By Patrick W. Gavin
Published August 3rd 2006 in Washington Examiner
In his new book, "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy,"
Steven Hill, who directs the New America Foundation's Political Reform
Program, argues that what ails American democracy can be fixed by nothing
short of a large overhaul of the United States' antiquated system of
government. Hill lays out 10 ways to improve both our government and the
process by which we elect its representatives. Reforms range from having the
House of Representatives appoint Supreme Court Justices (currently, the
Senate holds that power) to making Election Day a national holiday.
The Examiner interviewed Hill to get a better understanding of why he's
proposed these particular reforms.
Q: Most of your proposals address our electoral system. Explain why you focus
your attention on that. What's wrong with our electoral system?
A: The electoral system we use to elect the president, the U.S. House, the
U.S. Senate, and the 50 state legislatures all date from the 18th century.
Our nation was very different in 1790 than today. Then, only about 200,000
white, propertied males were eligible to vote. Representation was based on
geography - where you lived - in an agrarian society. Today, we are a very
diverse, cosmopolitan nation, yet the winner-take-all methods we have used
no longer give adequate representation to many voters. Most voters,
including Democrats living in heavily Republican districts and states and
Republicans in heavily Democratic districts and states, feel like their
votes don't count because they always vote for losers. The winner takes all
of the representation.
The winner-take-all system has led to a severe lack of competition in our
elections. In the last two presidential elections, what should have been a
national election boiled down to two states - Florida and Ohio. And it will
be the same in 2008. This November, we will elect the U.S. House of
Representatives yet out of 435 seats we can tell you right now who is going
to win 400 of them, and that voter turnout will be around 37 percent of
eligible voters. Most of the districts and states are one-party fiefdoms,
crowned "red" or "blue" way in advance. The same is true for more than 7,000
state legislative races, no competition at all.
The typical explanation for this widely recognized reality is that
incumbents and party leaders gerrymander their legislative district lines to
favor their own and their party's domination. There is some truth to that,
but recent research reveals a more troubling, underlying reality - the lack
of competition and choice are really caused by "where people live" in red
vs. blue America. Increasingly, Americans are living in partisan enclaves -
Democrats/liberals dominate the urban areas, Republicans/conservatives the
rural areas and many suburbs. Even states with independent/nonpartisan
redistricting commissions like Arizona and Iowa have difficulty drawing
competitive districts unless they start them in the urban areas and extend
them outward into conservative areas, like spokes of a wheel. But more
competitive districts means more voters voting for losers, it turns out you
can draw districts that are more competitive, or you can draw districts that
give greater representation, but you can't do both. In our winner-take-all
system, both of these important democratic values are pitted against each
other - competition versus representation.
Q: And how will your proposals change that?
A: We can't change where people live, but we can scrap our winner-take-all
elections and use a moderate proportional representation system. For
example, Virginia could use a proportional system like that used in Peoria,
Ill., for municipal elections. Instead of electing 40 state senators from 40
individual districts, voters in 10 districts could elect four senators each.
Any candidate who won more than a fifth of the vote would earn a seat. These
four-seat districts will be more competitive and bipartisan, even electing
some urban Republicans and rural Democrats. Occasionally, a third-party
candidate would win a seat. This would open up the system, you could have
competition and representation. Voter turnout in nations using proportional
voting is twice as high because voters have real choice. More women win
seats in the legislature, for instance. Proportional voting gives
representation based on what you think, rather than where you live, and
that's vitally important in today's highly mobile, modern society.
Q: Many of your suggestions for repairing American democracy might be
construed as quite radical by many (i.e., direct election of the president,
overhauling the U.S. Senate). And indeed many require a rewiring of our U.S.
Constitution. With that, are many of these proposals politically
unrealistic?
A: I don't see them as radical, I see them as common sense. What we are doing
now is not working very well, on many levels. Some of my proposals can be
accomplished in the short term. For example, one of the "steps" in "10 Steps
to Repair American Democracy" is targeted at fixing the problems with voting
equipment and election administration. Another step is for improving voter
registration laws to enact universal voter registration, adding millions of
eligible voters to the rolls, but making our elections more secure and more
inclusive. Another step is to use instant runoff voting (IRV) to elect
mayors, governors and the president to ensure that we elect leaders with a
majority of the vote in a single election. These reforms can be accomplished
in the short term, nothing is more important in a democracy than being able
to count ballots accurately and securely. Or ensuring that the "majority
rules." In fact, this November four different jurisdictions will be voting
on whether to adopt IRV for local elections.
Others of my proposals will take more time because they aim to pull our
antiquated, 18th century political practices into the 21st century. But I
have no doubt that within 20 years we will see major changes in how we elect
the Senate and the president because, demographically speaking, those two
institutions are increasingly out of touch with the American people. They
both give more representation per capita to low population states which
increasingly is distorting representation and national policy. When the
Constitution was written, the most populous state was 12 times the size of
the least populous state. Today the gap is 70 times and growing. By about
2030, our four largest states, California, Texas, New York and Florida, will
have over a third of our nation's population, will no longer have white
majority populations, yet they will have the same representation in the
Senate as the very-white states of Wyoming, Montana, South and North Dakota
with 1 percent of the nation's population. It is a demographic time bomb
built to blow.
Q: Why do you think that the House - not the Senate - should confirm Supreme
Court justices?
A: Because the Senate is the most unrepresentative legislative body outside
Britain's unelected House of Lords. It gives California the same
representation as Wyoming, even though California has 70 times the
population. Only six out of 100 senators are minority and 14 women. Two of
our leading founders, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, were strongly
opposed to the Senate's giving equal representation to all states because
they felt it would become a real barrier to enacting policies supported by a
majority of Americans. And they were exactly right, both historically and
today, where Senators representing less than 20 percent of the nation's
population can hold a majority of seats. If the Senate were a private club,
a member would need to resign before running for public office to avoid
charges of belonging to an exclusive fraternity. Such an unrepresentative
body should not wield the important power of confirming Supreme Court
justices.
Q: You make a strong case for less partisan politics. But one could argue
that partisanship is good for America; it is through the discussion of
disparate views that a consensus can be achieved. Do you not agree?
A: I agree that partisanship can be good when it is based on ideas and
principle. But too much of the partisanship today is based on mudslinging
and beating the other side. There is a prevailing sense that each side will
do and say anything to win. It produces more bitter polarization and
balkanization than true partisanship. But what's truly tragic is that, with
the two political camps drifting further apart, we have lost the political
center in American politics. It is the moderates that act as bridge-builders
in the legislature, forging bipartisan policy, yet research has documented
that both political parties are more dominated by their wings. Most
Americans today don't feel represented by either of the two major parties
and are increasingly alienated, even disgusted. In fact, most Americans
don't vote for a particular party or candidate as much as they vote against
the other side. They vote the "lesser of two evils," a kind of corrosive,
negative consent. Paradoxically, we value consumer choice so highly in the
free market, but when it comes to our politics there is no free marketplace
of ideas. It is crucial that we find other ways to open up our politics and
give Americans more choice in the voting booth. But that's difficult to do
in a winner-take-all system, whether at the state or district levels.
Proportional representation, instant runoff voting, national direct election
of the president are three of the keys to repairing American democracy.
Public financing of elections, free media time for candidates, and media
reform also are crucial.
Steven Hill, who directs the New America Foundation's Political Reform
Program, argues that what ails American democracy can be fixed by nothing
short of a large overhaul of the United States' antiquated system of
government. Hill lays out 10 ways to improve both our government and the
process by which we elect its representatives. Reforms range from having the
House of Representatives appoint Supreme Court Justices (currently, the
Senate holds that power) to making Election Day a national holiday.
The Examiner interviewed Hill to get a better understanding of why he's
proposed these particular reforms.
Q: Most of your proposals address our electoral system. Explain why you focus
your attention on that. What's wrong with our electoral system?
A: The electoral system we use to elect the president, the U.S. House, the
U.S. Senate, and the 50 state legislatures all date from the 18th century.
Our nation was very different in 1790 than today. Then, only about 200,000
white, propertied males were eligible to vote. Representation was based on
geography - where you lived - in an agrarian society. Today, we are a very
diverse, cosmopolitan nation, yet the winner-take-all methods we have used
no longer give adequate representation to many voters. Most voters,
including Democrats living in heavily Republican districts and states and
Republicans in heavily Democratic districts and states, feel like their
votes don't count because they always vote for losers. The winner takes all
of the representation.
The winner-take-all system has led to a severe lack of competition in our
elections. In the last two presidential elections, what should have been a
national election boiled down to two states - Florida and Ohio. And it will
be the same in 2008. This November, we will elect the U.S. House of
Representatives yet out of 435 seats we can tell you right now who is going
to win 400 of them, and that voter turnout will be around 37 percent of
eligible voters. Most of the districts and states are one-party fiefdoms,
crowned "red" or "blue" way in advance. The same is true for more than 7,000
state legislative races, no competition at all.
The typical explanation for this widely recognized reality is that
incumbents and party leaders gerrymander their legislative district lines to
favor their own and their party's domination. There is some truth to that,
but recent research reveals a more troubling, underlying reality - the lack
of competition and choice are really caused by "where people live" in red
vs. blue America. Increasingly, Americans are living in partisan enclaves -
Democrats/liberals dominate the urban areas, Republicans/conservatives the
rural areas and many suburbs. Even states with independent/nonpartisan
redistricting commissions like Arizona and Iowa have difficulty drawing
competitive districts unless they start them in the urban areas and extend
them outward into conservative areas, like spokes of a wheel. But more
competitive districts means more voters voting for losers, it turns out you
can draw districts that are more competitive, or you can draw districts that
give greater representation, but you can't do both. In our winner-take-all
system, both of these important democratic values are pitted against each
other - competition versus representation.
Q: And how will your proposals change that?
A: We can't change where people live, but we can scrap our winner-take-all
elections and use a moderate proportional representation system. For
example, Virginia could use a proportional system like that used in Peoria,
Ill., for municipal elections. Instead of electing 40 state senators from 40
individual districts, voters in 10 districts could elect four senators each.
Any candidate who won more than a fifth of the vote would earn a seat. These
four-seat districts will be more competitive and bipartisan, even electing
some urban Republicans and rural Democrats. Occasionally, a third-party
candidate would win a seat. This would open up the system, you could have
competition and representation. Voter turnout in nations using proportional
voting is twice as high because voters have real choice. More women win
seats in the legislature, for instance. Proportional voting gives
representation based on what you think, rather than where you live, and
that's vitally important in today's highly mobile, modern society.
Q: Many of your suggestions for repairing American democracy might be
construed as quite radical by many (i.e., direct election of the president,
overhauling the U.S. Senate). And indeed many require a rewiring of our U.S.
Constitution. With that, are many of these proposals politically
unrealistic?
A: I don't see them as radical, I see them as common sense. What we are doing
now is not working very well, on many levels. Some of my proposals can be
accomplished in the short term. For example, one of the "steps" in "10 Steps
to Repair American Democracy" is targeted at fixing the problems with voting
equipment and election administration. Another step is for improving voter
registration laws to enact universal voter registration, adding millions of
eligible voters to the rolls, but making our elections more secure and more
inclusive. Another step is to use instant runoff voting (IRV) to elect
mayors, governors and the president to ensure that we elect leaders with a
majority of the vote in a single election. These reforms can be accomplished
in the short term, nothing is more important in a democracy than being able
to count ballots accurately and securely. Or ensuring that the "majority
rules." In fact, this November four different jurisdictions will be voting
on whether to adopt IRV for local elections.
Others of my proposals will take more time because they aim to pull our
antiquated, 18th century political practices into the 21st century. But I
have no doubt that within 20 years we will see major changes in how we elect
the Senate and the president because, demographically speaking, those two
institutions are increasingly out of touch with the American people. They
both give more representation per capita to low population states which
increasingly is distorting representation and national policy. When the
Constitution was written, the most populous state was 12 times the size of
the least populous state. Today the gap is 70 times and growing. By about
2030, our four largest states, California, Texas, New York and Florida, will
have over a third of our nation's population, will no longer have white
majority populations, yet they will have the same representation in the
Senate as the very-white states of Wyoming, Montana, South and North Dakota
with 1 percent of the nation's population. It is a demographic time bomb
built to blow.
Q: Why do you think that the House - not the Senate - should confirm Supreme
Court justices?
A: Because the Senate is the most unrepresentative legislative body outside
Britain's unelected House of Lords. It gives California the same
representation as Wyoming, even though California has 70 times the
population. Only six out of 100 senators are minority and 14 women. Two of
our leading founders, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, were strongly
opposed to the Senate's giving equal representation to all states because
they felt it would become a real barrier to enacting policies supported by a
majority of Americans. And they were exactly right, both historically and
today, where Senators representing less than 20 percent of the nation's
population can hold a majority of seats. If the Senate were a private club,
a member would need to resign before running for public office to avoid
charges of belonging to an exclusive fraternity. Such an unrepresentative
body should not wield the important power of confirming Supreme Court
justices.
Q: You make a strong case for less partisan politics. But one could argue
that partisanship is good for America; it is through the discussion of
disparate views that a consensus can be achieved. Do you not agree?
A: I agree that partisanship can be good when it is based on ideas and
principle. But too much of the partisanship today is based on mudslinging
and beating the other side. There is a prevailing sense that each side will
do and say anything to win. It produces more bitter polarization and
balkanization than true partisanship. But what's truly tragic is that, with
the two political camps drifting further apart, we have lost the political
center in American politics. It is the moderates that act as bridge-builders
in the legislature, forging bipartisan policy, yet research has documented
that both political parties are more dominated by their wings. Most
Americans today don't feel represented by either of the two major parties
and are increasingly alienated, even disgusted. In fact, most Americans
don't vote for a particular party or candidate as much as they vote against
the other side. They vote the "lesser of two evils," a kind of corrosive,
negative consent. Paradoxically, we value consumer choice so highly in the
free market, but when it comes to our politics there is no free marketplace
of ideas. It is crucial that we find other ways to open up our politics and
give Americans more choice in the voting booth. But that's difficult to do
in a winner-take-all system, whether at the state or district levels.
Proportional representation, instant runoff voting, national direct election
of the president are three of the keys to repairing American democracy.
Public financing of elections, free media time for candidates, and media
reform also are crucial.