Consequences of party reform

The Supreme Court and the Electoral Process.

This article contemplates the role the U.S. Supreme Court has played in the maintenance of the American two-party system. Specifically, we ask whether the Court has worked to constrain minor parties or to facilitate their efforts to become meaningful political entities. Our examination of litigation involving political parties depicts a Court that has remained "neutral" toward minor and major parties; indeed, we found some evidence of a positive relationship between minor parties and Court decisions, but only after we controlled for three other variables: cycles of American politics, case issues, and Court eras. These and other findings lead us to a number of conclusions about the role the Court plays in the American political system.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2131900.pdf

On the Treatment of Political Parties in the U.S. Supreme Court, 1900-1986

Reforming the Reforms is written in the midst of widespread dissatisfaction with the aftermath of the victory of direct democracy over representative decision making as the governing principle for presidential nomination. With analytical precision and clarity, Ceaser reviews the historical stages and transformations of the nominating process since 1789. He details how an original commitment to representative decision making manifested itself in several forms: electoral college, congressional caucus, and national convention. Since the progressive era, this principle has been under attack by proponents of direct democracy. The most dramatic advances for the latter cause have come since 1968. Procedures for convention delegate selection have been changed, with the incidence of primaries increasing at the expense of caucuses, and rule-making authority has become centralized in the national party organization. After recounting these developments, Ceaser introduces significant problem areas that have emerged: sequence of delegate selection contests, media role, voting behavior in primaries, and campaign financing.

Reforming the Reforms: A Critical Analysis of the Presidential Selection Process. By Ceaser James W.. (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger Publishing, 1982. Pp. xi + 201. $16.50.)

IT IS hardly debatable that the rules governing political parties and electoral politics in America have changed considerably during the past two decades. A partial catalogue of changes includes the quadrennial reforms of the Democratic party, greater access to the ballot by independent and third-party candidates, declines in the use of patronage politics, alterations in financing federal campaigns, and broader participation in the nomination of candidates at every level. As a result, the words used to explain the collapse of Frank Skeffington's political machine in the 1956 novel, The Last Hurrah "all the rules and playing conditions had changed" (O'Connor 1956: 331) probably have been uttered in defeat and in the expectation of victory by many contemporary politicians. This is not the first time that rules and playing conditions have changed, but it is striking how consciously conceived and philosophically based the current changes have been. That is not to suggest that such factors as advancing technology and shifting political and social attitudes have been insignificant; one cannot discount the impact of television or the various social factors that help explain the decline in party identification. Nor is it to suggest that the changes are proof that history can be molded according to a preexisting idea. Nevertheless, few of the changes have been accidental and many reflect deliberate efforts by political activists committed to a "new age of political reform" (Bickel 1968). The reforms have focused on the procedures and rules of electoral politics, but the broader goal of many reformers has been to replace the Madisonian model, with its emphasis on representation, checks and balances, and a labyrinthine complexity, with a reformed democracy that is more open, direct, and egalitarian. The reform movement has been "another in a long series of conflicts between two interpretations of the fundamental American principles of the 'consent of the governed': direct democracy (or populism) and representative decisionmaking" (Ceaser 1982: 3). The current reform movement is unique in the degree to which it has taken place in the federal courtroom. The Supreme Court's pronouncement that one-person, one-vote is the constitutionally correct model of democracy set the stage for, if it did not actually initiate, this new age of reform (Baker v. Carr, 1962; Reynolds v. Sims, 1964). In addition to a steady stream of apportionment litigation, the federal courts have adjudicated when both unsuccessful reformers and victims of reform elsewhere in the politi-

The Federal Courts' Involvement in the Reform of Political Parties:

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The Federal Courts' Involvement in the Reform of Political Parties: