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10 Steps To Repair American Democracy

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I heard Steven Hill give a talk about his new book, "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy", in Cambridge recently. In his book and in his talk, Hill promotes reforms such as instant runoff voting, proportional representation, direct election of the President, public campaign financing, free media time for candidates, and so on. His "ten steps" are:
1. Secure the Vote
2. Expand Voter Participation
3. Increase Voter Choice with Instant Runoff Voting
4. Scrap Winner-Take-All Elections
5. Direct Election of the President
6. Overhaul the U.S. Senate
7. Reclaim the Airwaves
8. Minimize Money's Role
9. Reform the Supreme Court
10. Restore Faith in Government

Obviously, each of these slogans really involves multiple steps. For example, "Secure the Vote" includes securing voter-verified recountable paper trails; impartial and professional election officials; and open-source software for electronic voting machines. "Expand Voter Participation" includes universal voter registration; making election day a holiday; and enfranchising prisoners and ex-cons. And so on down the list.

Hill puts the most emphasis on scrapping winner-take-all elections in favor of moderate proportional representation, of the type formerly used in the Illinois state legislature. In moderate proportional representation, three to five legislators are elected from geographical districts three to five times the size of those that currently exist. Since candidates in such districts would need only 17% to 25% of the vote to win a seat, Hill argues that minorities (political and ethnic) would gain representation proportional to their numbers, and polarization between "red" and "blue" areas would be dramatically reduced. At the same time, since these 17%-25% thresholds are much higher than those formerly used in Italy and Israel, moderate proportional representation isn't vulnerable to the sort of instability that troubled systems in which candidates could be elected with as little as 1% of the vote.

Hill's talk was held in a church, and I felt a bit like the choir, since I am familiar with most of these proposals and have supported many of them for years, to the point of writing articles and collecting signatures for instant runoff voting and proportional representation. "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy" is directed primarily toward those unfamiliar with these proposals, and seeing them for the first time.

Though Hill gives decent summaries of many of the issues and options, I personally would have liked more detailed discussions of the arguments for (and against) the various reforms proposed. I also would have appreciated more discussion on ways to work to enact these reforms -- all Hill does is suggest contacting the relevant organizations, which are listed at the end of each chapter. The writing was also tiresome on occasion, as several factoids, phrases, sentences and even a paragraph were repeated verbatim two or three times in less than 200 pages.

So although "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy" wasn't all I was looking for, it can still serve as a brief introduction to reforms whose time has come, especially valuable for people who are fed up with business as usual but don't have any idea what to do about it. I already have a lengthy list of friends and relatives to loan it to.

This book gave me great hope. With all the alarming politics occurring in the US today, the many ways that democracy is failing and civil liberties are threatened, it becomes difficult to keep track of it all. I sometimes feel like I have to subscribe to ten magazines, four newspapers and watch all the news shows to make any sense out of it. So it was with great relief that I read Steven Hill's new book, which first and foremost is a concise summary of the many ways American democracy is failing. But to my delight he also offers concrete solutions, with a summary of those solutions at the end of each "step"/chapter, as well as organizations to contact who are working on that specific solution. I finished reading his book feeling not only clearer on the problems, but the solutions as well. Tremendously empowering. If you are concerned about the state of democracy, pick up this wonderfully short and concise tonic for the times.

I have become cynical about American democracy, but this book opened my eyes more than most books. The author has a knack for explaining things simply and clearly, which I find helpful because to me American democracy has become such a puzzle. Washington, DC is like a Hall of Mirrors, very hard to figure out. After reading this book, I understand better why that is, it put into place a lot of disparate observations I have and helped me to see the bigger picture, see how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. And I'm so glad that he provided solutions, I get so tired of books that tell us what's wrong but never tell us how to fix the problems. For me, "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy" was a quick and easy read, and greatly illuminating.

If you are concerned about the future of our democracy, I would say this book is a can't miss... Hill has masterminded an insightfully succinct "how-to" guide. For the sake of our country, I hope this one makes it to the best sellers list...

Steven Hill has outlined, succinctly and clearly, a roadmap for reinvigorating American Democracy. For those of us sick of special interests and bought off politicians running our government, and for those seeking to ensure a government of, by, and for the people, Hill's book could not be more welcome. This book is lively and engaging, and a must-read for those of us seeking reform and clean government!

This book is a necessary addition to anyone seeking to make American democracy what it should be -- and what it must be if it is to survive well into the 21st century, as it's no longer optional to advance these reforms. "Repair" isn't quite the right word. Hill wants to bring American democracy to a better place than it's ever been with proposals that are at once both "common sense" and "revolutionary." That combination of words shows Hill's role in the electoral reform world (in tandem with a few innovative groups like FairVote and Hill's New America Foundation) -- a Tom Paine who boldly is willing to learn from international examples, apply those lessons to our nation with an American twist and go beyond the tepid proposals so typically espoused by our political and civic leaders. Here's a guarantee, one the publisher almost could say "or your money back": you will learn about at least one reform or reform strategy that you will be shocked that you didn't already know about. Be prepared to go through at least a few weeks (and probably years) of wanting to tell all your friends about how they can do to make our democracy work better, starting in your own community.

If the trappings of American democracy seem increasingly spurious to you this book explains why in a calm, straightforward, non-partisan way. A real eye opener for those unfamiliar with how actual democracies in other countries work. Committed curmudgeons should avoid as it's liable to inspire optimism.

The short form of my argument is that a surprisingly large fraction of the political and policy problems of the US are indirectly caused not by bad people or a system gone wrong, but by a bad system. The US hasn't been losing its democracy so much as its once state-of-the-art democracy has been obsolete for a long time. Our electoral and governmental systems have been showing their flaws more and more as the world changes. Our system unnecessarily encourages otherwise decent people to do bad things, and that's tragic.

First off, stop reading right now, and buy "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy" by Steven Hill (only $11). The flaws in our democratic systems are no mystery; political scientists have known about them for decades, and in some cases, centuries. [Why they haven't done anything about them is another matter. Maybe it's because America has always been good to its elites. Maybe too many political scientists augment their incomes through political consulting and helping politicians game the existing system ;-)]

Let me indulge in a little intellectual laziness myself and point out that the 10 steps outlined in Steven Hill's book are absolutely necessary to fix the problems and keep them fixed:

Secure the vote
Expand voter participation
Increase voter choice with Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)
Scrap winner-take-all elections: use Proportional Representation (PR) for legislatures
Scrap the electoral college and elect the President via direct IRV election
Overhaul the US Senate
Reclaim the publicly owned airwaves and make sure they serve to educate our citizens
Minimize money's role in politics
Reform the Supreme Court
Restore faith in government

Steven Hill has backed up these basic goals by documenting concrete proposals that are either already underway or are obvious next steps. Now it's up to you, me, and everyone to start doing the hard work needed to fix our country. Hint: the answer is NOT simply to elect Democrats. We need to elect candidates who demonstrate awareness of the underlying problems facing us and pledge to advance the right systemic solutions.

As we contemplate the upcoming presidential election, it is crucial that we try to educate candidates about the solutions discussed in Hill's book. Not sure what to do? For starters, you could do worse than to buy "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy" for your favorite candidate and a friend or family member. But don't stop there! There are a lot of organizations to plug into, and many more that need to exist but don't yet. Yes, we all hate politics, but Steven Hill's book shows us that it doesn't have to be that way.

Murphy

First the upsides. A thoughtfully written book that challenges some long held beliefs, such as "The Founding Fathers were perfect and there is no need to change anything about the way we do things". Yes, they were innovative, but even they knew they were not perfect and thus left the Constitution open for ammendment. Here, Mr. Hill comes up with 10 ideas that he thinks will improve our system of government. In my opinion, his ideas range from brilliant, to so-so, to downright poor. In spite of that, the over-riding message, "can we do things better?", is excellent. Too many people hold the founding fathers to be prophets and the Constitution divinely inspired and second only to The Holy Bible. On the downside, if you're a Republican, you cannot miss the fact that he lays most of the blame for problems on the Republicans. He makes a weak effort, at times, to try and sound unbiased, but he's not. Second, he can be inconsistent when dealing with the rights of those in the minority on an issue. He makes the case for proportional representation by bringing up people who live in an area that is over-whelming in support for an opposing party as having no real representation because of where they live. He then asks why those in the low population states "should be protected by the will of the majority" by their equal representation in the Senate. Well, some people who live in the low population states (Wyoming) will NEVER have close to the representation of a state like California. Isn't it possible that a rancher in Wyoming or a farmer in Nebraska will have a different set of priorities and a different view on things that people in CA? By the nature that they are primarily agricultural states, won't they ALWAYS have a lower population, and thus representation? Should they be forced to do the will of the majority BECAUSE OF WHERE THEY LIVE?
Overall though, it is a good book. Please don't let his bias prevent you from getting it, just be prepared. Also, don't HAVE to agree with every idea to like it, let it just make you think about how we can do better. As for what I think are the great ideas, I'd recommend it based on the ideas of Proportional Representation (PR), Instant Runoff Voting (IRV)and a National Election Commission on it's own! Get it even just to read about those three ideas alone.

From George Scialabba's review of "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy" in The Nation, January 29, 2007 issue:

"...We now have a bit of breathing space, thanks to the midterms. It's time to consider how the right got away with it and how to prevent it from happening again. The most useful of these books...is Steven Hill's 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy...Hill's recommendations invariably hit the mark...Hill's book is a no-brainer--there's simply nothing in it to disagree with."

Complete excertps:

...We now have a bit of breathing space, thanks to the midterms. It's time to consider how the right got away with it and how to prevent it from happening again. The most useful of these books (along with Sirota's splendidly hard-hitting and extraordinarily well-documented Hostile Takeover) is Steven Hill's 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy. "To ponder the shortcomings of our political system is to court despondency," Hendrik Hertzberg observes in his foreword. The Electoral College, the Senate, the disenfranchisement of the District of Columbia, the two-party duopoly, the winner-take-all principle, partisan redistricting, 95 percent incumbent re-election rates, media concentration, Buckley v. Valeo, the K Street Project, voter turnout below 50 percent, shortages of voting machines and poll workers--this is a functioning democracy? If these travesties of logic and fairness promoted majority rule rather than prevented it, they would doubtless have been abolished long ago. Hill's recommendations, beginning with proportional representation and instant-runoff voting, invariably hit the mark, and each of them is accompanied by links to groups already on the case. Perhaps his most radical notion--as he says, it goes "to the very heart of our political system"--is that representation should no longer be based on geography. Because of partisan residential patterns, more and more election districts are noncompetitive even without gerrymandering. Tens of millions of votes in American elections don't really count; and, perhaps as a consequence, millions more are never cast. Making representation correspond to what voters think rather than where they live is now perfectly feasible, as Hill makes clear. When (if) the Democrats regain the electorate's trust, they should consider proposing that, procedurally speaking, the United States join the modern world.

Hill's book is a no-brainer--there's simply nothing in it to disagree with.

... But in a democracy, if a large enough majority of citizens want economic populism plus cultural conservatism, isn't that what there ought to be? And if that's not what there is, then it's not much of a democracy, is it? What these truisms imply is that perhaps the right thing for progressives to do is not hire ever cleverer triangulators but, instead, first make sure American democracy works (for which, see "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy") and then get most Americans to agree with us.

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