We had dinner with friends
the other night, a couple we had not seen in several years, not since well
before Donald Trump turned the world upside down, and with it, upended polite
dinner conversation across the country.
The subject turned, of
course, from pleasantries to politics, and I quickly got on my high horse and
delivered my standard pitch – we need to flip 24 seats in the House come
November to stop the Trump Agenda dead in its tracks. If we can just gain control of one chamber of
Congress, then we Dems can control what bills go to the floor, and on what
terms those bills will be signed. It’s a
start on the path to defeating Trump himself, in 2020, or Pence, if Mueller has
incontrovertible goods. And blah, blah,
blah.
This is boilerplate Dem
red meat (or blue, in this case), and it usually falls on welcoming ears, and a
jolly good wish-fest is had by all.
Maybe it nets us a little more juice to get us all in the game, perhaps
translating into donations and even phone calls to “get out the vote” – for our
side – come the fall.
But our dinner companions
did not want to hear it. They had
something else in mind. Turns out she
runs an education not-for-profit for inner city kids, and he’s an
independent/Libertarian, and neither were particularly interested in tribal
bloodlust. They had a worthier goal in
mind – how do we make our politicians work together again, and find common
ground?
So, with my friends as
inspiration, I offer my non-partisan “magic wand” solutions to bringing
“compromise” and “moderation” back to our national politics. I say “magic wand” because I have no
illusions about the odds of making any of this happen. But they are concrete actions designed to
appeal to those who want real solutions to fight for, and these ideas are
legitimately within the realm of political possibility.
Each of the three parts
seeks to remove aspects of our political system that incentivize polarization. If
implemented, politicians would need seek the votes of those more toward the middle
of the political spectrum – presumably on more moderate platforms -- because
those voters will have more power in the process, while their extremist
counterparts (and those who fund their causes) would have less.
1) Fix
gerrymandering. This one is
actually in play, with the Supreme Court in a strong position to rule, for the
very first time, that certain congressional district maps are
unconstitutional. We will know by June
what they have in mind. Now, one of my
friends pointed out, “fixing” gerrymandering is no magic bullet, as a recent
Nate Silver podcast made clear. Nate’s
point was eliminating gerrymandering will still leave many districts that are
still heavily slanted to one party of the other – but it can restore balance to some
districts.
The facts
(according to Nate) are that as recently as 1996, there were more than 160 of
our 438 congressional districts “in play,” where the “partisan lean” was 10
percentage points or less. That number
was down to 72 by 2016, but that 90-district reduction was not all due to
gerrymandering – much of it was due to all of us self-selecting into living in
like-minded districts. But Nate estimates
that with proper district boundaries instead of the salamander shapes that
predominate in North Carolina and Pennsylvania (and many others), the number of
districts in play would increase by 30.
Not all 90, to be sure, but 30 more competitive races would sure help.
2)
Open
primaries. It’s a well-known
phenomenon that the modern primary process is controlled by the people who vote
in them – and they tend to be at the extreme wings of each party. The people who vote in primaries are rabid
politicos, clear on where they stand on issues, the ultimate zealots. Moderates
and independents don’t vote, don’t caucus, and don’t pay much attention to
primaries. If you make all primaries
“open,” – that is, open to independent voters and voters of the other party –
then the candidates don’t necessarily have to cater to the extremes. They also would have to pay attention to the
independents and the crossovers, forcing them to take less extreme positions to
cater to the base, and ultimately attracting more moderate candidates running
on more moderate platforms. The “open
primary” acts as a moderating incentive to the candidates – and thus they don’t
get locked into extreme positions right out the gate.
It may surprise you to
learn that 23 states have some form of open primaries in presidential races
right now. If we could move this to
100%, you might see a different outcome.
It is hard to fathom, but there was a time when there was not too much
distance between a Gerry Ford and a Jimmy Carter, or even a George W. Bush and
an Al Gore. Perhaps a healthy-sized
gorge, but not the Grand Canyon that exists between, say, a Ted Cruz (who might
have snagged the GOP nomination in 2016 had there been no Trump) and 2020
wannabee Kamila Harris.
3)
Public
funding. The third step is to get the money out of
politics, and require public funding of all presidential and congressional elections. The money flows from all sides, and the
people and corporations who hold this firehose are interested in one
thing: influence. You don’t find many entities with this type
of money who are disinterested in the outcome, and whether it is the Koch
brothers or Tom Steyer, they are demanding something in return: fealty to a
cause. Eliminating private money would allow politicians of all stripes to be
more flexible in finding the middle ground, without fear of reprisal from
Sheldon Adelson or George Soros, the NRA or the Sierra Club.
The framework could be the
1974 Campaign Finance Reform Act. You may recall that, under this law, presidential
candidates used the public funding option, until candidate Barack Obama
determined he could raise far more money by opting to go private. No one
has gone public since. (My magic wand will be busy indeed on this on,
casting aside Citizens United and getting rid of "soft money" as
well.) Public funding failed because it was simply an option, and in time the
private appetite to influence elections overwhelmed it. Ban the private option, make the tax
contribution a requirement and not an option (yes, a “mandate”), develop
funding rates for each class of election (president, senator, representative)
and we’re off to the (fair) races, where no one can wield influence other than
the American voter.
None of these are miracle working solutions,
but each alone (and all together) would have the effect of pushing everyone
more toward to the center, thus more able and willing to compromise. Our
politics would certainly be less polarized as a result. Any other ideas?
Note: On this same topic, we encourage you to read
David Brooks’ recent column on the “Better Angels” group, who have another
approach to reducing partisan conflict:
talking respectfully to one another:https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/opinion/parkland-gun-control-shootings.html
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