Appraisals and Proposals I

Responsible Party Government -- Back to the Future!

"A Temporarily Responsible Party" (Hershey 353)

A few years after the Contract, Newt reflected:

We had not only failed to take into account the ability of the Senate to delay us and obstruct us, but we had much too cavalierly underrated the power of the President, even a President who had lost his legislative majority and was in a certain amount of trouble for other reasons. I am speaking of the power of the veto. Even if you pass something through both the House and the Senate, there is that presidential pen. How could we have forgotten that?

Issue ambivalence:

• Abortion:  survey trends and interviews
• Budget:  compare opinion on cuts with the composition of federal spending. What about foreign aid?
• The reckoning draws near.

Paradox:  are more democratic parties bad for democracy?:

Kamarck

• What is peer review?
• "The purpose of this step would be to let the primary voters know what people in government think of the capabilities of these candidates prior to the beginning of the nomination contests."  Would the confidence/no-confidence votes persuade voters? 
• What Republicans said about Trump in 2016
• The most recent nominee:

Proportional Representation?

Lee (203): "Bipartisanship is particularly problematic for a party seeking to win a larger share of institutional power

What about proportional representation?  Drutman:

Political scientist Frances Lee has looked closely at the devastating consequences of this intense national partisan competition, most recently in her masterful book, Insecure Majorities. The conclusion of her research is dispiriting: The more closely contested the control of institutions, the more politics devolves into zero-sum partisanship with all its dysfunctional consequences. Every vote becomes a party-line vote. Party leaders raise the stakes of every potential dispute to draw clear contrasts for activists, donors, and voters. Each party denies the other any small victory that might be useful in the next election, and looks primarily to embarrass the other side rather than to collaborate. The permanent campaign takes over.

• Remedy?  The Fair Representation Act 
• Experience with multi-member districts
• The cautionary tale of contemporary Israel

Examples of multiparty systems:  Canada, Britain, Israel

Causes of the two-party system:

• Duverger's "Law" (Hershey 37-38)
• Electoral college
• Ballot access:
• Third parties  (article at Reason)
• Independent candidates

Types of Third-Party Movements

• Ongoing issue-based or ideological parties
• Short-lived movements
• Wallace 1968
• Anderson 1980
• Perot 1992

Reasons for Third Party Bursts

• Major party deterioration and issue responsiveness
• Economic decline
• Unacceptable major party candidates