we don't tell it to them. It means that we have to get them up to speed on the language.”
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) joked that she could use tequila in her coffee after the witnesses’ testimony “because it all feels awful.” But she said that these issues are exactly why she believes it’s her responsibility to do everything she can to make sure that people understand the impact of money in politics.
Ramirez, a daughter of immigrants, was the first Latina ever to be elected to serve Illinois in Congress.
“It's 2025, why is that? It's too damn expensive to run for Congress,” she said.
Some legal experts said Citizens United does not determine who wins elections.
Joe Luppino-Esposito, deputy legal policy director at the Pacific Legal Foundation, said that the candidates with the most money do not always win.
“Ask [former Vice President] Kamala Harris, who spent well over a billion dollars,” Luppino-Esposito said. “She dwarfed [Trump] completely, and he still prevailed. It’s definitely not the case that whoever has the most dollars automatically wins.”
According to Forbes, Harris’ campaign raised around $20 million from big donors between October and November, compared to Trump’s $5 million.
Luppino-Esposito disagreed with the alarms Democrats raised about oligarchs.
“Every party has their own oligarchs,” he said. “Everybody has their own people that they hail as their leaders in industry. When the case came down in 2010, there was this perception that corporate money was all going to be on the Republican side of the aisle, and that is very, very far from the case. Both sides have engaged in the arms race… Trump is not as afraid to tout that these people are on his side, whereas President Biden had the same type of people on his side as well [like George Soros].”
Somin, from George Mason University, said he’s unhappy with the winners in the recent election, but he does not blame Citizens United.
“American politics since 2010 has certainly gone in much worse directions than I had expected or hoped,” he said. “I don't think Citizens United is the culprit.”
“There are going to be some people who can exercise liberty in some ways more effectively than others. If you're a famous celebrity like Taylor Swift, when you speak, many more people are going to pay attention,” he said. “With almost every constitutional right, there's some degree of inequality in the sense of how effectively you can exercise that right, but I don't think there's anything unique to money and speech in that respect.”
During the roundtable, Lee conceded that it’s not just Republicans who protect big money in politics. Democrats publicly oppose Citizens United, but their actions don't align with their words.
“In our Democratic party, we won't even get rid of money and politics… when it's just us, and we have to start to talk about the why. I am the first Black woman to represent Pennsylvania. I do not come from money,” she said. “There is no one in my phone who I can call and ask for a significant amount of money. And because there's no such person in my network, people like me are systematically blocked from representing in Congress.”
Lee added that any one who cares about mass shootings, the climate, environmental racism, or taking down Big Pharma, should care about money in politics.
“If we can't put our money where our mouth is, then we have to be very real about whether or not we are actually fighting for the best interest of the American people,” Lee said. “We can't combat Big Pharma if we are also accepting money from them. Democrats have to be more serious about serving the people, and we can't do that if we are not serious about combating our own issues with taking money in politics.”
Samanta Habashy is a student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, majoring in journalism and international studies.
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A photo of multiple checked boxes.
Getty Images / Thanakorn Lappattaranan
Half-Baked Alaska
Jan 27, 2025
This past year’s elections saw a number of state ballot initiatives of great national interest, which proposed the adoption of two “unusual” election systems for state and federal offices. Pairing open nonpartisan primaries with a general election using ranked choice voting, these reforms were rejected by the citizens of Colorado, Idaho, and Nevada. The citizens of Alaska, however, who were the first to adopt this dual system in 2020, narrowly confirmed their choice after an attempt to repeal it in November.
Ranked choice voting, used in Alaska’s general elections, allows voters to rank their candidate choices on their ballot and then has multiple rounds of voting until one candidate emerges with a majority of the final vote and is declared the winner. This more representative result is guaranteed because in each round the weakest candidate is dropped, and the votes of that candidate’s supporters automatically transfer to their next highest choice. Alaska thereby became the second state after Maine to use ranked choice voting for its state and federal elections, and both have had great success in their use.
The purpose of primary elections is to let citizens winnow down the number of candidates to a more manageable number for the general election, when more voters are paying attention (typically two or three times as many). To decide who appears on the general election ballot, Maine uses traditional closed party primaries, where one candidate from each party advances and voters must declare affiliation with that party to participate in that choice. In Alaska’s open nonpartisan primary, candidates from all parties, as well as independent candidates, appear together on the same ballot for each office, and only the top four advance to the general election.
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With 57% of Alaskan voters having no party affiliation, many independent voters could only have a meaningful say in who was elected by joining the dominant Republican Party so that they could vote in their primaries. It was no surprise, then, that they instead favored a nonpartisan primary, which also allowed them to “split their tickets” and vote for candidates from different parties for different offices. In contrast, these other state initiatives undoubtedly suffered from a less independent electorate, from 26% in Idaho and 35% in Nevada to 48% in Colorado. Combining that with opposition in these states from the Republican and Democratic parties, but also from smaller parties and other organizations, these initiatives were destined for failure.
How can this dual-election system be improved so that there is more support and less party opposition? As the first implementation, let’s consider Alaska’s experience. Oddly, while ranked choice voting is being used in the state’s general elections, it is not being used in its primaries! Each voter is only allowed to pick one candidate, even though the voting machinery exists to allow them to rank at least some of the candidates. As a result, the primaries have the same detrimental consequences as any such election:
- Vote splitting that prevents similar candidates from advancing;
- Strategic voting about who can “win” by making it to the top four;
- Under-representation of third parties;
- Negative campaigning to suppress votes for opponents.
These factors combine, in effect, to reduce choice in the general election, where it matters the most, and potentially prevent the election of a candidate with actual majority support. Let’s consider them in turn.
Vote Splitting
Alaska’s first use of its new system is a good example, a high-profile special election to replace their lone and long-serving representative in the U.S. Congress, Don Young, who passed away in the spring of 2022. A special primary election was scheduled for June to fill the last few months of his term, and 48 candidates threw their hats in the ring. Two of the Republicans advanced to the general election, Sarah Palin (27%) and Nick Begich (19%), along with one of the Democrats, Mary Peltola (10%), and a “Nonpartisan”, Al Gross (13%, a former Democrat). But were they actually the most popular choices? One-third of the votes went to other candidates! With so many in this primary, including multiple candidates from the four largest affiliations, there was undeniably a great deal of vote splitting occurring. The two Libertarians are a clear example, they might have picked up additional support if there had been only one of them and fewer of the other competitors.
Strategic Voting
Alaskan voters clearly engaged in strategic voting in the special primary. Polling is intended to estimate voter support for the various candidates, but when it’s published before the election it also influences them. Which candidates have the best chances to advance? Voting for your favorite may split the vote with a similar but more popular candidate and prevent either from moving on to the general election, so you may abandon the former and strategically vote for the latter. We can see this effect when we compare the early polling to the primary results, where the more popular candidates expanded their leads, enough to advance to the general election. The early polls clearly influenced voters from expressing their true preferences at the poll that really matters, the primary. In addition, this effect is subject to the tentativeness of early polling and manipulation via “fake” polls.
Under-Representation
In Alaska’s special primary election, the smaller parties were completely shut out. For example, the Libertarian Party didn’t gain any support from independent voters, and the Alaska Independence Party’s candidate saw little support even from its membership, who presumably felt that would be a wasted vote. The general pattern of advancement in the subsequent two regular primaries in 2022 and 2024 is four Republicans and Democrats in some combination. Previously, smaller parties would have been allowed to run a candidate in the general election and present their case to its larger audience. As a result, this multiplex primary system has become an even greater barrier to their participation than the strategic voting with which they previously coped. This is hardly the “diverse competition” claimed by its proponents!
Negative Campaigning
Another feature of ranked choice voting is that it encourages more positive campaigns because most candidates need to rely on second- and third-choice votes to win a majority of the vote. Pick-one primaries do not provide this incentive, because a candidate can vigorously attack others and, if victorious, have time before the general election to mollify those candidates’ supporters. This was amply demonstrated in the special primary, where the Republican candidates Palin and Begich continuously feuded. When both candidates made it into the general elections, a large number of Begich’s supporters snubbed Palin and ranked the Democrat second, providing the support Peltola needed to win in the final round of voting.
Solutions
There are a number of changes that could be made to Alaska’s primaries to fix these issues and make them more acceptable to those who oppose it:
- Ranked choice voting should be used in the primary, in a “bottoms-up” fashion, proceeding with candidate elimination and vote transfer until a certain number of candidates are all that remain. By coalescing voter support at the low end, it will eliminate vote-splitting, ensuring that majority views bubble up to the top, and also give small parties a better chance of advancing. It would reduce strategic voting by letting voters focus on their real choices instead of a perception of “who can win”. And, it would allow the members of any party to rank their own candidates before others, approximating a party primary but with a more representative result. With advancement to the general election often dependent on receiving secondary and tertiary votes, candidates will also avoid negative campaigning.
- Voters should be allowed to rank as many candidates as possible in the primary, to improve the potential for one of their choices to advance and thereby minimize strategic voting. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, where nine city councilors are elected at-large using ranked choice voting, voters can rank up to 15 candidates, and half of them willingly rank five or more. (This would be limited by current vote-tabulating technology, e.g. Dominion’s 10 rankings.)
- The number of allowed candidates in the general election should be increased to five, also a manageable number that works in many locales. This will further reduce the degree of strategic voting and increase the opportunity for small parties.
- A second criterion for advancement to the general election should also be provided (or even substituted), which is that any candidate who achieves a minimum vote share should qualify. Then candidates from small parties would not be excluded if they have a basic level of support. Such “electoral thresholds” are commonly used in U.S. party presidential primaries as a requirement for convention delegates to be awarded, and in many parliamentary governments for a candidate to be seated. For Alaska, such a floor could be set at the state’s requirement for official party status, which is 3% of the vote. (This opportunity would also be limited by vote-tabulating technology.)
- If the number of registered candidates equals or falls below the advancement number, it’s unnecessary to even run a primary election, saving on its cost. More than 90% of Alaska’s primary elections so far were unnecessary, since they had four or fewer candidates.
These changes to Alaska’s nonpartisan primaries would provide voters with more choice and more voice in who they elect, and let the community respond to changing politics more easily than with the two-party system. Hopefully, now that a few years have passed, legislators will be more comfortable with ranked choice voting and be willing to fix the primaries themselves. If not, I encourage good government groups in Alaska to bring another ballot initiative, as it will result in a much more delicious experience for voters.
It’s also clear that for a state to adopt this paired election system of nonpartisan primary and ranked choice general elections, there should be, at the very least, a substantial number of independent voters. If not, then it should start by adopting ranked choice voting for both its general elections and partisan primaries, and first get comfortable with this more palatable half of the system.
Andy Anderson is the Senior Academic Technology Specialist for Data Science and Spatial Analysis at Amherst College, and a ranked choice voting activist.Keep ReadingShow less
The United States Supreme Court.
Getty Images / Rudy Sulgan
Top-Two Primaries Under the Microscope
Jan 27, 2025
Fourteen years ago, after the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the popular blanket primary system, Californians voted to replace the deeply unpopular closed primary that replaced it with a top-two system. Since then, Democratic Party insiders, Republican Party insiders, minor political parties, and many national reform and good government groups, have tried (and failed) to deep-six the system because the public overwhelmingly supports it (over 60% every year it’s polled).
Now, three minor political parties, who opposed the reform from the start and have unsuccessfully sued previously, are once again trying to overturn it. The Peace and Freedom Party, the Green Party, and the Libertarian Party have teamed up to file a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Their brief repeats the same argument that the courts have previously rejected—that the top-two system discriminates against parties and deprives voters of choice by not guaranteeing every party a place on the November ballot.
The plaintiffs argue that California’s top-two system is a violation of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights, as well as “the rights of voters who wish to vote for and associate with minor political parties, their candidates and the issues for which they stand.” It’s a party-centric argument, adopted by some reformers, that the only legitimate expression of “voter choice” is a November election in which all candidates who wish to run appear on the ballot. The longer the menu, the more choices you get. Take something off the menu, you're denying choice.
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So why do California voters find the top-two system so appealing if there are “only” two choices? In fact, the choices these plaintiffs are suing to offer voters already exist—in the primary. In that way, the primary is much more like a general election, and, like any general election, all voters get to participate. The general election, then, becomes a runoff of the top vote-getters. It could be any combination of candidates. What matters is that the people themselves—not the parties—get to make the choice of who they like best to compete head-to-head. That’s the appeal of the California system—it’s voter-centric.
Since the adoption of the top-two system, electoral competitiveness has gone way up in California. Uncontested elections have virtually disappeared. Five million independent voters have access to the ballot box. And, all voters have access to the only electoral system that pits the two most favored candidates against each other head-to-head and guarantees a majority winner.
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs collectively represent 2% of the CA electorate (less than half a million voters out of 24 million registered). Twenty years ago, long before the top-two system, they represented—you guessed it—2% of the electorate. As millions of voters have left the major parties in CA, and tens of millions nationwide, the number of independent voters has more than doubled, going from 14% of the electorate twenty years ago to almost a quarter of the CA electorate today. California voters are clearly not very interested in the “choice” these plaintiffs are offering.
The case is unlikely to be successful. There is no absolute right for any party or candidate to be on any ballot. The U.S. Supreme Court has limited its guidance to directing states to “provide a feasible opportunity for political organizations and their candidates to appear on the ballot.” The top-two system treats every party equally. Indeed, the parties in their brief acknowledge that, despite a very modest amount of public support, some third-party candidates have had success in CA under the top-two system. Not to mention that the Supreme Court has already ruled that the top-two primary is constitutional.
Perhaps the case will start some new conversations. How should the rights of third parties be balanced with the rights of voters—especially the explosion of independent voters? How do you articulate the value of a reform that has shown real merit but that is hard to capture in a state as large and as complicated as CA? Whose opinions on the value of a reform matter more—reformers or the public they profess to be serving?
If the case prompts thoughtful answers to any of these questions, these plaintiffs may still yet succeed in unwittingly advancing a very different goal—a more voter-centric reform movement.
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