North Bay
Bohemian (CA)
After
the Election: taking the next steps toward Democracy U.S.A.
By
Steven Hill
October
28, 2004
Coming down the home
stretch, the push is on to re-defeat George W. Bush. Everyone from
the Democratic Party, labor unions, philanthropic foundations,
pragmatic Greens and progressive media are rallying behind the
Kerry-Edwards ticket. But if the effort is successful in ousting
Bush, then what? What are the plans beyond the November 2004
election? Allow me to point toward some badly needed direction.
Even if John Kerry is
elected, that will not change the fact that representative democracy
in the United States is severely broken. It's gotten so bad that
even the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have made the case
for the overhaul of key institutions and practices. Unless American
democracy is remade in fundamental ways, progressives can forget
about enacting much of the usual list of desired changes in foreign
policy, healthcare, corporate regulation, labor laws, the
environment, media and civil liberties. A functioning democracy is a
prerequisite to having an economic system that works for everyone
instead of just the rich and powerful.
Usually, so much of the
well-intentioned progressive effort seems scattered. The challenge
is, can we imagine a common vision that lasts beyond this November's
election? In my mind, such a common vision must have at its
forefront the remaking of our broken democracy.
But "democracy"
and "representative government" are not just fuzzy terms;
they involve precise institutions and practices, and we know a good
bit now about which of those institutions and practices are best,
particularly for enacting a more progressive agenda. They include
public financing of elections, free media time for candidates, full
(proportional) representation for legislatures, instant runoff
voting for executive offices, overhaul of the unrepresentative U.S.
Senate, abolition of the Electoral College, universal voter
registration, fair ballot-access laws, inclusive political debates,
a national elections commission to develop fair and efficient
election administration and a right-to-vote constitutional
amendment. We also need a more robust public broadcasting sector
funded by consumer fees (like consumers pay for cable TV) instead of
by a fickle Congress.
Let's call this the
Democracy U.S.A. agenda. Sure, it's an ambitious one, but we will
never significantly impact the broader social, economic and foreign
policy agenda until we change the rules of the game that are
blocking progress. In other words, until we remove the boulders in
the road, there will be no passage. The Democracy U.S.A. agenda is
what will remove the boulders.
Already, publications like
The Nation and others are asking "what's next" after
November. Conspicuously missing from their vision is a stirring call
for remaking our democracy. I've spoken with many of these leaders,
and too many of them find these systemic barriers to be bothersome
inconveniences into which they are not going to invest much time or
resources. That's troubling, because that attitude will lead
progressives down still more dead ends.
For instance, most of these
progressive and Democratic party leaders do not want to deal with
the fact that the antiquated 18th-century methods we use to elect
the president, the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House favor Republican
and conservative candidates over Democratic and progressive ones due
to built-in, systemic reasons. It's like having a foot race where
Democrats and progressives start out 10 paces behind Republicans and
conservatives, election after election.
The presidency and the
Senate are skewed because they give more representation per capita
to low population states, which today are mostly the conservative
states of Bush's Red America. This has real-world impact on national
policy and federal tax appropriations, with Red America receiving
more in federal taxes than they pay out, even as they gripe about
big government and welfare cheats.
The House is skewed because
the Democratic vote has become highly urbanized and can be packed
into fewer districts. The fact is, when the national vote is tied
(or even when the Democrats have more votes, like Gore did in 2000),
the Republicans win more House seats than Democrats.
Democrats and progressives
will make little progress on the broader national agenda until we
address these barriers that affect all three branches of the federal
government (since the conservative Senate confirms conservative
Supreme Court and lower court judges).
After the November
election, no matter who wins, progressive activists, leaders,
funders, Democrats and non-Democrats must become focused on enacting
the Democracy U.S.A. agenda. The Democrats should do this not only
because it is in their self-interest, since current methods favor
Republicans/conservatives, but because making our democracy more
fair is the right thing to do. In other words, at this point, what
is fair and right favors the Democratic party.
New Democratic party
leaders like Barack Obama seem to be more open to these ideas, as
are Howard Dean, Congressmen Jesse Jackson Jr., Dennis Kucinich and
others. Let's hope they are the future of the party, because now is
the time to push the Democracy U.S.A. agenda out there boldly.
The overhaul of our
democracy is the pressing issue of our times. It is a steep hill to
climb, but climb it we must. Without more focused attention on the
Democracy U.S.A. agenda, progressive ideas and policies will
continue to languish near the sidelines of American politics, rather
than the center. |