The Case for Electoral Reform

It is difficult to understate the importance of the challenges the United States is currently facing, from a weak economy to major budget shortfalls to a broken education system. While these problems seem daunting, they are not insurmountable. Yet Congress is currently marked by an unprecedented level of ideological polarization, precluding legislators from working with one another to devise the creative, innovative solutions that will be needed to solve these problems. In February 2011, The National Journal reported that its congressional vote ratings analysis revealed the highest level of polarization since it began compiling this index in 1982, with the lowest recorded level of partisan overlap in the House.

This increased polarization has led to more frequent bouts of partisan gridlock, with both sides refusing to compromise in order to make difficult choices. In December 2010, after reaching a deal with members of Congress to extend the Bush tax cuts in exchange for extending unemployment benefits, President Obama hailed it as an example of bipartisanship. But there is a difference between bipartisan solutions that merely give both parties what they want and bipartisan solutions that make tough but necessary changes. The tax-cuts-for-unemployment-benefits deal increased our deficit by roughly 893 billion dollars over five years, and punted the question of deficit reductions to a later date.

The debt ceiling debate that gripped the nation this summer was another ugly display of gridlock and brinkmanship. Fiscal balance requires both spending cuts and revenue increases, yet neither party was willing to combine the best of their deficit-reduction plans in order to create an effective compromise. To his credit, President Obama met Congressional Republicans more than halfway when he stated his willingness to accept deals with 5 to 1 and 4 to 1 ratios of spending cuts to revenue increases, even at the risk of losing the support of progressive members of his party. Yet Republicans rejected them because of a doctrinaire refusal to raise taxes or close loopholes. As a result, for the all political theater and partisan drama, the deal that eventually emerged from the crisis was widely criticized as a cop-out, failing to tackle the main drivers of the structural deficit in the medium-term or to protect fragile economic gains in the short-term.

In a polarized political environment, it is the voters who suffer, and not just because legislators fail to solve problems. There are a growing number of independent and moderate voters who cannot find candidates whose ideologies and policy preferences match their own, and who choose not to identify with either party. In a report released May 2011, the Pew Research Center found that the number of independents rose from 30 percent in 2005 to 37 percent in 2011. Independents, rather than being a monolithically moderate group in between the two major parties, are comprised of ideologically diverse subgroups that share a common disconnect with the dominant ideologies of the two parties. Many independents who lean Democratic, for example, are pragmatic, not ideological. They are increasingly disillusioned with the Democratic Party, but not enough to switch to the Republican Party. In the 2010 midterm elections, the participation rates of these voters dropped dramatically from 2008 levels.

At the heart of the matter is the need for a serious discussion of how America’s electoral system can be reformed to bring about more moderate, ideologically diverse politicians who are able to work with members of the other party, who have the institutional knowledge necessary to lead, and who have the political courage necessary to implement the most sensible reforms.

American elections are unfriendly to moderate candidates. In many states, it’s difficult for a moderate to make it through the primary election, let alone the general election. Assuming a moderate can even get elected, it’s difficult to stay elected. Of the 236 House Democrats who ran for re-election in 2010, 52 of them were unseated in the general election. A large number of these Democratic incumbents were members of either the House Blue Dog Coalition or the House New Democrats Coalition or both. Membership in either of these coalitions indicates that the representative is a moderate to conservative Democrat. According to Third Way, a moderate think-tank, of the 40 most endangered New Democrats and Blue Dog Democrats, just nine kept their seats. Many of these Democrats had been elected in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles on a wave of anti-Bush sentiment. In those elections it was moderate Republicans who were hit particularly hard.

Policy makers at the state level should implement changes to the electoral system that create an environment in which moderates can get elected and have a better chance of staying elected. One reform measure would be to phase out closed primary systems, in which partisan activists can demand ideological purity. In open primary systems, voters do not have to be affiliated with a party to vote in its primary. Republicans can vote in Democratic primaries and Democrats can vote in Republican primaries, with the result that more moderates from both parties have a better chance of making it to the general election. Independent voters would be more able to elect candidates from either party whose policy preferences match their own, rather than having to choose between two ideologically extreme candidates. In an open primary, candidates would also be less beholden to party activists for support and campaign donations, diluting their influence.

Another reform measure would be change the way congressional districts are drawn. Gerrymandering may not the main driver of polarization, but it can be a contributing factor. Independent, nonpartisan commissions should be responsible for redrawing congressional districts, rather than state legislators. California is one state that has begun implementing this reform. In 2008 and 2010, California residents voted to create the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, an independent panel of citizens tasked with redrawing the state’s electoral districts (the new district boundaries were scheduled to go into effect in mid-August). The old system was notorious for protecting incumbents, which can lead to greater polarization; if an ideologically extreme legislator knows he or she is safe in the next election cycle, there exists no incentive to cast a moderate vote in the hopes of winning the support of moderate constituents.

Neither of these electoral reforms is a cure-all, but it is likely that together they can change America’s electoral system to give voters more of a choice on Election Day. Electoral reforms can also introduce a measure of predictability and stability in the policy-making process in Washington. Finally, they might allow us to move past a legislative environment in which policy solutions are devised within an ideological framework. Too often ideological beliefs morph into ideological rigidity that limits lawmakers’ ability to craft the innovative, effective, and pragmatic policies necessary to solve our nation’s problems.