Rhinocrisy

Having heard the phrase for the six hundred and fifteenth time today, I now proclaim the official slogan of the 2008 campaign season to be:
Don’t drink the Kool-Aid.

Governments throughout history have been tools of oppression; they need not be.

A large part of the reason for my new-found Mike Gravel fanhood is his National Initiative, a piece of legislation/Constitutional amendment he has been promoting for several years. In his own words, the problem with representative democracy:

We’re accustomed to thinking that, when we go to the polls on election day, that we’re exercising our power. Really, what we’re doing is we’re giving our power away, and giving it to politicians who have manipulated the electoral process; and then, once they get in office, they obviously - dictates of human nature require that they will put their interests before the public interest. That’s the way representative government works.

This gives me paroxysms of joy to hear. Yes! finally, someone who actually believes in democracy!

Gravel proposes changes allowing a national initiative process, whereby people can vote directly on federal laws. The details can be read here, if you’re curious. I’m sure there’s room for improvement (for example I’m dubious of the use of public opinion polling as part of the qualification process), but at first pass it seems well-organized and attempts to address some of the major pitfalls of state-level ballot initiatives. Read the section titled “A Strong Deliberative Process” and you will hopefully get a warm, happy feeling in the pit of your stomach.

An interesting twist, as Gravel acknowledges, is that Congress is unlikely to enact legislation which directly undermines its power. To answer that, Gravel proposes that the people vote directly on the issue of creating the initiative (as organized by his non-profit company Philadelphia II, where you can, in fact, start the first part of approving the initiative right now). Would it fly? Who knows? But it’s certainly worth trying, and I think if it did NOT fly, despite approval by a majority of the electorate, it would be quite revealing enough to shake the foundations of this country.

Finally, here’s Gravel himself on the subject. If you don’t already know, you can get your fill of Gravel on YouTube - he posts Q&As with random questions from folks on a regular basis. Golden.

I’m coming back from my 2-year hiatus! Why? It’s election method time!

2006 is an election year for Texas governor. Rick Perry (the one with the hair) is the incumbent, polling 34%. There are three other major candidates on the ballot: Chris Bell (D), Carol Keeton Strayhorn (ex-Republican, decided to take her chances in the general rather than the primary), and Kinky Friedman (comedian). All 3 are polling about 20%.

It’s quite possible that none of the other 3 could beat Perry in a one-on-one race. If this is the case, then our current system comes to the same result as virtually any other decent method. On the other hand, it’s quite possible that any of the other 3 candidates would beat Perry in a one-on-one election. That means Perry could be elected despite 2/3 of the voters preferring anybody else to him.

In that circumstance, IRV would offer an improvement: Perry would not be elected. However, it wouldn’t be perfect: it’s still possible that the vast majority of the electorate would prefer one of the losing candidates to the one that won. For example, Strayhorn might end up with less first-place votes than Bell or Friedman because most Republicans vote for Perry, but be much preferred to either because most who voted for Perry prefer her to Bell or Friedman.

A far worse case for IRV, though, is if only one or two of the candidates can beat Perry. If Strayhorn got fewer first-place votes than Bell or Friedman, she’ll be knocked out immediately. But it might well be that she’s the only candidate among the 3 who can beat Perry head-to-head.

While this might seem like a strange what-if brought on by the special circumstances of a 4-way election, circumstances like these are latent in virtually every election we hold. After all, if John McCain had been running head-to-head against George Bush in the general election in 2000, he would have won a landslide. Under a sane voting system, he wouldn’t have been forced out of the race because a majority of a minority preferred another candidate.