Move Over HealthCare, Pass the Election Reform!

I'm posting a three part series on election reform at TPM Cafe.

It hasn't elicited much feedback yet, but I am hopeful and glad it is a three part series.

dlw

A book?

I've taken a hiatus from Project Democratic Renewal. It is basically "social science fiction", up until something well beyond myself chooses to push it beyond the tipping point and I have had other matters to deal with. And yet, there is a possibility I may be writing a book with others that could get some decent public attention so I have by no means lost the faith, I just have had to go deeper.

It's kind of funny, actually. I've argued that election reform trumps all other issues of reform because it bears the potential to significantly expedite all other issues of reform. However, one's personal spiritual renewal arguably trumps any purported commitment to ideas/strategies, meant to either feed one's ego or serve the public good or some combination of the two. To be a faithful steward, I need to view my ideas/strategies as constructs that may or may not serve the needs of others. I can't fall for my models and let my desire for acclaim(or a job in a think-tank) upset the sorts of many new relationships that will be needed to enflesh something that resembles the foggy concept I've tried to distill.
dlw

Last Post for a While...

My thoughts have congealed... In a time of crisis of crises, it seems to easy to get overwhelmed by it all or to put your hopes in a particular political figure, which seems likely to be Obama, as both McCain and Palin have been tarnished as of late by their negative campaigning and recent revelations.

Now, I'm going to vote for Obama, but I believe the problem is the US's political system and the way our two-party system too easily can become dominated by a single party at the state or nat'l level. Obama's charisma will do him some good for a while, but then the ugly reality of the serious consequences of the current events is gonna sink in and people will have a hard time believing his rhetoric of change and what-not.

So if we face many crises, I need to pick my battles and focus on what will have the max influence spilling over onto other issues and that focus is on state-level election reform as a critical ingredient in getting people to believe in our system again(or for the first time ever). It's like the New Deal and how it got Labor more into the mix of the balance of power, we need to update our system of checks and balances and for that, I believe the ideal way is thru a host of (thousands) local state third parties that are decentralized enough that they resist $peech a lot better, but which are capable of changing the dialogue and coming together to cooperate when needed.

So I believe we need to press for just a wee-bit of election reform and get third parties to change their habits so they no longer are trying to rival the main parties and instead are trying to increase voter-turnout/education and to move the political center thru quasi-strategic voting in First Pass the Post elections and Gandhi's politics of conversion w. its focus on changing the culture/people's hearts.

I don't see other election reform movements formally committing themselves to a less-is-more approach so as to submit to the existence of a two-party dominated system in the US. It seems that the system rather is the dragon they want to slay, but that seems like a recipe for martyrdom and political instability. I'd much rather work to make the system work for more people on more issues and trust long-term that the politics of conversion will help us overcome the self-destructive habits that have plagued us for so long.

So I'll probably post again in January and hope to find a way to commit myself for the next two years to pushing for Project Democratic Renewal....

my regards,
dlw

The Grass is Always Greener...

Here is an Israeli blog, Meretz USA Weblog, that argues that the state of Israel must back away from its intensive use of Proportional Representation.

I think the bigger point is that we need to try something that hasn't been tried before... I believe it's best to use a mix of different election systems. FPP for the top positions, to ensure we tend to have two dominant parties that'll coalesce towards the "dynamic" center and PR for not-so-top positions so that many groups can get more voice in the ongoing determination of what that center is.

Cuz lets get real here, our "democracy", like all modern democracies is an unstable mixture of popular democracy and aristocracy/kleptocracy and the voting system is both an irritant to the system and a means to permit a less bloody(in the literal sense, but not necessarily the rhetorical sense) circulation of the elites. But w. Project Democratic Renewal's provision for the development of a host of local state third parties, one need not become an elite to influence policy changes and that shd be a marked improvement to the bloody governance of our past.

dlw

A short History of Democratic Renewal in the US

At TPMCafe, Marshall Ganz builds from the observations/insights of Tocqueville to the activism of Saul Alinsky and why it seems that activism is bound to take off.

The three basic reasons are:
(1)today's major elections are close, so activism can make a significant diff in our First-Past-the-Post election system.
(2)The internet is enabling new levels of connectedness that can be mobilized into effective activism.
(3)Unions are finding their mojo, with many young activists recently gaining critical ground-level activist experience in recent primaries/elections.

The fourth not mentioned is that the evangelical Christian subculture that was steered into supporting the Republican party has developed a more nuanced and heterogenous political identity that activists may harness if they approach them in a respectful manner.
dlw

Overview of Historical Political Alignments in US

This well written post suggests that we will see a destabilization of the two party system and that the party in power may very likely be unequal to the crises that helped it to get into power.

I shared w. the author about PDR, in hopes that election reform can expedite the needed mutations in the existing main parties to deal with the serious problems that face our country and the world.

dlw

On Quasi-Strategic Voting

Quasi-strategic voting is an idea I developed quite a while ago. It is a way for third parties to wield influence in a First Past the Post election where they are effectively shut out from winning the election. This strategy has the advantage that it does not require making changes in election law, just changes in third party voting habits and it also can save third parties from the cost of directly contesting a major election. And, to take this logic further, if third parties did abstain from contesting major elections(presidential/gubernatorial/senatorial), they would not need to press for as much in election reform and they could decentralize themselves into networks of autonomous local-state parties, who'll dialogue and cooperate on issues of common interest. Decentralization matters, because it facilitates the development of community which is a better shield from the torrents of $peech that batter all those who get political power than a shared political ideology.

This has become apparent as a point of diff for me. I don't get excited about using IRV for major elections or other funky systems like score-voting, simply because I think election reform will proceed more quickly if we simply accept that FPP will guarantee that our system will tend to have two dominant nat'l parties. It does not matter if we are very upset w. the existing two main parties, once we change the rules and the habits of third parties, it'll affect the habits of voters which in turn will force the two main parties to be reborn....

dlw
ps, I know that one of the biggest humps for quasi-strategic voting will be to get voters to reliably follow the decisions made by third parties. What I'm thinking of is that there needs to be a movie, like a sequel to The Candidate, where this time the Candidate illustrates how one can influence policy as a third party candidate. Anyone know how to contact Robert Redford? Maybe we need to start a letter writing campaign to the address given here? I've already posted at Krist Novoselic's blog, inviting him to consider PDR.
dlw