Jeff Jarvis has weighed in again for the second time in about 24 hours with an Issues2004 post on election reform. In this post Jeff conflates two very different issues: electoral reform and campaign reform.
Jeff advocates the abolition of the Electoral College. I’m skeptical about that. The value of the Electoral College as it stands is to prevent a candidate with strong regional support but no national support from becoming President. That sounds like a unifying force to me and in a country as large and diverse as the United States that’s probably reason enough. To the best of my knowledge there is no pending legislation to abolish the Electoral College and has not been since 2000 which suggests to me that whining in the aftermath of the 2000 election results notwithstanding there’s no real interest in this issue in either political party.
The disenfranchisement arguments I’ve heard in opposition to the Electoral College are red herrings. The U. S. Constitution does not mention democracy at all. The United States is a republic. The Constitution guarantees no one a vote in federal elections. The rules just guarantee that you can’t discriminate on the basis of race or sex. Additionally, I can’t think of any argument in favor of abolishing the Electoral College that doesn’t apply with even greater urgency to the abolition of the U. S. Senate. Should we be moving towards direct democracy?
Honestly, I have a great deal of sympathy with this idea. But I believe that the approach we should use is a substantial increase in the number of seats in Congress and anti-gerrymandering laws rather than moves towards direct democracy per se.
On the subject of campaign finance reform I believe that every move in this area in my lifetime has been a mistake. I would favor the abolition of all campaign finance law. Let anyone contribute as much as they care to. Let it be in secret. The current approach just invites ingenious playing of the system to avoid conflict with the law. If you build a better mousetrap, you breed a better rat.
Here’s a reform in campaigning law I wouldn’t mind seeing: make it illegal to accept money for political television advertising. That does not violate the First Amendment and it’s certainly within the Congress’s powers under the Commerce Clause. Couple that with a return of the Fairness Doctrine and it would greatly reduce the utility of raising large sums for campaign purposes—most of it is used for television advertising. The system we have does not do a good job of informing the public, it places an unfair premium on fundraising, and it gives an unwarranted subsidy to the television industry.
How about reforming the allocation of electors based on the District Method, which Maine and Nebraska use?
Electing an Electoral Alternative
Certainly a reasonable approach if your objective is more direct democracy. But if that’s what you’re looking for the election of the president is the least of your worries. There’s the Senate (very undemocratic), not enough Congressional districts, the Supreme Court, etc.