Intro
"...Let me now...warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party...The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism...Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind...the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration..."-George Washington
The American political system has not remained endearing to the public in recent years, with Democratic and Republican hostilities on the federal level jeopardizing previous political alliances, crushing attempts at bipartisanship, and perpetuating ineffectiveness. I'm sure both sides can make the argument that they are not the ones at fault, and frankly that's not the point of my discussion; rather, I want to discuss the current system of choices that allows abuses of power and hinders political efficacy. I'm not saying that the entire system is flawed and will be the first to defend it as a historically viable means of constitutional governance. However, in an era where only 26% of Americans believe Democrats and Republicans are doing an adequate job (Gallup), it perhaps is time to reconsider why we continue to use antiquated models of governance and question if there are any ways to improve upon the current model where essentially only 2 parties vie for power.
I'm proposing 8 possible solutions to the current system's failings, in an effort to make it both more effective and sustainable. That's not to say that these are the only solutions nor that these could not be combined in some way for greater efficacy; they have been picked for relative diversity of novelty and feasibility. Many might require some form of a constitutional convention to fully implement, but I'm not concerned. I would rather have a solution to a problem that's difficult to implement than no solution at all.
This is meant to be a bipartisan discussion, and no blame will be placed on either political party. Shows like The Wire or The West Wing maintain that politics is mostly filled with good people who are forced to make compromises to push their agendas, and while I won't deny that some element of corruption plagues the system, I think this is an important view. If the system itself is broken, I don't think expectations of members' honesty are pragmatic; pushing for system change thus is ultimately the first step to changing the people within it. If that isn't your view, I'd still encourage you to keep reading; education does nothing but better the world. With that in mind, I'd like to get to the topic at hand; 8 ways to change the flaws of the two-party system.
I've already discussed decentralization at length, so this will be little more than a summary of my conclusions. Decentralization is the idea that governments should push as many functions as possible to the state or district scale, freeing up the national government for larger priorities and letting local communities have more input in the decisions that affect them. By allowing the federal level to focus on only the most important of issues, decentralization could allow effective and layered debate and compromise within Congress and the Senate, relieving gridlock and getting more done.
That said, many of the more important issues, like military spending, are incredibly partisan; there are relatively few things that both Republicans and Democrats can agree upon. It isn't even a matter of compromise in certain areas like the system allegedly encourages; it's a matter of each party wanting to undermine the other at really any cost. Differences in belief no longer are an aspect of discourse; they seem to be the only thing that drives it. Decentralization would work if the government could be trusted to solve critical issues, but modern-day precedent does not lead one to assume that would be the case.
Part of the problem with modern politics is that there are really no repercussions for inaction. It's fairly easy for a party to stall voting and encumber the political process because they'll still be paid. The 27th amendment prohibits representatives from altering their pay during their own terms, but the 114th Congress onward could certainly be held accountable if changes were made now. What type of changes? Pay cuts for inaction and failures to compromise would be somewhat beneficial, forcing parties to work past their ideologies to find answers best for the American people. Money lost due to government shutdowns could be taken from the parties themselves, draining resources not from the American people but from the supporters of those that would allow discourse failures. If people found that donations to their parties were used to finance excesses rather than advance their political beliefs, change would come very quickly.
If the issue with a two party system is an inability to compromise, citizen censure of policies might be a solution. The use of technology to enhance citizen's involvement in democracy is not a new proposal, but certainly one with some merit; connecting the people directly to the law gives a near perfect representation of what the country wants. While the security of such a system might need significant work, it could work something like this; a law is passed that citizens disagree with or one is rejected that they like.
In the most minimal form, this could be represented in the senate or house chambers by a computer screen that displayed citizen's opinions on the issues being debated. In the potentially most extreme, citizens could actively change policies they disagreed with if the numbers voting were high enough. Think whitehouse.gov's petition system but with actual repercussions. Policy changes could similarly be suggested and actually debated if enough votes for it were collected.
Unfortunately there are issues with this. Sensitive issues like military decisions would never be discussed by voters for "national security" reasons, meaning that spending in those areas could never be checked. Voter fraud is essentially non-existent currently, but could be increased significantly by the far more lax security of the internet. The government has not been known for the safest nor necessarily best programmed websites (see Obamacare's launch as an example), leaving the opportunity for hacking and illegitimate vote casting (from non-citizens outside of the US). Assuming however that this could be resolved, there's a further issue. If voting for policy changes becomes easier, more citizens may vote, but do so uninformed and somewhat arbitrarily. If a movie star tweets that voting a certain way on a media bill would be good for the country, thousands might flood the voting system without even having a opinion of their own. I won't claim that politicians are better informed than the average citizen, but they at least have experience dealing with government policy and seeing repercussions for their actions. On the other hand, this could be a good thing; if democracy is the "voice of the people," more contributions are better. The actual repercussions for vote casting could encourage substantive discourse on topics of serious importance, informing citizens better and enhancing the quality of representation significantly. Or it could cause a great deal of poor decisions to be made that undermine the strength of the federal level and bankrupt the nation. There's merit to the idea, but definitely kinks to work out.
A fairly novel idea that I've heard was proposed by Elliott, who argued that the change in 1911 to a fixed amount of representatives was a terrible idea. Noting that the Constitution wanted 1 representative for every 30,000 people, he points out that the current ratio is 1 to 700,000, a huge change from the founder's intentions. The bigger problem is that the only way one can reach all of their constituents to win over their votes is by joining with one of the two big parties for financial support. Without that, the likelihood of success is fairly low (evidenced by the complete lack of Independent members in the House of Representatives currently). When this happens, partisanship increases, as each member is now loyal to the ideology of their party and depend upon them for re-election support.
These people would be all able to interact with every candidate running, hearing their beliefs, experience, and plans for the future. A focus on worldviews could occur here that doesn't occur normally; candidates could compare things like economic data and historical precedent to make the point that their beliefs would be best for America. A ballot that ranks each candidate in order would be ideal here, and the candidate with the most votes from electors would be elected to office. Best of all, this wouldn't infringe upon the right to vote; rather than elect officials, citizens elect electors.
I'm not sure that bribery will necessarily occur, but with a limited number of people to manipulate compared to an entire population (if you're currently trying to commit voter fraud), it would be far more likely in this system. If one had a preferential ballot, it would be very easy to mark someone higher than the rank you might normally give them. But just like the Supreme Court, electors could be required to disclose the reasoning behind their decisions, allowing concerned citizens to keep track of each candidates' strengths. While certainly a novel idea though, I think it ultimately would be kept back by the populace; it's too unique and distinct from the current system for people to take seriously.
The electoral college is a strange compromise, one that makes some degree of sense but perpetuates the two party system. The "winner takes all" method forces voters to vote not for the candidate who best represents them but the one who shares some of their views who can actually win. In practice, this is a choice between Republicans and Democrats, not all available candidates. Replacing our current method of elections with a direct vote would encourage citizens to vote for their genuine beliefs rather than someone they knew had a chance at winning the election. Independent candidates would have a better chance of being represented on a national scale, and greater, more well-rounded discussions could be had about national problems, not just the two viewpoints the dominant parties possessed.
The direct vote system isn't necessarily ideal though; rather than concentrate on states historically aligned with their values, both parties would just concentrate efforts on big cities, reasoning that winning over people there would be superior to more rural areas. Rather than solve the problem of state preference, it would create the problem of living arrangement preference, where entire communities would be segregated merely because their population did not justify presidential candidates wasting their time on so few votes. Since most large cities are composed of fairly affluent people by American standards, it would be the poor who live in rural areas who would be most poorly represented.
Some European countries have proportional voting systems that maintain current party lines while encouraging third party involvement. In essence, each parties' percentage of the votes cast in an elections determine how many members they can send to the parliament, allowing them to have representation from all across their country rather than the districts that voted for them. This gives smaller parties a good reason to campaign and encourages citizens to vote; every contribution in an election means something. The American system could greatly benefit from this; each vote would be for a party, which then could decide which of its best representatives would be placed in power. Talent would be valued in this system over mere politicking ability, and all of the normal rights to vote would be maintained.
Unfortunately, corruption would again play an important role in this system and it would again be quite hard to keep track of political influences. What would be interesting is potential inner-party corruption, with wealthy candidates attempting to leverage influence by pushing donations in exchange for seats. Considering that the European governments have not collapsed inwards on themselves as of the time of writing, I'll assume the systems work to some degree, but more research on safeguards should be done before any changes are seriously considered.
It is easy to criticize parties, which is why many people do it. Whether they deserve it or not, actual solutions to the current problems of the system might be more beneficial, which is why I supplied 8. Decentralization, force compromise, citizen censure, increased representation, elector elections, third party pushes, and both direct and proportional voting systems may seem somewhat utopian, but all have a degree of solvency current unmet in the status quo.
Maybe they'll never be implemented, but they at least can inspire people to work out the individual kinks of self-government, and hopefully inspire them to learn more in order to build the best possible model for the coming future. If you disagree with any of that, feel free to leave a comment; discourse, no matter the medium, is the first step towards change in any government.
ClintJCL. politics - Clint's Nolan Chart - 20020718 - slightly inaccurate but good. Flickr.com. 31 Mar, 2006. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1pbUZlp
Elliott. The Two-Party System Part 1: Why It Sucks, and Why We're Stuck With It ... For Now. Here's the Deal, Blogspot.com. 5 Jul, 2011. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/V4gGYH and http://bit.ly/1pGpmPV
Decentralization
Forced Compromise
Part of the problem with modern politics is that there are really no repercussions for inaction. It's fairly easy for a party to stall voting and encumber the political process because they'll still be paid. The 27th amendment prohibits representatives from altering their pay during their own terms, but the 114th Congress onward could certainly be held accountable if changes were made now. What type of changes? Pay cuts for inaction and failures to compromise would be somewhat beneficial, forcing parties to work past their ideologies to find answers best for the American people. Money lost due to government shutdowns could be taken from the parties themselves, draining resources not from the American people but from the supporters of those that would allow discourse failures. If people found that donations to their parties were used to finance excesses rather than advance their political beliefs, change would come very quickly.
However, pay cuts could potentially turn Congress into a poorer representation of America, with only the rich running for public office because they could afford losing their pay for long intervals. Democracy would be only de-legitimatized by this move unless there was some way of ensuring proper representation even with restrictions.
Citizen Censure
If the issue with a two party system is an inability to compromise, citizen censure of policies might be a solution. The use of technology to enhance citizen's involvement in democracy is not a new proposal, but certainly one with some merit; connecting the people directly to the law gives a near perfect representation of what the country wants. While the security of such a system might need significant work, it could work something like this; a law is passed that citizens disagree with or one is rejected that they like.
In the most minimal form, this could be represented in the senate or house chambers by a computer screen that displayed citizen's opinions on the issues being debated. In the potentially most extreme, citizens could actively change policies they disagreed with if the numbers voting were high enough. Think whitehouse.gov's petition system but with actual repercussions. Policy changes could similarly be suggested and actually debated if enough votes for it were collected. Unfortunately there are issues with this. Sensitive issues like military decisions would never be discussed by voters for "national security" reasons, meaning that spending in those areas could never be checked. Voter fraud is essentially non-existent currently, but could be increased significantly by the far more lax security of the internet. The government has not been known for the safest nor necessarily best programmed websites (see Obamacare's launch as an example), leaving the opportunity for hacking and illegitimate vote casting (from non-citizens outside of the US). Assuming however that this could be resolved, there's a further issue. If voting for policy changes becomes easier, more citizens may vote, but do so uninformed and somewhat arbitrarily. If a movie star tweets that voting a certain way on a media bill would be good for the country, thousands might flood the voting system without even having a opinion of their own. I won't claim that politicians are better informed than the average citizen, but they at least have experience dealing with government policy and seeing repercussions for their actions. On the other hand, this could be a good thing; if democracy is the "voice of the people," more contributions are better. The actual repercussions for vote casting could encourage substantive discourse on topics of serious importance, informing citizens better and enhancing the quality of representation significantly. Or it could cause a great deal of poor decisions to be made that undermine the strength of the federal level and bankrupt the nation. There's merit to the idea, but definitely kinks to work out.
Increased Representation
A fairly novel idea that I've heard was proposed by Elliott, who argued that the change in 1911 to a fixed amount of representatives was a terrible idea. Noting that the Constitution wanted 1 representative for every 30,000 people, he points out that the current ratio is 1 to 700,000, a huge change from the founder's intentions. The bigger problem is that the only way one can reach all of their constituents to win over their votes is by joining with one of the two big parties for financial support. Without that, the likelihood of success is fairly low (evidenced by the complete lack of Independent members in the House of Representatives currently). When this happens, partisanship increases, as each member is now loyal to the ideology of their party and depend upon them for re-election support.
Elliott's solution is simple; increase the number of representatives so that every 250,000 people have representation, for a total of 1,244 members in the House of Representatives. At a third of the size of the current populace represented per person, deeper communal relationships could be crafted, while attempts for parties to have a hand in every district election would be made quite difficult. Pork barrel spending would likely disappear; convincing 1200 people to build your state a bridge would be much harder than the status quo currently allows. Actual discourse and compromise would increase because those elected would not be beholden to one side or another.
That said, the idea is by no means perfect. Laws that "needed" to be passed for government action like debt ceiling increases could now be delayed permanently as numerous factions fight for political gains. Rather than 2 parties fighting in Congress currently, there would be many more, each working for the benefit of their state rather than an ideology. That isn't a good thing; deep ties with one's people would likely incentivize pushing for bills that benefit them at any cost; said representative doesn't want to fail them and citizens might plan to always elect the candidate who can get them the most benefits from their term. Rather than help democracy, this could severely inhibit it's function; serious thought must go towards the efficacy of such a system, especially considering it's novelty.
Elector Elections
"Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."-Winston Churchill
Elliott furthers by suggesting changes to the Senate and Presidential elections, noting that the electoral system discourages candidates of one party from campaigning at all in a state historically aligned against them. Moreover, the current system expects that everyone voting has evenly weighed the options presented to them and come up with a choice that they feel is best for America. This isn't necessarily true; most people never know the complete policies and philosophies of all the candidates who appear on the final ballot, knowing little about even the two main candidates besides the misinformation each side used to smear the other. If that's the case, Elliott proposes that we shift to elections of electors.
"I would have the people of each congressional district choose an elector just as they choose a Congressman (though the elector will be necessarily a different person than their currently serving Congressman). Each state legislature would then appoint two more electors. This would reflect the longstanding tradition that the number of electors should equal the total number of senators and representatives combined. Thus, we would have 1344 electors. These electors would then hold their own election for the President of the United States some time later without any interference from the population." -Elliott
These people would be all able to interact with every candidate running, hearing their beliefs, experience, and plans for the future. A focus on worldviews could occur here that doesn't occur normally; candidates could compare things like economic data and historical precedent to make the point that their beliefs would be best for America. A ballot that ranks each candidate in order would be ideal here, and the candidate with the most votes from electors would be elected to office. Best of all, this wouldn't infringe upon the right to vote; rather than elect officials, citizens elect electors.
I'm not sure that bribery will necessarily occur, but with a limited number of people to manipulate compared to an entire population (if you're currently trying to commit voter fraud), it would be far more likely in this system. If one had a preferential ballot, it would be very easy to mark someone higher than the rank you might normally give them. But just like the Supreme Court, electors could be required to disclose the reasoning behind their decisions, allowing concerned citizens to keep track of each candidates' strengths. While certainly a novel idea though, I think it ultimately would be kept back by the populace; it's too unique and distinct from the current system for people to take seriously.
Direct Vote
The electoral college is a strange compromise, one that makes some degree of sense but perpetuates the two party system. The "winner takes all" method forces voters to vote not for the candidate who best represents them but the one who shares some of their views who can actually win. In practice, this is a choice between Republicans and Democrats, not all available candidates. Replacing our current method of elections with a direct vote would encourage citizens to vote for their genuine beliefs rather than someone they knew had a chance at winning the election. Independent candidates would have a better chance of being represented on a national scale, and greater, more well-rounded discussions could be had about national problems, not just the two viewpoints the dominant parties possessed.
The direct vote system isn't necessarily ideal though; rather than concentrate on states historically aligned with their values, both parties would just concentrate efforts on big cities, reasoning that winning over people there would be superior to more rural areas. Rather than solve the problem of state preference, it would create the problem of living arrangement preference, where entire communities would be segregated merely because their population did not justify presidential candidates wasting their time on so few votes. Since most large cities are composed of fairly affluent people by American standards, it would be the poor who live in rural areas who would be most poorly represented. Proportional Vote
Some European countries have proportional voting systems that maintain current party lines while encouraging third party involvement. In essence, each parties' percentage of the votes cast in an elections determine how many members they can send to the parliament, allowing them to have representation from all across their country rather than the districts that voted for them. This gives smaller parties a good reason to campaign and encourages citizens to vote; every contribution in an election means something. The American system could greatly benefit from this; each vote would be for a party, which then could decide which of its best representatives would be placed in power. Talent would be valued in this system over mere politicking ability, and all of the normal rights to vote would be maintained.
Unfortunately, corruption would again play an important role in this system and it would again be quite hard to keep track of political influences. What would be interesting is potential inner-party corruption, with wealthy candidates attempting to leverage influence by pushing donations in exchange for seats. Considering that the European governments have not collapsed inwards on themselves as of the time of writing, I'll assume the systems work to some degree, but more research on safeguards should be done before any changes are seriously considered.
Third Party Push
Kodos: It's true, we are aliens. But what are you going to do about it? It's a two-party system. You have to vote for one of us.Man 1: He's right, this is a two-party system.Man 2: Well I believe I'll vote for a third-party candidate.Kang: Go ahead, throw your vote away.
Strangely enough, it might benefit the supporters of each parties' ideology to push for the enhancement of a third party. Currently, that would likely be the Libertarian party, one that bridges the gap between the economic sensibilities of conservatism with the social liberties of liberalism. Considering that it also is the biggest party after the two major ones, it only makes sense. Ideological compromises have to be made on the national scale when the only choices are democratic or republican in nature; the Log Cabin Republicans like the economic sensibilities of the GOP and prioritize it over extensions of gay rights that Democratic candidates might provide. That's solved by introducing a socially liberal and economically conservative party like Libertarians, and could be supplemented by a economically and socially conservative party like the Constitution group. It only hurts voters to not vote for candidates that they genuinely want in office; ultimately though, changing their mindsets from voting for someone who can win to someone they feel is best for the country will be quite difficult. Combinations of the other 7 ideas to varying degrees might help alleviate that, but for now the possibility seems fairly low of actual implementation as both parties like the idea of control.
Conclusion
It is easy to criticize parties, which is why many people do it. Whether they deserve it or not, actual solutions to the current problems of the system might be more beneficial, which is why I supplied 8. Decentralization, force compromise, citizen censure, increased representation, elector elections, third party pushes, and both direct and proportional voting systems may seem somewhat utopian, but all have a degree of solvency current unmet in the status quo.
Maybe they'll never be implemented, but they at least can inspire people to work out the individual kinks of self-government, and hopefully inspire them to learn more in order to build the best possible model for the coming future. If you disagree with any of that, feel free to leave a comment; discourse, no matter the medium, is the first step towards change in any government.
Citations
ClintJCL. politics - Clint's Nolan Chart - 20020718 - slightly inaccurate but good. Flickr.com. 31 Mar, 2006. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1pbUZlp
Elliott. The Two-Party System Part 1: Why It Sucks, and Why We're Stuck With It ... For Now. Here's the Deal, Blogspot.com. 5 Jul, 2011. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/V4gGYH and http://bit.ly/1pGpmPV
Fletcher, P. Democracy Pixels Poster. Flickr.com. 29 Aug, 2009. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1kIVrI3
Jones, J. In U.S., Perceived Need for Third Party Reaches New High. Gallup.com. 11 Oct, 2013. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1pD0Nn6
Munroe, R. Two-party system. xkcd.com. Photo. Retrieved from http://xkcd.com/661/
Television Tropes. West Wing Cast Photo. tvtropes.com. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1pbT6Fo
Tracey, R. Selective Democracy. Flickr.com. 7 May, 2011. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1tYr9Ur
Wikipedia. Two-party system diagram. Wikipedia.com. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1kISZRZ
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