| Subject: [EL] Sore loser laws and their impact on "moderate" and "extreme" candidates |
| From: "Scarberry, Mark" <Mark.Scarberry@pepperdine.edu> |
| Date: 4/15/2011, 3:57 PM |
| To: Election Law |
Aren’t sore loser laws as likely to lead to choice of “moderate” candidates as they are to lead to choice of “extreme” candidates? If a failure to choose an “extreme” candidate is likely to lead to a third party (or independent) spoiler bid by the “extreme” candidate, won’t that give the “extreme” candidate more leverage in the nomination process? A sore loser law reduces that leverage and may make the candidacy of a “moderate” more attractive to a party because it will prevent the “extreme” candidate from running in the general election. “Extreme” candidates may (I stress “may”) be more likely than “squishy moderate” candidates to refuse to support their successful primary opponent as a matter of principle, and then to mount third party (or independent) bids. After all, “extreme” candidates often are seen as “extreme” because they refuse to compromise their principles.
But I suppose this is an empirical question (or would be an empirical question if moderate and extreme can be well-defined in a way we all would agree on). I haven’t read Michael Kang’s piece; perhaps it includes empirical analysis.
Mark Scarberry
Pepperdine
From: election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu [mailto:election-law-bounces@mailman.lls.edu] On Behalf Of Rick Hasen
Sent: Friday, April 15, 2011 2:19 PM
To: Election Law
Subject: [EL] more news 4/15/11
Michael Kang has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming Georgetown L.J.). Here is the abstract:
Courts have spent a decade striking down party reforms aimed at reducing the ideological polarization of the two major political parties, but this Article proposes a more promising and novel approach from the supply side of politics - the repeal of sore loser laws. The Article is the first to analyze sore loser laws, a powerful but virtually unnoticed set of laws in almost every state that restrict losing candidates from a party primary from running in the subsequent general election as a minor party nominee or independent candidate. The Article argues that sore loser laws not only entrench the major parties against outside challenges, but even more importantly, they disrupt the fluid process of conflict and compromise within the major parties by removing the leverage of moderate dissenters to threaten splitting the party coalition in the general election through a sore loser candidacy. In so doing, the Article critically shifts the normative focus, from the usual preoccupation with interparty competition, to intraparty competition. The Article analyzes the value of democratic contestation produced by the political rivalry within the fundamental institutions of American democracy, its major political parties.
I very much look forward to reading this!
Posted by Rick Hasen at 09:00 AM
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