Reforming Electoral Politics

January-February 1996

By William A. Harper

BOSTON—Nearly 300 enthusiastic activists, academics, and politicians gathered here November 11-12 in historic Faneuil Hall for a conference on reforming the American electoral system. The gathering was sponsored by the Center for Voting and Democracy and associated organizations such as the Fair Ballot Alliance of Massachusetts. All regions of the United States and several foreign countries were represented.

Day one was devoted to a consideration of various conditions driving electoral reforms. Among the most important factors considered were declining voter turnout, the limits of the two-party system, and inadequate representation of racial minorities.

The highlight of the day was a panel on prescriptions for reform, featuring Michael Lind of The New Republic and Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker. Lind discounted the idea that serious reform would come at the national level as the result of third-party efforts, blue-ribbon commissions, or Supreme Court decisions. He argued instead that only a bipartisan effort of Republicans and Democrats driven by public pressure—a "revolt of the radical center"—could prove sufficient to push through a comprehensive reform package. His thoughts were echoed by Hertzberg, who spoke of the need to mount a serious educational effort aimed at focusing public attention on the basic elements of the electoral infrastructure. Heretofore, these have been virtually taboo subjects for most Americans.

On day two, interactive workshops took the place of plenary meetings. The diverse sessions focused on proportional representation, the topic seen by everyone as the key to reform. Historians explored its past use at the local level in America, lawyers explored its relevance to current voting rights cases, and academics described the various forms it can and does take in countries around the world. At times the saturation coverage obscured the reality that the United States is one of the last Western democracies without proportional representation. Most appropriately, these sessions were held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the only municipality in the United States that uses a form of proportional representation to elect its government.

Among the speakers at the conference, and the recipient of a Center for Voting and Democracy award, was Cynthia A. McKinney (D-GA), who represents a majority-black district that was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court last June. Rep. McKinney recently introduced a bill in Congress that would allow states to experiment with new ways of electing members of Congress. Current federal law—but not the Constitution—requires the number of voting districts in each state to equal the number of apportioned representatives each state may send to the House of Representatives. But this makes each voting district a winner-take-all, single-member district. The only way to assure representation of significant minorities in such a system is for a state to gerrymander its voting districts so that some of them actually contain a majority of the targeted minority. This is what the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional. The McKinney bill aims to change the current law so that single-member districts are no longer required.

McKinney's bill does not go far enough, however, because it stipulates only three alternatives to the current system: limited voting, cumulative voting, and preference voting. There are other forms that would provide even greater proportional justice for the real diversity of citizens in any state. But the McKinney bill at least puts the question on the congressional agenda, something that surpasses the fading cries for term limits that seemed so loud just last year.

Though relatively modest in size and meeting in comparative obscurity (ironically, next door to Boston's premier tourist destination), this conference may one day be seen as an important first step on the road to major reform of the electoral system. Those attending, including many veterans of other struggles and most clearly on a mission, were both energized and equipped for what will undoubtedly be a long, difficult struggle to convince their fellow citizens to alter some very familiar instruments of American electoral democracy.

[Dr. Harper chairs the Political Studies Department at Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts.]