Lee Drutman

A lot of folks warned that pardoning the J6 criminals would create a permission structure for more political violence. They were right. www.politico.com/news/2025/06...

The central puzzle in American politics is why Republicans continue to win elections despite pursuing deeply unpopular policies. The simplest explanation is that issue positions don't matter nearly as much as we like to think they do. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

The only way to end the gerrymandering wars is proportional representation.

I see we've reached the stage of gladiator fights to entertain the aging and disturbed emperor.

I regret to inform you all that "open the primaries to independents" is an inadequate solution to restoring sanity to Washington. leedrutman.substack.com/p/open-the-p...

Mark is correct. There are no "fair maps" under single-member districts. leedrutman.substack.com/p/why-you-ca...

"Fragmentation, in short, is not the threat to American governance. Its absence is." electionlawblog.org?p=156552

I look forward to a future America when we have proportional representation and wonder what was so special about single-member districts that we kept them around even as they failed at their only purpose: enabling voters to choice their representatives. leedrutman.substack.com/p/a-brief-23...

campaign finance reform has to accompany electoral system reform. And the reform has to encourage healthy parties, not keep gutting them. leedrutman.substack.com/p/campaign-f...

Perhaps a candidate running as underdog this Nov. should say something like: Hey, I'm running as a D/R because we have a two-party system, but if you vote for me, I'll work every day to break this two-party system that you all dislike so much. Who knows: maybe it will break through?

"A system employing proportional representation could halt gerrymandering — and the damage it does to representative democracy — in its tracks" www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Or we could count on the courts to police gerrymandering. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/26/u...

Everybody thinks you can just ban gerrymandering. But finding a standard is not so easy, when there are dozens of dimensions of fairness, infinite trade-offs, partisan lawyers ready to pounce on any deviation, and control of Congress perpetually at stake. 1/