Last night I finished Lee Drutman's book on the need to break America's two-party duopoly.
I certainly agree with him on that. As a die-hard libertarian, I long for the day that our small numbers are actively courted by larger parties to help form winning coalitions on an issue-by-issue basis.
I also have long been in favor of the main mechanism he proposes for accomplishing that task, which is ranked-choice voting, a.k.a instant run-off voting. 100% in favor. Bring it on.
His second major proposal is multi-member congressional districts. E.g., North Carolina, instead of having 13 one-member districts, might have one five-member district and two four-member districts. The voter could pick and choose ordered preferences from the entire list of candidates from any of the parties, or just choose one party, and his votes would be registered in the order of preference that the party had submitted in advance. This is how Australia has done things for decades.
I had heard of proposals for multi-member congressional districts before; maybe it was in 2017 when a proposal to allow them (they're currently forbidden by federal law) was introduced in Congress. (It went nowhere.) I dismissed the idea as silly. Now I believe that the law prohibiting them should be repealed, and states be allowed to experiment with them--as long as it's coupled with ranked-choice voting, to prevent a slim majority from capturing all the seats in a district. (Until reading this book, I had not known that the United States used to have some multi-member congressional districts, though they were banned by Congress in the 1840s.)
He further proposes eliminating primary elections for congressional seats. He wants political parties to have more power than they do now, including choosing candidates by a closed process rather than open voting. I think I'm OK with that idea. It might have a moderating effect, whereas primary elections tend to select for polarized candidates.
He suggests expanding the size of the House of Representatives to around 700, from the current 435. I see his point. First, the US is an extreme outlier among western democracies in the number of citizens represented by each member. Furthermore, expanding the number of seats would allow closer proportionality between votes and seats (i.e., smaller parties are more likely to be able to snag at least one seat when more are up for grabs). I kind of hate the idea of nearly doubling the number of congresscritters, and the amount of office space and staff and budget they'll want. But I reluctantly think that he might be right anyway.
He also suggests increasing the number of senators to 5 for each state, all 5 elected at once. That would not run afoul of the Constitution's requirement that all states be equally represented. But it would, again, allow minor parties a chance at claiming some seats. I think this might be OK. (It would require a constitutional amendment, so it's a long shot.)
Other reforms he wants I'm dead-set against: popular vote for president, public financing of campaigns, etc. Hard no. (I'll spare you the reasons for my opposition.)
I think it's clear that RCV will have to expand in state elections (only Maine and a few cities use it now) for a while before it becomes popular enough that Congress will be compelled to consider the idea seriously.
In fact, if there's a weakness in the book, it's that he doesn't provide a clear road map of how we can get from here to there. All of the proposals will reduce the power of the two major parties. They will no more want to do that than Coke and Pepsi are generous about letting competitors have space in grocery stores and vending machines. Drutman just gives some stories--interesting ones--about how electoral reforms have been birthed around the world, and expresses his optimism that the same sort of thing can happen here. The "how" is left pretty vague, with references to popular pressure and politicians becoming convinced that it's in their own best interest.
But the real strength of the book is the myriad persuasive ways he explains how radically different the current situation is from our entire past history, how dangerous and unsustainable it is, and how it simply cannot be changed by replacing "bad" guys with "good" guys (whoever you think merits those labels). It's a structural problem of our political institutions, combined with a structural problem of our majority/plurality "first-past-the-post" voting. On that, I conclude that he is indisputably correct. Major structural reforms are absolutely necessary. I had sort of vague leanings this way before, but Drutman has succeeded in cementing my thoughts.
Overall, it's one of the best-written, most thought-provoking political books I've ever read.
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The case for the end of dangerous two party gridlock!
After having purchased the Audiobook I went and ordered 6 hardcover copies of which I gifted 5 to friends. This is the most important political book of our times and I encourage every potential voter in America, who has a sense that something is awfully wrong with our polarized political system to pick up a copy and study it thoroughly.This is the blueprint to transforming our gridlocked politics…and time is of the essence. With this case study, Lee Drutman has rendered an enormous service to our country and should be deserving of the utmost praise.
Top reviews from other countries
Crawford Kilian
Could we apply this book to Canada?
Reviewed in Canada on December 27, 2021