All opinions on this site are my own, not my employer's.
Dan Liljenquist did indeed cast fewer "nay" votes than average during his time as a state senator.
A couple weeks, Dan Liljenquist posted a campaign video called “Audacity of Nope” to Youtube. In brief, he argued that the government should say “no” more often when people request government action. Today, I’m seeing people on Twitter (@JulianBabbitt, @TerryLeeCamp, … Continue reading
In the 1980s, Utah ranked in the top 10 for voter turnout; since 2006, Utah has ranked in the bottom 5. Why?
Earlier today, I wrote about Utah’s declining turnout, and about claims made yesterday in a legislative committee that we could improve Utah’s turnout by removing inactive voters from the registration rolls. In the 1980s, Utah ranked in the top 10 … Continue reading
Utah's abysmal turnout is not caused by bloated registration rolls. It is caused by citizen choosing not to participate.
Yesterday, a legislative committee debated legislation that would remove a citizen from the voter registration rolls if he or she fails to participate in consecutive elections. The bill’s sponsor claims that this legislation would boost Utah’s voter turnout rate compared … Continue reading
Legislators may be showing an increased willingness to run legislation that has not been subject to a thorough vetting during the interim months.
The Utah legislature opened its 2012 general session today. From a quick count, it appears that 211 bills were introduced this morning. Introduction is the first step toward passage, although many of those bills will ultimately fail. Let’s compare the … Continue reading
The 2012 legislative session is coming. Here’s a couple of things to help you get ready. First, I’ve taken data that I’ve written about in the past (such as ideology scores, legislator absenteeism, bill sponsorship activity, and floor power) and … Continue reading
Media outlets would be wise to verify that they have the correct district maps.
I’m just now catching up on all the news from the past few days. It looks like people might be a little confused about district maps. To illustrate a story about Jim Matheson’s chances in Utah’s new 4th Congressional district, … Continue reading
Check out some randomly selected summaries from the political science research wiki, WikiSummary. (Reload to refresh.)
My wonderful family, Oct 2010
Thursday, January 26th, 2012. I plan to float around the capitol tomorrow morning from around 9 to 11. I'll bump into some of you and not others, and that's okay. If, for any [continued ...]
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012. If you log in to the PlSc 297 website you can see your final letter grade. I'll be posting these officially to BYU's records in a week or so, so let [continued ...]
Monday, January 23rd, 2012. The Testing Center performs an item analysis of every question on every multiple choice exam. I have looked carefully over the item analysis and [continued ...]
Thursday, January 19th, 2012. Tomorrow (Friday) I'll be leaving around 2, so come by earlier than that if you're planning to stop by for some reason (such as to go over your Excel [continued ...]
Thursday, January 19th, 2012. I'm looking over some asst Bs. In your lists of sponsored bills, most of you are characterizing each bill as either "passed" or "failed." There are [continued ...]
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012. Please visit the PlSc 297 website and log in. (To log in, look in the extreme upper right of my website. Click "log in," then click "what is my [continued ...]
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012. Make sure you're in the habit of checking your state email address daily, especially if you're hoping for a bus pass. They're in now.
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012. The instructions for assts A through C give a URL to find district maps. Turns out those district maps don't include district numbers. So go to this [continued ...]
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012. The instructions for assts A through C ask you to submit a hard copy if you are on campus (e.g. to take the final), but to use a particular email [continued ...]
Tuesday, January 17th, 2012. Legislative staff have sent you the name of your assigned legislator by email (probably to your new legislative email account). Anything that was sent [continued ...]
Hi. My name is Adam Brown. How to contact me. I work at BYU, where I teach political science courses and do research. I got my PhD at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). All content and code ©2005-2012 Adam R Brown unless noted. Do not republish any material from this site anywhere else without permission. Featuring glorious hand-coded PHP and valid XHTML/CSS. This page last updated December 22nd, 2011.