Issues 2004 - Election Reform

I am getting behind again, so it's time to tackle election reform.

Here's my three point plan to fix what's wrong with politics:

1 - Make all campaigns publicly funded. Every candidate gets exactly the same amount of money to run a campaign. It's just not right that wealthy candidates can buy elections and poor candidates cannot. Further, the fundraising part of the political process is corrupting. I know, I am part of it. It stinks. Money must be taken out of politics.

2 - Shorten up the political process. This should be tied to the public financing part. Candidates should not be allowed to campaign for any office (from President down to city council) for more than 180 days. The primary should be half of that, and the general election should be half of that. Candidates can only tap the public money during the 180 day period.

3 - Eliminate the two party system and move to a pariliamentary system. I posted on this idea back in the summer. Our two party system forces each party to pander to the fringes where their base is strongest and ends up producing candidates that don't represent the middle, where most of the voters are. A parilamentary system will allow for the development of many parties and the country can be governed by a coalition built around centrists. There are a number of changes we'd have to make to deal with the instability of parliamentary governments, but I believe improving the parliamentary system is better than trying to fix a badly broken two party system.

What's the chances of any of this happening? About zero. But it's what we need to do to fix the absolutely broken system we have now.

Comments

[Chris]

1. Since it will still be the rich and powerful that are in the best position to run for national office, this amounts to a transfer of funds from everybody (the poor included) the the few that are in a position to run for office. Also, how do you set limits on who qualifies for the public funds?

2. The government mandating when the citizens can and can't engage in political speech will never survive the first amendment challenge. Nor should it.

3. Agrees with the goal - disagree with the methodology to get there. A better idea IMO would be to get instant runoff elections in place nationwide. I think SF and a few other cities are trying them this year - its a start. Instant runoffs will let people vote their conscience without the fear that a vote for Nader is really a vote for Bush, or whatever the fear mongering is that particular year.

[Niraj]

The system is fine, it's the people that need fixing.

[Ron]

Some intersting ideas, but I'll stick to the 2 party system. Have you ever seen elections in other countries with 10 or 15 parties, it's nuts.

[bill burnham]

Two party systems, which are actually just a by-product of "single seat majority-rule" systems, have the opposite effect of what your are suggesting. Single seat majority-rules sytems, by their very nature, force political parties to build electoral coalitions and thus to cater to the center of gravity of the political spectrum as that's the only way they can hope to win a majority of the vote. That's why almost every single seat majority system in the world has only two real parties. In multi-seat/non-majority rule systems, such as some parliamentary systems (but not all), minority parties can pursue highly factious strategies with little risk of falling out of power. Such "fringe" parties also often end up with dramatically disproportinate legislative influence by using their position as a "swing" party to extract major concessions from the mainstream parties when they are attempting to form a government (which many would argue fundamentally undermines the one man/one vote principle of democracy). Our founding selected single seat majority rule in large part because they feared that the multi-seat/non-majority systems would be unable to control factions (aka "special interests") and ultimately lead to a much more divisive and unstable political system.

[Hector]

Fred - these are three of the dumbest ideas I've heard from you in days.

Bill's point above about the two-party system effectively being a coalition system is spot-on. As ugly and as flawed as our system is, it's the oldest, most time-tested on the planet. There is no other national, elected, legislative body with a longer track record than the U.S. Congress. Ours is a model for stability and success, again despite its warts.

Regarding public financing: this will not prevent billionaires like John Kerry from spending his own money, thus public financing is just a subsidy that will raise overall spending and have the unintended consequence of funding cranks like Ralph Nader with my hard-earned taxpayer dollars. This idea will make the problem worse, not better.

Shortening the political process is nothing more than an extra advantage for incumbents. If I want to challenge someone for a seat in the Congress, I should be able to campaign at any time of my choosing. Again, dumb idea.

If you really want to reform the political process, let's stop letting labor unions steal member dues for political purposes without their permission. And while we're at it, unions that spend money on political campaigns should not be tax-exempt organizations. This national scandal is the left's dirty secret they don't want you to know about.

Oh - and while we're ranting and kicking the cat - how about eliminating the gerrymandering that goes on in the House. There are about 10 competitive house races this year out of 435 seats. As a Republican, I'm not complaining, but as an American, this is as tragic as it is corrupt.

[amran]

.........pls send me nude photos