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Tallahassee
Democrat
Why
Congress is out of touch with the people
Antiquated
winner-take-all system cheats American
voters
By Steven Hill and Rob
Richie
March 16, 2003
Recent research by University
of Minnesota's Lawrence Jacobs and Columbia Unversity's Robert
Shapiro indicates that the United States Congress is now on the same
page as the American people a mere 40 percent of the time. Whether
the issue is health care, education, energy, Social Security, the
environment, taxes, or foreign policy, evidence points to the fact
that the policy passed by Congress is dangerously adrift from the
wishes and desires of most Americans.
The reasons for this are
intimately connected to the most fundamental aspects of our
political system -- our "winner take all" elections. Our 18th
century "winner take all" voting system has excluded millions of
voters from representation, deformed political debate and
legislative policy, fostered a debilitating loss of political ideas,
and exaggerated splits between cities, suburbs and rural
areas.
Health care, transportation,
and education concern everyone, for example, but due to "winner take
all" incentives these issues are largely framed to appeal to swing
voters in the suburbs. That's because the suburbs are where
the major political parties are relatively balanced and where party
leaders believe elections are won and lost. Not surprisingly for a
geographic-based system like ours, where one lives can have huge
impacts on who benefits most. This is particularly true under the
sway of modern campaign tactics like polling and focus groups, which
are so sinisterly suited to carving up the electorate and targeting
campaign spin to small slices of undecided voters who live in a
handful of swing districts.
So when Al Gore talked in
Campaign 2000 about reducing traffic, he framed road congestion as a
suburban family issue, not about urban dwellers riding a dilapidated
public transit system for two hours each way to work. That's because
most urban inhabitants aren't swing voters. Many are poor and
minority, some speak English as a second language, and practically
all vote Democratic when they vote at all. And so Democrats take
these voters for granted. When they try to mobilize them at all,
they do so by demonizing Republicans rather than with positive
policy proposals for cities or the poor, because such proposals
might alienate suburban swing voters. For the many urban voters,
Democratic candidates rely more on fear than hope.
Similarly, Social Security
reform predictably has ground down to a spate of partisan
name-calling. The congressional debate over Social Security, and as
a result much of the public debate, has been marred by "winner take
all"-type posturing, bumper-sticker politics, and spin wars between
Republicans and Democrats trying to curry favors with swing voters.
The media pundits shrug their shoulders and assume that's just how
politics works, instead of laying the blame where it most belongs --
at the feet of "winner take all".
Numerous examples can be
pointed to where important policy issues have been savaged by
manipulative partisan calculations, not only during campaigns but in
the ongoing permanent campaign known as the legislative process. In
many ways, the incentives of how to win "winner take all" elections
have shipwrecked the national agenda.
Our "winner take all" system
first was adopted in the 18th century when only white men of
property could vote and the world was simpler. Geography often
defined the key differences among the population. But today it is
outdated for the diverse, pluralistic, multi-partisan, and
multi-racial world we have become. Most of the
established democracies in the world today use more modern methods
known as "full representation" or "proportional representation"
voting systems that were devised to correct for the defects of the
antiquated "winner take all" system.
Full representation allows
more voters to win representation and more political perspectives to
sit at the legislative table having input into policy. Even if a
voter is a geographic minority in their area - like a Republican
living in a Democratic district, or vice versa -- they still can win
representation. These full representation systems tend to produce
higher voter turnout -- double that of the U.S. -- and more
substantive campaigning about policy and ideas instead of
mudslinging and personal attacks. Full representation democracies
elect more responsive legislatures that produce majoritarian policy
that is closer to the mean of what voters say they
want.
As Congress drifts further
from the American mainstream, it becomes increasingly apparent that
we need to reexamine our 18th century political practices that are
causing this schism and fracturing our nation.
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