Proportional Representation for the United States?

[lpetrich]

That report addresses a common argument in favor of single-member districts.

Conventional wisdom has held that the “territorial basis of single member districts is believed to provide a strong incentive for constituency service, ensuring that members remain concerned about the needs and concerns of all their constituents, not just their party faithful.” By virtue of representing an entire district, this thinking goes, a single official is encouraged “to take heed of the views of all of their constituents” and can better advocate for and represent them.

Some politicians, like AOC, seem to have a strong bond with their districts, while others, like her predecessor Joe Crowley, don't.

What do we find in practice?

However, constituents in single-member districts are not more likely to feel that their representatives take heed of their views than constituents in proportional multi-member districts. ... On the other hand, with proportional multi-member districts, many (and in some cases, nearly all) voters are represented by at least one member of their own party.

In an assessment of 30 countries, Curtice and Shively find little supporting evidence that single-member districts create stronger representative-constituent linkages. On the contrary, they find that citizens in multi-member districts are more likely “to believe that their elected representatives are in touch with public opinion” and just as likely “to name correctly at least one of the candidates standing in their district.”

This supposed superiority of single-member districts would be the case in a no-party system where every district is competitive. But in a partisan system, one might not feel very close to a politician of another party, and a politician may neglect a district perceived as a sure win.

 

[lpetrich]

Referring to Fix Our House,

One of the group’s models is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which began as an idea that Elizabeth Warren, then a Harvard professor, promoted for years before Democrats included it during their package of banking reforms following the 2008 financial crisis. “It’s funny how things can go from off the wall to on the shelf,” Drutman said.

Left unsaid is the fact that it took an economic collapse to muscle the new federal agency into law and that the CFPB remains a target for Republicans more than a decade later. Fix Our House launched about a year after January 6, 2021, when the nation’s polarization triggered a violent attempt to overturn a presidential election. Supporters of proportional representation acknowledged that the moment they are preparing for, when the country is finally ready to overhaul the way it elects its leaders, might not be a happy one. “The most obvious way you get big change,” Beyer told me, grimly, “is catastrophe.”

Fix Our House - that group's home page

 

[lpetrich]

Fix Our House linked to:

Only 10% of House races were competitive in 2022, improvement in 2024 seems unlikely | Washington Examiner

Scholars Ask Congress to Scrap Winner-Take-All Political System - The New York Times - "More than 200 political scientists wrote an open letter to lawmakers proposing sweeping changes to federal elections. The overhaul would be a heavy lift."

That letter:
Letter to Congress on Ending Single Member Congressional Districts and Adopting Proportional Representation | by Scholars for Redistricting Reform | Medium

"In 2020, there were more Trump voters in California than any other state and more Biden voters in Texas than in New York or Illinois."

Partisan ‘doom loop’? The answer is more parties, this group says - Roll Call - "Fix Our House wants America to switch to proportional representation"

Eli Zupnick, founder of Fix Our House:

Zupnick founded the group along with two political scientists: Lee Drutman, a senior researcher at New America, and Charlotte Hill, a researcher with the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. They’ve attracted support and board members from across the political spectrum, from lefties like Waleed Shahid of Justice Democrats to Never Trump Republicans like Miles Taylor of the Renew America Movement.

and

The proportional representation push does have some things going for it that other democratic reforms do not. It could be enacted by passing a law rather than a constitutional amendment (which would be needed to change how Senate elections work). It’s also presumably constitutional, unlike many proposals for overhauling the campaign finance system that would face a hard time in a Supreme Court that has equated money with speech. Those who lament how fragmented media ecosystems and disinformation on social media drive the electorate apart similarly have First Amendment issues to contend with.

Can Proportional Representation Save American Democracy? | The New Republic - "American Democracy Is Broken. Can Proportional Representation Fix It?" - "A proposal to reform House elections and give more power to the people is gaining traction with activists. Now they just have to convince the electorate to fight for it."

 

[lpetrich]

Most of those links were to articles back in 2022, but Fix Our House has more recent content, like Debt Limit Chicken which linked to 2022 Redistricting Report

Opinion | Quiz: If America Had Six Parties, Which Would You Belong To? - The New York Times by Lee Drutman himself

Has a Political-Compass-like diagram of amount of economic and social conservative. I've measured that graph and scaled the numbers from -10 to +10.

• -10.0, -10.0 -- 14% -- Progressive Party -- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elizabeth Warren, Julián Castro -- The Progressive Party is focused on equity and racial justice, with a strong vision of inclusive social democracy. Its strongest support comes from politically engaged, highly educated younger people, especially women.
• -8.4, -1.7 -- 12% -- American Labor Party -- Sherrod Brown, Jon Tester, Tim Ryan -- The American Labor Party is focused on economic populism, with an appeal to working-class Democrats who don’t have college degrees and don’t follow politics closely. It is more moderate on social and cultural issues compared with the Progressive Party, but also more diverse, appealing to many working-class Hispanics.
• -2.9, -7.5 -- 26% -- New Liberal Party -- Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, Eric Garcetti, Beto O’Rourke -- The New Liberal Party is the professional-class establishment wing of the Democratic Party. Members are cosmopolitan in their social and racial views but more pro-business and more likely to see the wealthy as innovators.
• +6.7, -2.1 -- 14% -- Growth and Opportunity Party -- Larry Hogan, Charlie Baker, Mitt Romney, John Kasich, Michael Bloomberg. -- The Growth and Opportunity Party is the socially moderate, pro-business wing of the Republican Party. It is the heir to the old moderate “Rockefeller Republican,” the East Coast wing of the G.O.P.
• +2.9, +9.2 -- 14% -- Patriot Party -- Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, Tucker Carlson -- The Patriot Party is the party of Donald Trump’s 2016 primary campaign: the coalition of the small town, white working-class Americans who feel left behind by globalism and condescended to by cosmopolitanism. It is economically populist and strongly anti-immigration. Its strongest support among lower-income conservatives comes from exurban America.
• +10.0, +6.3 -- 20% -- Christian Conservative Party -- Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Mike Pompeo -- The Christian Conservative Party is focused centrally on issues of religious liberty and morality, with very limited government. It will find stronger support among the most politically engaged and affluent, especially men.

I'm at -8.3, -6.4, closest to the Progressive Party

There is no “center” party here. That is because there are very few voters in the middle across all issues. Many readers who consider themselves centrist might also think of themselves as socially liberal/fiscally moderate or socially moderate/fiscally conservative. They will find a home in either the New Liberal Party or the Growth and Opportunity Party.

The overall weighted average is +0.2, -1.3, and the average of the NLP and the GOP is +1.9, -4.8.

 

[lpetrich]

Which proportional representation method is best for America? - "Party List vs Proportional Ranked Choice Voting vs Mixed Member Proportional -- are they all the same? Or is one method better than the others?"

PR systems generally result in more choice for voters, higher voter turnout, broader representation and – with more points of view at the legislative table – it leads to more “policy congruence,” which is the political science way of saying that the policies passed by the legislatures are more in keeping with what the majority of the society generally desires. Most of the established democracies in the world use some type of proportional voting system, with just a handful of democracies – primarily the UK and its former colonies, such as the US, India and Canada – that continue to use the antiquated winner-take-all system.

Then comparing

• Party List -- proportional by votes per party
• Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) -- party list + single-member districts -- overall proportional
• Single Transferable Vote (STV) -- a proportional extension of instant runoff voting (IRV)

Specifically, some PR systems would allow the continuation of longstanding American traditions that:
1) enable voters to vote for individual candidates,
2) preserve some degree of a geographic connection between voters and their representatives,
3) don’t require a massive increase in the size of US legislatures (though a modest increase would certainly be beneficial), and
4) waste fewer votes and allow more voters to cast a vote for a winning candidate or party.

Then discussing the three methods in gory detail, and concluding

STV > MMP > PL

STV requires relatively small districts, 3 to 7, while the list seats in MMP and PL are typically in much larger districts.

IRV is sometimes called RCV, ranked-choice voting
STV is sometimes called P-RCV, proportional ranked-choice voting

 

[lpetrich]

Homepage - FairVote -- advocates instant runoff voting.

Research and data on RCV in practice - FairVote

Evidence shows that RCV elections often generate relatively high turnout. For example, when New York City used RCV in its 2021 primaries, that election had its highest turnout in over 30 years. However, RCV’s full impact on turnout is still not yet known.

Most places that have adopted RCV have switched from a two-round system to a single RCV election. Primary and runoff elections often draw low turnout; RCV substantially improves turnout by consolidating primary and runoff elections into a single higher-turnout general election.

Bullet voting, voting for only one candidate, is not very common. "A median of 71% of voters rank multiple candidates." Minorities typically ranked at least as many candidates as white voters did.

"The two elections that did not elect the Condorcet candidate are the 2009 mayoral election in Burlington, Vermont and the 2022 special election for U.S. House in Alaska" The page's author speculated "RCV prioritizes candidates with both broad support and deep support, while Condorcet winners only need to have broad support."

What happened in both elections is a problem with IRV: "center squeeze". In Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola, moderate Republican Nick Begich, and MAGA Republican Sarah Palin competed. NB was the Condorcet winner, beating MP and SP in virtual-round-robin fashion. But NB got the fewest first-place votes, and dropped out. That left MP vs. SP, and MP won.

Also a section on

Increased campaign civility

Ranked choice voting (RCV) encourages civil discourse because candidates campaign not only for first- but also second-choice support. Consequently, candidates are incentivized to appeal to a broader range of voters and to avoid negative statements about opponents to reduce the risk of alienating their supporters.

 

[lpetrich]

Ranked Choice Voting Information - FairVote including where in the US IRV is currently used.

Proportional RCV Information - FairVote about STV

The first U.S. city to adopt proportional ranked choice voting for its city council was Ashtabula, Ohio in 1915. During the first half of the 20th century, proportional ranked choice voting spread rapidly as part of the progressive movement. At its peak, some two-dozen cities adopted it, including Cincinnati, Cleveland, Boulder, Sacramento, and even New York City. ...

As the progressive era transitioned into a period characterized by racial tensions and fear of communism, proportional ranked choice voting became a victim of its own success. In Cincinnati, ranked choice voting enabled the election of two African American city council members in the 1950’s. In 1951, African American attorney Theodore M. Berry won with the highest percent of the vote, which ordinarily would result in him becoming mayor. Instead, the city council chose one of the white councilmen to become mayor. Finally, Cincinnati repealed ranked choice voting in 1957 in the fifth Republican-led repeal attempt. ...

So they didn't like PR because it helped black people get elected.

Similarly, in New York City, proportional ranked choice voting cut off the stranglehold previously held by the Democratic Party in the city. In the last election before adoption of choice voting, Democrats won 99.5% of the seats on the Board of Alderman with only 66.5% of the vote. Under ranked choice voting in 1941, Democrats won 65.5% of the seats with 64% of the vote, a much fairer result. However, ranked choice voting enabled representation of minor parties, including members of the Communist Party. During the Cold War, the Democratic Party took advantage of fears of communism to make a successful push for repeal of proportional ranked choice voting. That repeal successfully prevented the election of communists to the city council, along with members of all other minor parties, but it also brought back an era of unrepresentative elections to New York City.

So they didn't like PR because it helped Communists get elected.

 

[Tigers!]

This supposed superiority of single-member districts would be the case in a no-party system where every district is competitive. But in a partisan system, one might not feel very close to a politician of another party, and a politician may neglect a district perceived as a sure win.

I agree that the possible neglect of electorates perceived as a sure win is a problem with FPTP. This is well known in Australia and UK. But it is not insurmountable.

 

[Tigers!]

But MA politicians won't want to help R's and OK ones won't want to help D's.

This will occur in any electoral system. Human nature and all that. Definitively need mitigation strategies.

 

[Tigers!]

There are variants in single-winner methods but all they do is work out 'better' where the line is. Only one winner can cross said line, which is FPTP./pendant hat off

FTPT specifically refers to plurality, rather than majority voting. Therefore, not every single-winner method is FPTP.
For example, Squad private Rashida Tlaib "won" her 2018 primary with only 31% of the vote because the field was fragmented.

If you must be a pedant, then at least be correct.

The fact that the field was fragmented is irrelevant. She passed some 'line' i.e. necessary votes to win, and that is the definition of a FPTP system. When only one candidate can win you have by definition a FPTP system, regardless of where the post is or how it is determined.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But having 49% of the final vote is the same as having 0% of it.

Under winner-take all, yes. Hence the advantage of proportional representation for legislatures. It could also do away with gerrymandering.

The coalitions tend to vote together because politicians get their power from the party.

I do agree it solves gerrymandering, but there are other ways to fix that.

 

[lpetrich]

 Cyclical theory (United States history) - Lee Drutman worked off of Samuel Huntington's belief that US history has had periods of "creedal passion" for making government more like the "American Creed" -- "In terms of American beliefs, government is supposed to be egalitarian, participatory, open, noncoercive, and responsive to the demands of individuals and groups. Yet no government can be all these things and still remain a government."

I'll compare to Arthur Schlesinger's liberal-conservative alternation, and add race-relations upheavals and party systems, sets of characteristic constituencies and platforms.

Years	Features	Party System
1776 - 1788	Lib - CrdPas	-	Revolution & Constitution
1788 - 1800	Con	(-), 1	Federalist Era
1800 - 1812	Lib	1	Jefferson Era
1812 - 1829	Con	1	Era of Good Feelings
1829 - 1841	Lib - CrdPas	2	Jackson Era
1841 - 1861	Con	2, (3)	Slaveowner Dominance
1861 - 1869	Lib - Race	3	Civil War & Reconstruction
1869 - 1901	Con	3, (4)	Gilded Age I
1901 - 1919	Lib - CrdPas	4	Progressive Era
1919 - 1931	Con	4	Roaring Twenties
1931 - 1947	Lib	5	New Deal Era
1947 - 1962	Con	5	Fifties Era (Good Feelings II?)
1962 - 1978	Lib - CrdPas - Race	5, (6)	Sixties Era
1978 -	Con	(5), 6	Gilded Age II

Schlesinger alternation:

Liberal	Conservative
Wrongs of the Many	Rights of the Few
Increase Democracy	Contain Democracy
Public Purpose	Private Interest
Human Rights	Property Rights

 

[lpetrich]

Quality-of-democracy measurements:

•  Democracy indices
•  The Economist Democracy Index
•  Democracy indices (V-Dem)
•  Freedom in the World
•  Fragile States Index
•  Democracy Ranking
•  Effective number of parties
• Democracy Matrix: Ranking

What countries have:

•  List of countries by system of government
•  List of electoral systems by country

Some research on legislatures and democracy:

• Stronger Legislatures, Stronger Democracies
• Parliamentary Powers Index, Scores by Country

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

But that is still a single-winner system.

Ipetrich
Reading through all of the info you have provided is good. Thank you for all of it.
Yet I can't help but notice that you are adverse to a single-winner system.
Why is that? In some systems single-winner is a feature not a bug.
For example a presidential system, like the USA, cannot really use PR to elect a president. There can only be a single winner, which is FPTP by definition.
People bag FPTP (sometimes with good reason) but there are times when it is necessary. If only one person can win then FPTP is necessary. If filling a parliament PR is useful.

FPTP is the absolute worst system for a single winner situation. For instance, under a FPTP system, if Mr Fascist gets 34% of the votes, Mr Moderate 33% and Ms Other 33%, then Mr Fascist wins. This is where a preferential system is very needed. As to filling a parliament, that is just a large number of single winner situations combined, as each electorate/seat is a single winner situation.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Two different things are being sort of equated here. Representative systems, and voting systems.
You can have a FPTP for some offices, and still greatly improve the voting process to get there. That may or may not have anything to do with a parliamentary representation system that differs from the current rather unrepresentative system we have in the US. My opinion is that the voting system needs to change first (and is easier to do so, since it is up to the individual states and doesn't require a constitutional amendment).

 

[Tigers!]

But that is still a single-winner system.

Ipetrich
Reading through all of the info you have provided is good. Thank you for all of it.
Yet I can't help but notice that you are adverse to a single-winner system.
Why is that? In some systems single-winner is a feature not a bug.
For example a presidential system, like the USA, cannot really use PR to elect a president. There can only be a single winner, which is FPTP by definition.
People bag FPTP (sometimes with good reason) but there are times when it is necessary. If only one person can win then FPTP is necessary. If filling a parliament PR is useful.

FPTP is the absolute worst system for a single winner situation. For instance, under a FPTP system, if Mr Fascist gets 34% of the votes, Mr Moderate 33% and Ms Other 33%, then Mr Fascist wins. This is where a preferential system is very needed. As to filling a parliament, that is just a large number of single winner situations combined, as each electorate/seat is a single winner situation.

Are you most upset about the fact that Mr Fascist won rather than Ms Other? If that be true then it is who is elected rather than how they are elected that bothers you. No voting system can guarantee that your preferred candidate will win (unless you rig it).
To avoid unfounded accusations I would be appalled if a fascist got 34% in any Australian election.
Do I need to remind people that Hitler was SELECTED Chancellor of Germany under a PR system? A PR system does not guarantee good government. It has its good features but of its self it is not a panacea.
Under a PR system the losers can claim that the winning candidate did not get a majority and so does not have a 'mandate'. More arguments.
We need the best way to select the best candidates and make sure that the best candidates are chosen to stand. Worldtraveller noted that in post 115.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

But that is still a single-winner system.

Ipetrich
Reading through all of the info you have provided is good. Thank you for all of it.
Yet I can't help but notice that you are adverse to a single-winner system.
Why is that? In some systems single-winner is a feature not a bug.
For example a presidential system, like the USA, cannot really use PR to elect a president. There can only be a single winner, which is FPTP by definition.
People bag FPTP (sometimes with good reason) but there are times when it is necessary. If only one person can win then FPTP is necessary. If filling a parliament PR is useful.

FPTP is the absolute worst system for a single winner situation. For instance, under a FPTP system, if Mr Fascist gets 34% of the votes, Mr Moderate 33% and Ms Other 33%, then Mr Fascist wins. This is where a preferential system is very needed. As to filling a parliament, that is just a large number of single winner situations combined, as each electorate/seat is a single winner situation.

Are you most upset about the fact that Mr Fascist won rather than Ms Other? If that be true then it is who is elected rather than how they are elected that bothers you. No voting system can guarantee that your preferred candidate will win (unless you rig it).
To avoid unfounded accusations I would be appalled if a fascist got 34% in any Australian election.
Do I need to remind people that Hitler was SELECTED Chancellor of Germany under a PR system? A PR system does not guarantee good government. It has its good features but of its self it is not a panacea.
Under a PR system the losers can claim that the winning candidate did not get a majority and so does not have a 'mandate'. More arguments.
We need the best way to select the best candidates and make sure that the best candidates are chosen to stand. Worldtraveller noted that in post 115.

Wow, you totally leapt to an unjustified conclusion. I was expecting Mr Moderate to win from runoff votes from Ms Other voters.
Under FPTP system the losers also can claim that the winning candidate did not get a majority - see Donald Trump. As to what you were really claiming- if the system is accepted by all, then there will rarely be claims of winning candidate not getting a majority, except in the rare cases where fraud actually occurs.
FPTP is never the best system, and preferential voting, along with other reforms such as an independent electoral oversight organization to determine electorate borders (in Australia, the Australian Electoral Commission) is much better.
As for selecting best candidates, it is up to the parties to offer better candidates.
In the USA (and elsewhere but especially in the USA) there are often very poor candidates, lots of gerrymandering, massive lying by candidates, and voter suppression.
To fix this, which is difficult against the special interests, one needs something like the AEC I mentioned above, and preferential compulsory voting.

 

[lpetrich]

As I'd posted earlier, quality-of-democracy high scorers typically have proportional representation. High scorers also often have parliamentary government, and that is essentially running the executive branch of government out of the legislature.

That is contrary to what many Americans have traditionally considered good government -- separation of powers, where the executive is independent of the legislature -- but in many cases, it seems to work very well. Israel is not a typical case.

It also agrees with the correlation between strength of legislature and strength of democracy. A parliamentary system has a very strong legislature, from the legislature running the executive branch.

Though the US is one of the best with an independent-president or presidential system, it is not *the* best, at least at present. Uruguay and Costa Rica and South Korea typically do better than the US. Some nations have a hybrid system, a semi-presidential system, and of these, Taiwan and France typically do better than the US.

Parliamentary systems often distinguish between a mostly-ceremonial "head of state" and an acting leader, a "head of government". The head of government is appointed by the ruling party or coalition in the legislature, while the head of state is at least somewhat independent of the legislature. Heads of state can be elected by the legislature, they can be elected by popular vote, or they can be monarchs.

Some parliamentary systems do not have such a separate head of state, like Switzerland's. It has a collective presidency, its seven-member Federal Council, elected by its legislature.

 

[lpetrich]

This suggests that a way forward for the US would be to de-emphasize the Presidency, to reduce the scope of the Presidency. Congress could take over much of the executive branch, thus giving a France-like semi-presidential system.

 

[Tigers!]

But that is still a single-winner system.

Ipetrich
Reading through all of the info you have provided is good. Thank you for all of it.
Yet I can't help but notice that you are adverse to a single-winner system.
Why is that? In some systems single-winner is a feature not a bug.
For example a presidential system, like the USA, cannot really use PR to elect a president. There can only be a single winner, which is FPTP by definition.
People bag FPTP (sometimes with good reason) but there are times when it is necessary. If only one person can win then FPTP is necessary. If filling a parliament PR is useful.

FPTP is the absolute worst system for a single winner situation. For instance, under a FPTP system, if Mr Fascist gets 34% of the votes, Mr Moderate 33% and Ms Other 33%, then Mr Fascist wins. This is where a preferential system is very needed. As to filling a parliament, that is just a large number of single winner situations combined, as each electorate/seat is a single winner situation.

Are you most upset about the fact that Mr Fascist won rather than Ms Other? If that be true then it is who is elected rather than how they are elected that bothers you. No voting system can guarantee that your preferred candidate will win (unless you rig it).
To avoid unfounded accusations I would be appalled if a fascist got 34% in any Australian election.
Do I need to remind people that Hitler was SELECTED Chancellor of Germany under a PR system? A PR system does not guarantee good government. It has its good features but of its self it is not a panacea.
Under a PR system the losers can claim that the winning candidate did not get a majority and so does not have a 'mandate'. More arguments.
We need the best way to select the best candidates and make sure that the best candidates are chosen to stand. Worldtraveller noted that in post 115.

Wow, you totally leapt to an unjustified conclusion. I was expecting Mr Moderate to win from runoff votes from Ms Other voters.
Under FPTP system the losers also can claim that the winning candidate did not get a majority - see Donald Trump. As to what you were really claiming- if the system is accepted by all, then there will rarely be claims of winning candidate not getting a majority, except in the rare cases where fraud actually occurs.
FPTP is never the best system, and preferential voting, along with other reforms such as an independent electoral oversight organization to determine electorate borders (in Australia, the Australian Electoral Commission) is much better.
As for selecting best candidates, it is up to the parties to offer better candidates.
In the USA (and elsewhere but especially in the USA) there are often very poor candidates, lots of gerrymandering, massive lying by candidates, and voter suppression.
To fix this, which is difficult against the special interests, one needs something like the AEC I mentioned above, and preferential compulsory voting.

I too am in Australia so are very familiar with the AEC and are quite pleased with it.
In the emboldened bit you merely stated a series of figures without mentioning about run off votes.