There is additional coverage of comments by Paul M. Collins Jr., political science and director of legal studies, in an AP article previewing how Chief Justice John Roberts might preside over President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.

Amel Ahmed is quoted in an article about legal challenges to Electoral College processes, specifically questioning whether individual electors can vote their conscience rather than for the winner of their state’s popular vote. Ahmed says changing the current system without a constitutional amendment is, in principle, problematic because the Electoral College is written into the Constitution.

Before UMass Amherst Department of Political Science alum Todd Newhouse '81 took on organized crime families in Boston, he was an undergrad at UMass. He recently told us and a group of SBS students about the professional development skills he learned as a political science major, how he came to love the law, and his favorite mob movies.

Ray La Raja and Jonathan Rauch write that the American political nominating process has become “bizarre,” ceding too much power to primary voters. They say no other major democracy routinely uses primaries to choose its political candidates and the founders of the United States never intended for primaries to play a role in the country’s electoral system.