Proportional Representation for the United States?

[lpetrich]

So why doesn't anyone ever talk about proportional representation for the US? In this supposed flagship nation of democracy, that lack of discussion is VERY disappointing. Also disappointing is how many nations outclass the US in quality of democracy by having PR and having other such things, like a parliamentary system and one main legislative chamber or only one.

Look at the reality--proportional voting can give great power to the extremists when you get things like a 45-45-10 split.

Which is why Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark are such extremist hellholes.

Not to mention Norway, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and New Zealand.

 

[Tigers!]

The biggest problem in US is not proportional or disproportional representation.
The biggest problem is that people you elect don't represent you at all. They represent their donors.

Barbos occasionally talks sense. Bit like a stopped clock.

 

[Tigers!]

So why doesn't anyone ever talk about proportional representation for the US? In this supposed flagship nation of democracy, that lack of discussion is VERY disappointing. Also disappointing is how many nations outclass the US in quality of democracy by having PR and having other such things, like a parliamentary system and one main legislative chamber or only one.

Look at the reality--proportional voting can give great power to the extremists when you get things like a 45-45-10 split.

Which is why Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark are such extremist hellholes.

On of the problems with PR is the time it can take a very long time to form a coalition. https://qz.com/1112509/the-dutch-took-a-record-long-225-days-to-form-a-government
Other problems are instability - Italy had 50 coalitions or so in about 48 years. though this century they seemed to have got their act together.
Israel had 4 general elections in about 21 months (2019-2021) due to instability of PR coalitions.
PR has its advantages but it is not the panacea it is often portrayed as.

 

[Oleg]

PR has its advantages but it is not the panacea it is often portrayed as.

People advocate for PR because they believe their political group will have more power, not because it is better.

 

[Jayjay]

So why doesn't anyone ever talk about proportional representation for the US? In this supposed flagship nation of democracy, that lack of discussion is VERY disappointing. Also disappointing is how many nations outclass the US in quality of democracy by having PR and having other such things, like a parliamentary system and one main legislative chamber or only one.

Look at the reality--proportional voting can give great power to the extremists when you get things like a 45-45-10 split.

Which is why Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark are such extremist hellholes.

On of the problems with PR is the time it can take a very long time to form a coalition. https://qz.com/1112509/the-dutch-took-a-record-long-225-days-to-form-a-government
Other problems are instability - Italy had 50 coalitions or so in about 48 years. though this century they seemed to have got their act together.
Israel had 4 general elections in about 21 months (2019-2021) due to instability of PR coalitions.
PR has its advantages but it is not the panacea it is often portrayed as.

Denmark works around it by not requiring a majority - they have minority governments that build ad hoc coalitions on a per-issue basis. But it requires a peculiar political culture.

Note that having different coalitions every election cycle doesn't necessarily mean that the politics are unpredictable: the coalitions could have very similar politics despite having slightly different party compositions.

Israel and Italy differ from Netherlands in that they have closed party lists, whereas Netherlands has open lists IIRC. I think that closed lists contributes to instability, because they're more tightly controlled by party leaders.

 

[Tigers!]

PR has its advantages but it is not the panacea it is often portrayed as.

People advocate for PR because they believe their political group will have more power, not because it is better

Shh. Do not say that out loud.

 

[Jayjay]

PR has its advantages but it is not the panacea it is often portrayed as.

People advocate for PR because they believe their political group will have more power, not because it is better.

That's the main obstacle to any electoral reform: why would the people in power want to change the system that put them there?

 

[Tigers!]

I remember a joke out of the UK years ago talking about the problems of PR.

The 4 parties contesting the PR general election each offered voters a free holiday
Party A - Blackpool
Party B - Brighton
Party C - Lakes District
Party C - Isle of Wight

The election was duly held and the coalition announced the holiday destination - Bradford

 

[barbos]

Barbos occasionally talks sense. Bit like a stopped clock.

I always right and always make sense. It's you.

 

[lpetrich]

PR has its advantages but it is not the panacea it is often portrayed as.

People advocate for PR because they believe their political group will have more power, not because it is better.

Evidence?

 

[lpetrich]

Looking at The Economist magazine's  Democracy Index most of the top scorers have proportional representation. From what their lower houses do:

Norway, New Zealand, Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Ireland, Netherlands, (Taiwan: parallel), Uruguay, (Canada: SMD FPTP), Luxembourg, Germany, (Australia: SMD IRV), (Japan: parallel), Costa Rica, (United Kingdom: SMD FPTP), Chile, Austria, (Mauritius: Bloc vote), (France: TRS), Spain, (South Korea: parallel), (Greece: PR + majority bonus), Czechia, Estonia, Portugal, Israel, and at number 30, the US (SMD FPTP/TRS).

The champion, Norway, is at 9.81, and the only high-scoring FPTP users are Canada at 12: 8.88, the UK at 18: 8.28, and the US at 30: 7.85.

 Freedom in the World the champion, Finland, at 100, Canada at 5: 98, the UK at 30: 93, and the US at 61: 83.

Ranking | Democracy Matrix the champion, Denmark, is at 0.958, the UK at 17: 0.892, Canada at 24: 0.860, and the US at 36: 0.811.

 List of countries by Fragile States Index the least fragile state, Finland, is at 179: 15.1, Canada at 172: 20.1, the UK at 150: 40.6, and the US at 140: 46.6.

What's going on here?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So why doesn't anyone ever talk about proportional representation for the US? In this supposed flagship nation of democracy, that lack of discussion is VERY disappointing. Also disappointing is how many nations outclass the US in quality of democracy by having PR and having other such things, like a parliamentary system and one main legislative chamber or only one.

Look at the reality--proportional voting can give great power to the extremists when you get things like a 45-45-10 split.

As if that is only a problem with proportional representation. I can't believe that I'm reading this when only two months earlier that was exactly what happened to the US House of Representatives, elected with mostly first-past-the-post in single-member districts. I remember very well that the "Never Kevin" Republicans refused to vote for him over the whole time, and only allowed him to be elected on the fifteenth vote by voting "Present" -  2023 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election

Yeah, we are getting something like that in the House these days. I'm just saying it's a lot more likely in PR systems. And I simply don't see the big advantage to PR systems--sure, it lets smaller parties have members elected but that usually doesn't give them any power, but when it does give them power it gives them very disproportionate power.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So why doesn't anyone ever talk about proportional representation for the US? In this supposed flagship nation of democracy, that lack of discussion is VERY disappointing. Also disappointing is how many nations outclass the US in quality of democracy by having PR and having other such things, like a parliamentary system and one main legislative chamber or only one.

Look at the reality--proportional voting can give great power to the extremists when you get things like a 45-45-10 split.

Only if nearly half of the 90% of non-extremists decide to hand it to them.

A vote on a truly extreme measure, in a 45-45-10 legislature, should come out about 90-10 against. If the 10 who hold the balance of power are the only extremists. Of course, if more than 50% of legislators are extremists, you have a major problem regardless of the existence or not of minority parties who are ultra-extreme.

It should, but the 10% can offer their votes to whichever side will support their extreme measures and if they don't get it, deadlock.

 

[lpetrich]

More Parties, Better Parties by Lee Drutman

Abstract:

Political parties are the central institutions of modern representative democracy. They must also be at the center of efforts to reform American democracy. To redirect and realign the downward trajectory of our politics, we must focus on political parties. We need them to do better. And in order to create better parties, we need more parties.

This paper makes the case for pro-parties reform both generally, and then for two specific reforms that would center parties: fusion voting and proportional representation. Fusion voting allows for multiple parties to endorse the same candidate, encouraging new party formation. Proportional representation ends the single-member district, making it possible for multiple parties to win seats in larger, multi-member districts, in proportion to their popular support. The goal of these reforms—fusion in the short and medium term and proportional representation in the long term—is to move us toward a more representative, effective, and resilient democracy for the twenty-first century.

 

[lpetrich]

He expands on his paper's abstract in "Executive Summary". Like

Many proposals focus primarily on candidates and, in particular, elevating independent and moderate candidates in the immediate term. These “candidate-centric” reforms include open primaries, top-two primaries, ranked-choice voting, and blanket primaries that send the top four or five finishers regardless of party to a ranked-choice general election. This category of “candidate-centric” reforms views political parties as obstacles to good governance and see the task of reform as finding a clever way around the perceived destructiveness of parties and especially partisanship. Though these candidate-centric reforms can sometimes work in targeted circumstances, this paper argues that such productive circumstances are limited. More broadly, this paper argues that in addition to having mixed and uncertain immediate-term effects, these candidate-centric reforms are unlikely to have sustainable long-term positive effects, because they do not address the core questions of the political party system.

and saying

Healthy parties aggregate long-term policy commitments among diverse groups. Healthy parties communicate the consequences of these policies to voters at scale. Healthy parties make elections meaningful and consequential by structuring choices. Healthy parties engage and mobilize voters. Healthy parties vet and support qualified candidates for public office. Healthy parties assemble governing majorities and broker compromises capable of solving public problems. These are all essential functions of modern democracy. No other organization can do all these things simultaneously or at scale.

Healthy parties perform all these roles with honesty and integrity. Healthy parties do not lie to voters. Healthy parties do not engage in corruption. Most importantly, healthy parties adhere to the basic foundations of democracy—mutual toleration (accepting the legitimacy of political opponents) and forbearance (holding back from abusing legal powers). Healthy parties police extremism and authoritarianism in their ranks. Healthy parties do not dehumanize their political opponents or tolerate violence, let alone endorse it. Healthy parties accept electoral defeat with grace, and electoral victory with humility.

In other words, they are both good losers and good winners.

 

[lpetrich]

"The signs are powerful that U.S. democracy is now entering a fourth significant period of reform." - the three previous ones were the Jackson Era (1830's), the Progressive Era (1900's), and the Sixties Era (1960's). All matching all but the first of Samuel Huntington's creedal-passion eras, with the first of them being the American Revolution and the creation of the Constitution. However, LD mentions SH's work only in a footnote.

Then, "Introduction: The Case for More and Better Parties".

In every era of reform, leading activists have railed against the evils of the party system. The traditional American reform move has been to treat political parties, particularly party leadership, as an obstacle to democracy in America. The classic reform move in every era has thus been a variation on the same theme: more direct democracy. In each era, reformers have sought a way around parties.

Something like what the Founders themselves had in mind: a no-party system.

But there is no way around political parties in modern mass democracy. Improving democracy hinges on robust political parties. Rather than treating political parties as obstacles to healthy democracy, this paper treats political parties as facilitators of healthy democracy. Political parties make modern representative self-governance possible.

 

[lpetrich]

LD then discusses the reform efforts of previous generations of reformers, noting why they failed.

The Jackson Era:

First, in the 1830s, reformers smashed the centralization of party leadership in Washington, and brought presidential nominations to the states. The first modern mass parties organized in response to this decentralization. But to hold the parties together, leaders simply replaced the clubby caucus rooms of Congress with the patronage “spoils system” politics that stymied the development of American state-building capacity.

Spoils system: giving positions to one's supporters.

In the 1900s, progressive reformers again set their sights on party leadership, replacing party bosses with direct primaries for most elected offices, setting up “nonpartisan” government and new administrative agencies that only the “public interest” would guide. This did not solve the problem of organized interests. It only moved organized interests into the shadows, where they could, ironically, operate with less scrutiny and more power.

So they still bribed politicians, but in a very behind-the-scenes manner.

In the 1960s, a new generation of reformers, angered by this hidden power elite, borrowed the familiar moralizing populism. They broke open the presidential nominating process and gave it over to direct primaries, weakening political parties even further. They also took a new approach to administrative agencies, setting up new agencies as more open to the public, which would presumably act as a bulwark against the cozy corruption of government and business that the progressive reformers had failed to anticipate.

How well did they do?

But as we enter the 2020s, we are dealing with the new problems created by excessive opening up. As parties weakened, organized interest groups became stronger and more powerful. Government agencies became hobbled by process. Organized lobbying interests have repeatedly abused the transparency and openness to delay and to undermine government regulations. Unorganized citizens have not taken the same advantage of the expanded participatory opportunities.

Yet, once again, a “more democracy” hope for expanded open and direct participation suffuses many current visions of reform. Once again, there is a theory that partisanship and parties are keeping Americans from government by the people. And if extremism has taken hold, it is only because the “wrong people” are in charge. Give “ordinary” citizens more power, the theory goes, and we’ll get better leaders because we’ll get better participation.

Then advocating fusion voting and proportional representation.

 

[Tigers!]

He notes that the Netherlands has the same electoral system as Israel, without having politics nearly as dysfunctional.

Despite having PR the Netherlands is off to the polls again because a stable coalition could not be formed.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2023/07/the-dutch-government-falls-rutte-to-quit-what-happens-now/

 

[Jayjay]

Netherlands has an interesting system of semi-open lists. If a candidate receives more than 1/600th of the he or she will be positioned on the list in the order of votes received. Remaining candidates are on the list in the order set by the party. I couldn't find after quick googling the results on a per-candidate basis yet, but it would be interesting to know how many MPs get in through their own votes, and how many are picked by the party.

I have a theory that parliamentary systems with proportional representation are more prone to instability and snap elections if they use closed lists, because then most MPs know that they will keep their seats without having to spend too much money or effort campaigning. With open lists, every election is a risk, even for the top candidates.

 

[lpetrich]

"1. Defining the Problem(s)"

Democracy requires shared legitimacy in electoral and governing institutions, regardless of who wins and who governs. For a metastasizing share of the American electorate and a growing share of the political class, this shared legitimacy is collapsing. The other party is not the opposition anymore. It is now the enemy and a threat to the well-being of the nation. They must be kept out of power at all costs. Such thinking is a hallmark sign of political extremism.

"Democracies that have experienced similar binary partisan flattenings degrade quickly, often sliding into civil war and authoritarianism." and "Addressing other concerns, such as effective governing or, say, dealing with a pandemic or a climate crisis, becomes like arranging a bookshelf amid an earthquake."

Then about tweaking the electoral system to get "moderates" over "extremists". But what's a "moderate" and what's an "extremist"? Supporters of now-appreciated reforms were often called extremists when they were in action.

On the Saying that "Extremism in Defense of Liberty is No Vice" - Niskanen Center -- In his acceptance speech in the Republican convention of 1964, Barry Goldwater said “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!” and “And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

On the other side,
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Here's another word of MLK ... / Twitter

Here's another word of MLK that brings me peace on days where I feel weary or threatened by the intensely powerful machine we are fighting against here in NYC.

It's MLK's response to being marked a political extremist:

'Was not Jesus an extremist for love? Was not Amos an extremist for Justice And Abraham Lincoln? And Thomas Jefferson?

So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love?' -#MLKJr

Dates Jan 15, 2018, during her first campaign.