Stop waiting for incorruptible politicians; change their incentives instead
People who trust our government and believe in our political system are are common as criquet players in the US. It appears to many of us that neither our country nor our government work for our interests. We can elect a president with 46% of the vote, who can appoint heads of agencies who pursues policies that are even less popular than the president that appointed him.
In addition to extremist policies in the executive branch, congress is always deadlocked. All the while there are still not enough jobs in old factory towns, in the rust belt, or in coal country. Our cities still have too much crime, poverty and homelessness. Many of us cannot afford the health care that we need. It is clear that our democracy is not doing what we want it to do.
Part of the problem is that our country is so big. Norway works pretty well with a population about the size of the USA in the year 1800. But large countries can still be democratic. According to the economist intelligence unit Germany is much more democratic than the US with a population over 82 million people (~¼ of the size of the US). We should feel some pride that we are by far the largest country that is in the top 25 list of democratic countries. We can remain patriotic and still learn from how other countries are governed.
It is tempting to blame our problems entirely on our leaders. If only we had less ambitious, more honest politicians our country would be better, we think. I would bet that Germany and Norway also have their fair share of ambitious politicians with flexible moral codes. So why do other governments pass more bills and solve more problems?
Not that I am a sports guy, but it’s kind of like sports: let’s say that you like clear winners in sports matches. You could blame soccer players for not being aggressive enough or for not being good enough at scoring. We do not complain the the opposing team is playing unfair by having a goalie. The fact is, there are far more tie games, more draws in soccer than in other sports like tennis. Tennis players aren’t better at scoring than soccer players, they just have rules that make scoring easier, and rules that do not result in draws nearly. To take the comparison back to politics, politicians in Norway or Germany probably are not nicer or less ambitious than politicians in the US, they just play a different sport. Their sport has rules that result in fewer ties (gridlock) and their governments are able to solve problems more efficiently. If we wait around for incorruptible leaders to save us, we are stuck. If we change the rules of the game, we have a chance.
Here are some of the rules that we could change to make our government function better:
- Kill the two party system by introducing proportional representation.
Right now, your congressional representatives do not need to represent the majority. One could win a seat in the house of representatives with 40% of the vote, as long as they got more votes than anyone they ran against.
But even if they won 51% of the votes, 49% of the people are not represented.
Proportional representation would fix this. The fancy sounding name “proportional representation” just means that congress should reflect what the people think. If 10% of people vote for the green party, 10% of congress should be from the green party. If 8% of the population want to get rid of the penny, about 8% of congress should hold that view. There are a few ways we could have a proportional system. We could follow the example of many countries including costa rica and have party list voting. When you went to vote, you would not have one vote for one republican or one democrat, you would instead choose what party you think should fill congress. If 55% of voters supported the modern whig party, about 55% of congress would be from the modern whig party.
Another way to do this would be to combine 3–5 congressional districts and when you voted, you would vote for 3–5 representatives and the top 3–5 candidates would go to washington. This would not require a constitutional amendment, there is even a similar bill proposed in congress.
How would this help the gridlock you ask? Well right now, many voters would never consider a candidate from the other party, so if their party decides to shut down the government, or filibuster a bill or refuse to compromise, voters are unlikely to switch parties. But if there are several parties, such tactics would alienate voters. Countries with proportional representation rarely have one party that can gain an absolute majority. Parties have to form coalitions to get anything done, so compromise is built into the system.
No one likes negative campaigns, but we have negative campaigns all the time. The same is not true in countries with proportional representation. If two parties attack each other in our system, the dirtiest player often wins. Under proportional representation, if two parties throw mud at each other, voters can choose one of many other options.
Another possible benefit might be increased voter participation. We have a country of over 320 million people, and we expect all of them to choose between two parties? There is a huge diversity of opinion in our country, our congress should better reflect that, then compromise to get things done.
2. Get rid of money’s influence on politics
You have no doubt heard about the corrupting influence money can have on politics. Congressman can spend upwards of 40% of their time begging rich people for money, in turn politicians take the opinions of their donors much more seriously than the average citizen. We should have a constitutional amendment limiting this practice, but a simpler way would be to introduce democracy dollars.
Right now, most money in politics comes from a small and wealthy sliver of Americans. Democracy dollars would change that. One citizen one vote is an ideal we strive for, but we should make fundraising equally democratic. Under this proposal, every citizen would receive a voucher that they could use to give to a candidate of their choice. Candidates would only be able to receive this money if they refused large donations. Seattle has tried a similar approach with promising results.
If you think this sounds expensive, think about all the money we would save if corporations didn’t successfully lobby for special tax treatment or favorable regulation.
3. Institute ranked choice voting
The 2016 presidential election in the US convinced many Americans that they had to choose between the “lesser of two evils”. People who hated trump and may have wanted someone more like Bernie Sanders or Jill Stein voted for the democrats in large numbers. People who hated Clinton but may have actually preferred john Kasich or Mitt Romney voted for trump. Everyone knew that a third party vote would not result in a third party victory. A similar situation played out in Maine several year ago. Liberals split their votes between several candidates and the winner was Paul LePage with less than 40% of the vote. Paul LePage is a governor who is deeply divisive and only has an approval rating of 41%. What did Mariners do next? They instituted ranked choice voting, sometimes called instant runoff voting. Ranked Choice voting basically means that When you vote, you rank the candidates in your order of preference. If no candidate gains a majority of first choices in the first round of voting, no one wins in the first round. Instead the lowest vote getter is removed from everyone’s lists and the votes are tallied again. Under this system, you can vote for the person you really want to win, without fear of throwing away your vote. Under this system, we might get candidates that are better consensus builders and more willing to compromise. Here is a more thorough description of ranked choice voting.
