Legislative Party Campaign Committees in the American States

In a time of increasing campaign costs and decreasing state political party activity, legislative party campaign committees have grown to play a major role in the politics of elections in a large number of American states. Anthony Gierzynski\u27s book focuses on these committees. In this first multi-state analysis, Gierzynski explores the nature and practices of the committees through interviews with legislative leaders and staff and through statistical analyses of campaign finance data from ten representative states. In addition to direct cash contributions, legislative caucus campaign committees provide candidates with a multitude of support and services and usually target their resources on close races where they will have the greatest impact. Leadership PACs, the campaign committees of individual legislators, also allocate their resources strategically. The existence of such committees and the fact that the caucus campaign committees resemble political parties in both structure and behavior leads Gierzynski to pose interesting normative and practical questions. The answers to such questions have major implications for political parties and legislative politics. Anthony Gierzynski is assistant professor of political science and research associate of the Social Science Research Institute at Northern Illinois University.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_political_science_american_politics/1010/thumbnail.jp

The Effects of Candidate Gender on Campaign Spending in State Legislative Elections

This article will investigate whether candidate gender affects levels of campaign spending in state legislative elections. Copyright (c) 2007 by the Southwestern Social Science Association.

What Happened in Burlington?

Three visualization techniques illustrate the distribution of electoral preferences over a candidate triple. Two of them, introduced here, concern an IRV tally. The conditions that may allow the “pushover strategy” and the “No-Show Paradox”, are identified, and the practical consequences discussed. The controversial mayoral election of Burlington, Vermont, in 2009 is background. We see the IRV method in a legal and in a political context, presenting aspects of a judgment in the Minnesota Supreme Court 2009 and of the UK referendum over IRV in 2011. IRV is the single-seat version of STV. Both may achieve proportional voter influence with a designed disproportional distribution of seats in a legislature, e.g. as part of a potentially viable modus vivendi in ethnically divided societies