Richie and Hill make a compelling case for the importance of PR as a major component of electoral reform in the United States. I accept their basic argument that “winner-take-all” election rules limit party competition, suppress voter participation, narrow the scope of public debate, and minimize the representation of women and racial and ideological minorities, thus undermining “representative” government and marginalizing progressive electoral politics. On basic measures of participation, accountability, and free and open debate, our current electoral system is a sham. And by any measure, a stable progressive electoral politics does not exist in the United States. Both of these states can be explained in large part by the absence of PR.
Conversely, a PR universe would be a healthier and more exciting one. Especially in the urban context with which I am most familiar, PR would enable much more successful navigation of the shifting racial and ethnic composition of our metropolitan areas. It would promote greater accountability from elected officials including those “progressive” ones we occasionally elect, only to watch them often drift off in a blur of campaign contributions and personally directed machine building, tailoring their reelection efforts to the small universe of “likely” voters. And, by permitting effective expression of minority ideological views, it would give footing to reconstructive efforts more plausible than “business as usual.” My own efforts with the fledgling Metropolitan Alliance in Los Angeles, for example, persuade me that a representative and open politics would find majority support among residents for tax and economic development policies diametrically opposed to those now imposed by the powers-that-be. That majority is unlikely ever to find its voice, however, in our current system of political districting. If we change that system in the way that PR could, a whole new political world would indeed come into view.
But as Richie and Hill also note, none of these arguments or observations is new. The more immediate argument that is needed, then, is a political one–why reforms clearly beneficial to developing an authentic democracy have not been made, and why we think they might be made now.
Richie and Hill offer very little analysis on the first part of this puzzle, but they speculate on the second. As I understand them, some combination of adverse Supreme Court decisions on race-based districting, general citizen alienation from politics, and the frustrations now encountered by other electoral reform movements (particularly those for term limits and campaign finance) makes the moment right for a PR reform movement. PR offers a workable solution to our contested race politics, an inducement to political action for currently disaffected voters, and a reform more fundamental and appealing than those currently resisted or under attack.
None of this makes much sense to me, however, unless more is said about the sort of coalition that might emerge around PR, the role of ideology in shaping “majority” consciousness, and the forces that are likely to resist its efforts.
Beginning with the latter, Richie and Hill are virtually silent on those who have good reasons to resist PR. They observe that “[a]nyone who supports fuller democracy and is willing to accept the verdict of a fully realized majority should be supportive of PR elections.” But they say next to nothing about the extent and power of those who oppose exactly that “fuller democracy.” Who are these anti-democrats, who benefit from the current de-democratization of the United States and can reasonably be expected not only to tolerate, but to fight to preserve, a less-than-fully realized democracy?
Their ranks of course include most incumbent members of both political parties (including, sadly, many minority elected officials). The power of two-party incumbents would clearly be diminished by a representative system, and in the 26 states that do not permit citizen initiatives or binding referenda, they have a monopoly on legislative power.
Important as they are, however, elected officials are only small fry. The more formidable opponent is the business “community” that currently controls them and the rest of our politics. Corporate interests effectively own both major parties, along with the media that interprets the world for us. They certainly have the resources, especially in our system of campaign finance, to make or break almost any individual candidate. And they are doing just fine, thank you, without a “fully realized” democracy. I know of no Los Angeles businessperson who wants everyone in LA to vote, much less vote with good information about a wide range of political alternatives. For them, even our currently feeble democracy is an annoyance; a fully realized one would be a threat of the first order.
Richie and Hill may accept all this, but they don’t seem to draw the natural conclusion: that advancing PR will be a colossal fight, pitting the powers-that-aren’t against the powers-that-be. Nor do they consider the natural question that follows from that conclusion: How can we mobilize and keep intact our core base for this effort? I think the core pro-PR coalition that needs to be assembled is not most usefully described as “non-partisan,” but as working-class, minority, female, and poor. And I think its real end should not be described as PR per se, but instead a more fully realized democracy itself, centrally including some real political power exercised on its own behalf. And I think that that coalition’s success requires some unifying program (beyond PR itself) on the ends to which its power might be exercised, as well as the support of those organizations (unions, community groups, and so on) that are currently organizing and representing its members.
Of course, such a project will inevitably be messier and more oppositional than what Richie and Hill seem to have in mind. But for those with a stake in PR, I don’t see any alternative. I’m not against quoting John Stuart Mill, or reminding ruling elites that their legitimacy should depend on broad voter validation of their policies, of the sort the present system does not deliver. But since I don’t think most elites care about such democratic validation, I doubt the effectiveness of such argument. Conversely, the fact that those with the most to gain from PR have other grounds for unity is a good thing, a source of cohesion in what in the best of circumstances will be a protracted struggle for electoral reform. Not recognizing and accommodating that would amount to confusing intellectual agreement on the requirements of “representative government” with their practical satisfaction.
In the end, authentic or full democracy is not an abstract or non-partisan concept. It is grounded in questions of democracy for whom and with what rights. The history of the development of democracy as a political system has been the history of struggle between elite forces in society and various oppressed/exploited social constituencies (workers, minorities, women). Moving PR as an issue I think requires integrating it into a broader democratic project, framed by the needs of those who are asked to carry it forward and would most benefit from its implementation.
