Earlier this month, the report of a task force of the American Political Science Association and Protect Democracy was released: More than Red and Blue: Political Parties and American Democracy. I have a chapter in it (Ch. 12), “A Different Kind of Party Government,” coauthored with Jack Santucci and Michael S. Latner, in which we sketch out an argument about how proportional representation (PR) for US House elections could foster a form of party government based on coalitions, which are likely to be pre-electoral. We suggest pre-electoral coalitions would be further enhanced if fusion voting were adopted for single-winner offices like the presidency and Senate. We consider arguments for different forms of PR, and conclude that both mixed-member proportional (MMP) and single transferable vote (STV) are questionable options for US conditions, notwithstanding their various general advantages. Instead open lists (OLPR) may be a better choice; in particular, OLPR is conducive to the “fusion” model given the potential for joint lists, whereby allied parties pool votes but voters can indicate which allied party they prefer. (Readers of this blog will be familiar with my preference for OLPR for the US.)
Here is the abstract for the chapter (with one key word added for clarity):
The old case for a [responsible] two-party system did not: (a) fully grapple with ‘presidential’ democracy, (b) foresee the dangers of polarization, or (c) give sufficient weight to demands for representation. We therefore sketch a vision of multiparty presidential democracy, introducing relevant literature along the way. This vision rests on reforms to make multiple parties viable, push that system toward pre-election coalition, and improve descriptive representation regardless of how many parties there are. Key features are proportional representation (PR) for U.S. House, then reforms of single- seat offices (like President and Senator) to let multiple parties compete as parties. We give some ‘pros and cons’ of three PR forms: mixed-member proportional, single transferable vote, and open-list proportional. We also explain why PR might not lead to the sort of fragmentation that some critics and proponents alike expect.
The background to the full report is quoted below, from the Protect Democracy website:
Recognizing the serious risk of democratic backsliding in the United States, the American Political Science Association (APSA) and Protect Democracy partnered to sponsor the APSA Presidential Task Force on Political Parties. The Task Force’s report, More than Red and Blue: Political Parties and American Democracy, presents what political science says about the functions of political parties, how we came to have the parties we have, and where sources of change exist.
The Task Force’s report identifies the characteristics of political parties that make them a vulnerability to American democracy and also the critical roles political parties should be playing to help strengthen our democracy. Despite the overwhelmingly low confidence of Americans in political parties, political science shows we need to reform political parties rather than sideline them.
It was an honor to be tapped to contribute to this project, and to have Jack and Mike as coauthors.
Fruits and Votes 
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As an Australian, I understand the importance of the United Sates to the security of the whole world and find it very sad indeed that the American political system is such a mess. I wish all those trying to fix it the best, though I think the task is monumental. I realise that not all changes require constitutional amendment, but those that do are held back by the amendment process. I think the biggest step America can take is to adopt the Australian method of amending the Constitution, with appropriate wording changes:
Mode of altering the Constitution
This Constitution shall not be altered except in the following manner:
The proposed law for the alteration thereof must be passed by an absolute majority of each House of the Parliament, and not less than two nor more than six months after its passage through both Houses the proposed law shall be submitted in each State and Territory to the electors qualified to vote for the election of members of the House of Representatives.
But if either House passes any such proposed law by an absolute majority, and the other House rejects or fails to pass it, or passes it with any amendment to which the first-mentioned House will not agree, and if after an interval of three months the first-mentioned House in the same or the next session again passes the proposed law by an absolute majority with or without any amendment which has been made or agreed to by the other House, and such other House rejects or fails to pass it or passes it with any amendment to which the first-mentioned House will not agree, the Governor-General may submit the proposed law as last proposed by the first-mentioned House, and either with or without any amendments subsequently agreed to by both Houses, to the electors in each State and Territory qualified to vote for the election of the House of Representatives.
When a proposed law is submitted to the electors the vote shall be taken in such manner as the Parliament prescribes. But until the qualification of electors of members of the House of Representatives becomes uniform throughout the Commonwealth, only one-half the electors voting for and against the proposed law shall be counted in any State in which adult suffrage prevails.
And if in a majority of the States a majority of the electors voting approve the proposed law, and if a majority of all the electors voting also approve the proposed law, it shall be presented to the Governor-General for the Queen’s assent.
No alteration diminishing the proportionate representation of any State in either House of the Parliament, or the minimum number of representatives of a State in the House of Representatives, or increasing, diminishing, or otherwise altering the limits of the State, or in any manner affecting the provisions of the Constitution in relation thereto, shall become law unless the majority of the electors voting in that State approve the proposed law.
In this section, Territory means any territory referred to in section one hundred and twenty-two of this Constitution in respect of which there is in force a law allowing its representation in the House of Representatives.
We’d leave out “But until the qualification of electors of members of the House of Representatives becomes uniform throughout the Commonwealth, only one-half the electors voting for and against the proposed law shall be counted in any State in which adult suffrage prevails”, which existed because at Federation South Australia allowed women to vote but no other state did.
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We should more correctly call that the Swiss method of constitutional amendment. Delegates to Australia’s constitutional conventions were quite explicit that they were pirating the Swiss process.
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Thanks, Alan.
That is new information to me.
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Through-out American history, there had been multiple attempts to change Article 5 of US Constitution to make it easier to amend the US Constitution. All those attempts had failed. We are stuck with the current constitutional amendment process for the foreseeable future.
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It is a strange argument to critique STV on the grounds that with GVTs it amounts to closed list PR, and then advocate OLPR, which is subject to the same critique. That would need some substantive work on how often the party list is altered by personal votes under the two systems.
During debate on the abolition of GVTs in Australia in 2016, Antony Green told the joint standing committee on electoral matters: ‘You have been herding voters for 30 years’. We could more correctly call OLPR, the single herdable vote. SHV is different from STV only in that if your first choice is not elected, you have no control over the allocation of your vote to the other candidates on your party list. Cheney Republicans, for example, would certainly be alarmed if their votes were credited to Trump Republican candidates.
SHV is GVTs on steroids and might well encounter constitutional difficulties of its own, particularly before the hyperpartisan federal courts.
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Alan,
I agree with you on the flaws of open list systems, though it may still be an improvement on any single-member seat system. I checked Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_list) for the variations on how it works, and the mind boggles. I think the article uses the word “preferences” in a most unAustralian way.
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The point of having a system of list PR is that it would be unlikely that Trump Republicans and Cheney Republicans were on the same list. The comparison to group tickets is also inapposite. Under group tickets, a vote can leave one party and transfer to another – unless you have Brazil-style alliance arrangements, this doesn’t happen under OLPR. Ultimately the trade-off is between OLPR, which gives voters some influence over the candidates that they elect, works well at increased magnitudes, and is simple to vote under or count votes for, or STV, which gives voters more influence but at the cost of increased complexity of voting and counting and a limit on the plausible district magnitude.
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It is equally inapposite to invoke either high magnitude STV in a proposal which calls for relatively low magnitudes, or the supposed impossibility of contradictory parties joining a fusion list in a proposal which calls for fusion lists. The Alliance, which formed in 1991 in Aotearoa, is an example of such a contradictory fusion list.
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It isn’t impossible for differing parties to join as part of fusion lists, but it is immediately obvious to the voter when they are, I think it’s tricky to make the case that the Alliance was really a “contradictory” grouping given the common ideological affiliation of the parties, and in any case the report talks about fusion being relevant for single-seat offices, not necessarily lists.
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PatrickH,
You are undoubtedly right. You can’t amend the process for amending without using the process for amending. But never give up. One day, circumstances may change so radically that you can succeed in democratising the US Constitution.
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Actually, you can. The US constitution itself was not adopted in accordance with the Articles of Confederation. While it’s more common these days to enact a new constitution as an amendment to the previous constitution, it’s actually not, and can’t be, an inflexible rule.
The current Japanese constitution was drafted by the Allied occupation and then enacted by the diet in terms of the Meiji constitution. In Germany, by contrast, the state and government had been dissolved by the Allies and the Basic Law was enacted without reference to the Weimar constitution.
When a country emerges from military defeat or an authoritarian regime, it becomes an open question whether to revert to the previous constitution, as Argentina did in 1983, or to enact an entirely new constitution, as France did in 1946. Sadly, this could be the situation in which the US finds itself in the foreseeable future.
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At risk of getting wildly off topic, when Prime Minister of Australia Ben Chifley returned from a difficult meeting with MacArthur in 1946 on this very topic he told his cabinet the difference between MacArthur and the Emperor was that Hirohito had renounced his divinity.
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Of course, the US Constitution been amended more frequently than the Australian Constitution – the US has made 27 amendments in 235 years, compared to eight amendments in Australia over 123 years. The most recent US Constitutional amendment was either in 1971 or 1992 (depending on whether you count from ratification or proposal), while Australia’s most recent amendment was in 1977 (maybe that record will be broken this year, maybe not).
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Since 1900 though the United States has only had 12 amendments. And one of them erased another. And most of the rest adopted things Australia already had like direct election of senators and women’s suffrage.
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Yes, I don’t think it’s tremendously relevant since it’s not clear what the baselines should have been. That being said, the Australian constitution is much longer and more specific than the US constitution, and arguably the high number of referendums indicate a high rate of serious attempts at amendment (it’s unclear how you’d identify a similar number for the US for comparison purposes, the small number of failed submissions to the states doesn’t seem quite fair)
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It’s good to see key thinkers in the political science community communicating diagnoses and solutions to the public.
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We try.
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I haven’t had the time to read the report, so sorry if my questions have already been answered in the report. In a presidential system, what is the best electoral system for the legislature in a unitary country? What is the best electoral system for the legislature in a federal country?
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I hope you will find time to read the report! However, you will not find that answer there, given we are talking about the US, which is obviously federal.
But I wonder why the recommendation on electoral system would be different for a presidential/unitary case than for a presidential/federal one. I don’t think it would change my recommendation if this was the only salient difference between two countries!
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I’d suggest the two most depolarising measures would be a uniform federal franchise, which can be achieved by statute, and direct election of the president.
In 1970 congress amended the Voting Rights Act to enfranchise 18—21 year olds. In 1971 the supreme court ruled in Oregon v Mitchell that congress could lower the federal voting age but not the state voting age. This led to a collective and justified shriek from secretaries of state that they could not administer a federal voting age that was different from the state voting age. The happy result was the XXVI Amendment. There is nothing to stop congress enacting a uniform franchise for federal elections and leaving the states to catch up.
A uniform franchise would be a huge barrier to partisan skullduggery at the state and county level.
It’s only necessary to look at the very different outcomes of the presidential elections in Brazil in 2022 and the United States in 2020 to consider how it is far more difficult nullify a direct election than an electoral college.
Direct election would also be a barrier to partisan shenanigans at state and county level. In Brazil the right has largely moved on to other issues. In the United States large sections of the right continue to support the myth of electoral fraud.
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Of course. And also, the reasons these would be improvements are the reasons we won’t get them–there is a certain political party that depends on the status quo where it can manipulate the effective franchise and the electoral vote at the state level.
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Direct election is obviously not a viable reform at thus time. However a uniform franchise statute (hopefully not included in a kitchen sink proposal like the For the People bill) may be doable after the next congressional election.
There’s also the interesting question of what the future of the Republicans is should Trump lose next year. Biden can get to 270 by winning only those states which voted for Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020. There has to be someone in that party who will notice that losing the popular vote but winning the electoral college has resulted in two Republican presidencies that were disasters for the party.
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Oddly enough the electoral college benefits Republicans and disadvantages the Democrats.
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It’s only in the shortest term interest of Republicans to win the presidency while losing the popular vote. There’s an exact analogy to the Great Reform bill in the UK in 1830. Queen Adelaide wrote in her diary that Reform meant she would face the same fate as Marie-Antoinette. That proved to be a somewhat exaggerated fear.
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Just wanted to mention that I reviewed the entire APSA report a couple of months ago for 3:16 AM Magazine. There’s a link to that review at luckorcunning.blogspot.com.
I apologize in advance for the review’s nearly random paragraphing. Not my doing!!
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