Six Things America Must Do to Restore Democracy
There is a widespread feeling in America that our democracy has been subverted — that someone else is running the show. We’re not entirely sure who it is — Wall Street banks? The “One Percent?” The military-industrial complex? The Trilateral Commission? — but many of us have the sense that somehow it’s not us. The Tea Party on the right and the Occupy movement on the left have this much in common and are very angry about it. And a lot of us in the middle feel dispirited and powerless to affect this government that should be, in Lincoln’s famous words, “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
So here’s my list of six things we need to do to put power back into the hands of the people, where it belongs.
6. Reform the filibuster.
In the U.S. Senate, a filibuster is a method that allows a small number of Senators to block a vote on a measure they oppose. Historically it has been a rarely used tactic that a minority who felt very strongly about an issue could use to force a compromise with a majority. It has some value for that purpose, but in recent years it’s been badly abused.
It used to be that Senators had to actually stand on the floor of the Senate chamber and talk continuously for hours or even days in order to maintain a filibuster. But that practice has eroded. Now, the mere threat of a filibuster is enough to block a bill, making it an easy, cost-free tactic. As a result, we’ve reached the point where it is just assumed that a 60% majority is needed to pass anything. This is ridiculous, and it creates congressional gridlock.
There are times when a minority really does have a better idea. But if they want to overcome the will of the majority, they need to be willing to put in the considerable effort that a real filibuster requires. The Senate needs to go back to its original practice, restore the filibuster to its original purpose, and get on with the nation’s business.
How to change it:
The filibuster is just something that’s written into the rules the U.S. Senate made up for itself. The Senate has the power to change those rules at any time.
5. Abolish the electoral college.
Our method of electing a U.S. President was designed back in the day when travel was difficult and no message could be transmitted faster than it could be carried on horseback. In these times of instantaneous communication between any two points on the earth, it’s an anachronism. The electoral college system allows a candidate who has garnered fewer votes nationwide to become president anyway. This has actually happened four times in our history, most recently in the year 2000.
Update, Nov. 9, 2016: Whoops – it just happened again!
But the electoral college has an insidious effect in every presidential election. If you happen to live in a state where a clearly insurmountable majority of voters favor a candidate that you oppose, your vote for president essentially doesn’t count.
The vote of every citizen of the United States should be weighed equally in presidential elections. The electoral college subverts that basic principle.
How to change it:
Abolishing the electoral college would require amending the U.S. constitution. That’s not easy, but it’s been done 27 times, most recently in 1992. It takes action by Congress to get the ball rolling, and there are enough vested interests in the current system that it will take pressure from constituents to get Congress to act. The constitutional amendment process is described here.
Much the same effect could be achieved without a constitutional amendment by changing the way individual states apportion their electoral votes. Most states take a winner-take-all approach, but Maine and Nebraska divide their electoral votes according to the popular vote in each congressional district. It only requires legislation on a state level to switch from winner-take-all to a more representative way of apportioning electoral votes.
4. Eliminate campaign spending limits, but require full disclosure.
Many efforts have been made to reign in or regulate campaign spending. None of them have been very effective. Money is extremely powerful, almost a force of nature, and it will find a way to make its voice heard. This has been shown time and time again: clamp down on it in one place and it simply springs up somewhere else. And now the “Citizens United” decision by the Supreme Court giving corporations and unions the right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections makes it difficult or impossible to legislatively restrict their power.
It’s time to face reality and give up on the idea of enforcing campaign spending limits. But what we should do is require full disclosure. So-called Super PACs, which now have no limits on their spending as long as they do not directly coordinate with a candidate’s campaign organization, are required to disclose the names of individuals and organizations who contribute to them. But there is a giant loophole in the law that allows them to also accept money from 501[c][4] groups, which are not required to disclose contributors. So billionaires and giant corporations are able to shovel money indirectly into a Super PAC and hide behind a veil of secrecy as they pound us with propaganda and outright lies. The fact that they can do so without accountability allows them to essentially buy elections – and we’ll never know whose strings our elected officials are dancing to.
How to change it:
Eliminating the disclosure loophole for Super PACs will require legislation passed by Congress and signed by the president.
3. Implement ranked choice voting.
As much as the Democrats and Republicans seem to be at each others’ throats these days, on some important issues (the nation’s military spending being a prime example) there’s not a hair’s breadth between them. There is tremendous cultural and political diversity in America, which the two major parties do not reflect. Third party candidates, be they Libertarians, Greens, Whigs, or independents, find it nearly impossible to gain any traction even if their views reflect the feelings of a sizable number of citizens, because voting for anyone other than a Democrat or Republican is widely seen as “throwing away your vote.” The fear is that by voting for your favored third party candidate, you’ll be making it more likely that your least favored candidate will win.
Ranked choice voting (also known as instant-runoff voting) eliminates this impediment. It allows you to truly vote your conscience, confident in the knowledge that if your first choice earns too few votes to win, your vote will go to your second choice – you won’t be assisting the candidate you’re most fervently against.
I’m proud to say that my own city, Minneapolis, has adopted ranked choice voting for city elections, and it has worked well. Implementing it everywhere would bring some much-needed diversity into our political process.
How to change it:
Voting procedures are controlled by individual state, county, and city governments, so ranked choice voting must be implemented locally by each governmental authority. It will probably be easiest to get people comfortable with the idea at the city level, and move up from there.
2. Protect the right to vote.
A very troubling trend is sweeping America: in many states, legislation and constitutional amendments are being passed that introduce new hurdles into the voting process. Most often, this comes in the form of requiring voters to present a government-issued photo ID – something that sounds reasonable on the face of it, until you consider that as many as 11% of legally eligible voters do not have such an ID. And many of those who don’t find it very difficult or expensive to get one.
This is all being done in the name of preventing voter fraud. But the type of voter fraud these measures are supposed to prevent is something that almost never happens. And the new restrictions disproportionately affect students, the elderly, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and members of racial minorities. It’s clear that the true motive behind these initiatives is voter suppression.
Other methods of voter suppression are also underway. In some states, officials are conducting massive purges of registered voter rolls, attempting to cut back the hours that polling places are open in certain districts, or putting new restrictions on absentee ballots.
Voting is fundamental to democracy. We should be bending over backwards to remove obstacles to voting, not erecting new ones.
How to change it:
The new efforts to require voter IDs are mainly happening at the state level, either through legislation or amendments to state constitutions, so turning them back must be done on a state-by-state basis. Other efforts at voter suppression must be recognized and fought at the county and local level.
1. Teach critical thinking.
This is the most important of all. Without a citizenry that’s able to distinguish truth from untruth, the other changes I’ve suggested won’t get us very far.
The airwaves and the internet are awash in distortions of fact, inaccurate statistics, quotes out of context, character assassination, logical fallacies, misdirection, half truths, pandering, fear-mongering, and utter fabrications, all intended to influence how you think, act, and vote. Such tactics are employed by politicians, pundits, talk show hosts and op-ed writers from every party and every point on the political spectrum. You needn’t wonder whether you’re being manipulated. You are.
I’m not saying that everyone does it, or that everything you read or hear is a lie. There are honest people out there, and actual facts and truths are available. But how do you tell which sources you can trust? How do you distinguish fact from fiction?
This is where critical thinking comes in. Critical thinking is a way of rationally deciding whether a claim is true, false, or somewhere in between. It requires open-mindedness and a number of skills that can be taught. Unfortunately, it’s not taught nearly enough. As a result, many people remain trapped in their own mindset, believing anything that fits their preconceived notions and rejecting anything that doesn’t.
Critical thinking needs to be taught in schools at every level, from elementary through college. It needs to be offered in adult education classes, and it needs to be taught to immigrants seeking to become U.S. citizens. The ability to think critically is our greatest defense against demagogues and others who would mislead us to further their own selfish interests.
How to change it:
Start with yourself. Require verification. Be skeptical of everything – especially your own assumptions. Read and support nonpartisan fact-checking websites, like FactCheck, PolitiFact, and Snopes. Teach your kids or your grandkids to do the same.
I don’t know how to get critical thinking into school curricula, but some of you out there reading this do. Go do it.
As a friend of mine recently told her students, “If you don’t use your brain, someone else will.”
* * *
None of these things will be easy, but they can be done – sometimes through small steps.
We have to remember: Our government is not some foreign body that’s been imposed upon us. The government is us. It is our own creation. The only power it has is the power we collectively give it. And collectively, we have the power to change it.
“Never underestimate the power of a small group of people to change the world. In fact, it is the only way it ever has.” ― Margaret Mead
Excellent piece! Might I have your permission to share it (with attribution, of course) with my own mailing list of 14 personal friends? I would rather see public financing of elections than disclosure of unlimited funds. Money can keep repeating misinformation until it acquires its own “truthinesss.”
On his Sunday a.m. show. Chris Hayes’ panel talked about fact checking and raised questions about their accuracy. Rachel Maddow has also given some examples of questionable work on their part. Your suggestion of classes in critical thinking would certainly move is in the direction of more independent thought.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!
Absolutely, please go ahead and share it anywhere and with anyone you wish.
Fact-checking the fact-checkers is also a worthwhile activity.
Many thanks!
These are all important to democracy. Foremost to me is that we the people need to take our voice back from the big and multinational corporations. I support amending our constitution; the amendment that Move to Amend proposes (https://movetoamend.org/democracy-amendments.) Until then we don’t have a democracy, except perhaps at the local level and that may not last long.
Another issue, perhaps less systemic but very worrisome, is “black box” voting machines that provide no way to verify the vote. Some of those have been replaced since 2008, but by no means all.
From a recent report by http://countingvotes.org, which says it is a collaboration between Verified Voting Foundation, Common Cause, and the Rutgers School of Law:
“Sixteen states use paperless machines in some or all counties, prompting an “inadequate” grade. In other words, these machines produce no independent record of the vote cast, which is necessary for recounts or audits. These states are: Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.”
Excellent piece! The biggest challenge of all, and one I don’t have an answer to, is to figure out how to implement any one of these six things, given that those who hold the power now (whoever they may be) will actively oppose any changes that would diminish their hold on power.
Clearly and succinctly presented; encourages productive discussion. And hey, I agree with a whole lot of it! For those who hold their political beliefs experimentally, you’ve got a year’s worth of Sunday dinners here.
Haven’t studied campaign financing closely, but you have to start somewhere. I think first you have to establish the power and right to act, and effectively enforce it. Politically that requires a widely supported proposition. But it’s past time we start warming the 1% up to the new 99. What ever happened to equal time? How about equal mind time? What have we got left to work with?
In some states, balloting has gone entirely to postal balloting (including Washington, where I live). This has been shown to increase voting rates significantly. Do you see it as a useful change, especially if it were combined with ranked-choice voting?
Is there a way to verify accuracy?
You’d have to define “verifiable” here. Yes, it’s possible to verify that every ballot received is properly counted. It’s slightly more difficult to verify that every ballot has been received (but not much — delivery verification is a Solved Problem for the USPS). Making the external envelopes postage paid with delivery confirmation would remove most objections to this approach I can see. No verification effort can stand up against a serious, intelligent fraud effort from the people managing the counting, however.
I submit that another important thing to do would be to repeal the Citizens United decision; this is entirely independent of your point #4. Corporations are not people, money is not speech, and conflating them is going to be nothing but a source of trouble for America in many regards, not just campaign spending.
Pass a constitutional amendment that declares that only human beings have the right of free speach, and define a human as “such-and-such type of genome, plus a beating heart and functing brain.” Let the corporations weasel their way around THAT one.
Ahem. “Functioning” brain. Unlike mine.
I love it, David! I am particularly excited that you have emphasized critical thinking as the most important priority. I have thought, in recent years, that we should restore LOGIC in the curriculum for students, but many of the current voting bloc of adults is also sadly missing this skill. Thanks for posting this.
The best ideas you presented are repeal of the ‘Citizens United’ ruling by the U.S. ‘Supreme’ Court, full disclosure of all political contributions and their sources regardless of amount, ranked choice voting coupled with elimination of the electoral college and protection of the right to vote.
Of all these, protecting the right to vote should be the highest priority and needs to be made as iron clad as possible given the penchant for zealots, demagogues, dictators and others of fascist persuasion to use their political power to create echo chambers by any means possible, most often beginning with destruction of trade unions through which working people can find a voice which speaks to power, followed by seizure of voting rights after suitably demonizing anyone who disagrees with them.
Another tenet of this proposal should be vigorous monitoring of the violation of the constitutional guarantee of the separation of church and state. Already the mainstream of the republican party brazenly distorts religious belief / conviction for political gain with no consequence to them for doing so. The aim of Ralph Reed and other lying, cynical hypocrites of his ilk have a sectarian U.S. government as their goal and care nothing at all about freedom and democracy for all of the people in this country their religious or non-religious beliefs notwithstanding. For anyone who may have forgotten, Ralph Reed is the darling of the christian right who aided and abetted Jack Abramoff in his cynical rip off of Native Americans by, among other things, enlisting the ‘faithful’ in a scheme to prevent other Native Americans from establishing gambling casinos to compete with his Abramoff’s clients’ casinos. In so doing, darling Ralph was effectively supporting gambling by deceiving his mindless followers who were(are) opposed to gambling. Darling Ralph subsequently fell from grace but he’s back with his Faith and ‘Freedom’ Coalition and promising to ‘deliver’ the vote of some 15,000,000 christians for the republicans in the November, 2012 presidential election.
There also needs to be action taken against unelected ‘officials’ such as Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist who are doing their best to subvert democracy through their irresponsible actions and abuse of the privelege of free speech.
Norquist for one is especially deserving of scrutiny for soliciting the pledge of ‘no taxes’ from republicans elected to public office. Since taxes are needed to run the government of all the people and provide them protection and security, exacting such a pledge is at minimum an act of obstruction if not a blatant attempt to undermine and destroy the U.S. government and in so doing, destroying the protection and security of our citizens guaranteed by our government. Norquist, cute little boy that he is has been quoted as saying,’…I don’t want to destroy the U.S. government, I just want to make it small enough so I can drown it in my bathtub..’. And, by the way, Grover Norquist also aided and abetted Jack Abramoff in his influence peddling scams before his fall from ‘grace’. This type of activity which, given the arrogance of Norquist and others of his ilk continues and should fall under scrutiny for what it is, racketeering.
Limbaugh constantly incites the ‘faithful’ with factually inaccurate statements, insults, personal attacks and blatant lies which corrode and corrupt civil discourse, the political process and impedes the business of our government. Not to mention that he’s the effective straw boss of many elected republican officials who claim not to be influenced by ‘outside interests’ all the while insisting that they are brave ‘patriots’ unshakably committed to freedom and the American ‘dream’. Not satisfied with constantly spewing his potpourri of verbal garbage he has also stated that ‘…he hoped President Obama failed as president…’, yet another example of the mean, venal spirit of the right wing rooted in the idea that democracy is only for one point of view, theirs(his) and the talents, hopes, dreams and contributions of the rest of this country are of no use or consequence.
Couple of thoughts – instant runoff voting is not going to be much of an equalizer without an infusion of cash. I would levy a tax on all campaign funds and PAC money raised by the Democrats and Republicans for use by third party candidates. Democracy has clearly been subverted and it has been done by the current two party process and their partners in industry. Never in my life time has the government been so eager to allow it citizens to fight unnecessary wars, keep their personal finances at risk so that the financial services industry can make money, and pay what is essentially another tax so that health care companies are assured of profits.
Critical thinking won’t make a difference if these two parties continue to dictate policies that favor businesses over citizens. There are very few people in either party who seem to be critical thinkers.
Another excellent article: “Electoral College math: Not all votes are equal”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120929/us-some-votes-count-more/
A reader named Rosemary Gunn emailed me with the following:
There are a couple of additions I would like to suggest, in hopes that at some point you will make a new list:
– non-partisan redistricting (I believe the fact that Republicans were in power in many states at the time of the last census, and thus able to re-draw district lines, will affect votes for many, many years to come; had Democrats been in office, they would have done the same)
– open primaries (I mean the sort California is trying, with only one primary, after which the two top vote-getters go on to the election round, regardless of their parties)
Wikipedia has a general article that I found useful when I was trying to figure out whether to call it an open primary or something else – though I’m still not sure. California seems to be the only state with the variant I was talking about; it was adopted under a ballot proposition called the “Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act.” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_primary
I got interested because of articles in the NY Times, e.g.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/us/politics/new-rules-upend-house-re-election-races-in-california.html?smid=pl-share
There it is called a “top-two primary system.” Because the Times charges if you want to read more than 10 articles per month, I’ve copied that article at the end of this message, without photos and links.
Their earlier piece, at the time the proposition passed – while Schwarzenegger was still governor – includes a few pro and con arguments. See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/us/politics/10prop.html
Several U.S. Senators are backing an effort to reform the filibuster. They’re circulating a petition here:
http://www.reformthefilibuster.com/klobuchar/
We don’t have many years to accomplish reform. The approval rate of all elected officials combined with pure cynicism of government and the shocking following a Grover Norquest has, can only lear to gridlock with no critical thinking allowed.
VoteSmart is an excellent source of accurate information about candidates and legislation. The data bank is created jointly by Rs and Ds. It would have been great if more people had used it. What we found in our surveys in rural southern and midwestern states was that rural voters tended to get info from Facebook friends, generally those who live within 10 miles. They had few contacts outside their town or county.They did not search VoteSmart site. In cities, people still tended to share post-election info with FB friends, retweeting or snap chat.