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Gotham Gazette
Instead of Non-Partisan Elections, Consider Some Real
Reforms
By Mark Green
June 16, 2003
Key Quote
"But if the Bloomberg
charter commission is serious about expanding democracy rather than
merely rubber-stamping this mayor, here are several pro-democracy
reforms they should also consider:...Enact "instant run-offs," as
San Francisco has, where voters on primary day vote their top three
choices, allowing for a conclusive result between the final two
without the need for a costly run-off election eating into an
already abbreviated Fall General Election."
Mayor Bloomberg's attempt to put "non-partisan"
elections on the Fall ballot is the wrong answer to a non-problem:
What's the Problem?
Did any citizen come up to the two major party
nominees in the Fall, 2001 mayoral election and complain about the
nominating process for City Hall? Based on my relevant experience,
the expressed concern over unleashed dogs was far greater than over
"party bosses" controlling nominations, to cite the phrase charter
commission chair Frank J. Macchiarola used three times in his Gotham
Gazette essay of a few weeks ago. And last week on NY1 the mayor
seven times in about 15 minutes attacked the evil of the Democratic
political "machine" to argue for the end of democratic primaries.
But exactly what "machine" and which "party bosses"
chose Spitzer, Schumer, Clinton, McCall, Hevesi, Thompson, Gotbaum
or me to be our party's standard-bearer in our respective elections?
I believe fair-minded observers would agree that none of these
aspirants were hand-picked by anyone and all worked hard to win
competitive primaries (with the unique exception of a world famous
former First Lady, who was the near-unanimous choice of
rank-and-file Democrats as well as party leaders). While there are
no doubt some local baronies, rhetorical attacks against bosses and
the machine are largely 20 years out-of-date.
Indeed,
Messrs. Bloomberg and Macchiarola should be careful about
criticizing "party bosses" anointing nominees because two who did so
chose Mr. Bloomberg. Governor Pataki, who must be considered the
Republican party boss, decisively helped the former Democrat win the
GOP mayoral nod; also, the occasionally anti-Semitic Lenora Fulani
gave Bloomberg her Independence Party line in 2001 when he supported
her key platform plank of non-partisan elections (and the votes on
this line exceeded Bloomberg's 36,000 vote margin).
It is wrong for a mayor to repay a "party boss" by
convening the fifth charter commission in six years after the city
previously had only five over the prior 100 years -- and those
earlier ones were due to real governmental necessities, such as the
Supreme Court decision in 1989 declaring the Board of Estimate
unconstitutional.
Elections or Auctions?
Allowing party primaries means that candidates can run
in the General Election with a D or R after a nominee's name. A
party affiliation should not be sufficient information in an
election. (Thomas Jefferson once said, "Don't ask if [a candidate]
is a Federalist or a Whig. Ask, is he honest and does he believe in
the Constitution?") But a person's party still tells a lot about a
person's values, surely more than poll-driven, consultant-written 30
second TV spots. If we eliminate party identification in elections,
it means that voters will have even less useful information and that
wealthy candidates will be more likely to win with commercials. GOTV
would then mean go-on-television rather than get-out-the-vote.
Minority Representation?
This is an important point, one that will be more
fully debated before a November vote. But isn't it more likely for a
credible minority candidate to enter a general election by getting
40 percent (primary) or 50 percent (run-off) of a Democratic primary
electorate that's half "minority" than it would be for him/her to do
comparably well in an initial non-partisan "primary" with an
electorate (including Republicans and Independents) that's under 40
percent minority?
Encourage Voter Participation?
On NY1 and in Gotham Gazette, Chairman Macchiarola
repeatedly said that the essential reason for creating this charter
commission was to encourage "greater participation" in our
democracy. That's fine and laudable — and already occurring.
Because our city has an excellent campaign finance law and term
limits, there were some 250 candidates for the 51 city council seats
and an obviously competitive Democratic primary for mayor in 2001, a
year that saw an increase in voting over the 1997 city-elections.
But if the Bloomberg charter commission is serious about expanding
democracy rather than merely rubber-stamping this mayor, here are
several pro-democracy reforms they should also consider:
* Fund the struggling Voter Assistance Commission at
some fixed percentage of the mayor's own office (as the Independent
Budget Office is funded by a fixed ratio of the Office of Management
and the Budget in the Charter) so the city itself registers more
voters based on the "agency-based registration" strategy of the
National Voter Registration Act.
* Enact "instant run-offs," as
San Francisco has, where voters on primary day vote their top three
choices, allowing for a conclusive result between the final two
without the need for a costly run-off election eating into an
already abbreviated Fall General Election.
* Implement
balloting-by-mail, as Oregon has done, which increased turnout there
by a very considerable 10 percentage points.
* Fix the campaign
finance system as board chair Fritz Schwarz has suggested to
encourage self-financed candidates to limit their spending like
everyone else. And if a wealthy candidate refuses to play by
Campaign Finance Board rules, then instead of one "extra match" in
the general election (which amounted to $700,000 in 2001, or one
percent of $74 million), the complying candidate would get a
one-time grant of half the disparity in spending, up to a maximum of
$5 million. Too expensive? If one's concern is participation in
competitive elections, it's far less expensive than a City Hall for
sale.
Buying a Charter Change?
Some cities have "non-partisan elections" L.A.,
Chicago, Houston and some have "democratic elections:" Boston,
Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. But that really says nothing about
whether we should reverse a century of precedent in Gotham. Frankly,
the arguments for a charter referendum are so weak and so personal
to Michael Bloomberg” a Republican who stands to politically benefit
from the elimination of party labels in a Democratic city — that
it would not be taken seriously except for the fact that he has
threatened, again, to spend his own wealth to accomplish an
electoral result. Indeed, when a reporter recently asked if he'd
refuse to spend his own funds, the Mayor snapped, "Why should I do
that? I don't ask you what you're going to do with your money. And I
don't think it's any of your business what I'm going to do with
mine."
I'm in no position to objectively argue whether a
billionaire should be constitutionally allowed to spend
significantly more in one city to win the mayoralty than LBJ spent
(in current dollars) in 50 states to win the presidency. But surely
it is the public's "business" if someone spends $74 million in
private funds to win elected office, then uses his public authority
to repay a special interest by putting a self-serving plank on the
ballot and then, in effect, buys the law in question. This would be
an abuse of power literally unprecedented in American history.
Space does not permit a discussion of whether it would
be constitutional to limit an office-holder — not a citizen but
someone with governmental power — from spending his private sector
wealth to obtain public sector law. But even First Amendment purists
should appreciate the irony that a two century old rule intended to
stop one King George-type from monopolizing debate by guaranteeing
speech for all would be used now to justify one person combining
unique governmental and economic power to stifle the public
conversation. How does that encourage the "robust debate" that's the
foundation of the First Amendment? Nor is it any answer to trot out
the boilerplate phrase that "the answer to bad speech is more
speech." For when one side in a referendum spends, say, $10 million
on TV and mail and the other peanuts, where's the "more speech"
solution?
If a Nelson Rockefeller could be forced to file a
financial disclosure and prohibited from spending his own vast
wealth to overpay staff because he was governor, I believe it would
be both desirable and constitutional, as council members Bill
Perkins and David Yassky have proposed, to prohibit Michael
Bloomberg from similarly using his assets because he is mayor. But
even if it turns out that he has the "right" to do this, the real
question is whether it's right for him to do so.
It's an excuse, not a justification, when the 29th
wealthiest American complains about being called a billionaire mayor
yet then hints he may spend like one by hiding behind an amendment
that's historically allowed despised, powerless dissidents to have
some voice in their democracy. His self-serving arguments remind me
of a favorite aphorism of ex-Senator Warren Magnuson: "All anybody
wants in life is an unfair advantage."
Which leads me to respectfully ask three simple
questions of the mayor who chose this unnecessary fight and who can
alone resolve some of these apparent conflicts:
* Will you commit not to spend your own money to, in
effect, buy a charter change?
* Would you agree that such a
significant change only be considered prospectively, after the 2005
elections, so that it not appear to benefit the politician behind
its enactment? (By law, any congressional pay increase must apply to
the next congress after the next election so there is no appearance
of a self-enriching vote. And when Congress in the late 1940s was
considering Presidential term limits, even anti-Truman Republicans
never thought to apply it to the sitting president since it would be
wrong to institute a new standard within a term of office.)
*
Since you ordered the charter commission to put your idea on the
ballot because you wanted to encourage more democracy, will you also
urge them to consider other pro-democracy ideas of the kind
suggested above?
Mark Green, the former public advocate of New York
City (from 1994 to 2002) and the Democratic nominee for mayor in
2001, is president of the New Democracy Project, a public policy
institute. |
