Protect Democracy has issued a scholarly report titled “Advantaging Authoritarianism: The U.S. Electoral System & Antidemocratic Extremism.” Scholars involved with the report are Arend Lijphart, Jack Santucci, Jennifer Gandhi, Larry Diamond, Lee Drutman, Yascha Mounk, and Cynthia McClintock.

The paper says “This paper does not advocate for any specific suites of reforms”, but does recommend ranked choice voting, proportional representation, multi-member districts, and enlarging the size of the U.S. House. The report points out that the U.S. House has more constituents per member than any other lower-chamber legislative body in the world, except for India.

The report notes that the U.S. is the only nation that forces parties to choose their nominees in government-administered primaries, but it does not suggest that the U.S. switch to the common world standard of letting parties choose their own nominees through their own meetings. The report does suggest the U.S. primaries would be improved if ranked choice voting were used in primaries. Thanks to Michael Drucker for the link to the report.

On January 10, the government of Delaware filed this reply brief in Adams v Carney, 1:20cv-1680. This is the case that challenges the Delaware law that requires most judicial appointees to be members of one of the two largest parties. Therefore, independents can never serve as judges, except for two minor types of court.

The government says the applicant, James R. Adams, doesn’t have standing because he doesn’t have a “realistic” chance of being appointed even if the law didn’t exist. The government doesn’t say why he doesn’t have a realistic chance of being appointed, except to say that he has been retired from the practice of law for six years. Probably the real reason he doesn’t have a realistic chance of being appointed, is that the present Governor doesn’t like him, because of his lawsuit. But that shouldn’t be a consideration. Someday Delaware will have a new Governor.

On January 7, the Bangor Daily News reported that Maine Representative John Andrews had changed his registration from Libertarian to Republican. Also, at the same time, independent Representative Sophie Warren changed her registration from independent to Democratic. See this story. Both are running for re-election.