North America

Why Do We Still Have the Electoral College?

Alexander Keyssar, Harvard University Press, July 2020

With every presidential election, Americans puzzle over the peculiar mechanism of the Electoral College. The author of the Pulitzer finalist The Right to Vote explains the enduring problem of this controversial institution.

Every four years, millions of Americans wonder why they choose their presidents through the Electoral College, an arcane institution that permits the loser of the popular vote to become president and narrows campaigns to swing states. Most Americans have long preferred a national popular vote, and Congress has attempted on many occasions to alter or scuttle the Electoral College. Several of these efforts—one as recently as 1970—came very close to winning approval. Yet this controversial system remains.

City University of New York Wins Harvard’s Innovations in American Government Award

City University of New York Wins Harvard’s Innovations in American Government Award

April 21, 2020

Cambridge, MA – Today, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government announced the City University of New York’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) as the winner of its 2020 Innovations in American Government Award. For over thirty years, the Innovations Award has recognized public-sector programs that make American government, at all levels, more efficient, creative, and effective...

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Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development releases research on allocation of COVID‐19 response funds

Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development releases research on allocation of COVID‐19 response funds

April 13, 2020

Cambridge,  MA  –  A  team  of  Harvard  Project  researchers  today  released  the  preliminary  results  of  its  study  of  the  impact  of  the  COVID‐19  crisis  on  the  economies  and governments  of  the  country’s  574  federally‐recognized  American  Indian  nations.  Writing  to  Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin, researchers Randall Akee, Eric Henson, Miriam Jorgensen and Joseph Kalt...

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Policy Memo Regarding the Allocation of COVID-19 Response Funds to American Indian Nations
Akee, Randall K.Q., Joseph P. Kalt, Eric C. Henson, and Miriam Jorgenson. 2020. “Policy Memo Regarding the Allocation of COVID-19 Response Funds to American Indian Nations”. Read the full memo text Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis poses an immediate threat to three decades of improvement in economic conditions across Indian Country. Federal policies of tribal self-determination through self government have gradually, if unevenly, allowed economic development to take hold in Indian County. Nevertheless, the poverty gap for American Indians is large and hard to close. American Indian/Alaska Native household incomes remain barely half that of the typical household in the US. Tribes now routinely undertake and self-fund the full array of basic governmental services – from law enforcement and public safety to social services and educational support – that we expect any state or local government to provide.

Tribes lack the traditional tax bases enjoyed by state and local governments. Tribal enterprise revenues – both gaming and non-gaming – are tribes’ effective tax bases. Prior to the total shutdown of their casinos, tribes’ gaming enterprises alone were channeling more than $12.5 billion per year into tribal government programs and services . No tribal casinos are operating at this time. The same applies to many non-gaming enterprises and many tribal government programs. The COVID-19 crisis is devastating tribes’ abilities to fund their provision of basic governmental services and forcing tribes to make painful decisions to lay off employees, drop workers’ insurance coverage, deplete assets, and/or take on more debt.
 

Capitol hill

Ash Center’s Stephen Goldsmith Releases Recommendations on Proposed COVID-19 Infrastructure Stimulus Legislation

April 6, 2020

Cambridge, MA – Today, Professor Stephen Goldsmith, the director of the Ash Center’s Innovations in Government Program and the former mayor of Indianapolis, Indiana; released a nine-part strategy memo outlining key recommendations...

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Request for absentee ballot

Miles Rapoport on the Challenges Coronavirus Poses to Election Day

March 16, 2020

As the presidential primary season unfolds, the Ash Center sat down with Miles Rapoport, Senior Practice Fellow in American Democracy at the Ash Center and former Secretary of the State for Connecticut, for a conversation about the steps that election officials can take to lessen the risks posed by coronavirus on election day.... Read more about Miles Rapoport on the Challenges Coronavirus Poses to Election Day

Finalists for Preeminent Award in Public-Sector Innovation Announced

Finalists for Preeminent Award in Public-Sector Innovation Announced

March 5, 2020

Cambridge, MA – Today, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government announced four finalists from across the country for its 2020 Innovations in American Government Award. Honorees include the City University of New York’s Accelerated Study in Associate Programs, the City of Philadelphia’s BenePhilly program, the Massachusetts Pathways to Economic Advancement...

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Convincing Congress to Remove its Tech Policy Blinders

Harvard: Congress is often criticized for being out of step at best or ignorant at worse on the many technology trends and issues reshaping our society. How did it develop this reputation and is it rooted in reality? 

Graves: While Congress has earned a reputation for lack of tech literacy. it’s important to separate casual gaffes about technical issues—which you might expect from non-specialists in their 60s and 70s—from lack of institutional capacity for effective oversight and legislation. Both of these are problems, but the...

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New Ash Center Report Offers a Road Map for Building Technology Expertise in Congress

New Ash Center Report Offers a Road Map for Building Technology Expertise in Congress

January 30, 2020

Cambridge, MA — Today, the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, a research center at Harvard Kennedy School, released “Science, Technology, and Democracy: Building a Modern Congressional Technology Assessment Office,” a new paper by Zach Graves and Daniel Schuman offering recommendations and a road map for resurrecting a technology assessment capability in Congress.... Read more about New Ash Center Report Offers a Road Map for Building Technology Expertise in Congress

Science, Technology, & Democracy: Building a Modern Congressional Technology Assessment Office

Zach Graves and Daniel Schuman, January 2020

This paper offers recommendations and a road map for the future success of a restarted technology assessment office in Congress. We look at three potential approaches: (1) Building up the Government Accountability Office (GAO)’s OTA-like capacity in its newly created Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics (STAA) team, and giving it greater resources and structural autonomy; (2) Reviving OTA but updating its procedures and statutory authority; and (3) A hybrid approach wherein both GAO and a new OTA develop different capacities and specializations. (Spoiler: we favor the third approach.)
 
The next section of this paper reviews what OTA was and how it functioned. The third section discusses the history of and rationale for the defunding of OTA, other cuts to Congress’s S&T capacity, and why this congressional capacity and expertise matter for democracy. The fourth section reviews efforts to revive OTA and other efforts to build new congressional S&T capacity. The fifth section discusses the political landscape for building S&T capacity, including the legislative branch appropriations process and the different political constituencies for S&T. The final section offers a detailed discussion of various structural recommendations for a new congressional technology assessment office, including an expanded STAA unit in GAO, and a new OTA.
 

Legislative Negotiation Project, May 2018 

The case, a product of the Legislative Negotiation Project, describes how state legislators in Utah, a very conservative state, assembled a “Coalition of the Willing”— Republican and Democratic representatives alongside religious, civic and business leaders—to negotiate a bipartisan compromise to address the emotionally-charged issue of immigration reform in 2010-2011. The case illuminates issues such as: diagnosing the barriers to agreement; understanding the role of the Utah Compact in shaping the negotiation strategy and trajectory of the 2010-2011 legislation; showing how a focus on problem framing brings more people to the table and creates the conditions for buy-in of an acceptable compromise solution.

Mathis, Colleen, Daniel Moskowitz, and Benjamin Schneer. 2019. “The Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission: One State's Model for Reform”. Read full paper Abstract

Colleen Mathis, Daniel Moskowitz, and Benjamin Schneer; September 2019 

In most states, redistricting, the process by which electoral district boundaries are drawn, is an overtly partisan exercise controlled by state legislatures. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2019 decision Rucho v. Common Cause held that federal courts cannot review allegations of partisan gerrymandering. Independent redistricting in practice has proven remarkably successful along several dimensions. This policy brief outlines key lessons learned from redistricting in Arizona, a state with a five-person independent redistricting commission.

Civic Responsibility: The Power of Companies to Increase Voter Turnout

Sofia Gross and Ashley Spillane, June 2019 

This case study provides an analysis and evaluation of the implementation of civic participation programs by companies aimed at increasing voter turnout. The United States consistently lags behind the majority of developed democratic nations in voter turnout, averaging less than half of the eligible voter population participating in midterm elections. The U.S. ranks 26th out of 32 developed democracies in percentage of eligible voters who participate in elections. Today, many companies have dedicated resources for corporate social responsibility projects aimed at strengthening society and building goodwill among employees, consumers, and the public. Voter participation initiatives align with the goals of social responsibility projects, as they address a critical societal problem (lack of engagement), while building goodwill with key stakeholders. 

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