(Originally written 11/2011)
It is pretty much near impossible to find anyone in America right now who thinks that our Federal Government is working the way it should. There are many reasons for the level of dysfunction we are currently seeing at the federal level, but I am not going to dive into them here, instead I am going to address some of the inherent problems found in our election process and the composition of our Federal Legislature. Some of these ideas have been around for years and years, others are ones that I have personally been toying with in my head for the last few years and felt it was time to write them down. This list of proposals is not by any means comprehensive and it will always be open to modification, addition, and subtraction. Not all of these ideas are meant to work together, some are tweaks to our current system, while others would require sweeping changes that would render some of the reforms here unnecessary, the point is any of these ideas in my view would be an improvement to how things currently stand. Overall the purpose of these reforms is to address fundamental problems with our elections and the makeup of Congress. Among the problems I am looking to correct are; poor voter turnout, a lack of access for third parties, a disproportioned legislature, too much emphasis and power based on seniority in the legislature, and too much control given to the two main parties to dictate the candidates on the ballot.
Proposal #1– All states should immediately begin allowing election day voter registration. This to me is a no-brainer, it is the antithesis of democracy to turn a person away at the polls for a silly technicality like they forgot to register a month ahead of time. In 2008 the national turnout among the voting-eligible population was around 62%, while in Minnesota (Where election day voter registration is legal) we had an approx. 78% turnout and this is not a coincidence. Minnesota was also 15 points ahead of the national 41% (Pathetic!) voting-eligible population turnout for the 2010 midterm election. On average, states with election day registration average about 10% higher turnout rates, but currently less than 10 states allow it. If all these numbers seem somewhat meaningless allow me to put this into some perspective, if we were to increase national voter turnout by 5%, this is would add approx. 11 million more voters and now put these 11 million new voters into our last two major elections… In 2008 Barack Obama won a decisive victory over John McCain with nearly 10 million votes separating the two men and then look at the 2010 landslide victory of the Republicans over the Democrats in the House of Representatives by almost 6 million total votes. So you can see even minor increases in turnout could have a massive impact on election results and by extension campaigns.
Proposal #2– All states should immediately begin using a standardized ballot layout and standardized vote counting equipment to ensure that everyone has access to clear concise voting materials and the confidence in knowing their vote will be properly tabulated. Again this is a no brainer, especially in light of the 2000 Presidential election. There is no reason why ballots should be used to confused the supporters of your political opponents, or why there is a wide disparity in the quality of vote counting from precinct to precinct. These reforms could be funded at the federal level and their expense would be minimal and more than worth it. I am aware that elections are to be conducted by the states and the states alone, but there is nothing in the Constitution stating that the Federal Government can’t appropriate funds to assist in the conduction of elections.
Proposal #3– Congressional re-districting in all 50 states should be done by non-partisan or bi-partisan commissions. No incumbent elected office holder (Except perhaps on the local government level) shall be allowed to sit on the commissions. This is a huge one, as every ten years our House districts get further and further polarized thanks in part to the overly partisan manner in which district lines are drawn. These gerrymandered districts also help ensure the electoral safety of incumbents, which makes defeating House incumbents that much harder and gives them a virtual free pass each election cycle.
Proposal #4– Washington DC should immediately be granted voting representatives in Congress, one House member and two Senators under the current rules regarding Congressional representation. It is just sickening that there are around 600,000 people in this country who are obligated to follow federal laws and pay federal taxes and yet have no voice in Congress. DC has more people than the entire state of Wyoming and yet due to its political tilt (Highly Democratic) it has been denied Congressional representation, this is Un-American plain and simple. Citizens of the U.S. are entitled to have their voice in heard in Congress, end of story.
Proposal #5– All states and parties should do away with required party registration to vote in primaries and open primaries to all voters. There is no legitimate reason to force people to state in advance which party they are affiliated with, this basically goes against the notion of a secret ballot. More importantly though, it keeps average non-party activists out of voting on the candidates they would like to see on the ballot since they are typically unwilling to register in advance for a party just to vote in one primary. Opening the primaries up will take some power away from party insiders and activists who currently dominate the whole nomination process and would hopefully help more people feel like they actually have a say when it comes to who ends up on the ballot. I know some would be worried this would lead to sabotage voting where members of one party vote in the primary of the opposing party for candidates they think will be easier to defeat, so to counteract this threat (Which I believe is negligible) voters would only be allowed to vote in one of the parties’ primaries.
Proposal #6– All states should allow what is known as top two or jungle primaries for all statewide and Congressional races. This proposal if enacted would essentially make proposal #5 meaningless. Jungle primaries put all the candidates of all parties for one office into one general primary and the top two vote getters would go on to the general election. This is not a perfect system, but it is definitely a step up from our current primary system. Under this system parties would have reduced power and it would force candidates to play more to the center of the electorate since the general voting public and not just party activists will be voting on who gets to move on to November.
Proposal #7– Allow candidates to be endorsed by more than one party. This is known as electoral or party fusion and is only legal in a handful of states currently (New York most prominently). While it is difficult to project if this will have a sizable impact or not, it has the potential to promote further growth in political parties outside our main two. There are an ever-growing number of self-described independents in this country and candidates with multiple party endorsements could be a way of reaching out to these voters who are fed up with the two-party only system we have.
Proposal #8– Enact term limits for U.S. House members and U.S. Senate members. No more than 5 terms (10 years) in the House and no more than 2 terms (12 years in the Senate). These numbers are negotiable, but I feel serve as a solid starting point for debate.
Proposal #9– Enact term limits for committee chairmen, no House or Senate member should be able to serve longer than one Congress (A two-year term) as chairman of one committee. They would be allowed to become chair of a different committee in the next Congress if so elected by the Congress.
Proposal #10– All states should immediately begin the use of ranked choice voting (A.K.A. Instant runoff elections) for all statewide and Congressional elections. Ranked choice voting allows for you to rank your candidates on the ballot (1st, 2nd, 3rd…) and if no candidate receives 50% or more of 1st place votes, than the candidate receiving the least 1st place votes will be eliminated and their supporters #2 choice will then be counted as a #1 vote and this process will continue until someone reaches that 50% threshold. This would be a massive step forward for a number of reasons, but first and foremost it would allow people to vote for third-party candidates without having to worry about throwing their vote away, so this would finally allow multiple political parties to have a real opportunity at political power in this country.
Proposal #11– Make it so that the President is elected by national popular vote and not by the Electoral College. Even I admit I enjoy the election night intrigue of wondering which candidate will carry which state, but this method of election is a relic of an era when the general voting public was considered to be to irrational and uneducated to properly elect a chief executive. Under the Electoral College there are really only about 10 or so states that are truly up for grabs and they receive the overwhelming majority of candidates time and resources. We need to make it so candidates are forced to spend their time and money all over the country and the best way to do this is through utilizing the national popular vote method.
Proposal #12– Currently Constitutional Amendments require 3/4 of all states (38 out of 50) approval to be ratified, this should be changed so that instead of 3/4 of all states, that ratification takes states comprising of 3/4 of the national population. Any combination of states is acceptable as long as it adds up to 3/4 of the U.S. population. As of 2010, The top 22 states in population comprise approx. 3/4 of the national population. Under our current amendment process, the bottom 38 states (Which is the number of states needed to ratify a Constitutional Amendment) in the population comprise approx 45% of the national population. And yes, I am aware of the irony that changing the process of amending the Constitution would itself require a Constitutional Amendment.
Proposal #13– Remake the U.S. Senate so that it is a proportionally represented body. What this means is that instead of having 2 senators from each state, we would still have 100 senators but they would all be elected nationally at-large and instead of voting for individual candidates you would vote for parties. So your ballot would say Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian, etc, and you would see a list of potential senators from each party listed alongside the parties on the ballot and instead of it being a winner take all style election the Senate would be proportionally divided up based on the election results. So if the Democrats get 40% of the national popular vote and the Libertarians get 15%, then they would get 40 and 15 senators respectively. Parties would be inherently encouraged to provide candidates from various states and regions or else run the risk of losing voters from them. It is likely that no party would get 50 or more senators required for a majority so then a coalition amongst the parties would need to be formed in order to decide committee members and leaders. Obviously this is the largest change I am proposing and it is the best option I can think of to properly reform the Senate. This proposal would have two huge impacts, one it would eliminate the horrible inequality of voting power amongst the states. All states presently have two senators regardless of population and this may have been fine at the time the Constitution was written when the biggest difference in population between two states was about 10 to 1, but now it is over 70 to 1. As Chief Justice Earl Warren once famously said “Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests.” The Great Compromise of our Founding Fathers is with each passing year taking more and more power from the voters and concentrating it in the hands of sparsely populated states. The other major effect a proportional representative Senate would have is that it will all but guarantee elected legislators from parties other than Republican or Democrat and like ranked choice voting it will greatly remove strategic or lesser of two evils voting from the equation.
Like I said this list will be an ever-changing one. One issue in particular that will definitely need to be addressed in order to make a better election system is campaign finance. As of right now I have no specific proposal for campaign finance reform, it is a complex issue that requires further contemplation, but changes are no doubt needed.
Rugged Pragmatism 