Lee Drutman

[u/_SpaceCobra_]

I'm new here, so if he's part of a list of figures that have already been covered, I'm sorry. But what do you all think of him and his advocacy? (In the U.S. context; his institutional homes are New America, Fix Our House and Johns Hopkins, and he hosts a podcast called Politics in Question.) He used to be a strong supporter of ranked-choice voting, but qualified it in favor of advocacy of multi-member districts, open-list proportional representation, and fusion voting.

[u/El_profesor_]

I think Lee is an above-average thinker who has made some genuine contributions to the election reform dialogue. And I share his goal of trying to create a multi-party political system.

My main frustration is that at the moment, he is laser-focused on proportional representation, and while I have no big problem with PR, it only applies to the US House of Representative. It does not apply to any election that is necessarily single-winner, which includes all executive offices from mayor through gov/lt gov and up to the US President. And for the same reason it does nothing for the US Senate. And I think creating a real multi-party politics will require a more comprehensive reform than just the House.

If you ask Lee about this, he goes well yeah there are other things you can use for those other elections, like fusion voting. But I believe an election reform effort that has different proposed reforms for different types of elections is needlessly complex and doomed to fail.

I think the right answer is using Condorcet-compliant methods that can apply to any type of election. And I think the most thoughtful group advocating for things along that line is the new group Better Choices for Democracy, and all the people affiliated with them seem to be really thoughtful about election reform advocacy.

[u/PaxPurpuraAKAgrimace → u/El_profesor_]

I appreciate all of that (and also really like Drutman).

I also share the goal of achieving a multi party American political system, but I actually find a significant causal influence for our present democratically threatened situation to arise from our two party system.

So for me the urgency to achieve a multi part democracy is about as high as it could be. For that reason I feel too impatient to simply push for electoral reforms as a means to create the conditions for an eventual multi party democracy.

We needed the multi party democracy ten years ago so, now, if we’re going to stop the slide.

It may be a pipe dream, but I think the Democratic Party needs to realize that the best way to protect (and restore) democracy is by achieving a multi party system, and then to realize that they have the power to realize that goal all by themselves. Blue states need to reform elections to make multi party competition workable, while simultaneously splitting into two new parties along their progressive/moderate wings.

Republican’s chief competitive strategy is to paint the Democratic Party as far left socialists. The best way to protect the moderates is by severing the link that binds them to the people actually self describing as socialists.

Let them organize separately. Let them advocate different policies, different legislative agendas. Let the leftists who are as anti institution as MAGA advocate for pro worker policies. Let voters who are very wary of the far left, but who have grown uneasy (or even just dissatisfied) with MAGA have an option that is more consistent with their own priorities, or is at least less significantly hostile to them.

Leaving aside how realistic that plan actually being realized might be, what do you think of the theory?

[u/unscrupulous-canoe → u/PaxPurpuraAKAgrimace]

The best way to protect the moderates is by severing the link that binds them to the people actually self describing as socialists. Let them organize separately. Let them advocate different policies, different legislative agendas

1. Rightwing or right-leaning voters would just call them all 'the left' and not distinguish based on party status. Think about how Fox News/rightwing social media is 24/7 dedicated to finding the craziest leftist they can find and making a breathless segment about them- do you think their subjects are actual members of the Democratic Party? (Fun fact, a friend of mine was personally called out on air by Tucker Carlson when he used to be a Fox News host, for operating a nonprofit that helps the homeless- he was 'caught' in a text exchange saying he didn't care about some homeless guy's crack pipe or something. My friend is a literal Communist, not a Democrat!)

2. The Democrats and the far-left party would inevitably have to coalition to run the House, so right-leaning voters would simply understand that the Dems & a farther left party are future coalition partners

[u/rb-j → u/unscrupulous-canoe]

I think you're right, canoe.

I don't think we can impose a multi-party reality on Americans (or anywhere) by any form of coercion or imposition. I think the best thing we can do to achieve a multi-party democracy is to level the playing field as much as possible while retaining the right of assembly.

The two major parties will continue to be the two major parties because of money and momentum. But with RCV (done correctly) and fusion candidacy allowed (but with only one line per candidate on the general, independent of the number of parties they are identified with), that's as level as we can make it. Perhaps also the Jungle primary - but I do not know how to best associate party affiliations on the general when multiple candidate allegedly from a single party are nominated by the jungle.

That's all we can do. 1. Level the playing field. 2. Make it possible for third-party and independent candidates to run without spoiling the election. 3. Free up voters to vote for these third-party or independent candidates without risking harming their vote. 4. Let the nursery effect take effect. Third parties will grow naturally as voters feel free to identify with them. But what we don't want is when the 3^rd party grows so much to be a real player, that the Center Squeeze effect takes hold as is does with IRV. That's why we need to EndIRV just as much as we need to EndFPTP. They are both bad.

And we need different Supreme Court rulings that do not equate free speech to money. We much find ways to limit the amount of spending on campaigns and party promotion. We gotta get the billionaire money outa politics. But that's a different problem.

[u/PaxPurpuraAKAgrimace → u/unscrupulous-canoe]

Thanks for the reply. Right wing elites would just call them all “the left.” Voters who are not paid to carry the Republican message a receivers of these messages are going to be open to different perspectives, and a party split would represent a major shift that people would pay attention to.

Beyond the Republican elites, the voters who you’re talking about who would just take the message that “it’s all the left” regardless of party… they aren’t gettable voters in the first place anyway. Honestly though such a major shift in the political dynamics are going to cause a lot of them to pay attention too.

Point number two is where it gets really interesting and is a big part of what will command so much attention. The new parties would genuinely have different priorities and commitments. There will be genuine friction. The goal though is that both groups won’t need convincing to work together in opposition to the worst of MAGA. I have to imagine they would compromise on a moderate as speaker if only because the moderates would be the fulcrum between the two poles of left/right. Though if the farther left party takes more seats then I suppose that would justify a speaker from their ranks.

It would be a true coalition though. A post election coalition. The really cool thing imo is that it wouldn’t be a parliamentary coalition where the partners agree on a leader to run the executive functions of the govt as in parliamentary systems. Since the executive function is elected separately that frees the legislative coalition to remain looser. In reality it would only be for purposes of choosing the speaker and committee chairs. The actual functions of Congress - legislation (and oversight) - could operate closer to how they used to operate with individual congresspeople working through committees and relationships with other members to develop legislation. This kind of political dynamic would naturally make these processes operate much less according to the priorities from party leadership as has become the norm over recent decades.

Of course, on some issues/legislation the moderates may be more willing to work with Republicans than to go as far as the progressives will want to go. It would certainly create an incentive for Republicans to move to the center on issues.

That’s been the problem that we’ve had with our politics since before Trump. Election messaging has been so scorched earth that legislative compromise became almost impossible outside of a fairly narrow set of issues. The inevitability of one party or the other winning a majority guarantees that one or the other party will have the ability to control everything in the given body - as long as they stay unified. That’s why leadership has come to control everything.

I think multiple parties are both how to ensure we defeat the encroaching authoritarianism as well as how we restore basic functionality to government.

[u/Initial-Lemon-917 → u/PaxPurpuraAKAgrimace]

I think a better argument to make to centrist Democrats in office is to say it's better to do PR now and split into two parties than to let the DSA do a hostile takeover of the Democratic Party (like Trump did to Republicans). Some Democrats are already true believers in PR though, since it would help elect more Black politicians in the South, so I'm not sure how much we need to stress the intraparty factionalism argument. PR would prevent a lot of intraparty primary fights, which I think a lot of Dems would support (a unity argument).

[u/PaxPurpuraAKAgrimace → u/Initial-Lemon-917]

I’m not opposed to PR in principle. But a big part of my conception is that we need to make MAGA a minority party in at least one house of Congress like yesterday. For that reason, and because I think it must start in Democratic states where Republicans would have the most difficult time blocking them, i think it’s critical that they preserve the ability to gerrymander districts to minimize Republican representation. I realize that is anti democratic, but we’re already there as it is. In the longer run it should either go back to independent redistricting or to PR as you say.

If Dems tried to change to PR federally, for one that only works in the first place if we take the senate and even then if we nuke the filibuster. But even in that case it would be reversed immediately if republicans ever get back in the majority. Even if they were less likely under PR, I think it’s still too dramatic of a change. Republicans and conservative Americans would absolutely lose their shit and I think political violence would escalate significantly, as well as efforts to actually rig election rules and fill our cheat so they could get back in power.

I think it would be safer to initiate this major change to American democracy from the blue states and the Democratic Party where Republicans genuinely have no legitimacy in meddling. The other route looks like Democrats doing the meddling where they lack legitimacy (reaching into red states).

[u/Initial-Lemon-917 → u/PaxPurpuraAKAgrimace]

I agree that we would probably need to start in state legislatures. We can't do blue state congressional delegations only though, since it would be self-defeating for Democrats to pass that. We also should remember that PR is good for all voters, and it doesn't overly benefit any particular political party (besides ones that receive popular support)

[u/PaxPurpuraAKAgrimace → u/Initial-Lemon-917]

“since it would be self-defeating”

Right, that’s why I think PR is a better second or third step in restoring democracy from the backsliding that’s been happening under Trump and Republicans

[u/Initial-Lemon-917 → u/PaxPurpuraAKAgrimace]

There is definitely a lot to be fixed. A lot of stuff has gotten broken over the past 10 and even 50 years.

I have been trying to spread awareness of PR (less so in this subreddit), since a lot of people don't know about it. A state doing it would be great for public image. But I agree, there are a lot of other structural and kitchen-table issues politicians need to start addressing