The Parties Versus the People

I'd like to leverage this brief interlude between the respective party conventions to review an important new book by former Congressman Mickey Edwards (R-OK) titled The Parties Versus the People: How to Make Republicans and Democrats into Americans. Like Edwards, I remain a proud member of the GOP and its ever-shrinking moderate wing. However, our commitments to our country transcend allegiances to any private organization, political parties in particular.

Edwards' arguments bear consideration 10 weeks from a pivotal presidential election. A close shave for the incumbent or his capable opponent still seems probable, and the victor's ability to govern will be constrained by the same forces that have paralyzed Washington for the past quarter century. He is right to blame political parties for the poisoned political atmosphere, and unlike Dionne, Mann and Ornstein, and others, he rightly assigns bipartisan blame. Polarization per se, Edwards suggests, is not the problem, but instead the parties' dominance of our electoral and governing institutions.

His list of prescriptions is long, and I don't agree with each line item, but I do support open-integrated primaries like those employed in Louisiana, Washington, and California, where the top two primary finishers regardless of party advance to the general election. They need not be from the two major parties, and both candidates may be of the same party. I predict this would go a long way in sending the "wing nuts" to the exits and electing moderates representative of the "mushy middle" that characterizes the vast bulk of the voting population.

I also concur that our current campaign finance regime is broken, a product of laws with good intentions, but flawed reverberations, and contradictory court rulings. He cites my friend Curtis Gans of the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, who advocates for the removal of limits on what individual candidates may raise from people, and restricting donations to all external agents (parties, Super PACs, etc.). My concerns about about the current regime have more to do with the perpetual money chase than fears about corruption or the appearance thereof. Moreover, by pushing political money from the most accountable (the candidate) to the least accountable (interest groups, 501c3s, and SuperPACs), negativity is the norm, driving people (prospective office holders and voters alike) from the political process altogether.

I also embrace Edwards' call for nonpartisan redistricting reform. It remains ridiculous that professional politicians select their voters, bastardizing the very definition of democracy. Additionally, neutrally drawn districts would produce more competitive contests, bringing more citizens out to the polls, and opening the door for more moderate candidates willing to reach across the aisle and work with members of the other party to tackle the pressing issues of the day.

Edwards falls short in a clear path for citizens to pursue these reforms and others. In many ways, his writing is directed towards Beltway insiders, and my hope is that they carry around dog-eared copies of this important book. He does recommend that the rest of us take back our government from two private clubs (the Dems and the GOP) through citizen initiatives, and lists the states where this is achievable. Unfortunately, Illinois is not on this list, so we are left with only the ballot box and grass roots organizations pressuring those in Springfield and City Hall.

As our collective gaze turns from Tampa to Charlotte, Edwards' prescriptions to rescue our democracy loom large. The issues articulated by an impressive A-list of Republican officials this past week are real and must be addressed immediately, but short of the structural changes Edwards embraces, dysfunction and stalemate seem the more likely scenarios regardless of who wins the Obama-Romney prize fight.