Brandice Canes-Wrone (center-left) listens as Lee Epstein, (center-right) gives his view from the top at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Friday, June 30, 2023.
Daniel Bayer/Aspen Institute
When National Constitution Center CEO Jeffrey Rosen introduced the Aspen Ideas Fest discussion with political experts by titling the talk, “Is Our Political System Unfit for the Times?” — the audience jumped in with a resounding affirmation.
Although the question was rhetorical, the enthusiastic response sounded emblematic of widespread discontent and frustration, while America seems as divided as at any time since at least Vietnam, and perhaps the Civil War.
New America Senior Fellow Lee Drutman and Professors Brandice Canes-Wrone and Lee Epstein sat down to discuss reforms that could reduce polarization and partisan politics.
According to Drutman, the ordering of American politics, the nationalization of politics, and upcoming national elections have filtered through the single-winner electoral system to lead the country to a moment of hyper-partisan polarization that has become “a fundamental threat to our system”. .”
“Over the past few decades, what was a vibrant, multi-dimensional, truly multi-party system within our two-party system has collapsed, flattened,” he said.
To reintroduce dimensionality to politics, he proposed reforming the single-member district system to create larger, multi-member districts with proportional representation.
“We can get more diversity of representation that will allow us to rebuild a political sector. It makes every vote everywhere count,” he said. “Everybody can elect someone to represent them.”
Drutman said more than a quarter of Americans have unfavorable views of the two major parties, both of which have become radicalized. Merger voting, where several political parties can include the same candidate on the ballot, would revitalize the political center by allowing it to become a party that endorses moderate candidates, he said. While merger voting is currently illegal in the United States, restoring it to the legal status it once was would give moderate voters an electoral line to follow, he said.
“Political parties are the central institutions of modern representative democracy,” he said. “Without the political parties that connect the people to the government, we have demagoguery, chaos.”
Canes-Wrone doubled down on the importance of political parties, advocating for reforms to strengthen the ability of political parties to control electoral politics.
“Parties usually want moderates to be nominated to win in a district,” he said. “When parties can’t fund candidates, the individuals who fund them may not be as moderate as the parties.”
Currently, parties can exceed spending limits if the money is used to litigate election results. Canes-Wrone suggested eliminating these splits in favor of allowing parties to spend money directly on candidates.
Voters often rely on news coverage to learn about candidates. According to her, the emergence of local news deserts across the country has contributed to the nationalization of politics. As local media outlets decline, local candidates, particularly incumbent challengers, receive minimal media coverage.
“The challenger will only be seen as a member of a party, and that puts the emphasis on what the national parties are doing, and not what that challenger could do for your district,” he said.
The removal of the legislative veto by a 1983 Supreme Court ruling has also contributed to the polarization, Canes-Wrone said.
“The Supreme Court is dramatically limiting Congress’ ability to delegate decisions to administrative agencies, such as student loan forgiveness, and Congress is powerless to respond,” Rosen said.
While the legislative body is oriented towards compromise, the executive branch is not. According to Canes-Wrone, removing the ability of Congress to veto executive decisions has given the president greater power to decide important policies.
“It matters more and more who is in the executive branch in terms of what our top policies are, and that will bring polarization to the fore,” he said.
He said resurrecting the legislative veto would shift power from the executive office to the legislative branch. However, a constitutional amendment would be required.
Courts have not been immune to polarization, Epstein said, as evidenced by the recent series of 6-3 decisions on affirmative action, Biden’s student debt relief plan and free speech vs. gay rights, which were divided along ideological lines.
“That seems quintessential, but it doesn’t really characterize that term,” he said. “This term has seen some unexpected wins for the left side of the court. … The center has moderated a bit compared to what we saw last quarter.”
By referring to the “center” of the court, he was referring to Justices John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
However, the current makeup of the Supreme Court shows unprecedented partisanship. It’s the first time in history that every liberal on the court is a Democrat and every conservative is a Republican, according to Epstein.
“You might think that’s the norm at the Supreme Court, but it’s not,” he said. “This is actually the first time in history that we’ve had such a clear, partisan divide.”
To ensure judicial independence and move away from a partisan divide in the court, he suggested changing the way judges are appointed.
“The more political actors are involved in the selection of judges, the more political the court is,” he said.
Currently, there are 101 political actors involved in the process of selecting judges. Epstein pointed to the UK supreme court’s nomination process, which uses a selection committee based on legal expertise, removing political influence from the courts.
“These proposals are not designed to help one party or another, but to resurrect basic principles of democracy, such as nonpartisan deliberation,” Rosen said. “It makes me hope that there is a way out of the polarization that affects our parties.”
