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CHAPTER FIVE
THE PATHS TO REFORM: COMBATTING
THIRD-PARTY CONSTRAINTS
A coordinated campaign to attack many of
the barriers to minor party success should be effective even if some
constraints remain. A series of
independent electoral reform efforts could set the stage for a transformation
to multiparty democracy because the hurdles currently work together to keep the
unstable two-party system in place.
According to Gary Cox, altering just one of the major institutional
constraints on third parties can have a substantial effect on diluting
bipartism.[1] Changes in electoral law are especially
promising because any decrease in the electoral conversion bias will have an
impact on the propensity to create a multiparty system.
There are several proposed strategies for
challenging the minor party constraints and each may play a role. As Diana Dwyre and Robin Kolodny put it,
One can easily imagine three sources of
change: pressure from within the major parties, the court system, and the
ballot box. Each of these sources of
change is likely to have the most effect, respectively, on the cultural biases,
legal obstacles, and institutional hurdles that minor parties face.[2]
This chapter explores each potential
source of change, assessing the most likely targets for each approach.
First, potential reforms are assessed for
their feasibility as legislative proposals.
Second, the chapter explores strategies for alleviating constraints
through court intervention. Third, the
chapter studies the role of direct initiative campaigns in building multiparty
democracy. Next, the chapter shows that
interest groups and academics can help bring about a multiparty system. Finally, the chapter investigates key issues
involved in producing institutional change, including the centrality of the
electoral system, the role of the media, and methods of financing.
Legislatures are the obvious first place
to turn to alter laws. Reforms enacted
by Congress and state legislatures are a potential path to a multiparty system
because legislative bodies have the power to remove many of the obstacles
mentioned previously. According to
Howard Scarrow, legislative action has historically played a role in party
system transformation: "Contemporary party systems have been shaped by
legislative actions taken at particular 'strategic points' in the nation's
development."[3]
The problem is that all of the state
legislatures and the Congress are controlled by Democrats and Republicans who
will likely only work in their own interest.
Thus, reforms that increase electoral competition are not high on the
agenda. As Scarrow says,
"Legislatures controlled by the major parties outlawed fusion candidacies;
today, New York does not do so because governors and many legislators feel dependent
on the minor parties."[4] The solution is to pursue legislative reform
that is in the interest of the party in control of the legislature.
Instant
Runoff Voting
The most promising reform for adoption
through legislative action is implementation of Instant Runoff Voting
(IRV). IRV is designed to solve the
problem of third-party candidates and independents being considered
"spoilers" because they take votes away from the candidate closest to
their ideological perspective. It
allows citizens to rank the candidates by order of preference. The candidate with the least first place
votes is eliminated in the first round of tabulation; the votes for the
eliminated candidate are then transferred to the second choice of the voters
who chose that candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives
over half of the votes. Thus, no vote would be wasted. One could rank the Libertarian candidate
first, the Reform Party candidate second, and the Republican candidate third;
this vote still would not make the Democrat any more likely to win than if one
ranked the Republican first.
This voting system has a chance of
passage because it may help the major party in power. If the Democrats are in power but the Greens have caused them to
lose a few races, for example, they may be willing to consider IRV. As Vermont state representative Terry
Bouricius put it, "Established politicians can recognize how [IRV] can
benefit them, at least in the short term, even as in the long term, it opens up
third-party participation."[5] All three Vermont gubernatorial candidates
endorsed IRV.[6]
Three Senators have introduced an IRV
bill in Washington that covers elections for the state legislature,
presidential electors, and Congress.
Legislators in Maine, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oregon,
and Utah have introduced IRV bills that cover statewide offices.[7] A New Mexico bill to use IRV passed one
house but was killed in the other despite support from the Democrats and
Greens.[8] Senate Bills to require IRV for state
offices have been introduced in Hawaii and Maryland as well.[9] Even the California Assembly Speaker has
introduced a bill to use IRV for special elections for statewide office.[10] California activists are hoping to pass
enabling legislation to allow localities that are not charter cities to
establish IRV.[11]
Proportional
Representation
Though much less likely, changing the
legislative electoral system would be a key to building a multiparty
democracy. Proportional representation
typically uses multi-member districts with a principle of full
representation. Voters can then choose
an ideological representative rather than merely a geographic one, creating
what has been called "districts of the mind." Thus, a variety of political parties emerge
with every major perspective gaining a voice in the legislature. Even though
most of the world's industrial democracies have adopted proportional voting
systems to allow for more representative government, America has not. Advocates argue that establishing proportional
representation in America would increase voter turnout, produce a more
intelligent political debate, allow minority voices to be represented, and
solve many of the problems of the current political culture.
Proportional representation is unlikely to
be adopted but there is a potential to advance the agenda. Single-member districts have only been
required since 1967; multi-member districts were used as late as 1842. The States' Choice of Voting Systems Act,
introduced by Cynthia McKinney and Henry Watt, would allow states to implement
multi-member districting for elections to the U.S. House, overturning the 1967
law that prevents the adoption of proportional representation by the states.[12] The promoters of the bill are emphasizing
that states should have the right to choose their own electoral system.
Without any federal action, states could
change the electoral systems for their legislatures. A state representative sponsored a cumulative voting bill in
Illinois in 2000 but it did not make it out of committee.[13] A California bill to require either
proportional representation or single-member districts for large school
districts passed one house but failed in the other.[14] State investigations of electoral systems
after the 2000 elections could produce more proposals for adopting proportional
systems.
The
Aftermath of the 2000 Election
Voting system upgrades are a much more
likely agenda item that will help advance electoral reform. Eliminating punch-card voting has come to
the top of the legislative agenda after the Florida recount. Voting equipment modernization bills are
moving at the federal level; they would provide funding for updating punch-card
balloting systems.[15] Legislative actions to end punch-card
balloting are also proceeding in many states.
California may appropriate millions of dollars to update voting
equipment. The Georgia governor
recently signed a bill to provide uniform updated voting equipment statewide. States and localities that choose to upgrade
will be improving the chances of a move to alternative voting systems because
touch-screen and optical-scanned ballots are compatible with preference voting
but punch-card voting systems are not.[16] Upgrading equipment now will prevent
opponents of electoral reform from using concerns about cost to block the
implementation of new voting systems such as IRV.
The Florida recount may also serve as an
impetus for another approach to electoral reform: the formation of a bipartisan
commission on electoral reform. A bill
to create a Federal Elections Review Commission has been introduced by Peter
DeFazio and Jim Leach in the 2001 session. The DeFazio-Leach bill has 45
cosponsors.[17] It is being promoted as a non-partisan
effort that would not look at election 2000 irregularities but would instead
focus on systemic problems of the electoral system. If it passes, the commission will study same-day voter
registration and universal registration, ballot access, the Electoral College,
IRV, proportional representation, and fusion; the commission would issue
findings and recommendations.[18]
Britain's experience suggests that
commission reports can put electoral reform on the agenda, even if the initial
report does not recommend the specific reforms later adopted. The Labour Party's Plant Report did not
endorse proportional representation but began a public debate about electoral
reform issues. The Jenkins Report,
later initiated to study the same basic topics by the current New Labour
government, endorsed a version of proportional representation. That set the stage for reforms of the
European Parliament elections and produced proportional representation systems
for the Scottish and Welsh assemblies.
A 1998 Vermont commission recommendation was the basis for an IRV bill
that has been introduced in both houses of the legislature.[19]
In addition to the DeFazio-Leach bill,
the Congress 2004 Commission Act introduced by Alcee Hastings would create a
commission to study House size and election method; the bill cites proportional
representation as an example of what the commission would study.[20] A private commission with Jimmy Carter and
Gerald Ford is also likely to make recommendations for changes to the electoral
system.[21] The American Bar Association and National
Association of County Officials are also issuing reports. At least 11 states have created task forces
to study electoral reform following the Florida recount. Most are focusing on voting equipment but
each commission could be lobbied to expand their review of potential electoral
reforms.
Ballot
Access
Having shown that the rigidity of ballot
access restrictions is related to inability of third parties to compete, and
knowing that whatever the ballot restrictions, the cost in time, energy, and
money is enormous for third parties, ballot access reform should be high on the
agenda of electoral reformers. The
historical examples of the Republicans, who were able to form and rise to power
quickly from lack of ballot access requirements, and Roosevelt, who was able to
gain ballot access in 49 states after his post-convention departure from the
Republicans in 1912, show that removing ballot access restrictions could be a
major opportunity for third-party success.
Ansolabehere and Gerber conclude that easing ballot access requirements
for major parties would even increase party competition: "If all states
required only the most minimal standards, say an affidavit of residence, then
the fraction of uncontested seats could be cut in half, and retirement rates
would rise as well."[22]
There is some potential for legislative
reform of ballot access. This session,
ballot access bills in nine states would improve ballot access laws for third
parties, including one that would allow major party primary voters to sign independent
petitions. Five other bills are likely
to be introduced soon.[23] The Appleseed Electoral Reform Project has
developed a model ballot access law that could be adopted by any of the 50
states. The model act allows political
parties to obtain ballot access through petition of 0.1 percent of registered
voters, party registration by 0.05 percent of registered voters, or votes in a
previous election for statewide office of at least 1 percent.[24] The act also allows petitioning by district,
mandates space for write-in candidates and gives the same 0.1 percent
requirement for petitioning by independent candidates. Lastly, it allows candidates of all parties
to run on whichever party line they select.
Because most of the energy and resources
spent on ballot access are related to regulation of petitions and not the sheer
number of signatures required, reforms of the process included in the Appleseed
model law are also important to third-party potential. The model law sets a filing deadline of
August 15 and a beginning petition date of January 1. It eliminates regional distribution requirements and says that no
other petitioning regulations shall be initiated by the state.
Merely ending discriminatory ballot
access requirements would be an effective reform. The fifty states have each enacted a different set of
requirements for new parties to gain access to the ballot. As a result, small parties in some regions
have better opportunities to compete than others and all third parties are
faced with bureaucratic hurdles to get on the ballot. Congressman Ron Paul has authored the Voter Freedom Act to outlaw
a variety of practices used by the major parties to restrict ballot
access. The discriminatory practices
that serve to entrench the two-party system include early filing deadlines,
fees, and petition circulation restrictions.
Nationwide unified ballot access
requirements would go even further in alleviating ballot access problems. Even if the federal standard did not make
the laws more lenient, it would at least eliminate the confusion generated by
vast differences among state laws. The
American Civil Liberties Union has produced a model election law for either
state or federal adoption.[25] Tim Penney's 1994 bill would have
established a uniform federal standard requiring the signatures of 0.1 percent
of voters to appear as a candidate for the House or Senate.[26] Congress held hearings on several bills to
this effect introduced by Paul in 1998. According to John Anderson, however,
the reform is unlikely: "Incumbent members of both major parties, with few
exceptions, display almost no interest in [ballot access]."[27]
Reformers have also advanced proposals to
alleviate ballot access burdens for parties that run candidates
frequently. Minor parties can often
stay on the ballot if they maintain a certain number of party registrants. There is no means of identifying party
registration in 22 states, however, so allowing other methods of measuring
party membership may be effective. [28] Many states that do allow registration have
closed primaries that leave a disincentive to register with a third party;
moves toward open primaries could therefore help third parties. Reformers could also build support for
automatic ballot access for several years after the initial ballot
qualification. Reforms of ballot access
advanced by initiative proponents might also help alleviate third-party ballot
access problems. Allowing online
signature gathering, for example, would make it substantially easier to collect
the required number of signatures.
The
Electoral College
Knowing that presidential electoral rules
have a tremendous influence on both third-party success in presidential
elections and in legislative support, elimination of the Electoral College
would be a major step towards a multiparty system in America. According to Abramson et al., overturning
the Electoral College would improve minor party representation: "Directly
electing the president by popular vote would threaten the Republican and
Democratic presidential duopoly."[29] Supporters of Electoral College repeal and
elimination of the requirement that candidates receive over half the electoral
votes or the election is sent to Congress could claim that it would improve
voter turnout by ending the "swing state" phenomenon. Most voters agree that the system is unfair
and anti-democratic, particularly after the 2000 election.
The chance of passing such a
Constitutional amendment through three-fourths of state legislators, however,
is slim. The outcry after the 2000
election was not strong enough to enable reform. Multiparty system advocates would also be wise to consider the
affects of each reform proposal.
According to Rosenstone et al.,
Contrary to popular belief, most current
proposals for eliminating the Electoral College would not benefit third
parties. The most widely supported plan
calls for the direct popular election of the president with a runoff if no
candidate receives 40 percent of the votes cast. But as long as a president can be elected with less than an
absolute majority of the popular vote, the plan would, for all practical
purposes, work like a single-member-district plurality system.[30]
The best system would be a national IRV
election for President but this proposal has yet to gain prominence.
It is much more likely that some state
legislatures will adopt the proportional system of electoral vote distribution
currently in use in Maine and Vermont.
Bills in 15 states would assign electors by congressional district.[31] This reform would be likely to improve
third-party chances but, remembering that Ross Perot did not win a single
congressional district in 1992, would probably not be a major advance. In the long term, elimination of the
Electoral College must be a priority for multiparty system advocates but it
does not seem to hold much immediate promise.
The most likely scenario for change is probably an election with a
strong third-party candidate that sent the election to the House of
Representatives. If America soon has
another presidential election where the popular vote is overruled by the
Electoral College, it might also produce enough momentum for change.
Voter
Turnout
Another area of potential legislative
change is reforms designed to increase voter turnout. Third parties will likely
have to rely on unlikely voters for support; if reforms allow more people to
vote, third parties may benefit the most.
According to Minnesota Independence Party Chairman Dean Barkley,
"Apathy is the number one enemy.
You have to motivate the unmotivated."[32] Poor, less-educated, and less likely voters
are much more likely to believe that there is no difference between the major
parties. Blue-collar workers, for
instance, believe that there is no difference between the parties almost twice
as often as professionals.[33] About one-third of those who do not vote say
they did not vote as a political choice; some even claim they did not vote
because they are shut out of the political system.[34] Jesse Ventura's 1998 campaign was built on
bringing new people to the polls and he succeeded in increasing turnout from
just over 53 percent to more than 60 percent.
The most common and effective category of
changes to increase voter turnout focuses on voter registration. Same-day voter registration in Minnesota,
for instance, was instrumental in Ventura's election. Most states require voters to register
several weeks in advance of Election Day, discouraging potential new voters
from participating. The six states with
same-day voter registration have 63.1 percent turnout compared to a national
average of 51.2 percent.[35]
Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain, and other
prominent politicians have endorsed the reform. California Assembly Bill 1094 in the 2000 session began as a same
day voter registration bill sponsored by Assembly Speaker Hertzburg and
supported by the California Democratic Party and the AFL-CIO. It was approved by the Assembly but amended
by the Senate to only allow registration up to 14 days prior to an
election. In Illinois, two members of
the house have introduced same-day voter registration.
Bill Luther and nine other members of the
U.S. House have introduced a bill to require all states to allow same day voter
registration in the 2001 session. The
federal standard does not seem likely but Congress did previously consider
encouraging the reform by exempting states with same day voter registration
from the "motor voter" legislation.
Other
methods of increasing voter turnout may also be popular with legislatures.
Voters in several states, most notably California, are mailed comprehensive
voter guides before each election. Guides for all states and all elections can
be developed that include candidate statements, pro-con discussions of issues,
endorsements, campaign contribution information, issue questionnaires, and
voting records. The guides could be posted online and mailed or handed to each
potential voter to ensure a more informed electorate. Even if voter pamphlets would not increase turnout, they might
allow citizens to learn about minor party candidates who are otherwise
virtually invisible.
Increasing civic education in high
schools and adopting "Kids Voting" experiments that attempt to
socialize children into voting have also been shown somewhat effective if
accompanied by a focus on how government and candidate choices affect everyday
life. Alternative voting methods such
as Internet voting may eventually be considered if authentication technology is
developed to allow users to vote online in a secure environment that prevents
fraud and retains the tradition of the secret ballot.
Executive
Actions
The Executive Branch of the federal
government could also play a role in improving third-party chances. The government may be able to intervene in
situations that are particularly discriminatory against third parties under the
Voting Rights Act. After the Florida
fiasco, the Department of Justice, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and the
Federal Election Commission are all likely to produce recommendations for
electoral reform based on the complaints they received.[36] If third parties file complaints with
executive agencies on a regular basis, the executive agencies might play an
important role in challenging state and local laws. If an ethnically-based third party made it a practice to
challenge state laws on racial grounds, the government might be willing to
intervene.
Many of the impediments to third-party
success might also be challenged in the courts. Theodore Lowi says that dismantling the two-party system will
take "a full scale frontal assault on state laws, which takes money and
litigation."[37] One overall problem is that courts are
reluctant to interfere in "political questions" without
"judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it,"
as decided in Baker v. Carr.[38] In another potentially damaging precedent,
the Supreme Court has also ruled that "Ballots serve primarily to elect
candidates not for political expression."[39] The Court's voting rights jurisprudence has
generally moved from disallowing the exclusion of entire groups to eliminating
the dilution of an individual's vote.[40]
Even under this precedent, electoral
rules that entrench a two-party system are suspect. If damage to free speech and association could be demonstrated in
the case of third-party exclusion, most barriers to third parties could be
challenged in courts; regulations of First Amendment rights, after all, must be
"narrowly tailored" to "advance compelling state
interests."[41] As Law Professor Samuel Issacharoff puts it,
If the freedom of expression and
association clauses of the First Amendment may be construed to carry an
equivalent of the antiestablishment provisions of the religion clauses, then
the purposeful creation of rules seeking the establishment of the two major
parties should be highly suspect.[42]
In his City of Mobile v. Bolden dissent, Justice Marshall points out that
victims of minority vote dilution cannot be expected to support the political
system if they are not given adequate representation.[43]
The Court's most recent election decision
could also serve as an important precedent.
According to Lani Guinier, "[Bush
v. Gore] could help open the local courthouse doors to election
reform."[44] The language the court used in its decision,
Guinier says, will help ignite local lawsuits against unfair electoral
procedures. In Bush v. Gore, the Court ruled,
Having once granted the right to vote on
equal terms, the state may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment,
value one person's vote over that of another…. We have observed that the idea
that one group can be granted greater voting strength than another is hostile
to the one man, one vote basis of our representative government.[45]
According to Richard Winger, Bush v. Gore will help win several types
of cases pursued by third parties: first, lawsuits against refusals to tally
write-in votes; second, lawsuits against ballot labels for major parties but
not for minor parties; third, lawsuits against ballot designs that place the
major parties in a more prominent position; and fourth, ballot access cases in
states that disallow write-in votes.[46] At the very least, Bush v. Gore has encouraged angry law professors to work on
challenges to electoral law based on the decision, encouraging students to
engage in political action.[47]
Ballot
Access
Many courts have been the scenes of
ballot access battles and the challenges are likely to continue. In Norman
v. Reed, the Supreme Court affirmed the right to establish minor parties:
The right of citizens to create and
develop new political parties derives from the First and the Fourteenth
Amendments and advances the constitutional interest of likeminded voters to
gather in pursuit of common political ends, thus enlarging all voters'
opportunities to express their own political preferences.[48]
Ballot access laws could be challenged
under the equal protection clause and a uniform rule could be developed to
determine what candidates are on the ballot in every state, perhaps requiring
the establishment a national party under FECA.
Local legal challenges, however, may be a
more successful strategy. The Green
Party is pursuing a case against Georgia's 5 percent petition requirement for
third parties, arguing that it violates the state constitution.[49] Pursuing state level ballot access cases on
non-federal grounds is a fertile area for lawsuits. Ralph Nader sued several states over their petition deadline but
then dropped the lawsuits after the campaigns, leaving no precedent for the
next election in Illinois and North Carolina.[50]
This type of legal battle, with the focus
only on the campaign and avoidance of the long-term interest in striking down
ballot restrictions, is unlikely to advance the cause. Legal battles pursued in cooperation with
other minor parties or by interest groups on behalf of all minor parties are
likely to yield long-term results.
The petitioning regulations could also be
challenged. According to the Appleseed
Center, "Restrictions on who may circulate a petition may violate the
First Amendment right to petition."[51] Third parties could be helped by petition circulation
lawsuits launched by initiative campaigners because many restrictions apply to
both. It therefore may be worth
pursuing a legal path alongside organizations that advance ballot initiatives
on a regular basis.
Fusion
The courts have also been the major
avenue pursued by those who favor fusion as the best option for minor
parties. The New Party's court
challenges invalidated anti-fusion laws in seven jurisdictions but failed to
persuade the Supreme Court in Timmons v.
Twin Cities Area New Party.[52] The Timmons
Court accepted the state interest in preventing interest group exploitation and
insuring ballot standards. The Court's
acceptance of the justification of maintaining the two-party system, however,
is what allowed them to weigh the government interest favorably against the
First Amendment burdens.[53]
Because the Supreme Court agreed that
preserving the two-party system was a compelling state interest, they set back
most hopes of challenging laws preventing third parties on constitutional
grounds.[54] The Timmons
decision, however, may not be as destructive as initially anticipated. According to James Gray Pope, "The Timmons litigation was never really
about third-party survival. At stake
was not the existence of third parties, but their character and political
significance in American electoral politics."[55]
Timmons was the first time that the Supreme
Court upheld a law using favoritism of the two-party system as a state
interest, despite the fact that the State of Minnesota did not present that argument.[56] In Williams
v. Rhodes in 1968, the Court had ruled against Ohio's argument that it
needed to protect the two-party system.
"The Ohio system does not merely favor a 'two-party system'; it
favors two particular parties - the Republicans and the Democrats - and in
effect tends to give them a complete monopoly," the Court ruled.[57] Later, Justice O'Conner endorsed the
two-party system in her concurring opinion in Davis v. Bandemer; O'Conner's opinion was used in the Timmons decision.[58] At the state level, many kinds of lawsuits
can still be pursued against legal obstacles to minor parties but the precedent
in Timmons is a roadblock to those
efforts.[59]
Proportional
Representation
The most radical suggested legal strategy
is the assertion that the courts could reform the entire electoral system. Though the reapportionment cases do not use
proportional representation explicitly as a baseline, they do assume those
results when they make comparisons.[60] The interpretation of the Voting Rights Act
in Thornburg v. Gingles held at-large
elections to a standard of comparison with single-member districts as a
baseline for minority vote dilution.
The decision might set back moves to multi-member districts but it
involved "importing the existence of a remedy into the question of whether
there was a violation," according to Mary Inman.[61] This could be considered laying the
groundwork for a comparison of the current electoral system with proportional
representation.
In Johnson
v. De Grandy, the Supreme Court held that proportional representation is a
"presumptive defense" in vote dilution claims.[62] The 1982 Voting Rights Act Amendments
included "no proportional representation" language, however, and the
Supreme Court has rejected proportional representation as a standard for voting
rights cases.[63] Nevertheless, Inman says that there may
still be precedent: "The Justices' disclaimers regarding proportional
representation refer to the use of proportionality as a means of measuring the
absence of discrimination… and not to proportional representation as an
alternative electoral system."[64]
Inman proposes that the Supreme Court
should just mandate the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system for the House of
Representatives based on the Fourteenth Amendment.[65] All states would set a threshold percentage
based on their number of House members and votes would be successively
transferred from winners and losers based on preference voting until the
requisite number of people were elected from that state.
Though that may be unlikely, there is at
least room to consider the possibility.
According to Issacharoff, "In its voting rights jurisprudence the
Court has unleashed a set of expectations for, and constraints upon, the
operation of electoral systems that are foundationally destabilizing for
districted election systems."[66] Isacharoff shows that the goals articulated
in Shaw v. Reno and Miller v. Johnson cannot be accomplished
under the current electoral system.
Clarence Thomas, in a dissenting opinion that argued against the current
voting rights position of the Court, noted that alternative voting systems are
the only possible means for achieving the results requested. In oral arguments in the Timmons case, Supreme Court Justice
Stephen Breyer asked why the Court would not have to overturn the entire
electoral system if it overturned anti-fusion laws. Theodore Lowi believes it would be appropriate: "A direct
test of the constitutionality of our two-party system would be welcome,"
he said, citing the First and Fourteenth Amendments.[67]
Bush v. Gore may be an important place to start. As a compromise with the swing votes on the
Supreme Court, the conservative justices had to endorse an opinion that invoked
the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause to overturn the Florida
Supreme Court decision mandating another recount. Though the Court's conservatives judged the case on grounds
unrelated to the Fourteenth Amendment, the opinion stands as precedent for
voting rights cases. Since the Equal
Protection Clause has already been advanced to support far more than its
framers intended, even in previous voting rights cases, the Supreme Court is in
a position to support any electoral changes as requirements of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
As Issacharoff
explains, "Despite the limited application of the one-person, one-vote
principle in distinguishing among equipopulational voting systems, the Court
nonetheless did infuse these early voting cases with a strong measure of
idealized political power." This
is most clearly illustrated in Reynolds
v. Sims, when the Court added that its one-person, one-vote rule should
ensure that "each citizen have an equally effective voice in the election
of a member of his legislature."
The guarantee of an "equally effective voice" in turn would
promote a process that yielded "fair and effective representation"
for the electorate as a whole, or as the Court later would term it, a process
that would be "politically fair."[68] In Davis
v. Bandemer, the Court held justiciable "that each political group in
a State should have the same chance to elect representatives of its choice as
any other political group" but required proof of discrimination against a
particular group.[69] In Kirkpartrick
v. Preisler, the Supreme Court required "mathematical equality"
for seat size in districting cases.[70]
In Whitcomb v. Chavis, the Court found that
if there was proof of minority vote dilution presented, at-large multimember
elections could not be used.[71] This criterion could easily be advanced to
support proportional representation instead of single-member districts as the
remedy. The City of Mobile v. Bolden Court, however, set the standard of proof
to "purposeful discrimination."
The Bandemer majority said
that the key issue is whether a particular group is targeted: "[The Equal
Protection Clause is violated] only when the electoral system is arranged in a
manner that will consistently degrade…. a group of voters' influence on the
political process as a whole."[72] Inman says this is an "illusory"
right because of the "high threshold of proof." This is a standard that could be met,
however, if the right literature and evidence were advanced in court and if the
case involved a member of an ethnically-based third party that gains
significant support.
In Anderson v. Celebrezze, the Court found
that the interest in protecting major parties was not outweighed by First
Amendment concerns.[73] Inman says that the Supreme Court should
review the electoral system with strict scrutiny due to the lack of minority
representation.[74] Since the "one person, one vote"
Supreme Court standard required constitutional amendments in most states and
reapportionment in almost every state, Inman believes that establishing
proportional representation via the Courts would not be an unprecedented burden.[75] Requiring proportional representation would
eliminate the need for redistricting and might obtain public support over time,
she says.
Most states did
indeed have their redistricting plans legally challenged after 1990 and these
legal challenges in 2001 could form the basis of a challenge to the electoral
system. Issacharoff concludes that a
court-ordered move to alternative voting systems is a likely outcome of
redistricting dilemmas:
The sum total is a districting process
under greater pressure, under greater public scrutiny and judicial oversight,
and still unable to deliver the promises of three decades of Supreme Court
pronouncements…. These unrealized expectations, more visible than ever,
ultimately are destabilizing to the established order of territorial
districting. Into this void inevitably
will surface renewed attention to alternatives to districting, particularly if
these alternative systems emerge as more faithful to the substantive vision of
fairness that has animated the case law to date.[76]
If the Supreme Court is unwilling to
order proportional representation, they may still be open to upholding
proportional representation systems passed by individual states. If states passed proportional representation
systems for U.S. House elections, the Supreme Court could uphold them on the
grounds that the Constitution allows states to determine "the Times,
Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives."[77] Alternatively, Congress could pass an
additional member proportional representation system and the Supreme Court
could at least uphold it under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Courts could also play a role in
other challenges advanced by third parties.
The Supreme Court may rule in Cook
v. Gralike that the Constitution requires neutral ballot formats, thus
providing precedent to win cases against ballots that discriminate against
minor parties with smaller headings or lower placement.[78]
New Party leader Joel Rogers noted that
after failing in the courts and the legislatures, third parties are left with
the initiative process as a last option.[79] Voters in Florida already passed a
referendum loosening ballot access laws with 64 percent support.[80] The public increasingly supports ballot
access reform and other initiatives may be proposed to lower the burdens.[81] In order to run successful initiative
campaigns, multiparty system supporters will need to develop positive talking
points. The Ballot Initiative Strategy
Center, which aims to help leftist groups win initiative campaigns, has
received some foundation funding and could be an effective vehicle for pursuing
reform through initiatives.
IRV will appear on the Alaska ballot in
2002. The Republicans are advancing IRV
because they have lost elections because of votes for right-wing parties. IRV is being promoted as a fair voting
system that would increase choice. It
would apply to the selection of Presidential electors but it would not affect
the gubernatorial election because of a state constitutional requirement.[82] The Midwest Democracy Center tried to
qualify an initiative calling for cumulative voting for the 2000 Illinois
ballot but could not collect enough signatures. Illinois requires 60 percent approval for a constitutional
amendment and just obtaining a place on the ballot requires 269,000 valid
signatures over 18 months.[83]
Campaign finance reform proposals that
would help third parties achieve success have been successful in several
states. "Clean Money"
campaign finance reform proposals have passed in Maine, Vermont, Arizona, and
Massachusetts, all via ballot measures from 1996-1998. Public financing has gained national
prominence through these initiative efforts.
Even if initiatives fail, they could still be a beneficial tactic in this
respect. As Steven Hill put it,
"Win or lose, there is no better educational campaign than a voter
initiative."[84]
According to Center for Voting and
Democracy National Field Director Dan Johnson-Weinberger, "The reason H
failed is because G was on the ballot, which created the current district plan.
And more people knew what districts were than preference voting (as the
campaign called for a Single Transferable Vote system), and San Francisco had
used districts in the 70s and there was a vocal constituency for districts. If
G wasn't on the ballot, H might very well have won."[94] Californians for Proportional Representation
ran the losing campaign to adopt proportional representation in San Francisco
but has since expanded to pursue electoral reforms statewide. It includes members from several major and
minor parties on its Board.[95]
In 2000, charter amendments to endorse
IRV for some elections were passed by voters in Oakland by 72 percent to 28
percent and in San Leandro by 63 percent to 37 percent.[96] When asked what groundwork would have to be
laid before Californians for Proportional Representation could attempt to pass
a California statewide initiative on proportional representation or IRV,
Johnson-Weinberger responds: "In my opinion, 1000 activists, enough of a
successful lobbying effort to pass PR or IRV through one of the houses and lots
of editorial support. IRV is more likely than PR."[97]
Without support from interest groups,
reformers will face significant obstacles, whether they pursue legislative
action or direct initiatives.
Multiparty system advocates must convince opinion leaders to join the
reform campaign. Reformers will need to
develop an infrastructure of organizations to advance reform; a core of
dedicated activists can play a major role in building an electoral reform
movement.
The key organization already involved in
electoral reform is the Center for Voting and Democracy (CVD). CVD publishes op-eds, fields media
inquiries, and lobbies congress on behalf of electoral reform. They have hired a full-time IRV lobbyist in
Vermont to convince the legislature to endorse IRV for state legislative
elections. Center for Voting and
Democracy President John Anderson says that it is a remarkable moment for his
organization and for electoral reform efforts:
The attention we received from media,
civic groups and elected officials during the controversial ballot count in
Florida was simply an exclamation point -- albeit a powerful one --- to a year
that has demonstrated just how far 'alternative' election methods have moved
into the mainstream of American debate and policy-making.[98]
Californians for Proportional
Representation, which is associated with CVD, has chapters in Los Angeles, San
Francisco, the South Bay, and the East Bay.
CVD has helped found Web sites for IRV organizations in six states and
over 20 states have email listserves for organizing IRV campaigns.[99] They have also sponsored several recent
university conferences on electoral reform in California.
Interest groups have become the primary
actors influencing policy outcomes in an age when mass parties have
disappeared. The two dominant parties
are largely responsible for the reliance on television in the political debate
and the death of grass-roots politics; it is not an inherent condition of our
system.[100] This presents two types of opportunities to
alternative political organizers.
First, the two major parties' focus on media politics has left
grassroots organizing strategies open to alternative parties.[101] Jesse Jackson's campaign recruited tens of
thousands of volunteers nationwide, including many who had never participated
in politics before.[102] Jackson's grass-roots campaign included
door-to-door work by volunteers; this process visibly showed disenchanted
voters that alternatives did exist.
Taking the grassroots path would likely include coalitions with
unions. Unions can be powerful allies
in elections; over 80 percent of union members will vote for a particular candidate
if contacted by their union and asked to vote for that candidate.[103] Nader was able to earn a few endorsements
from union leaders but the Democratic Party has been the main recipient of help
from organized labor.
Alternatively, without worrying about building
a party structure, reformers could attempt to convince interest group leaders
to join an independent campaign or formulate a media strategy for an electoral
reform movement. Knowing that voters
who are aware of candidate issue positions are more likely to support third
parties and are likely to look to third-party solutions in times of crisis, the
interest group path may be a better option, especially for an electoral reform
movement separate from any particular party.
Now that many interest groups have
stopped fighting for changes in major party platforms, they may seek
independent action. The Progressives
relied on non-profit organizations that would today be called "public
interest groups" to advance their agenda.
The profession of social worker expanded and became a hotbed of social
activism.[104] Perhaps groups like government workers or
students could play an expanded role in a new movement through organizational
development. Mazocchi has noted that
community organizers like the Association of Community Organizations for Reform
Now (ACORN) need an independent option in order to be effective in local
politics.[105] They could also be a base of support from
which new parties could emerge; the New Party, for instance, is closely
connected with ACORN.[106] Community organizers may also be willing to
join the electoral reform movement.
Other groups are already taking leading
roles in the movement. The Independent
Politics Progressive Network (IPPN) launched a campaign for a Voters' Bill of
Rights after the 2000 election, including Voting Rights Act extension,
abolition of the Electoral College, full "clean money" public
financing with free air time for all ballot-qualified candidates, IRV for all
executive offices, proportional representation, ballot access reform, and a
non-partisan FEC.[107] The campaign began with a
"Pro-Democracy Week" leading up to inauguration day and was endorsed
by many of those organizing the inauguration day protests. IPPN lacks resources and has been met with
skepticism by the New Party and the Labor Party but just intends to build a
communication network among independent leftists.[108]
The Appleseed Electoral Reform Project at
Harvard Law School and American University was founded in 1996 and has created
16 public interest law centers to pursue electoral reform through the courts.[109] The Project has helped challenge ballot
access laws, provided advice to electoral reform organizations, held a
conference on the two-party system, and encouraged papers and articles on
electoral reform.[110]
The Institute for Policy Studies has
organized an electoral reform campaign after the 2000 election with The Nation magazine. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, in
parallel, held an "Action Agenda on Electoral Reform" conference on
Capital Hill on January 19 to discuss proportional representation and other
reforms that would help third parties.
Prominent interest groups have been
involved as well. The League of Women
Voters is engaged in a long-term study of electoral systems. The U.S. Public Interest Research Groups
started a web-based lobbying campaign for IRV and Common Cause has also been
discussing the issue.[111] The NAACP has joined with the League of
Women Voters to endorse a modest plan for electoral reform. To be successful, multiparty system
advocates will need to expand this network of interest groups, involving
representatives of underrepresented social groups, general
"good-government" organizations, and citizens groups of all
ideological perspectives.
Having shown earlier that third-party
success is prevented not only by actual barriers but by the perception that
those barriers are unchangeable, opinion makers are likely to have an impact on
the viability of an electoral reform movement.
University professors could play an important role; the inclination of
those who study American politics to support the two-party system has been a
major contributor to the system's stability.
As Theodore Lowi put it, "The priesthood within the political
science and journalist professions generally embraces with renewed vigor their
faith in the virtues of the two-party system as the only way America can be
governed."[112]
The Supreme Court most likely based its Timmons decision on the political
science literature endorsing the two-party system without reviewing the pros
and cons.[113] Woodrow Wilson, who was both U.S. President
and American Political Science Association (APSA) president, advanced a pro
two-party system argument in his advocacy of "responsible party
government."[114] E.E. Schattschneider and V.O. Key continued
this tradition as APSA presidents. In
1950, APSA published Towards a More
Responsible Two-Party System, supporting only reform of the major parties.[115]
Several recent APSA presidents have
promoted multiparty democracy and additional academic work could help advance
the electoral reform movement. This
study is part of an effort to expand the possibilities and endorse the notion
that multiparty politics is possible in America. Raising awareness that third parties have traditionally been
actively repressed by law enforcement and by electoral law may help to improve
public support for reform.
Political scientists were a key factor in
the development of Progressive ideology, applying evolutionary concepts to
government.[116] Academics paralleled the work of the
muckraker journalists by decreasing their emphasis on the state and viewing
government as a method for enacting reforms from social pressure. Sociology was born and the economic interpretation
of U.S. history became prominent.[117] In Wisconsin, the state university's
connection to the state government helped advance the Progressive movement.[118]
More recently, Francis Fox Piven and
Richard Cloward led the charge for the Motor Voter legislation, proving that
academics can eventually have an impact on electoral reform.[119] As a starting point, Instant Runoff Voting
is already used to elect the American Political Science Association president.[120] Comparative government scholars have also
explored institutional redesign of American politics to create a multiparty
parliament; this emphasis on the abnormal nature of American politics in a
global context may help advance the reform movement.
As noted earlier, the modernity debate in
academia has spilled over into society in debates over multiculturalism,
cultural relativism, and the primacy of science. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it is not necessary for
postmodernists to "win" a debate about the nature of truth. As noted earlier, popular culture and
political action have already entered a period of postmodernity that favors
multiplicity and emphasizes the need for representation. Thus, the rise of the postmodern viewpoint
in all disciplines and the cultural studies agenda can help contribute to an
environment conducive to multiparty system formation. The postmodern reconception of identity and representation can
challenge current politics and create the discursive space for
alternatives.
As Ekirch has written, the Progressives
relied on trends among intellectuals: "As the social sciences, like the
natural sciences, gained freedom from the restraints of fixed classification or
absolute intellectual order, they too became evolutionary, empirical, and
experimental."[121] These trends produced intellectual leaders
for the new movement, he says:
Joined together by the new scientific and
experimental approach now characteristic of their respective disciplines, the
insurgent intellectuals at the turn of the century were able to make their
social thought the foundation of the developing ideology of the Progressive
movement.[122]
Intellectual leaders will also need to emerge in order to lead a
new progressive movement for multiparty democracy.
Support from academics and interest
groups is needed for a long-term strategy to create a political environment
that allows more radical changes to be considered. According to Steven Hill, "There is no other structural
change -- not campaign finance reform, not ballot access laws -- that is as
important to the success and longevity of third parties as proportional
representation."[123] Ron Walters has said that if electoral
systems are not changed, all the coalition-building possible still cannot lead
away from what he calls "political impotence."[124]
Any proportional representation system
adopted by the U.S. would have a substantial impact on the party system. According to political scientist Christopher
Allen,
Engaging in some speculation, it is
likely that the change to a PR system in the United States would see the
instant creation of at least eight parties.
There would be rump versions of Democrats and Republicans, of
course. But it's expected that there
would be some serious growth of Reform, Libertarian, Labor and Green
parties. The likely formation of one or
more minority-based parties could be envisioned and last but not least, a
Christian party.[125]
Building a multiparty system will
probably require at least some state experimentation with proportional
representation. According to John Berg,
America will likely enact some kind of proportional representation: "By
2100, we will move to a system where at a minimum on the state level you can be
represented on some basis other than geography," he says.[126]
Proportional representation is central to
building a multiparty system because parties can rarely survive unless they
achieve a reasonable amount of support in the legislature. A party cannot change the political debate
or make itself a good partner until it can challenge both national elections
and some legislative races.[127] New parties have been successful with only a
few representatives in the legislature but competitive candidates for executive
offices generally require support from at least a few members of the
legislature.[128] Even gaining a small number of legislative
seats can upset the balance of coalitions or give a party blackmail
potential.
As John Anderson has said, "In my
own personal experience, there was no more damaging argument against a
third-party presidential candidacy in 1980 than the one that asked: 'How could
you, a third-party candidate, possibly govern, bereft of any support in
Congress?'"[129] Success in the national legislature could
mean success as a party throughout the country. According to Black and Black,
If a new party could win 40 or 50 seats
in the House of Representatives, or 10 seats in the Senate, it could provide
the balance of power on a whole range of policy issues and, more importantly,
on the crucial issue of who gets the leadership positions in both the House and
the Senate.[130]
The
Types of PR
One potential problem is that there are
almost as many types of proportional representation as there are
advocates. In a Party List system, an
ordered list of candidates is prepared and voters then select a party with the
list of candidates most representative of their opinions. Candidates on the list are elected
corresponding to the proportion of votes given to each party. In the Party List system, party members
select the best party candidates or an ordered list of candidates is prepared
based on a primary outcome. General
election voters then select a party with the list of candidates most
representative of their opinions. If a
legislature has 100 seats and a party gets 12 percent of the vote, then the
first 12 candidates on the party list will be elected.
In the Single Transferable Vote (STV)
system, large geographic districts are drawn with several representatives
designated for each. Voters rank all
the candidates in order of preference.
In an effort to minimize wasted votes, candidates are then elected by
achieving a quota level of support.
This process continues until the candidates remaining equal the number
of representatives allotted to the district.
In a three-member district, this process would yield three representatives
who had received approximately 33 percent support from the electorate. STV would allow voters to express
preferences for one of the wings of a party and would ask voters to rank the
candidates for constituency representative.
The same large geographic districts with
several representatives are used in the Cumulative Voting system. Voters would be given a number of votes
equal to the number of legislative seats in their district and could use all
votes on a single candidate or distribute the votes among different
candidates.
In a Borda system, voter preferences
would be tabulated, giving zero points for a last place ranking, one point for
a second-to-last place ranking, and an additional point for each higher
ranking; the candidates with the most points would be elected. In a Quota Borda System, representation
would be guaranteed to sizable populations; if any pair of candidates had solid
support, the one with the higher Borda score would be elected; two would be
elected if a set of candidates received double the quota.
The mixed-member system, used in Germany,
utilizes a dual vote, one for a constituency representative and another for a
party list. Many of the seats in the
legislature are reserved for insuring party proportionality. Dual vote systems would allow voters to
escape the predicament of having to choose between party and individual
representation. The Hansard Society
variation would require that all candidates stand in single member district elections
and would insure party proportionality by allocating extra seats to the best
losers in particular parties.
A change to STV or a party list system
for congressional representatives within a state could be accomplished without
a constitutional amendment but a mixed-member system would require
constitutional change. Some plans,
however, seem too complicated to have a chance of passage in the U.S. According to Allen, "The flaw with the
Guinier/McKinney [STV] proposals is that, in attempting to retain a concept of
individual candidate representation, such plans shoot themselves in the foot by
forgetting to keep it simple."[131]
Single-member districts are not required
by the Constitution. A statutory change
could allow state governments to use proportional representation systems to
elect their delegations to the U.S. House of Representatives. States could already experiment with
variations of proportional representations in state legislative elections. The idea that proportional representation is
the key factor in third-party success is catching on among minor party
members. The New Party may take on
proportional representation as its new agenda item after the failure of fusion.[132]
The
Possibilities Without PR
There is some evidence, however, that
proportional representation may not be the only path to multiparty
democracy. Earlier this paper
demonstrated that the stability of the two-party system has been untested, even
in plurality elections with single-member districts, because many other
obstacles have been created for third parties.
Libertarian Party Chairman Steve Dasbach believes it is possible for a
minor party to be successful in the current electoral system, noting that the
Libertarians are improving their financial viability and relying on new media
to get their message out.[133] Some Libertarians believe that the party
could probably focus their resources to elect many state legislative
candidates, gaining a foothold for future growth.[134]
In the current electoral system,
targeting particular districts might be an effective strategy for gaining
legislative representation. The
Libertarian Party Chairman says that the party has not focused its resources on
a single congressional district because they do not believe they have the money
or a celebrity candidate to win anywhere; however, they expect to gain
sufficient resources soon.[135] Neither Perot campaign followed this path to
sustainability; despite promises to campaign for legislative races, Perot did
not campaign with the hundreds of Reform Party candidates in 1996 and endorsed
only one major party candidate.[136]
Other potential strategies could also
help third parties gain legislative representation. This study has shown that voting for third parties is positively
related to lack of viable competition between the major parties; thus, it might
make sense for minor parties to focus on the congressional districts with no
major party challenger. When the
Libertarian Party contested congressional races that were not otherwise
contested in 2000, they usually received 10 percent or more of the vote.
Another strategy would be to convince
existing legislators to join a third party.
According to Theodore Lowi, a third party must attract Republican and
Democratic candidates to run with the third-party label and must elect a core
of legislators that can make the difference in major policy decisions.[137] The progress on this front has been slow but
one Minnesota Senator recently switched to Jesse Ventura's Independence Party
and the Working Families Party elected one of its members to the New York state
assembly in 2000. Proportional
representation is thus the reform with the highest likelihood of success but
not necessarily the only, or the most feasible, method of building multiparty
democracy.
As shown earlier, many of the barriers to
third-party voting are psychological.
Knowing that a great deal of strategic voting does take place, and that
many voters who preferred third-party candidates chose to vote for another
candidate because they feared a "wasted vote," successful efforts to
alleviate the psychological concerns are likely to increase the chances of
third-party success. Without strategic
voting, Perot may have won the 1992 election; it is possible that merely changing
the perceptions of potential third-party success could help create the reality
of multiparty democracy. The main
opponents to reform, according to Black and Black, are "the propagandists
of defeat," the opinion leaders engaged in an effort to prove that a new
party cannot be successful.[138]
The psychological basis for avoiding
third-party voting has no real basis.
As Riker has said, "it is objectively the case that one cannot
expect to contribute much to the decision process [by voting]. If so, the rational action may be simply to
express a preference."[139] This message will have to be advanced along
with a response to the typical concern about helping to elect the candidate
that one least likes. According to
Labor Party leader Tony Mazzocchi, most of the legislation he favors has been
passed by whoever is in power in times of public pressure rather than by his
major party allies: "If you look at legislation we favored it's been
passed by people you wouldn't vote for," he says.[140] This kind of endorsement of the long-term
view and the outside pressure model of change could be an effective answer to
concerns regarding the "spoiler effect."
Even if the "wasted vote"
phenomenon could not be challenged, perhaps successful third parties could
imitate the strategies of the major parties.
This "wasted vote" phenomenon could have worked to Perot's
advantage, for instance, had he stayed in the 1992 race and atop the
polls. In late June, many commentators
believed that Clinton was completely out of the race and that it was between
Bush and Perot. Perot could have
rallied traditional Democratic constituencies by showing that a Clinton vote
was a wasted vote. At the very least,
the Perot campaign's "don't waste your vote on politics as usual"
message would have been much more effective if Perot had maintained second
place in the polls.
In addition to attacking psychological
blocks to third-party voting, it will also be important to show the advantages
of taking the independent route for particular social groups. Organized black political revolts, for example,
have been largely successful. In 1948,
Henry Wallace targeted blacks with his Progressive Party, which became the
catalyst for the rise of racial issues in that year's election. Truman's chief strategist convinced the
candidate to place the issue high on his agenda because he was worried about
losing the black vote to Wallace.[141] After black voters turned out for Democrats
in record numbers in 1952 but southerners defected from the Democratic Party to
begin building a state's rights party, the Democrats retreated from the black
agenda, making concessions to southern opponents of the civil rights movement.[142] In 1956, the largest demographic shift in
voting involved blacks switching to the Republicans; because support for
Democrats among blacks dropped from 80 percent to 60 percent, civil rights
issues were placed higher on the agenda of both parties.[143] As Piven and Cloward put it, "It was
not the rise of a substantial black electoral bloc in the northern states that
finally set the stage for civil rights concessions; it was the rise of black
defections."[144]
Media
Coverage
Perceptions
cannot always be changed by logical arguments, however, because the media
manages public perceptions. The media
sets the agenda of public debate and frames the election storyline, and so it is clear that media problems for
third parties must be addressed directly.
According to Ralph Nader, however, "You can't ever expect a new
political movement to be helped by the media."[145] Despite the difficulty, there have been efforts
to try and alter the media landscape.
Dasbach notes that the Libertarian Party has been able to use talk radio
and the Internet to present its own image more effectively. Knowing that third parties in the past have
relied on starting their own vast media networks, current third parties should
consider creating their own journalistic endeavors.
A broader electoral reform movement will
need to develop a media strategy like that of past major reform efforts. According to Hofstadter, "To an
extraordinary degree the work of the Progressive movement rested upon its
journalism. The fundamental critical
achievement of American Progressivism was the business of exposure, and
journalism was the chief occupational source of its creative writers."[146] The reach of the insurgent writers was the
primary important difference from earlier eras; popular magazines led the
muckraking movement. The muckrakers
attacked all major institutions, but particularly focused on business corruption
of government.[147] From this history, we can learn that
watchdog journalism has a role to play in a new progressive movement. Even if reporters do not specifically
advocate moving toward a multiparty system, continued investigations of major
party corruption can play an important role in the movement.
The Progressives also challenged
corporations directly, successfully pushing for self-regulatory schemes and
private reform.[148] Modern reformers could take the same
approach with key institutions such as the media. As shown earlier, the horse-race focus of the media trivializes
third-party candidates and helps emphasize the "wasted vote"
argument. Movements to reform this
focus could have positive effects on the future of third parties. The Minnesota Compact, suggested by a 1995
article by Tom Hamburger in the Minneapolis
Star-Tribune and implemented by the Humphrey Institute and the League of
Women Voters for all Minnesota elections since 1996, is an example of a reform
scheme that could be modeled in other states.
The compact set standards for improving the depth of public campaign
discussion.
Hundreds of candidates and media
organizations signed the compact and it has served as a self-regulatory measure
for both politicians and the media.
According to a review by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, newspaper
coverage after the compact improved:
Overall, the four newspapers tried to
innovate in their coverage of election issues.
They took seriously the need to help inform voters about political ads,
to provide nuanced coverage of substantive issues, and to provide the
information in a way that was meaningful to local people and their
concerns. They appeared to be
downplaying horse race coverage.[149]
Television news coverage was not as
successful, with most stories still covering campaign strategy; in some
instances, however, the stations were trying to work to improve their
newscasts.[150]
The Compact organizers sent materials to
community groups to help plan for public forums on the campaign. In the 1996 election, the Compact produced
ten debates for the Senate race, all including substantive questions from the
press. Third-party candidates, however,
were still not included in some debates because they lacked 10 percent support
in the polls.[151]
Compliance with the Compact is voluntary
but violations are subject to public scrutiny and are used by candidates as
ammunition to challenge opponents.[152] The Annenberg report concluded that the
improvement in political discourse from the Minnesota Compact might have had
more to do with the simple commitment to change and the thought put into
improving coverage rather than the specific provisions of the Compact.[153] They recommend seminars for journalists on
effective political coverage.
Even if the specific provisions of the
Minnesota Compact were not endorsed elsewhere, any commitment to improved
coverage and less focus on the horse race could help improve media coverage of
third parties. Electoral reform
advocates should challenge local and national media organizations to make such
improvements. In Massachusetts, news
organizations have come together to demand more public debates from the
candidates since 1994.[154] The media could play an important role in
forcing major party candidates to invite third-party rivals to the debates; it
would only take a few strong commitments by members of the press. Activists also need to convince polling
companies to ask preference questions so as to gauge real support for
candidates. For example, asking
"Regardless of who you think will win, which candidate would you prefer to
be president?" changes poll results substantially; many more people voice
support for third parties.[155]
Since the Fairness Doctrine and Equal
Time Doctrine have faced repeal or produced exemptions where they could have
helped third parties, enforcing those requirements or implementing new
strategies for ensuring media fairness could also play a role in diversifying
the opinions expressed in the media. A
movement in favor of pluralist media will also help advance a multiparty
system. Activists working for universal
access and democratization as well as for community-based or radio and
television rights will help improve media options. Increasing the numbers of citizen reporters and online activism could
also diversify the media environment.
Activists could demand that either the
Federal Communications Commission or Congress enforce fairness rules against
dominant media companies. When the
broadcasters switched from analog to digital, Congress could easily have
required free television time for candidates.[156] They missed the opportunity but retain
control over the public airwaves.
Activists in the electoral reform
movement will also need to improve public relations skills and find allies in
the media. In California initiative
elections, voters rely on television and newspapers as their most important
source of information.[157] To have any hope to pass electoral reform
initiatives, therefore, activists must make sure that the media portray the
issues positively. Using resources such
as the Strategic Press Information Network and other activist media training
centers could help electoral reform advocates present a more positive public
image. Already, there has been some
progress in garnering media support.
The St. Petersburg Times and USA Today editorialized in favor of
IRV. Lani Guinier, William Raspberry,
and Jim Hightower have also been publicizing electoral reform.[158]
The
Internet
A move toward a multiparty system will
likely coincide with the democratization of the media brought about by the
Internet. The history of political
action, after all, has been substantially intertwined with a series of
advancements in communications media.[159] The Internet is the most democratizing media
of all time, promising virtually universal access to publishing. It opens the door to political communication
for more parties, groups, and individual activists by dropping the price of
entry into the political debate.[160]
This has the potential to alter the way
campaigns are conducted. As Ronald
Dworkin has said, the "national political 'debate' is now directed by ad
executives and political consultants and conducted mainly through thirty-second
'sound bite' television and radio commercials."[161] The dominance of television is said to
create "sloganeering" and rash decision-making that decreases
participation and informed voting. The
Internet may be able to serve as an important alternative in future
elections. Candidates, advocacy organizations,
and individuals have already taken advantage of the opportunities of the World
Wide Web.[162] The Ventura for Governor Internet campaign
in Minnesota has been credited with using the Internet to bring a large
population of new young voters into the political process for the first time.
In the pre-Internet era, it was difficult
and time consuming for voters to find information about candidates; mailing and
production costs limited the amount of information available.[163] Many voters make uninformed choices not
because they do not care about the outcome of an election but because becoming
informed takes too much effort.[164] Particularly for those who feel removed from
the political process, the availability of information about candidates is a
critical factor in satisfaction with a campaign. The Internet has the potential permanently to correct for the
lack of information available about issues and candidates. Ten percent of voters have already used the
Internet to gather information they used in a voting decision.[165] Exit poll respondents said that the
information they found on the Internet was simply not available in traditional
mediums.[166] They also highlighted the convenience of
becoming informed using the Internet and the sheer volume of information
available.[167]
The Internet allows for new forms of
political participation as well; cybervolunteering, including placing links on
Web sites, online activism, and sending supportive email to friends, is
allowing people previously frozen outside the political landscape to become
involved.[168] Young people are currently using the
Internet as a tool for political information gathering and expect to depend on
the Internet for the remainder of their lives.[169] Internet campaigns should thus be an
important part of both third-party campaigns and the movement for electoral
reform. It presents an opportunity to
work around the mainstream media and still reach a sizeable section of the
electorate. Ralph Nader believes it can
help increase civic motivation has said: "The Internet is a bright sign in
an otherwise dismal picture."[170]
The
Debates
The presidential debates are another
major area of campaign media appearances ripe for change. As noted earlier, debate inclusion increases
third-party stature and visibility. In Becker v. Federal Election Commission,
Ralph Nader lost his initial bid to end the corporate-financed Commission on
Presidential Debates.[171] He is continuing his lawsuit efforts,
however, and hopes to convince the Supreme Court to hear the case. Earlier, the FEC had rejected its own
counsel's opinion that the debate commission was an election law
violation. This had been the basis for
a lawsuit against the FEC launched by Ross Perot and John Hagelin in 1996. It is possible that the FEC could overturn
its previous position.
More likely, public pressure could force
the debate commission to change its standards or force the major party
candidates to participate in other debates that included minor party
candidates. Ralph Nader tried this
public relations campaign in the 2000 election and is convinced that it will be
successful in the long term: "Never again will the debate commission have
the power to control the process," he says.[172] Laura Murphy Lee suggests two alternative
approaches to opening the debates: first, encourage more debate entities to
compete with the Commission on Presidential Debates and second, obtain pledges
from major party candidates to participate in debates open to more candidates.[173]
Inclusive debates could also be mandated
by law, either by legislating that everyone on the ballot must be able to
debate or by requiring a pledge to debate with all ballot-qualified candidates
as a condition of public financing. The
same approaches could be advanced on state and local levels, where third
parties have traditionally been more successful at obtaining a place on the
stage. Perhaps debate requirements
should be included in the "clean money" campaign reform bills
currently being advanced in the states.
Lack of media attention for minor party
candidates is related to the inability to purchase paid media. Knowing that the advertising disadvantage is
a major inhibitor to third-party success and that third-party advertising has
been successful when made possible, any strategy to increase funding for minor
party campaigns would likely improve the chances of reaching a multiparty
system. Because ballot access drives
almost always use paid signature-gatherers, money would also help overcome
other barriers. Funding for conventions
could also help candidates improve media coverage.
Remembering that only Ross Perot has had
access to similar levels of funding to the major party candidates and that most
candidates are outspent more than fifty to one, any policy that leveled the
playing field with regard to financing would likely be effective. This study noted that the difference in the
relative success of Anderson and Perot was most likely due to Perot's financial
advantage; thus any increase in independent candidate funding will improve the
chances of success.
Third parties already have the potential
to get federal matching funds in primary elections and can even receive general
election funding if they reach a 5 percent threshold of votes. Three third-party candidates were given
federal matching funds for their 2000 campaigns: Buchanan earned $4,326,522,
Nader earned $723,308, and Hagelin received $650,347.[174] On the state level, Jesse Ventura raised
$35,000 so that he could get one-third of a million dollars in public
financing, half his campaign budget.
The financing, however, was not guaranteed; it only came after the
election because he received 5 percent of the vote. Thus, banks were unwilling to supply him with a loan until late
in the campaign; to counteract this, he was able to generate $1,500 loans from
visitors to his Web site.
Public
Financing
Campaign finance reform has generally
hurt rather than helped third-party chances, so it might be assumed that
campaign finance proposals will not be likely to improve the situation.
However, one method of campaign finance reform will improve third-party chances
drastically: public financing for ballot-qualified candidates who accept
contribution limits and raise a certain amount of seed money financing. The public financing is usually combined
with free airtime from broadcasters, which would also improve third-party
prospects.
Public Campaign’s "clean money"
campaign finance reform proposal is the most prominent of the reforms that
would help independents. The public
funding campaign is much further along than other electoral reform
campaigns. As IPPN compared the
efforts,
There is already much work and a number
of victories that have been won as far as public financing in Maine, Vermont,
Massachusetts, and Arizona, grassroots organizations hard at work in the
majority of states, and a well-funded national organization, Public Campaign,
continuing and pushing forward these efforts.
There is much less work and hardly any victories that have been won in
the area of PR/IRV, although there has been growing recognition of the critical
importance of this reform thanks to the work of the Center for Voting and
Democracy, the Greens and other groups.[175]
Public financing is an effective response
to a campaign finance debate that has been left in gridlock with no known
escape route to solve for the concerns of the reformers and yet appease those
that have significant problems with the limitation of political speech. Most campaign finance reform is aimed at the
money supply but allowing free television time and providing a standard amount
of public funding is aimed at the demand side.
Ideally, other reforms could be advanced
that would be more beneficial to third parties. Challenger scholarships for needy candidates who have
demonstrated support would be helpful.
Relaxation of contribution limits only for minor parties has even been
suggested. Public financing based on
the top signature collectors would probably benefit third parties more, as they
are used to collecting signatures. FECA
could also be changed to make third-party funding proportional to the vote it
received in the last election, rather than requiring 5 percent of the popular
vote.[176]
There is no vital need, however, to work
for changes in the most popular current state-level public financing
proposal. The "clean money"
initiatives that have passed in several states give funds to all candidates
that demonstrate support by collecting a sufficient number of $5
contributions. Serious third-party
candidates could probably work within these limitations to level the playing
field with major party candidates. Some
versions of the law, however, contain built in disadvantages for third parties
that have not received high percentages of the vote in previous elections. Even in this form, the law will just
encourage independent candidates, who are given equal funding to major party
contenders.
Financing
the Electoral Reform Movement
The public financing initiatives were
only passed with tremendous financial backing.
An electoral reform movement based on lobbying and initiative campaign
would require immense funding. Magleby
studied 51 initiatives from 1954 to 1982 and found that 77 percent failed
normally but that when proponents outspent opponents two-to-one, only 52
percent failed; where opponents outspent proponents two-to-one, 87 percent
failed.[177] Lowenstein examined 25 propositions where
spending exceeded $250,000 and where one side outspent the other, two to one;
the advantaged side was successful in 64 percent of the cases; the no side was
90 percent successful when it had the advantage.[178] Thus, being outspent by the major parties on
an IRV or proportional representation initiative would be a major roadblock to
reform. Knowing that a third party
typically has to legally challenge ballot access laws or other restrictions in
almost every state, money will also be important for supporting electoral
reform lawsuits.
These key building blocks to a multiparty
system can be advanced through unlimited funding from a few individuals or
organizations because they are not subject to campaign finance regulation. Corporations and private foundations are the
two major sources of funding for political initiatives. Corporations are unlikely to provide
support, so foundations must be the key source of financing for an electoral
reform movement. Progressivism
coincided with the rise of foundations established by individuals with great
wealth who felt a need to give something back to the community such as Andrew
Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.[179]
Foundation funding has been key to the
campaign finance reform movement.
Public Campaign was founded with grants from the Schumann Foundation,
the MacArthur Foundation and the Open Society Institute.[180] The Arca Foundation, the Carnegie
Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Tides Foundation,
the Mott Charitable Trust, the Pew Charitable Trust, the Rockefeller Fund, and
the Stern Family Fund are also funding campaign finance reform organizations.[181] The Schumann Foundation contributed $15
million to campaign finance reform, including $5 million to Public Campaign.[182] The Turner Foundation funded most of the
organizing for the Montana campaign finance reform initiative.[183]
Foundations cannot directly use funds for
lobbying but they are able to avoid that tax provision by funneling money
through other organizations. Eric
Williams explains how the process works for campaign finance reform:
Proteus serves as the temporary holding
tank for private foundation dollars through its Piper Fund, which funnels
donations and grants to campaign finance reform advocates. The Piper Fund's motto is, "He who pays
the Piper calls the tune." In
1998, the Piper Fund helped fund campaign finance reform efforts in 30 states. Much of the money was provided to lay the
groundwork for future ballot measures, but funds also went directly into ballot
measure campaigns in Massachusetts and Arizona.[184]
Proteus and Public Campaign, both funded
by the foundation community, are the main supporters of the campaign finance
reform initiatives.
The same foundation support could be relied
upon to finance the electoral reform movement if a few major foundations were
convinced that the reform agenda was worth pursuing. The Carnegie Corporation has set a goal of encouraging civic
engagement and has a granting budget of $10,500,000 for that purpose but it has
so far not funded electoral reform organizations.[185] The Kirsch Foundation gave away $601,750 in
2000 and has already given away $500,000 in 2001 under its "Political
Reform and Global Theme" but most has gone to support campaign finance
reform.[186] The Ford Foundation has a Governance and
Civil Society unit that works to "strengthen the civic and political
participation of people and groups in charting the future of their
societies."[187] That would seem to be a goal advanced by
electoral reform; the Foundation has already granted $80,000 to CVD.[188] The Pew Charitable Trust has set a similar
goal "to renew elections as meaningful events in democratic life" and
accepts requests from projects that help improve campaign discourse from
political parties. It gave 31 grants
worth $25,702,000 in 2000 but the grants did not go toward electoral reform
initiatives.[189] The Stern Family Fund has taken steps to
pursue the electoral reform agenda, helping to finance CVD and the Appleseed
Electoral Reform Project.[190] The Arca Foundation has granted $50,000 to
CVD to promote instant runoff voting.[191]
The Open Society Institute's
"Program on Government and Public Policy" aims to reform the
political process. It has also focused
on campaign finance reform but donated $30,000 to the Appleseed Foundation,
given $175,000 to CVD, and funded a project by a policy institute to study
proportional representation.[192] The largest potential donor to an electoral
reform movement is probably Open Society Institute funder George Soros. The Soros agenda is most likely advanced by
multiparty democracy and he has already gathered financial support for and
directly funded several multi-state initiative campaigns such as legalization
of medical marijuana.
An electoral reform movement with
connections in the mainstream interest group community, a few legislative and
legal successes, and an agenda for future progress could likely gain financial
support from the foundation community.
With effective policy proposals, reasonable strategies, and appealing
messages, the electoral reform movement could thus gain the resources it would
need to be successful.
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[1] Gary W. Cox, Making Votes Count, Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 70.
[2] Diana Dwyre and Robin Kolodny,
"Barriers to Minor Party Success and Prospects for Change," in Multiparty Politics in America, ed. Paul
S. Herrnson and John C. Green (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
1997), 181.
[3] Howard A. Scarrow, "Duverger's Law,
Fusion, and the Decline of American 'Third' Parties," Western Political Quarterly 38 (Winter 1985): 644.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Terry Bouricius quoted in Alisa Solomon,
"Taking Back the Vote," The
Village Voice, 22 November 2000. Available: <http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0047/solomon.shtml>.
Accessed 1 March 2001.
[6] Rob Richie, Year End Report, 2000 (Takoma Park, MD: Center for Voting and
Democracy, 2001). Available:
<http://www.fairvote.org/e_news/yearend2000.htm>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[7] Richard Winger, "Alternative
Voting," Ballot Access News 16
no. 10 (2001). Available: <http://www.ballot-access.org/2001/0101.html>.
Accessed 3 March 2001; Californians for Proportional Representation, PR/IRV Legislation (Sacramento:
Californians for Proportional Representation, 2001). Available:
<http://www.fairvoteca.org/legtable.htm>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[8] Californians for Proportional
Representation, PR/IRV Legislation (Sacramento:
Californians for Proportional Representation, 2001). Available:
<http://www.fairvoteca.org/legtable.htm>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[9] Midwest Democracy Center, Instant Runoff Voting: In Your State
(Chicago: Midwest Democracy Center, 2001). Available:
<http://www.instantrunoff.com/states.html>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[10] California IRV Coalition, Legislative Action (Sacramento:
California IRV Coalition, 2001). Available:
<http://www.calirv.org/state/>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Center for Voting and Democracy, Addressing Common Concerns about Multi-seat
House Districts for U.S. House Elections (Takoma Park, MD: Center for
Voting and Democracy, 2000). Available:
<http://www.fairvote.org/library/statutes/scvsa99/wattfacts.htm>.
Accessed 1 March 2001.
[13] Midwest Democracy Center, Proposal to Put Cumulative Voting Back on
the Ballot (Chicago: Midwest Democracy Center, 2000). Available:
<http://www.prarienet.org/icpr/CV/proposal.html>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[14] Californians for Proportional
Representation, PR/IRV Legislation.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Caleb Kleppner, State of the Industry: Compatibility of Voting Equipment with Ranked
Ballots (Takoma Park, MD: Center for Voting and Democracy, January 2001).
Available: <http://www.fairvote.org/administration/industry.htm>.
Accessed 17 April 2001.
[17] Paula Lee, "Pressure Mounts for
Electoral Reform," Voice for
Democracy: Newsletter of Californians for Proportional Representation,
January 2001, 1.
[18] Center for Voting and Democracy, Bipartisan Federal Elections Review
Commission Act (Takoma Park, MD: Center for Voting and Democracy, 2001).
Available: <http://www.fairvote.org/library/statues/ferc.htm>. Accessed 1
March 2001.
[19] Midwest Democracy Center, Instant Runoff Voting: In Your State
(Chicago: Midwest Democracy Center, 2001). Available:
<http://www.instantrunoff.com/states.html>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[20] Californians for Proportional
Representation, PR/IRV Legislation.
[21] Miles S. Rapoport, "Democracy's
Moment," The American Prospect
12, no. 4 (2001). Available:
<http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/pring/V12/5/rapoport-m.html>.
Accessed 20 March 2001.
[22] Stephen Ansolabehere and Alan Gerber,
"The Effects of Filing Fees and Petition Requirements on U.S. House
Elections," Legislative Studies
Quarterly 21 no. 2 (1996): 260.
[23] Richard Winger, "Ballot Access
Bills Introduced in 9 States," Ballot
Access News 16 no. 11 (2001). Available:
<http://www.ballot-access.org/2001/0201.html>. Accessed 3 March 2001.
[24] The Appleseed Center for Electoral
Reform and the Harvard Legislative Research Bureau, "Statute: A Model Act
for the Democratization of Ballot Access," Harvard Journal on Legislation 36 (Summer 1999): 451-470.
[25] Jimmie Rex McClellan, "Two Party
Monopoly: Institutional Barriers to Third Party Participation in American
Politics" (Ph.D. diss., Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities,
1984), 230.
[26] Richard Winger, "The Importance of
Ballot Access to Our Political System," Long Term View 2 no. 2 (1994): 40-45.
[27] John B. Anderson, "Prospects for a
Third Party under Our Present Electoral System," Long Term View 2 no. 2 (1994): 35.
[28] The Appleseed Center for Electoral
Reform, 469.
[29] Paul R. Abramson, John H. Aldrich, Phil
Paolino, and David W. Rohde. "Third Party and Independent Candidates in
American Politics: Wallace, Anderson, and Perot," Political Science Quarterly 110 no. 3 (1995): 366.
[30] Steven J. Rosenstone, Roy L. Behr, and
Edward H. Lazarus, Third Parties in
America: Citizen Response to Major Party Failure, 2d ed. (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1996), 257.
[31] Robert Tanner, "Mountain of
Election Ideas as Nation Seeks to Avoid Another Florida," Associated
Press, 3 March 2001. Available:
<http://ap.pqarchiver.com/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=3ac6a15c28a40Mpqaweb1P11018>.
Accessed 31 March 2001.
[32] Dean Barkley, "Strategy Problems
for Third Parties." Panel discussion at a conference entitled
"Independent Politics in a Global World." City University of New York
Graduate Center, New York, 7 October 2000.
[33] Micah L. Sifry, "Finding the Lost
Voters," The American Prospect
11, no. 6 (2000). Available:
<http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/print/V11/6/sifry-m.html>.
Accessed 17 April 2001.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Rapoport.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Theodore Lowi, "What's Wrong with
the Two Party System?" Panel discussion at a conference entitled
"Independent Politics in a Global World." City University of New York
Graduate Center, New York, 7 October 2000.
[38] Mary Inman, "Symposium: Comment:
Change through Proportional Representation: Resuscitating a Federal Electoral
System," University of Pennsylvania
Law Review 141 (May 1993): 2040.
[39] James Gray Pope, "Fusion, Timmons
v. Twin Cities Area New Party, and the Future of Third Parties in the United
States," Rutgers Law Review 50
(Winter 1998): 479.
[40] Samuel Issacharoff, "Supreme Court
Destabilization of Single-member Districts," Chicago Legal Forum, 1995, 210.
[41] Richard L. Hasen, "Entrenching the
Duopoly," Supreme Court Review,
1997, 342.
[42] Issacharoff, 234.
[43] Inman, 2019.
[44] Lani Guinier, "A New Voting Rights
Movement," New York Times, 18
December 2000, sec. A, p. 27.
[45] Bush
v. Gore, 531 U.S. ___ (2000).
Available: <http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=00-949>.
Accessed 17 April 2001.
[46] Richard Winger, "High Court Expands
Equal Protection for Voters," Ballot
Access News 16 no. 10 (2001). Available:
<http://www.ballot-access.org/2001/0101.html>. Accessed 3 March 2001.
[47] Lani Guinier, "What We Must
Overcome," The American Prospect
12, no. 5 (2001). Available:
<http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/pring/V12/5/guinier-l.html>.
Accessed 20 March 2001.
[48] Norman
v. Reed, 502 U.S. 279, 280 (1992).
Available: <http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=502&invol=279>.
Accessed 17 April 2001.
[49] Richard Winger, "Other Lawsuit
News," Ballot Access News 16 no.
10 (2001). Available: <http://www.ballot-access.org/2001/0101.html>.
Accessed 3 March 2001.
[50] Ibid.
[51] The Appleseed Center for Electoral
Reform, 463.
[52] Jason Gray Zengerle, "Hot
Fusion," The New Republic, 28
October 1996. Available: <http://www.newparty.org/fu.nr961028.html>.
Accessed 13 February 2001.
[53] Hasen, 339.
[54] Pope, 504.
[55] Ibid., 475.
[56] Hasen, 331.
[57] Ibid., 334.
[58] Ibid., 337.
[59] Dwyre and Kolodny, "Barriers to
Minor Party Success and Prospects for Change," 182.
[60] Inman, 2028.
[61] Ibid., 2050.
[62] Issacharoff, 222.
[63] Inman, 2050.
[64] Ibid., 2044.
[65] Ibid., 1999.
[66] Issacharoff, 207.
[67] Theodore J. Lowi, "A Ticket to
Democracy," New York Times, 28
December 1996, sec. 1, p. 27.
[68] Issacharoff, 213.
[69] Inman, 2034.
[70] Ibid., 2030.
[71] Ibid., 2037.
[72] Ibid., 2035.
[73] Hasen, 335.
[74] Inman, 2023.
[75] Ibid., 2025.
[76] Issacharoff, 239.
[77] Inman, 2027.
[78] Richard Winger, "High Court May
Mandate Fair Ballots," Ballot Access
News 16 no. 8 (2001). Available:
<http://www.ballot-access.org/2000/1116.html>. Accessed 3 March 2001.
[79] Joel Rogers, "Can Third Parties
Transform the Two-Party System?" Panel discussion at a conference entitled
"Independent Politics in a Global World." City University of New York
Graduate Center, New York, 7 October 2000.
[80] The Appleseed Center for Electoral
Reform, 454.
[81] Ibid., 452-454.
[82] Steve Padilla, "Voters Electing New
Ways to Cast Ballots," Los Angeles
Times, 25 June 2000, sec. A1 p. 3.
[83] Midwest Democracy Center.
[84] Steven Hill, Standing on the Threshold of a Third Party Dream (Takoma Park, MD:
Center for Voting and Democracy, 1995). Available:
<http://www.fairvote.org/library/third_parties/dream.htm>. Accessed 1
March 2001.
[85] Charlene Wear Simmons, California's Statewide Initiative Process
(Sacramento: California Research Bureau, 1997), 14.
[86] Ibid.
[87] Ibid.
[88] The National Journal, The Political Almanac (Washington:
National Journal, 1998). Available: <http://nationaljournal.qpass.com/members/almanac/1998/ca.htm>.
Accessed 17 April 2001.
[89] League of Women Voters of California, Initiative and Referendum in California: A
Legacy Lost? (Sacramento: League of Women Voters of California, 1984), 42.
[90] John Allswang, California Initiatives and Referendums (Los Angeles, California
State University Press, 1991).
[91] Todd Purdum, "When Lawmakers
Waffle, and Sometimes Before, Voters Turn to the Ballot Measure," New York Times 31 March 1998, sec. A, p.
18.
[92] Steven Hill, Report from the Trenches: Planting PR in "Winner Take All"
Soil (Sacramento: Californians for Proportional Representation, 1996).
Available: <http://www.fairvoteca.org/measH/aboutH.htm>. Accessed 1 March
2001.
[93] Ibid.
[94] Dan Johnson-Weinberger, interview by
author, untaped, Los Angeles, 13 March 2001.
[95] Californians for Proportional
Representation, About CPR (Sacramento:
Californians for Proportional Representation, 2001). Available:
<http://www.fairvoteca.org/aboutcpr2.html>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[96] Center for Voting and Democracy, Voters Pass IRV Charter Amendments
(Takoma Park, MD: Center for Voting and Democracy, 2000). Available:
<http://www.fairvote.org/irv/irvwins.htm>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[97] Johnson-Weinberger.
[98] Richie.
[99] Midwest Democracy Center, Instant Runoff Voting: In Your State
(Chicago: Midwest Democracy Center, 2001). Available:
<http://www.instantrunoff.com/states.html>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[100] Reynolds, 96.
[101] Ibid., 293.
[102] Ibid., 89.
[103] Mazzocchi and Masters.
[104] Arthur A. Ekirch, Progressivism in America: A Study of the Era from Theodore Roosevelt to
Woodrow Wilson (New York: New Viewpoints, 1974), 70.
[105] Tony Mazzocchi, "Can Third Parties
Transform the Two-Party System?" Panel discussion at a conference entitled
"Independent Politics in a Global World." City University of New York
Graduate Center, New York, 7 October 2000.
[106] Reynolds, 193.
[107] Independent Politics Progressive
Network, A Voters' Bill of Rights (Bloomfield,
NJ: Independent Politics Progressive Network, 2001). Available:
<http://www.ippn.org/BofR.htm>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[108] Ted Glick, Unity in Diversity: The IPPN Model (Bloomfield, NJ: Independent
Politics Progressive Network, 1997). Available:
<http://www.ippn.org/OAGlick.htm>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[109] Appleseed Electoral Reform Project, Projects & Accomplishments (Washington:
Appleseed Foundation, 2001). Available:
<http://www.appleseeds.net/center.cfm?id=16>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[110] Appleseed Electoral Reform Project, Program Activities (Cambridge: Harvard
Law School, 2001). Available: <http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/programactivities.html>.
Accessed 1 March 2001.
[111] Richie.
[112] Gordon S. Black and Benjamin D. Black, The Politics of American Discontent: How a
New Party Can Make Democracy Work Again (New York: John Wiley & Sons,
1994), 16.
[113] Hasen, 332.
[114] Ibid., 345.
[115] Ibid., 346.
[116] Ekirch, 28.
[117] Hofstadter, 200.
[118] Ekirch, 110.
[119] Rapoport.
[120] Ibid.
[121] Ekirch, 21.
[122] Ibid., 33.
[123] Hill, Standing on the Threshold of a Third Party Dream.
[124] Ron Walters, "Lifeblood of American
Politics of Lock-Up of American Government? The Meaning of the Two Party
System," Panel discussion at a conference entitled "The Two-Party
System and Its Discontents." American University, Washington, DC, 13 May
1999.
[125] Christopher Allen, The Case for a Multi-party U.S. Parliament? American Politics in
Comparative Perspective (Athens: University of Georgia Department of
Political Science, 2000). Available:
<http://www.arches.uga.edu/~csallen/parl.htm>. Accessed 28 February 2001.
[126] Lisa Zagaroli and Michael Steel,
"Two-party System May Die in 21st Century," Detroit News, 4 January 2000, sec. A p. 3.
[127] Robert Harmel, "The Impact of New
Parties on Party Systems: Lessons for America from European Multiparty
Systems," in Multiparty Politics in
America, ed. Paul S. Herrnson and John C. Green (Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, 1997), 49.
[128] Ibid., 56.
[129] Anderson, 32.
[130] Black and Black, 170.
[131] Allen.
[132] Steve Macek, With Fusion Dead, New Party Weighs Options (Bloomfield, NJ:
Independent Politics Progressive Network, 1997). Available: <http://www.ippn.org/MAFusion.htm>.
Accessed 1 March 2001.
[133] Steve Dasbach, "Are There Viable
Alternatives to the Status Quo?" Panel discussion at a conference entitled
"The Two-Party System and Its Discontents." American University,
Washington, DC, 13 May 1999.
[134] Terry Savage, "The Libertarian
Party: A Pragmatic Approach to Party Building," in Multiparty Politics in America, ed. Paul S. Herrnson and John C.
Green (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1997), 144.
[135] Steve Dasbach, interview by author,
untaped, New York, 14 October 2000.
[136] John C. Green and William Binning,
"Surviving Perot: The Origins and Future of the Reform Party," in Multiparty Politics in America, ed. Paul
S. Herrnson and John C. Green (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers,
1997), 92.
[137] Black and Black, 12.
[138] Ibid., 163.
[139] William H. Riker, "The Two-Party
System and Duverger's Law: An Essay on the History of Political Science," American Political Science Review 76,
no. 4 (1982): 764.
[140] Mazzocchi and Masters.
[141] Piven and Cloward, 198.
[142] Ibid., 200.
[143] Ibid., 215.
[144] Ibid., 217.
[145] Nader.
[146] Hofstadter, 186.
[147] Ekirch, 61.
[148] Hofstadter, 242.
[149] Joseph N. Cappella and Mark Brewin, The Minnesota Compact and the Election of
1996 (Philadelphia: Annenberg Public Policy Center, April 1998), 21.
[150] Capella and Brewin, 22.
[151] Ibid., 14.
[152] Ibid., 10.
[153] Ibid., 23.
[154] Ibid., 22.
[155] Black and Black, 125.
[156] Allen.
[157] League of Women Voters of California.
[158] Richie.
[159] Wayne Rash, Politics on the Nets (New York: W.H. Freeman, 1997), 56.
[160] Ibid., 130.
[161] Ronald Dworkin, "The Curse of
American Politics," N.Y. Review of
Books, 17 October 1996. Available:
<http://www.nybooks.com/nyrev/WWWarchdisplay.cgi?19961017019F>. Accessed
1 March 2001.
[162] Nicholas W. Allard and David A. Kass,
"Law and Order in Cyberspace: Washington Report," Hastings Communications and Entertainment
Law Journal 19 (1996): 563.
[163] Jon Oram, "Will the Real Candidate
Please Stand Up?: Political Parody on the Internet," Journal of Intellectual Property Law 5 (Spring 1998): 108.
[164] Ibid., 111.
[165] Ibid., 115.
[166] Ibid., 119.
[167] Ibid., 112.
[168] Peter Levine, "Online
Politics" Panel Discussion at Online
Politics and Democratic Values Conference, The National Press Club,
Washington, 29 March 1999.
[169] Cara Sheppard, Cyberpoliticking (Washington: Catholic University of America,
1996).
[170] Nader.
[171] Winger, "Other Lawsuit News."
[172] Nader.
[173] Laura Murphy Lee, "The Debate
Debate: A Dialogue on the Problem of Debate Exclusion," Panel discussion
at a conference entitled "The Two-Party System and Its Discontents."
American University, Washington, DC, 13 May 1999.
[174] Winger, "Other Lawsuit News."
[175] Independent Politics Progressive
Network, On the Need for a Post-2000,
Pro-Democracy Campaign.
[176] McClellan, 234.
[177] John Owens and Larry Wade,
"Campaign Spending on California Ballot Propositions, 1924-1984: Trends
and Voting Effects," Western
Political Quarterly 39 (January 1986): 109.
[178] Ibid.
[179] Ekirch, 68.
[180] Eric Williams, "Philanthropy Notes:
Big Money Behind Push for Campaign Reform: Wealthy Foundations, Individuals
Want Taxpayers to Foot the Bill," Capital
Research Center Foundation Watch, January 2001. Available:
<http://www.ippn.org/Pro-Democracy.htm.htm>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[181] Ibid.
[182] Ibid.
[183] Ibid.
[184] Ibid.
[185] Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Corporation's Program: Special Projects:
Civic Engagement for the Twenty-first Century (New York: Carnegie
Corporation of New York, 2001). Available:
<http://www.carnegie.org/sub/program/special_projects.html>. Accessed 1
March 2001.
[186] Steven and Michele Kirsch Foundation, Political Reform and Theme Grants (San
Jose: Steven and Michele Kirsch Foundation, 2001). Available:
<http://www.kirschfoundation.org/done/awarded.html>. Accessed 1 March
2001.
[187] The Ford Foundation, Governance and Civil Society Unit (New
York: Ford Foundation, 2001). Available:
<http://www.fordfound.org/program/govern.cfm>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[188] Ibid.
[189] The Pew Charitable Trusts, Public Policy Program Guidelines (New
York: The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2001). Available:
<http://pewtrusts.com/programs/pp/ppguide.cfm>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
[190] Stern Family Fund, Strategic Opportunity Grants (Arlington, VA: Stern Family Fund,
2000). Available: <http://www.sternfund.org/supp00.html>. Accessed 1
March 2001.
[191] The Arca Foundation, Grant's List (Washington: Arca
Foundation, 2000). Available:
<http://fdncenter.org/grantmaker/arca/glist2.html>. Accessed 1 March
2001.
[192] Program on Governance and Public Policy,
Our Work: Grants List (New York: Open
Society Institute, 2000). Available:
<http://www.soros.org/usprograms/campaign.htm>. Accessed 1 March 2001.
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