My March 2 weblog, “Let’s End the Duopoly,” laying out proposals for democratic reforms of our electoral system generated a number of valuable reader letters. Click here to read the weblog and see below to read five good letters.
Wade Dygert, Coopersburg, PA
Katrina vanden Heuvel’s “Let’s End the Two-Party Duopoly” is right on the money. Electoral reform, meaning proportional representation and instant runoff voting, is the most critical issue in American politics today. Liberals should stop wasting their time demonizing Nader, and channel that energy into pushing for electoral reform. And The Nation should be leading the way.
Instead of writing cover stories telling Nader not to run, I would want to review Steven Hill’s “Fixing Elections.” Not only does it point out the flaws in America’s electoral system, it also provides solutions. A good online resource is www.fairvote.org, the website for the Center for Voting and Democracy, in which Steven Hill is involved, by the way.
PLEASE write about proportional representation in your magazine…most people are unaware of the options we have in how we turn votes into seats, and The Nation is the perfect place to educate people on the matter.
Thank you for your time.
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Paul Klinkman, Providence, RI
Congratulations on your “duopoly” editorial. I wish that you had mentioned Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Cambridge City Council has had Proportional Representation for 63 years running. I observe that a permanently corruption-resistant city council has been a boon to Cambridge’s homeowners. Cambridge has a top rating of AAA from Moody’s Investor Service and outrageous property values. In similar cities with no protection from machine politics, even in cities with great colleges, homeowners often have crushing city mortgages hanging over the value of their homes which any judge can order them or their children to pay off.
I’m sorry to appeal to people’s individual financial interests, but some conservatives can see nothing else. Either we stop the crooks from owning City Hall or we get cleaned out time after time, people. This same truth applies equally to our state legislatures and to Congress.
Proportional Representation disappeared from two dozen American cities because it allowed black people to become city council members, and it also allowed people who didn’t hate communists enough to become city council members. Was this ever a sane reason to spit on and ignore a successful crime-fighting tool?
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For generations, small groups of citizens have struggled to rid their cities, states and nation of all candidate corruption and all machine politics permanently. Proportional representation has been a successful set of government-changing experiments which our forefathers fought to implement. I’m ashamed that so many of us ignore the learning that our ancestors won with their vision and perseverance. Did some forgotton Galileo really lose this fight and die with our knowledge? Can we name any other type of learning in all of history that has been so forgotten and yet so needed?
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Sean Hill, Vancouver, Canada
In response to Katrina vanden Heuvel’s recent article “Let’s End the Two-Party Duopoly”: I couldn’t agree more that electoral reform needs to have a more prominent place on the US political platter. But Ms. vanden Heuvel’s comment that “Nader’s perceived role as a spoiler is likely to attract far more attention than the valuable issues he raises” is outright myth propagation. Comments like these highlight an endemic lack of belief in the validity of merit and democracy towards determining political leadership and direction.
Electoral reform begins when each of us decides to show more confidence and less apathy towards the multitude of outcomes made possible by a self-determined electorate.
In Canada, we recognize that it’s not really about whether we or our political opponents win. What matters is whether the country wins, and it’s the pressure generated by a range of choices which keeps our leaders in line.
Running an election strategy as “anybody but Bush” is a with us or against us proposition. The Dems are looking for the sure win but instead they’re betting the bank on the next roll. You might luck out. But you’re more likely to end up with some wishy-washy, opportunistic, fly-by-night who turns things upside-down and has the electorate calling for a Bush return in 2008.
Now is the time to be expanding and encouraging choices, all choices. Neither Nader, nor anybody else, right or left should be discouraged from offering themselves for the future of their country.
If we’re all really that cynical then we don’t deserve a better world.
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Keith Schilhab, Rollinsville CO
Re Katrina vanden Heuvel’s piece on Ending the Two Party Duopoly: I read this article with much interest, as it has become increasingly clear over the last 20 years or so that our “representative” government no longer lives up to its name. Instant runoff voting, proportional representation, fusion voting are all terrific ideas and deserve a hard look.
However, in the case of politics it seems obvious to me that money is indeed the root of all electoral evils (as Ms. vanden Heuvel writes: “Big money politics give disproportionate influence to the wealthy, and blocks the candidacies of those without access to money…”) Admittedly, reducing the cost of getting elected in this country will not be an easy one, and I do not have all the answers here. However, we can all agree that it is ideas and not the size of one’s wallet that should count in elections.
With that in mind then I would propose either strictly re-regulating the current networks to provide free and equal time to all “qualified” candidates. Or, banning all campaign/party advertising from national TV/Radio and establishing government owned and financed radio/TV stations whose only purpose is to run equal and free political adverts. All commercial advertising in either case would be made illegal. In addition, strict money limits would be placed on a party’s or campaigns fund raising. Four of five million dollars perhaps.
Yes, this idea is not complete and there are difficulties. What does it mean to be qualified? How do we re-define political speech within the context of the first amendment?
However, the stakes are far too high not to take up this question. The public is supposed to own the airwaves. They no longer serve us, and the FCC seems more like a prostitute with one customer: the broadcasters. Political speech is NOT free when the guy with the fattest wallet can dominate the conversation. Our politics has degenerated horribly within the last 20 years. I am much afraid that if something is not done, no matter how draconian it might appear at onset, then in another few years this country will be unrecognizable.
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Tracy Winter, aol.com
Good piece by Katrina Vanden Huevel. I would add to her “Toolkit” for repairing our democracy not just publicly-financed election campaigns, and a few more PBS stations, but also the banning of partisan campaign commercials from the airwaves in lieu of more inclusive and comprehensive debates, thus effectively removing the biggest (and dirtiest) money concern from the electoral process, and allowing it to become more affordale for new parties. Despite the predictable-but-innaccurate howls of protest over “free speech” that will surely ensue from the media giants, it is entirely possible within the original parameters of the media’s charge to provide “Public Service” in return for the incredibly powerful use of OUR airwaves since the advent of TV. Frequent and extensive debates on the issues should satisfy anyone with a first amendment ax to grind. Why should the despicable Media Moguls who have already trashed responsible journalism, be allowed to go on enriching themselves at the expense of our Democracy?
