Chapter 38 — Exercises

These exercises are designed to develop the analytical capacities you will need for the Democracy Audit deliverable in Chapter 40. They are not opinion exercises. They are framework-application exercises. The position you take is yours; the discipline is to argue from accurate constitutional analysis and steel-manned versions of opposing positions.

Exercise 1 — Bipartisan vs. partisan-coded reforms

The chapter argues that some reforms attract bipartisan coalitions and some are partisan-coded, and that the difference is structural rather than coincidental.

Task. Build a two-column table. Column 1: at least five reforms discussed in this chapter that have attracted meaningful bipartisan support (e.g., the Electoral Count Reform Act, parts of permitting reform, civic education revival, Inspector General protections, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act). Column 2: at least five reforms that are currently partisan-coded (e.g., the Freedom to Vote Act, court packing, filibuster abolition, Heritage Project 2025, statehood for D.C.).

For each reform, identify:

  • the proposed change (one sentence);
  • the threat or problem it addresses (one sentence);
  • the constitutional difficulty (amendment, statute, rule);
  • which structural conditions for bipartisan success the reform satisfies (narrow scope, shared threat, no obvious partisan advantage, sustained coalition) and which it does not.

Deliverable. A table with at least ten rows and a 200-word analytical paragraph identifying the pattern: what makes the bipartisan reforms structurally different from the partisan-coded ones?

Exercise 2 — A state-level reform analysis

State-level reform has produced significant changes that federal-level reform has not. Independent redistricting commissions, ranked-choice voting, top-two and top-four primaries, automatic voter registration, and small-donor matching systems have all been adopted at the state level — often through citizen-initiative ballot measures rather than legislation.

Task. Pick one state-level reform that has actually been adopted in the past decade. Choose from:

  • Michigan's Proposal 2 (2018) creating an independent redistricting commission
  • Alaska's Ballot Measure 2 (2020) creating top-four open primary plus RCV runoff
  • Maine's adoption of RCV (2016, 2018, expansion 2020)
  • New York City's RCV (2019, in use since 2021)
  • Arizona's Citizens Clean Elections public-financing system (1998, modifications since)
  • Virginia's redistricting commission (2020)
  • Florida's restoration of voting rights for felons (Amendment 4, 2018) and the legislative implementation that followed

For your selected reform, document: (a) the reform's substance; (b) the political coalition that adopted it (electoral coalition, signature drives, ballot percentages); (c) the constitutional / statutory mechanism by which it was enacted; (d) what has actually changed empirically since adoption (turnout, electoral competition, district maps, candidate behavior, where you can find data); (e) what unintended consequences or implementation challenges have emerged.

Deliverable. 800–1,000 words of analytical writing with at least three primary-source citations (state government websites, Brennan Center analyses, academic articles, or local journalism).

Exercise 3 — Tracing a reform proposal's path

Reforms move through a system that has many veto points. The Freedom to Vote Act in 2021–22 illustrates: introduced in the House, passed there, blocked in the Senate by the filibuster, then a separate effort to carve out a filibuster exception failed when two Democratic senators (Manchin and Sinema) voted against the rules change. The reform died — but the documentary record is rich.

Task. Pick one major reform proposal (federal or state). Choose from:

  • Freedom to Vote Act / John Lewis VRA (2021–22)
  • The Electoral Count Reform Act (2022, contrast with above)
  • Court reform proposals during the 2021 Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court
  • Permitting reform (Manchin-Barrasso, 2022)
  • The Family Security Act 2.0 (Romney, 2022)
  • A state-level proposal that succeeded or failed

For your chosen proposal, document: (a) origin story (where the proposal came from — academic, advocacy, member-driven); (b) introduction (who introduced, which chamber, what month/year); (c) committee path (referrals, hearings, markups, amendments); (d) floor consideration (votes, key speeches, parliamentary maneuvers); (e) outcome (passed, failed, withdrawn, included in larger package); (f) what the path reveals about how reform actually moves through the system.

Deliverable. A 1,000-word reform-path analysis with at least four citations, including at least one to the Congressional Record or equivalent primary record.

Exercise 4 — Steel-man across the spectrum

The chapter's commitment is to present the strongest version of each reform proposal. This exercise asks you to do the same.

Task. Pick a reform proposal where you have strong personal views (court packing, statehood for D.C., national service, RCV, term limits — your choice). Write three documents:

  1. The strongest case for the reform. Marshal the best academic citations, the best historical analogies, the most defensible empirical claims. Imagine a senator who has staked their career on this proposal and must defend it before a hostile audience.
  2. The strongest case against the reform. Marshal the best academic citations, the best historical analogies, the most defensible empirical claims. Imagine a senator from the opposing party who has staked their career on opposing this proposal.
  3. A reflection (300 words). Where, in writing the two documents, did you find yourself reaching for sloppy versions of the argument you disagree with? Where did you find new respect for the position you hold? Where did your view shift, if at all?

Deliverable. Two 600-word case documents and one 300-word reflection. Submit all three.

Exercise 5 — Constitutional difficulty classification

Different reforms require different constitutional / statutory mechanisms.

Task. Classify each of the following reform proposals into one of four categories, with one sentence of justification per item:

  1. Constitutional amendment (Article V required)
  2. Constitutional amendment OR ordinary statute (mechanism contested)
  3. Ordinary statute (Congress can pass; president signs)
  4. Procedural / rule change (within chamber or executive-branch authority)

Items to classify:

  • Senate apportionment reform
  • Eighteen-year staggered Supreme Court terms
  • Court expansion to thirteen justices
  • The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
  • Filibuster abolition
  • Term limits for committee chairs
  • The REINS Act (congressional approval for major rules)
  • Public financing of presidential elections
  • Statehood for the District of Columbia
  • Statehood for Puerto Rico
  • The 2023 Court Code of Conduct (which already happened)
  • Repeal of the 1967 single-member-district mandate
  • Mandatory disclosure of justices' financial relationships
  • Congressional term limits

Deliverable. A 14-row classification table. Cite the constitutional clause, statute, or rule that controls in each case.

Exercise 6 — The Democracy Audit, reform section

Throughout this book, you have been building a Democracy Audit. The reform section of your final Democracy Audit (Chapter 40 deliverable) draws on this chapter.

Task. For your district, state, or chosen unit of analysis, identify:

  1. One reform proposal currently active in your jurisdiction. This could be a state-level ballot initiative, a state legislative proposal, a federal proposal that has been formally introduced, or a sustained advocacy campaign with identifiable organizational backing. Name the reform, its sponsors, and its current status.
  2. The constitutional / statutory difficulty. What mechanism does enactment require? Which veto points exist?
  3. The political coalition for and against. Who is for the reform? Who is against? Is the coalition partisan-coded or cross-partisan? What is the empirical case each side makes?
  4. The likely effects. What do comparative cases (other states, prior reforms, the academic literature) suggest will happen if the reform is adopted? Where is the evidence strong, where is it weak?
  5. Your own analytical assessment. This is the only place where you express a view, and even here, the discipline is analytical: given your steel-manning of both sides, what reform would you support, what reservations would you carry, and what evidence would change your mind?

Deliverable. 1,200 words with at least five primary-source citations. This will be incorporated into your Chapter 40 final Democracy Audit.

Exercise 7 — When does reform succeed?

The chapter argues that bipartisan reform succeeds when the proposal is narrow, the threat is shared, the proposal does not visibly advantage one party, and a sustained coalition is willing to invest political capital.

Task. Test this hypothesis. Pick three reforms that have actually been enacted in the past decade — at the federal or state level — and three reforms that have failed. For each, evaluate the four conditions:

  • Was the scope narrow or comprehensive?
  • Was the threat shared or partisan-coded?
  • Did the proposal visibly advantage one party?
  • Was a sustained coalition willing to invest political capital?

Deliverable. A 6-row analytical table plus 400 words analyzing whether the four-condition framework predicts the outcomes. Where does the framework fail? What does it miss?

Exercise 8 — Civic-engagement audit

The chapter's final substantive section argues that the civic-engagement layer operates regardless of which structural reforms succeed — and that structural reform is built within civic engagement, not as a substitute for it.

Task. Conduct a civic-engagement audit of your own behavior over the past twelve months:

  • How many elections have you voted in (presidential, midterm, primary, runoff, off-year, local, special)?
  • Have you attended a local government meeting (school board, city council, county commission, planning commission)? Which one? What was discussed?
  • Are you a member of any civic association (church, neighborhood, service club, party committee)? When did you last attend?
  • Do you subscribe to or donate to a local journalism organization? Which one?
  • Have you engaged in cross-partisan dialogue (Braver Angels, Bridge USA, similar)? Describe.
  • Have you considered running for a local position (school board, neighborhood association, party committee)? Why or why not?

Deliverable. 600 words of honest self-assessment. The exercise is not graded on the number of activities; it is graded on the quality of the reflection. (Your honest answer may be "almost none." That is a finding.)

Exercise 9 — Comparative reform analysis

Some reforms have been adopted in other democracies (proportional representation, multimember districts, mandatory voting, supreme-court term limits) and not in the United States. Comparative experience can inform reform analysis without being directly transferable, since institutional context varies.

Task. Pick one reform proposal that has been implemented in at least one other democracy and analyze the comparative experience.

Choose from:

  • Compulsory voting (Australia since 1924; Belgium; many others)
  • Single transferable vote / multimember districts (Ireland; the Australian Senate; Malta)
  • Supreme-court term limits (Germany 12-year terms; many constitutional courts)
  • Strong proportional representation (Germany, Sweden, Netherlands)
  • Independent redistricting commissions (UK Boundary Commissions; the Canadian system)
  • Public broadcasting funded at scale (UK BBC; German ARD/ZDF; Scandinavian systems)
  • Constitutional limits on partisan gerrymandering (the Australian, Canadian, UK approaches)

For your selected reform, document: (a) how it operates in the comparative case; (b) what the empirical evidence shows about its effects in that context; (c) what features of the comparative case might or might not transfer to the United States; (d) what the strongest argument for adoption in the U.S. context looks like, and what the strongest argument against transfer looks like.

Deliverable. 800 words with comparative-data citations.

Exercise 10 — The reform you would not propose

Reform conversations tend to focus on what should be added or changed. The harder analytical exercise is identifying what is working that you would not change.

Task. Identify three institutional features of the American constitutional system that you would NOT propose to reform, even though they are subject to active reform debate. For each:

  • name the feature;
  • summarize the strongest case for reform that has been advanced;
  • summarize why, on balance, you would not change this feature;
  • identify the conditions under which your view would change.

The exercise is not asking you to defend the status quo wholesale. It is asking you to do the analytical discipline of identifying what is genuinely worth preserving even as other features should change. The capacity to make this distinction is the difference between reform analysis and ideological positioning.

Deliverable. 600 words. The three features should not all be on the same side of the political spectrum.

Submission

Bring drafts of Exercises 6 (Democracy Audit reform section) and one other to your discussion section. Final versions of all ten exercises are due before Chapter 40.