The Electoral Reform Project

THE ELECTORAL
REFORM PROJECT

Every legislature - from town councils to the U.S. Congress - makes decisions that affect every citizen's health, safety, prosperity and quality of life. Yet, most communities consist of a wide variety of socio-economic groups that have conflicting values and interests. As a result, on the most difficult issues, local legislatures often deadlock. Sometimes, elected officials pass measures that they know will appease only the majority. And even when lawmakers try their best, many segments of the community object to the outcome.

At Democracy 2000, our mission is to enable legislatures to resolve difficult issues so as to benefit as much of the community as possible. We base our methods on processes that have solved controversial issues in many kinds of settings.

Politics At Its Best

For instance, outside the halls of government, representatives for opposing points of view often solve contentious issues so that all the relevant parties support the result. These vivid success stories suggest ways that legislatures could solve issues that now seem insolvable.

As one example, from 1993 to 1996, representatives from environmental groups, labor unions, government agencies and the oil, chemical and paper industries met regularly at the White House. Although traditional adversaries, these representatives negotiated until they unanimously agreed on a long-range plan for the nation's environment. They proposed that industry cut pollution to much lower levels than required by existing law, and that environmentalists support the elimination of many regulations that specify how pollution must be cut. All sides expected that this proposal would cut pollution far below current levels, while saving industry hundreds of billions of dollars. Yet Congress has still been unable or unwilling to reach a similar result.

We can cite many such stories at both the local and national levels in which representatives for opposing interest groups solved divisive issues that elected officials could not or would not solve.

How did they do it? In most cases where the representatives succeeded, each one spoke for a group of people who shared a clear set of political interests. Each spokesperson realized that the most practical way to achieve his or her own group's goals was to negotiate with the other representatives. Each spokesperson also stayed in contact with the people he or she represented to get their input and build support for the developing solution. In time, the representatives hammered out an agreement. Then, each one was able to explain to his own group how that agreement would serve their interests better than other alternatives.

A Stark Comparison

By contrast, each local legislator speaks for thousands of people of all kinds: young adults, seniors, families, singles, business people, manual laborers, liberals, conservatives and centrists. Each of these groups has interests and values that clash with other groups' interests and values. So, on controversial issues, anything a lawmaker says or does will anger key blocs of voters. As a result, many lawmakers - to stay in office - resort to safer strategies: They reduce difficult issues to slogans or blame local problems on the other political party.

Citizens are affected, too. With ward or district elections, for instance, all of the diverse people in a district have to share the same representative. So, most citizens cannot get a representative who reflects their own beliefs and concerns. That may explain why most Americans don't vote. It may also explain why most voters know little about the issues or the candidates. James Fishkin, chair of the political science department at the University of Texas, concludes: "for most citizens, [political] ignorance is unfortunately, the rational choice."

How did this situation arise? When the country was founded two centuries ago, 80 percent of Americans farmed for a living. In each region, most farmers planted the same crops. So nearly every geographic area formed a natural constituency.

But, since then, America has changed dramatically. We have grown ever more diverse. We live longer. We work in a wide array of jobs that Americans 200 years ago could not have conceived of. A typical area now contains many socio-economic groups. And most modern issues - such as tax rates, health care, public education, welfare - hinge on citizens' social and economic conditions. In most districts, citizens' interests clash so dramatically that the districts have become political Towers of Babel.

Of course, some communities use at-large plurality elections. In those cases, the majority of a community can elect every member of the local council. All minorities may be shut out. Also, no citizen gets a specific representative. And, on many issues, even the majority may have clashing interests and concerns. The end result is that, again, few citizens get any representative who shares their perspective on most major issues. That many communities have switched back and forth between district elections and at-large plurality voting suggests that neither one inspires much public confidence or produces satisfying public policy.

A few American communities have tried proportional representation. PR ensures that the largest minorities are represented. However, under existing forms of PR, no legislator gets specific constituents who are exclusively his or her responsibility. In effect, there is no direct tie between PR lawmakers and citizens. Of the six American cities that have tried PR, five have rescinded it. This suggests that PR, too, has failed to inspire public confidence or produce satisfying public policy.

A better alternative? Any legislature could be organized in the same way as the groups described on the previous page, groups that were able to resolve difficult issues. We mean that each lawmaker could represent a bloc of citizens on his or her part of the political spectrum. Each lawmaker could also have a direct channel of communication to his constituents. Then, to make progress on his constituents' agenda and his own, each lawmaker would have only one option: He would need to negotiate with other lawmakers. If they reached agreements, each one could explain to his own constituents how those agreements would address their concerns better than other alternatives that they could realistically get.

We call this process Interactive Representation (IR).