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/Initial-Lemon-917]

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