The Election Law Connection and U.S. Federalism

A democratic federation's character may be importantly determined by the particular character of its electoral federalism. For the United States, "political safeguards" theorists provided foundational insights into the implications of interdependencies between state and federal officials, but were too casual in their remarks about election law as a de minimis contribution to federalism. In fact, the constitutional default of state legislative control over congressional redistricting and most other procedural election law has created powerful incentives for federal deference to state officials. This dependency may have created a tendency to respect the institutional prerogatives of state governments, though the relationship is dynamic and contingent, interacting with other factors such as the prevalence of divided party government at the national and state levels. Copyright 2013, Oxford University Press.