October 3 may become an important date in the legal history of the United States. On the second full day of the court’s October 2017 term, the nine justices heard arguments in Gill v. Whitford, a gerrymandering case that the authoritative SCOTUSblog calls “massively important.” SCOTUSblog reported that among the celebrities in the gallery for the proceedingswas Arnold Schwarzenegger, who said on a few occasions “It’s time to say ‘hasta la vista’ to gerrymandering.”
The Court has wrestled with gerrymandering in the past. As recently as two years ago, five justices agreed that the practice was “incompatible with democratic principles.” The complexity of the issue concerns the difficulty of defining a consistent standard to use in determining whether districts have been deliberately drawn up to give one party in an election an unfair -- and unconstitutional -- advantage over another.
In a detailed essay published last month, two knowledgeable observers argue that gerrymandering is only part of what’s wrong with the American democratic system. In “Why Competition in The Politics Industry Is Failing America,” Katherine Gehl, a business leader and former CEO, and Michael E. Porter, an expert on competition and strategy, argue that the problem with democracy in America isn’t that the political system isn’t working. On the contrary, they say, it’s doing exactly what it’s designed to do.
Their conclusions reflect the results of a multi-year effort launched in 2011 by the Harvard Business School “to understand the disappointing performance of the American economy” and what to do about it. Here’s a link to the complete report.
The Political Industrial Complex
Politics has become an industry, Gehl and Porter observe. Competition in this industry is intense, but instead of being about how to deliver better solutions to the nation’s problems, it’s about how “to grow and accumulate resources and influence for itself.” The problem is neither Democratic nor Republican. In fact, it's both. They, the two parties, constitute a deeply entrenched duopoly that controls the rules of competition. As the authors note, no major new political party has appeared since the founding of the Republican Party in 1860. Talk about high barriers to entry.
The industry lens the authors use produces a useful and reasonably non-ideological critique. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Moderates, and others all have a vested interest in a system that’s more focused on preserving its own power than on creating beneficial solutions for voters. What’s especially valuable in this report is its emphasis on four specific and practical ways to revise the system:
- Restructure the election process
- Restructure the governing process
- Reform money in politics
- Open up near-term competition without waiting for structural reform
These are ambitious goals. But the good news is that important initiatives are underway, and Gehl and Porter offer information about them (including links). I’ve provided an abbreviated summary below.
Restructure The Election Process
- Single non-partisan primary with top four vote-getters advancing to general election – incentivizes all candidates to appeal to the general electorate rather than a small cadre of party-partisan voters.
http://www.fairvote.org/top4#why
Nonpartisan primaries would also lower the barriers to entry for independents, moderates and candidates who may not adhere fully to their party’s orthodoxy.
Nonpartisan primaries would also empower office-holders to build records of sensible compromise and getting things done.
As a first step, replace closed primaries with open ones.
- Institute ranked-choice voting with instant runoff in general elections.
This approach elects the candidate with the broadest appeal to the most voters. No votes are ever “wasted.” There can’t be any “spoilers.” Every voter lists her or his top four choices in order. If no candidate receives a majority in the first round, the candidate with the fewest first choices is eliminated and voters who liked that candidate best will have their ballots counted for their second choice, and so on until a candidate wins a majority.
https://ivn.us/2017/06/13/want-expand-voter-rights-support-ranked-choice-voting/
- Institute nonpartisan redistricting:
gerrymandering reduces competitive seats and thereby minimizes accountability for elected officials. Independent commissions should take over redistricting, as they already have done in Arizona, Idaho, California and Washington.
As mentioned above, in its October 2017 term the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments
in Gill v Whitford, a case brought by Wisconsin voters against that state. The plaintiffs have developed a statistical methodology designed to provide an evaluation based on an objective standard of fairness, which has not existed up to now.
www.campaignlegalcenter.org/document/make-democracy-count-ending-partisan-gerrymandering
- Rewrite debate access rules for presidential elections:
Republicans and Democrats collude through hidden rules to maintain their duopolistic control over the process. No candidate outside the two-party system has a reasonable chance of being able to participate in a debate.
Restructure the Governing Process
- Rewrite legislative rules
As a first step toward devising a better system, establish an independent Legislative Reform Commission to design a new set of legislating and governing rules and produce a public report of its recommendations.
Reform Money in Politics (see report for a detailed discussion)
http://www.blueprintsfordemocracy.org/download-pdf-1
Open Up Near-Term Competition without waiting for structural reform
- Implement The Centrist Project’s “Senate Fulcrum Strategy"
A highly leveraged way to break the current political gridlock would be to elect three to five centrist independent U.S. senators with a problem-solving agenda. Ideally, such a group would be large enough to deny either party an outright majority and thereby become the most powerful swing coalition (i.e., the “fulcrum”) in the Senate. This is a feasible approach because the number of seats needed to deny either party a majority is small. Quoting the New York Times columnist David Brooks, the Centrist Project calls its initiative an “insurgency of the rational.”
- Expand the “Govern for California” model of state-level innovation
“Govern for California is an organization focused on state-level reform by leveraging political philanthropy to support the election of candidates to the California state legislature, whom they select based on non-ideological criteria. These include financial literacy and courage to take a stand, the latter defined by Govern for California’s founder, David G. Crane, as ‘the demonstrated willingness to stand for something greater than oneself.’’
So far, Govern for California has helped finance 14 successful legislative candidates.
N.B. “The political industrial complex pays close attention to state legislatures,” say Gehl and Porter, “but most citizens are barely engaged.”
As the 2018 mid-term elections approach, this clear-eyed report would serve admirably as a roadmap for "rational insurgency."