A Modest Proposal

I know by titling this “A Modest Proposal” people, who know the original work, may think this is some satirical take on the problem I am trying to solve. That is not my intention.

My intention is to throw a series of ideas out there that I think, in summary, will help us re-establish a real republic where we largely govern ourselves through our elected representatives.

The proposal will help solve what I think is our current biggest problem: partisanship.

Unlike a parliamentary system, our system was never designed to have the Congressional branch be subservient to the Executive branch. In fact, the founders created the system such that there would be a healthy tension between the 3 branches and thus the problem of partisanship would naturally be exacerbated by elected representatives having to first and foremost answer to their constituents.

Over time, with the rise of political parties dominance, more and more state legislatures begin to draw district lines where they “picked their constituents.” This has led to the vast majority of congressional seats being safe seats.

To correct this, I think every state should have independent commissions draw their district boundaries. Currently only 9 states use an independent commission to draw their districts. Provided the states establish a fair and vigorous process for the formation of these commissions, this should create fairer and more competitive districts.

Of course, districts are only re-drawn after the last census (every 10 years), so there should be some incremental steps we take in the meantime. Quite often, the only competitive race many legislators face is the primary. Since, by definition, they are competing against others from the same political party this means that the primary winner may be the most extreme of a political party or one who can better leverage the support of the national party. So my short term fix would be to open up all primaries. Unaffiliated voters and members of either major party could choose what primary they voted in. This should lead to more ideological diversity among the major candidates and water down the influence of the national parties.

Finally, my last corrective would be to suggest every election be ranked choice voting. I won’t go into the details but we should all have a true choice when it comes to voting. I’m tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. If I could rank who I think should represent me, I’d be more inclined to vote who I really think is the best candidate and not just against the most awful candidate.