Government with Representation

January-February 1995

By James W. Skillen

WASHINGTON, DC —A recent article in Britain's Economist (Nov. 12) reporting on the last November's American election said, "All political structures are threatened by popular cynicism, distrust and the longing for more direct forms of citizen action. Revulsion goes wide and deep."

Strong language. But do Americans really long for more direct forms of civic action? And would something more direct actually overcome the cynicism and distrust? Voters managed to act quite decisively last November to elect enough Republicans and to throw out enough Democrats to shake up Congress and put Washington on notice. Moreover, thousands of interest groups, many supported by citizens at the grass roots, maintain direct access to legislators in Washington and state capitals. Why then all the cynicism and distrust?

Opinion surveys during the election showed that most of those voting Republican also wanted diminished government in Washington, or at least less expensive government. Is that desire the flip side of distrust? If government cannot be trusted, is the answer simply to demand less of it or to give it less to spend? How small will government have to become before it can be trusted?

The internal contradictions and incoherence of these opinions will become clear soon enough. The remedy for cynicism, after all, is better government not merely a smaller amount of untrustworthy government. And better government in a country of more than 250 million people will come not by means of direct (town-meeting?) democracy but by a better system of representation. The fundamental question is this: what constitutes trustworthy government, and how can it best be held accountable by citizens through a just system of representation?

Commentator George Will, along with millions of citizens who have been voting for term limits, believes that de-professionalizing representative government will solve the problems. In other words, rig the system so that no representative can return to office for more than a few terms. It is not enough that government should be distrusted; citizens should distrust themselves and take away some of their own voting power. Term limits, it seems to me, is cynicism turned against citizens without overcoming cynicism about government. Term limits hardens the law of distrust.

Those who told the pollsters that they want a smaller federal government also appear to be living with contradictions and refusing to face up to reality. Insofar as the federal government is active in delivering Social Security benefits, defense against foreign aggression, tax reductions for home owners who pay interest on mortgages, an interstate highway system, and a thousand other benefits, then most citizens do not want less government. In fact, the Republicans made clear in their campaign promises that they would not touch Social Security if they won the right to begin reducing federal spending and down-sizing government. Federal expenditures will remain massive even under a Republican Congress. The real question is, what should government be doing at each level and how should it act with the authority needed to uphold justice rather than merely to broker the demands of competing interest groups?

The Office of Government

The first thing that the Center for Public justice emphasizes is that government is a God-ordained office of accountability. This in itself does not answer the question of how much or what kind of responsibility government has, or how its responsibility should be divided federally or among different branches of government. But it does say that government is ultimately accountable to God, and its authority to uphold justice is a trust from God rather than a mere expression of popular will. Consequently, government is not free simply to do whatever the people want—whether that means doing as much as some people want or doing as little as other people want. Government is called by God to establish, enforce, and adjudicate just public laws for the wellbeing of the commonwealth.

Rather than falling back on cynicism, distrust, and revulsion, citizens should turn their critical attention to the reasons why government is failing to do justice. We should be seeking deep reforms rather than superficial antidotes. Term limits, balanced budget amendments, the line-item veto, a moment of silence in public schools—these are not serious enough to melt away cynicism and overcome distrust of government.

Insofar as government at various levels has overreached its authority either by taking on (or by overruling) the responsibilities that properly belong to individual persons, or churches, or schools, or other institutions, then undoubtedly government has failed to fulfill the obligations of its divine office. In these circumstances government needs to be reformed. But we should not imagine that such reform can be achieved simply by cutting government expenditures or by taking away a particular kind of unjust overreach by the federal government and giving it to state governments. The key is not to obtain less government but to get government to do what it ought to do.

If the most recent American election portends a growing popular debate about the proper task of government, then we should be very thankful for the election's outcome. Christians should jump at the opportunity to participate in a much-needed debate about the proper calling of government, which has been ordained by God for a complex society such as ours. But if the only debate that now occurs is a squabble over who will be able to cut government spending the most, or who will be able to hold onto a bigger share of the diminishing American pie, then we will be worse off than before.

If, for example, in order not to touch Social Security expenditures, Congress tries to balance the federal budget by eliminating rather than reforming relief programs for the poor, then we will not see greater justice flowing from "less" government. If, on the other side, in order to protect the jobs of public school teachers and public social service providers, state and federal governments refuse to institute reforms that could improve education for all students and allow greater room for non-government service agencies to help the poor, then public justice will not be uphold simply because "more" government is retained. If government enacts tax cuts that merely help the rich get richer while the poor get poorer, then it will not be fulfilling the demands of its office. If government at any level continues to take tax revenue for purposes that thwart family responsibilities, personal initiative, and religious freedom, then it will not thereby promote justice but will only use its superior force for evil.

The only way the American people can overcome their distrust of government is by holding government accountable to its high calling of justice rather than demanding benefits or tax relief (or both) that force representatives into the position of merely playing off competing interests against one another. The divine office of government cannot be satisfactorily filled by interest-group brokers. It does not matter whether the special interests are pleading for more or for less government. Government is an office required to rise above pay-offs, bribes, and special-interest pleadings to uphold a just public order for all citizens and for the well-being of the Republic as a whole.

Meaningful Representation

The right of citizens to be represented by officials whom they elect is an essential ingredient of modern democratic politics. Not that elections guarantee just governments, but they serve as one kind of accountability structure for government. Why is it then that citizens feel so alienated from government even though they have the right to vote? Why does George Will campaign so vigorously for term limits when regular elections give voters the opportunity every two or four years to limit the terms of incumbents and to elect new representatives if they want to do so?

The problem arises in part because of the kind of electoral system we have in the United States. Citizens are not represented according to their convictions about what government ought to be and do. Rather citizens are represented on the basis of the district in which they live, where a majority winner represents everyone, including those who voted against him or her. This winner-take-all, single-member-district system of representation is seriously flawed in two different ways.

First, this system makes it impossible for minority viewpoints (even 25 or 30 percent of the population) to gain representation. And often those people simply quit voting and become cynical as they realize that they are required to submit to government without representation.

Second, this system makes it very difficult for a national party to organize (and discipline) all its members around a common platform designed to serve the public interest. Each representative is on his or her own, and therefore everything has to be negotiated in Congress after the election. Voters do not get to vote for a firm national platform that will compel the winning party to perform according to its promises. The closest we've come to this in recent decades is the 10-point "contract" that the congressional Republicans announced prior to the 1994 election. But that "contract" was not a complete platform and it only promised a congressional vote on each issue, not that all Republicans would stand together in support of each point. Our system, then, produces separate, undisciplined representatives who become sitting ducks for the influence of unelected interest groups that dominate the bargaining process in Washington.

The way to overcome this double-trouble electoral system is not through term limits. Term Limits will only strengthen the influence of interest-group professionals while making it impossible for citizens to keep on electing excellent representatives. It will do nothing to develop strong national party platforms or to allow minority viewpoints to be represented.

What we need instead is a system of proportional representation (PR), beginning in the House of Representatives. In a PR system, nothing keeps a popular party from winning a large majority, but minority parties are also free to gain representation. House seats would be allocated to different parties in each state in proportion to the number of votes each party receives in that state. Not only would this system encourage more citizens to participate in elections by overcoming their sense of alienation; it would also force parties to adopt strong platforms, to discipline their members around those platforms, and to become national in scope.

The reason that parties would develop strong and comprehensive platforms is that PR is not a winner-take-all system. A party wins votes only by defining itself clearly in contrast to other parties, not by being ambivalent or unclear. Further, no party will keep members who casually disregard its platform after they are elected to Congress. And finally, each state party will work to build a strong alliance with sister parties in other states so that a national party can function as a single unit in Congress. No party will be guaranteed a majority in the House of Representatives. Each will have to demonstrate its strength nationwide, and that will require disciplined, national parties with strong and clear party platforms.

The United States needs a new and more just system of representation, which makes room for minority parties as well as majority parties, and which thereby promotes a more serious, ongoing national debate about the proper role of government—a role that Christians should recognize as an office accountable to God.

[This is the fourth article in a series on the basic principles of the Center for Public Justice. Dr. Skillen, who directs the Center, is the author of Recharging the American Experiment: Principled Pluralism for Genuine Civic Community]