Political Parties

 

It’s My Party

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to
Cry if I want to
You would cry too, if it happened to you

Are political parties making us cry?

The founding fathers did not anticipate the formation of political parties.  If they had, the Electoral Crisis of 1800 would never have happened. This was an inadvertent tie between the Democrat candidate for president and  Democrat candidate  for vice president.  That led to the adoption of Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution which implicitly acknowledged the existence of political parties by separating the election of the president from the election of the vice president. 

Single member districts were also not a constitutional requirement.  The constitution required that votes in the House of Representatives should be apportioned by a decennial Census. More than one representative per state could was expected.  But the Constitution was silent on whether those representatives would be proportionally elected in a state (i.e. at large) or whether those representatives should be for specific districts within a state.  Single member districts were the result of Congressional apportionment act of 1842.

The result of single member districts and a plurality system is, according to Duverger’s Law, two political parties.  If the winner is determined by plurality, merging any political parties that did not receive  a plurality was proposed as inevitable.  Consequently there are two political parties in the United States, while there are more than two parties in proportional systems of representation,  e.g. parliamentary systems in Europe.

A consequence of a two-party system is that supermajority votes become a way for one of those two parties to block the actions of the other party if it is a minority, but not a super-minority.  Thus a supermajority action, such as advise and consent; ending debate and bringing a bill to a vote, popularly known as the filibuster; etc. can be blocked by the political party that is a minority.  If votes for a supermajority were secret, then retaliation against the “defectors” could not be enforced by that political party. Thus supermajority votes might then serve their intended purpose, to make sure that actions of a majority do not come at the expense of the minority.  Actions to block votes by a majority, by the party that is a minority, but not a superminority, are the current impasse.

Just as the framers of the Constitution did not anticipate the formation of political parties, Congress did not anticipate the consequences of single representative districts.  There is a good reason for a single representative for a district.  It ensures that the representative is closer to the people being represented.  However the consequence of this single representative  per district  system is to makes it possible for  the minority party to block all actions of the majority party,  unless that majority party is also a supermajority.  Rather than change the electoral system, require that all supermajority votes ( e.g. advise and consent, declarations of war, ending filibusters, etc.), be by a secret ballot. This would recognize that there are 50 States, 100 Senators, and currently 435 Representatives, and not just 2 political parties. A secret ballot in supermajority votes should serve to unite us, rather than divide us. Will that portion of the minority that is also a superminority object? Of course, but the alternative may be to allow simple majority action in all cases instead of requiring a supermajority.  Let’s not eliminate the protections against a tyranny of the majority because we don’t want  a tyranny of the minority.