Read the full article at OpEdNews.com.
Activists across the political spectrum were universally dismayed with last year’s Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, overturning the extremely tame McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms that took nearly a decade to enact. A national grassroots coalition called Move to Amend believes the only way to reverse a century of similar pro-corporate Supreme Court decisions is via a constitutional amendment that specifically bans “corporate personhood” and other so-called Bill of Right protections that allow powerful corporate lobbies to corrupt the democratic process. I agree. I strongly encourage everyone to sign their petition at www.movetoamend.org, which presently has over 99,000 signatures.
Nevertheless amending the Constitution will take at least a decade. This makes it equally important to look at more minor electoral reform progressives can undertake simultaneously…
There are several different types of proportional representation. The two features they all share in common are 1) instead of electing one representative in each small district or ward, multi-member districts (or wards) are established in which several candidates are elected at once and 2) the candidates who win seats in these multi-member districts are determined by the total proportion of votes their party receives. For example if Democrats win 50 percent of the vote, they get 50 percent of the seats; if Republicans win 30 percent and a third party ten percent, they win 30 per cent and ten percent of the seats respectively. Though strictly speaking 30 percent is a minority, it is a sizable minority to end up with no voice at all in how a community (or state or country) will be governed.
Based on the experience of other western democracies, proportional representation substantially alters the composition of legislative bodies (as progressive, low and moderate income candidates are far more likely to win seats) -” in my view a first important step in extricating multinational corporations from the US political process. Obviously any electoral reform at the national level faces massive opposition from major political parties and their corporate backers. However, thanks mainly to the 2000 presidential election being decided in the Supreme Court, local activists have been quite successful in enacting variations of proportional representation in a number of cities.
My philosophy is that any sort of multi-seated election will help if it is not adopted to the exclusion of all single-seated elections.
However, US_Americans are prejudiced against having to vote for the party instead of the candidate and so that excludes most ordered lists form of PR. And the open list approaches tend to be more complicated. And it also may be unrealistic to push for any electoral reform that helps third parties too much in our current political system.
As such, a small-numbered LR-Hare PR could work if it had a tacit party list or a very short party list, ie a candidate plus maybe their vice-candidate who’d hold the second seat if they did well.
This wouldn’t be hard to adopt so long as additional measures are adopted to ensure that there’s adequate hierarchy to get things done.
dlw
Please explain.
Excellent point.
Can corporations get life in prison? Chemical castration? Lethal injections?
Both statements can be accurate, as the opinion among libertarians and constitutionalists is not unanimous on this subject, unless the original statement was that all activists across the political spectrum were dismayed by the US Supreme Court decision Citizens United v Federal Election Commission.
But 1947 was the year that Jackie Robinson broke into the majors in Brooklyn. You don’t think that there was any “bleed” from the baseball park to the voting booth? Really?!?!?
Thanks Aaron, I will check the link. My comment was specifically in regard to the 1947 referendum to repeal PR in New York City, which was totally based on Red baiting.
While I don’t exactly agree with Richard, and others, that Citizens’ United was a correct decision by the Supreme Court, I do believe that PR would make money much less important in our elections. Therefore, for me, campaign finance reform is a dead end road and PR is the only way forward for election reformers, besides increased ballot access of course.
Gene, see the section from the above mentioned PR Library link on Cincinnati for race-baiting. That was the rhetoric that removed STV from Cincinnati. STV advocates have tried to reintroduce referenda to bring STV back to Cincinnati but so far have been unsuccessful.
I agree with Richard about Citizens United, and it is impossible to abolish corporate personhood, unless you really want to close down the Berkeley Coop Grocery Stores, for example.
On New York, it is very true that Red baiting was the principle argument used to end Proportional Representation. For several years there were 2 Communists – elected as Communists – on the City Council. At least one of the American Labor Party members of the Council – Mike Quill – was a secret Communist as well.
However, in my reading on the topic, I have not seen reference to race-baiting, even though one of the Communists – Benjamin Davis, Jr, was Black. It might be true that race was used as an issue, but I have not seen it mentioned.
@Aaron: thank you for the link! Quite educational.
If corporations have “human” rights, they should also have human responsibility. May we try a corporation for murder perhaps?
It is inaccurate to say that activists across the political spectrum were dismayed by the US Supreme Court decision Citizens United v Federal Election Commission. I support that decision and I believe most Libertarian and Constitution Party activists do as well. It always helps when the US Supreme Court upholds the First Amendment, even in the face of hostility from the President. The Citizens United decision made it easier for a U.S. District Court judge in San Diego to rule, as she did, that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” also violates the free speech part of the First Amendment.
Pete is exactly right. And Douglas Amy’s PR website should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in this subject. This article on PR and the US is especially relevant: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/articles/Brief%20History%20of%20PR.htm
What I find interesting is that in some cases it took an entire decade or two of ballot initiatives by the major parties to get STV removed. The fact that it took so much effort to repeal STV says something about its acceptance. And I think it’s important to note that it wasn’t STV’s “failure” that had it removed. Rather, it was its success.
This history lesson, should be instructive to us. If PR is to again make strides at the local level, then we must remember to keep its momentum. The PR League of the US failed here.
The situation in New York in the 30’s and 40’s of the last century wasn’t a matter of anyone “walking away” from PR. A New York City Charter Revision, passed by city-wide referendum, brought the single transferrable vote (each of the 5 boroughs was a district unto itself) to the NYC City Council and it was a great success! Previously, Democrats received just over 50% of the votes in the city but because of gerrymandered districts usually won over 90% of the seats. During the PR experiment, four or five parties won seats in rough proportion to their vote totals.
Four times, by several different strategies, the Democrats attempted to kill this reform. The first three times they were unsuccessful, but the fourth was in 1947, and they were successful. They used the “Red Scare” (Communists and Socialists had been winning elections! God Forbid!), and Race-Baiting (Black Communists had been winning elections! Martha, Bar the Door!). In the very next City Council elections after PR was killed, the Democrats won 55% of the vote and 95% of the seats. And it’s been like that in New York City for the last 60 years.
According to Christina Tobin, the Free & Equal foundation is trying to get PR on the ballot in CA come 2012. However, I don’t know what system of PR it is (STV, MMP, cumulative, etc.)
PR, does have some success, usually at the local level. Cambridge, MA, still uses single transferable vote, and I believe there are some locales that use the semi-proportional cumulative voting method.
But historically, many more places have used these sorts of methods. New York city used to, and the state of Illinois used to. But they have since been all-but abandoned.
To ensure future success, you’ll need to figure out why those places walked away from these methods. I believe the argument is usually over cost: both for simply counting the ballots, but also because a proportional legislature tends to be a larger legislature (and hence, more on salaries.) Or else, it is one where constituents feel (perhaps unjustifiably) that their representatives are less directly-accountable to them (they “I want one person I know I can complain to” mindset).
Good luck!