[EL] Ideas for the first day of class

[Rob Richie]

I've talked to a number of aw and/or government classes about FairVote's
take on the electoral process, and in the spirit of Ciara's exercise, have
often generated a particularly good conversation by asking what particular
interests and characteristics are most important to represent for
credibility of the institution. For example, in a typical state inn the
United States, would a representative body lose credibility if it one
political party held all the seats. This typically generates a list of a
lot of interests/characteristics (like race, gender, socio-ecomic
background, religion, age, and so on) that generate some spirited debate.

Interestingly, what often isn't brought up by students is geography, which
leads nicely into a conversation about what characteristics might be most
deserving of a quota to ensure representation of that  particular feature
-- with the point being that Congress, most states and many cities have
passed statutes making geography the one characteristic deserving a quota
(e.g., a particular group of people as defined by where they live get a
representative no matter how many or how few people vote).

This then leads to a good conversation about how well our electoral system
has kept up with an evolving America and the evolution of suffrage
expansion in the US from a time when where we lived was the most defining
 feature separating voters (who otherwise were propertied white men) and
the interplay of suffrage expansion (and the lack of a universal right to
vote in the Constitution, our electoral system and the complexity of
changing electoral rules even when they become increasingly disconnected
from their origin.

-Rob

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Richie
Executive Director, FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 240
Takoma Park, MD 20912
rr at fairvote.org  (301) 270-4616  http://www.fairvote.org
*FairVote Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/FairVoteReform>*   *FairVote
Twitter <https://twitter.com/fairvote>*   My Twitter
<https://twitter.com/rob_richie>


On Mon, Jan 4, 2016 at 2:46 PM, Ciara C Torres-Spelliscy <
ctorress at law.stetson.edu> wrote:

> I ask students how they would design an electoral system if they were
> starting from scratch.
>
> Then I split the board into two categories
> "Agree" and "Disagree"
> If the whole class can agree on a concept like one person one vote, then
> it goes on the agree side. If any student disagrees, then it goes on the
> disagree side. As you might imagine nearly everything ends up on the
> disagree side.
>
> Typically the only thing they can agree on is that only Americans citizens
> should be able to vote.
>
> But then we talk about why we disagree on these fundamentals.
>
> Ciao,
> Ciara
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jan 4, 2016, at 1:51 PM, Joey Fishkin <joey.fishkin at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Happy new year to all.
>
> With the semester starting in a couple of weeks, I’m unsatisfied with the
> first day of my election law syllabus.  I’d thought I’d see if you all had
> some ideas.
>
> I typically do a one-off topic the first day, then start in with the first
> real unit of the syllabus (suffrage restrictions & access to the ballot) on
> day two.  On the first day, I want students to —
> — learn some election law, and play with concepts that will show up again
> in the class
> — be engaged, especially if still shopping the class
> — be able to participate reasonably well in the conversation even if they
> haven’t done the reading (e.g. because still shopping)
>
> Any ideas?  Do you have a way of starting the semester that you love and
> want to share?
>
> Thanks,
> Joey
>
> Joseph Fishkin
> Professor of Law
> University of Texas School of Law
> 727 E. Dean Keeton St.
> Austin, TX 78705
> jfishkin at law.utexas.edu
>
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