National Civic Review articles from December 2002

National Civic Review archives from December 2002

Note from the President.(Editorial)
December 22, 2002... Passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCPA) was the most significant legislative reform of the federal campaign finance system in more than a quarter-century However, while this achievement is indeed substantive, its ultimate impact...

The politics of reform in the fifty-fifty nation. (Articles).
December 22, 2002... During the last weeks of the 2002 congressional elections, a concept familiar to political scientists suddenly became part of the conventional wisdom: the idea of the fifty-fifty nation, with an electorate divided almost evenly between the two...

Behind closed doors: The recurring plague of redistricting and the politics of geography. (Articles).
December 22, 2002... We are in the business of rigging elections. --State Senator Mark McDaniel, North Carolina (1) Beginning in early 2001, a great tragedy occurred in American politics. It happened quietly, for the most part behind closed doors, and with...

Redistricting reforms. (Articles).
December 22, 2002... As long as our political system uses winner-take-all, single-seat districts, there will be an obvious need to reform the redistricting process. But the public interest, rather than narrow political interests, should drive redistricting. Which...

New means for political empowerment in the Asian Pacific American community. (Articles).
December 22, 2002... In recent years, alternatives to winner-take-all systems have advanced from being controversial to becoming a credible option for the political empowerment of racial minority communities. On their own merits, and as a strategic response to U.S....

Taking democracy to scale: creating a town hall meeting for the twenty-first century. (Articles).
December 22, 2002... Over the last decade we have watched democracy surge and ebb around the world. With its firm commitment to strengthening democratic movements, the United States has encouraged, directly assisted in, and even led many democratization efforts....

The Vanishing Voter: why are the voting booths so empty? (Articles).
December 22, 2002... The period from 1960 to 2000 marks the longest ebb in voter turnout in the nation's history. Turnout was nearly 65 percent in 1960 but fell in each of the five succeeding presidential elections. It rose by one percentage point in 1984 but then...

Healthy municipalities: now "it's the only way to go!". (Articles).
December 22, 2002... For most of my professional lifetime I have been preoccupied with the fact that medical care accounts for only 10 percent of what contributes to health. Indeed, medicine is affected by factors outside the fields of direct medical care. It was...