September 16, 2009Can you handle two people representing you in the state legislature?
Picture that voters in each district send to a single legislative body the two highest vote getters in the general election. Each gets a percentage of a single vote on the state Assembly’s floor equal to the percentage of the vote s/he received in the last election.
For example, Assemblyperson Judith, a Democrat, garners 55 percent of the vote against her Republican challenger, John, who receives 45 percent. Judith gets 0.55 percent of one vote on the Assembly floor; Raymond gets 0.45.
What’s the point of this? Parties, if rational, would nominate candidates who can maximize the general election vote; presumably, nominees would appeal to independents and folks who tilt toward the other party. We would get more moderate, less sharply partisan people in the legislature. Currently, in so many safely Democratic or Republican areas, rabid partisans nominate the most extreme candidates.
All political parties would strive to mount strong challenges in all districts. There is little point, today, for a Republican to run in a Detroit district or a Democrat to run in Ottawa County. They are sacrificial lambs. If, however, the two leading vote-getters get seated, Republicans shrewdly would contest Detroit districts (and Democrats, Ottawa County seats) because even a small percentage of the vote would give the loser some clout in Lansing.
With two legislators of different parties, residents in each district get two constituent services representatives. They can test which delivers faster and better responses, competition being a driving force behind improving products and services. Two-member districts would enhance bipartisanship on the legislative floor. The Democratic and Republican representatives of the same district likely would join forces to bring home more state aid to their constituents.
With the current winner-take-all system, those voters backing a loser have little or no sway over policy. If you are a Democratic voter and your candidate for the state legislature gets 49 percent, you are stuck with a Republican legislator. You and other voters who voted for a second-place candidate — no matter how close your candidate came to winning — are not apt to have your voice heard in Lansing. Republicans in Detroit and Democrats in Ottawa County deserve representation. In the two-member plan, if your candidate held 49 percent of one vote on the legislature’s floor, you would have clout — in fact, almost as much power as your fellow citizens who voted for the winner.
Perhaps the greatest advantage of this scheme, hatched 20 years ago with the late Bernard Apol (longtime state elections director) and Zolton Ferency (state Democratic chair and gubernatorial candidate), would be to negate the bad properties of districting and gerrymandering. Who cares how district lines are drawn when two winners, rather than one winner taking all, are seated and receive a legislative vote equal to popular support? I defy anyone arithmetically inclined to draw boundaries favoring one party over the other under the two-member, proportionate-share scheme. No matter how you slice and dice district boundaries, if Democratic candidates win 52 percent of the total vote for all legislative seats, they will receive 52 percent of the floor’s votes in the legislature. The current system not only offers no such guarantee but frequently defies it.
The two-member scheme poses questions. Should and how will we count proportionate shares in committee meetings? Would not the majority party in a district try to place two candidates in a general election, one camouflaging as a member of the minority party?
A hundred years before the invention of football and basketball, molders of American representative democracy embraced the view that if someone wins, somebody has to lose and only one candidate gets seated and is given a voice in policy setting. It quenches the gladiatorial thirst. It does little to make policy-making temperate, collegial, and truly representational.
Next month: A Parliamentary System.
Craig Ruff is, among many things, a senior policy fellow and former president of Lansing-based Public Sector Consultants.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Beverly // Sep 18, 2009 at 9:21 am
Let’s try FEWER people in these positions. That means arguments will be fewer and the costs will be less!!! Like maybe the number of representatives (reps & senators) should equal number of counties in the state. One county equals one vote. Then maybe Lansing might get something done in a timely fashion.
2 Gloria // Sep 18, 2009 at 1:17 pm
We have far too many districts where the election is decided in the primary. Too many legislators are from “safe” districts and perhaps this adds to the toxic levels of partisanship. I have loved this idea since I first heard Zolton Ferency explain it and we have even more reason for this change today than we did 20 years ago.
3 Disapointed reader // Sep 21, 2009 at 8:49 am
I’m rather disappointed by Mr. Ruff’s proposal. When this proposal was teased a couple months ago, I thought he would be proposing some akin to what Maryland and other states have: multi-member legislative districts. Each member has one vote in the respective chamber they were elected to (anything less would probably be ruled unconstitutional). This could be done in Michigan by consolidating everything down to 38 legislative districts. I personally would also support a British or Canadian-style system of geographic-named constituencies. Our system of numbered districts is confusing, and few constituents know what district they live in. I do think a proportional system, as done in European countries would be very interest. Perhaps 85 of the current seats would remain constituencies with first-past-the-post systems, while the remaining 15 percent of seats would be allocated to the political parties based on the proportion of votes received; thus creating at-large members of Legislature (note that I didn’t use member of the Legislature, as it’s members of Parliament or members of Congress).
4 You're kidding me!! // Sep 22, 2009 at 9:59 am
Just what we need more politicians in Lansing!!! And a perfect formula for total gridlock. It figures that Zolton Ferency would come up with this idea. Why do we even need both the State Senate and the House?? I haven’t noticed Michigan entering into any treaties or them confirming any judges lately. Why do we need both? Save the money!
5 Craig Ruff // Sep 23, 2009 at 6:56 pm
1. Beverly: Good points, but the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that state legislative bodies must be apportioned not on jurisdictional boundaries, such as counties, but on population. If you’re looking for fewer state legislators, you could have a one-chamber legislature (see my last essay) of 35 seats, with two members from each district. That totals 70, as opposed to 148 current state legislators.
2. Gloria: I’m with you!
3. Disappointed Reader: Alas, there is nothing about Maryland’s districting that gives a minority a sway over law making. The same district likely will send members of the same party to the state legislature. Stay tuned, because my next essay argues precisely what you envision: a parliamentary system. And, I applaud you much for getting rid of district numbers and using geographical descriptions to aid us. Bravo for that idea!
4. You’re Kidding Me. You may want to refer back to my last essay, arguing for a single legislative chamber, in part to save gridlock. But, the grounds for my proposing a single legislative chamber, with two members each, is not based on choking off the number of politicians people send to Lansing. Rather, to make your voice (majority or minority) in your district be heard in Lansing.
Thanks all for your very constructive crticism.
6 Jim Brazier // Oct 2, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Proportional representation could be tried yet another way. It could be done by tallying up each party’s votes and dividing by the total votes cast for legislative offices then apportioning the party share of the total to each member elected. This share the same flaw as Ruff’s proposal, the possibility of pushing up the votes for a party by any means possible. An asset of my proposal is that single member election districts could far better survive this modification without successful legal challenges.
7 Question // Oct 10, 2009 at 8:35 am
Has anyone run the stats under the proportional system proposed by Mr Brazier? This sort of system is basically what is used, with some modifications, in non-English-speaking countries. The first-past-the-post or winner takes all system is very much an Anglo tradition. I’m guessing that a proportional system would favor the Democratic Party, though I would be curious to know if it would give them more seats in the House than they currently have. An advantage of this system would be stronger political parties; I’m not a big fan of open systems and voting for the person over the party. I want stronger whip systems.
8 Bobbie Walton // Oct 23, 2009 at 8:15 am
Sorry I’ve come to the party so late.
Proportional representation is certainly the best way to guarantee opportunity for minorities to coalesce and bring more power to the table. Also, instant run-off voting for multi-member districts will present better opportunities for third parties to get some representation.
I lived in Maryland for 24 years and can tell you that multi-member districts do nothing to spread the influence between the parties. Slates of incumbent members, all of the same party, are almost always re-elected.
The idea of sharing a single vote is intriguing and just might work.
I like the ideas you present and want us to seriously debate them and work for change.
9 Dick Olson // Dec 9, 2009 at 10:45 pm
A good place to try this would be at a constitutional convention. Otherwise, a flawed apportionment leads to a flawed convention. That happened in 1963, and Romney’s absurd plan for the state senate was overturned in June 1964 to great tumult because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
Leave a Comment:
Be sure to put in the security words and hit SUBMIT