Editor’s Note: This is the final column in a series of six in which Craig Ruff proposes far-reaching proposals to revamp state government if voters in November 2010 choose to convene a constitutional convention. Find the previous columns at http://domemagazine.com/columnlist/.

Fusion Ballot

by Craig Ruff
December 16, 2009

The song “Wonderful World” does not begin to convey how little I know about biology. Biologists surely make many contributions to our lives. The one and only with which I’m remotely familiar is tackling those vexing questions like what distinguishes me from a rutabaga.

It takes seven or more ever-narrowing categories in biological Latinate to distinguish me from a rutabaga, and a few less a rutabaga from a kohlrabi. At the most specific, my species is sapiens. Higher up the chain, my genus is Homo, family is Hominidae, order is Primata, class is Mammalia, phylum is Chordata, and kingdom is Animalia. Commonalities between the rutabaga and me parted company somewhere above kingdom, where somebody grouped us into animals, minerals, or plants.

Let’s call American politics a kingdom. Roughly 150 years go, the kingdom split into two phyla: Democrats and Republicans. Occasionally, each phylum tried to spin off a class (e.g., prairie populista and AuH2O-ism) but none had traction. No class lasted long enough to spin off orders, let alone families, genera, and species.

2010: Triple Witching Hour
A year from now, one of the most consequential transitions in state government will take place. Every 12 years, legislators and executive leaders are ousted in a full swoop. 2010 is the triple witching hour: the dismantling and reconstitution of power in the state Executive Office, Senate, and House of Representatives.

Term limits will put Michigan into turmoil. It will not be the end of the world, but for sure the end of any semblance of continuity in Lansing. The majority and minority leaders of both legislative chambers, the governor, secretary of state, and attorney general evacuate their posts. Lansing will welcome back only a small handful of experienced state senators and about half of state representatives.

There are roughly 250 people who really count inside state government: elected officials and department directors and their respective lieutenants and staff. In 2010, I surmise that 80-90 percent of them will be displaced. We will retain a highly professional corps of agency personnel and a healthy number of pros who slide into different jobs. Still, the disruption and displacement will be extraordinary.

The two months of November and December hence will test everyone’s mettle. On Wednesday morning, November 3, executive branch winners will have 58 days to move into power (legislators, a few more days). For campaigns that now exceed 365 days, that is breathtaking speed.

We are talking about really big things, like: (a) building an organization around key policy priorities; (b) enlisting the right managerial and policy talent to fill top positions; (c) recruiting people who fundamentally understand the legalities and intricacies of power and in whom the office-takers place trust; and (d) creating with the outgoing and incoming titans a feeling of mutual respect and regard. Sifting through and vetting hundreds of résumés, allocating office space, helping reporters understand changes, and reaching out to lobbyists, trade association leaders, and partisan friends are anything but mundane.

Lansing is blessed to have seasoned veterans to assist in transitions. Richard McLellan, for example, has led an effort, the Next Governor Project, to brace Granholm’s successor against the Herculean task of moving into office. Smart and savvy Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated eunuchs in law, policy, lobbying, past service, and observation posts must be ready to help.

The next governor and incoming legislators (particularly, their leaders) may confront a constitutional convention (whether to convene one a question also on the November ballot). Certainly, they will inherit a truly miserable financial condition of state government. We will have to give license to campaign promises taking a back seat to governance’s reality.

For the first 10 months of 2010, it’s all about who rings voters’ chimes. For the last two months, it’s all about how winners manage the time.

– Craig Ruff

Enter 2010 Prophesy Contest

If your crystal ball can penetrate the murkiness of 2010, be sure to enter Public Sector Consultants’ annual contest to select Michigan Prophet of the Year. In all, 62 questions will test your predictive powers.

Deadline for entry is 5 p.m. Friday, January 8. Find the questions and entry information at Public Sector’s website.

Americans in our political kingdom have big things in common: desire for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In our bifurcated phyla, we can sort of break things down a bit further, but only if we dispense with history.

A Republican in the second half of the 19th century typically stood for equal rights among men. A Democrat typically was not keen on the concept as it applied to Confederate states. A Republican in the second half of the 20th century sort of preferred a tightfisted federal government; a Democrat was slightly biased toward giving Washington, D.C. a bit more sway. U.S. Grant today would probably be a Democrat. Grover Cleveland, probably a Republican. George Bush likely would have been a Democrat and Barack Obama a Republican in those days.

Let’s think of helpful differentiations between the phyla of contemporary politics. Between 1995-2006, Republicans could not dig themselves out of a looming national budget surplus fast enough, coughing up tax cuts and binging on spending. Now, they rail against profligacy. Democrats huffed and puffed over Gitmo, the Iraq and Afghanistan adventures, and the trampling of women’s rights to get abortions. Now, they want to give very reflective thought about changing policies on Gitmo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. And, they attach to a U.S. House health care reform bill a provision that not only denies federal funding for abortions, but quite conceivably private insurance coverage, too.

There are, in general, some differences between Republican and Democratic candidates and officeholders. I doubt, however, that I would assign them to different phyla for any longer than one election cycle.

Because our political system has not evolved does not mean that Americans have not. We hold a much larger rainbow of views on many more topics. We have a dizzying array of choices in vehicles, telephones, and other consumer goods. A great thing about a free market is a plethora of options for very diverse needs and wants. There should be an outlet at elections for people to express something more specific than “I prefer eggshell to beige.”

Imagine a ballot on which you may vote for a candidate under several party lines. You may like a candidate because he or she is identified on the ballot as a Democrat or Republican, our safe, big-tent binary choices. You may like a candidate who is a conservative, liberal, libertarian, or socialist. Personally, you hold a value of right-to-life or pro-choice. You demand that government cuts taxes or increases them to maintain and expand public services. You are willing to sacrifice jobs for a cleaner environment, or you prefer to sacrifice a cleaner environment for more jobs.

Craig runs for the state Senate. Democrats have nominated him. So, too, have the Liberal Party, the Right-to-Life Party, the Environment Protection Party, and the Friends of Transportation Party. You may cast a vote for him under any party line, and come election evening, the clerk totals every vote for Craig under every party. Craig loses to Sally because she has gathered more votes combined cast for her on Independent, Republican, Economic Growth, Pro Choice, and Champions of Less Regulation partisan lines.

This is called fusion. More than one political party may nominate and endorse the same candidate as other parties. In the end, their votes for Craig and Sally are combined.

What is the advantage of a fusion ballot? Voters get to express a more customized opinion, but do not have to throw away their votes on a candidate who cannot win. A voter may be voting for Craig because he opposes abortions. Another may vote for him because he is a staunch environmentalist. Yet another may prefer him because he pledges to put more funding into transportation. Many people will vote for Craig because he carries the brand of Democrat. The voter gets the right to express a specialized or brand name opinion of Craig, but is not forced to waste a vote on a candidate who has no chance in hell of being elected. When the final tally is in, Craig or Sally goes to the state legislature more bound to specific values than general pabulum.

If you are a Republican candidate in what otherwise is a pretty safely Democratic district, you might work hard to peel off some Democratic voters by being pro-choice, pro-environment, and/or pro-transportation funding. Similarly, a Democrat running in a safely Republican district may win the backing of Right-to-Lifers, economic free marketers, and smaller government types. Fusion ballots encourage candidates to niche market, while also being part of a big tent.

Michigan law has never permitted a candidate to win based on the aggregate vote received under more than one party line. Bereft of a competitive Democratic Party, Democratic-leaning and other voters elected a fusionist as governor in 1882. That party represented agrarian populism and soft currency. A fusionist also made good showings in the 1884, 1886, and 1888 gubernatorial elections. After the 1888 election, Democrats felt self-confident enough to reenter the two-party sweepstakes. They won the governorship in 1890, but not again until 1912.

Michigan’s experiment with fusionism is vastly different from a truly fusionist system like New York. In the Empire State, a candidate may be the nominee of multiple parties and receive as an election count the total number of votes that he or she gets on all the parties’ lines.

A recent example comes from Long Island’s Nassau County. In a race for county executive, the Democrat won 107,777 votes as a Democrat. The Republican won 112,340 votes as a Republican. The Democrat also won 10,334 votes from minor parties; the Republican, 5,534. The Democrat holds a razor-thin lead of 118,111 to 117,874, with thousands of absentee ballots yet to be counted. A Conservative Party candidate won 9,552 votes. Clearly, had the local Conservative Party leaders felt comfortable in nominating the Republican, the GOP candidate would have won pretty handily. They didn’t. He didn’t.

John Lindsay won reelection as New York City mayor in 1969. He had been elected mayor in 1965 as the nominee of the Republican and Liberal parties. In 1969, he lost the GOP primary for mayor, but managed to win reelection as a Liberal. A year later, James Buckley ran for the U.S. Senate in New York State under the Conservative Party banner. He beat the liberal Republican incumbent and a liberal Democrat challenger. For three years, neither the mayor of New York City nor one of the state’s U.S. senators held office as a Republican or Democrat.

Endearing to me about New York’s fusionist scheme is that major parties’ candidates may move to a mucky center and risk losing ideological zealots in their party or move to the center, hold onto partisans, and gain precious votes from people who are not adherents to either major party. In whatever case, fusionism produces a far cleaner and clearer verdict on voters’ values.

The best feature of true fusionism is choice. I am a sucker for it. I dissuade anyone throwing away an impact on a political race because of some narrow and puritanical idealism. Neither do I try to persuade a true conservative to vote for a Democrat who will vote liberal on every roll call just because the voter clings to some inherited adherence to the Democratic Party. Or vice versa.

Americans have evolved and so, too, should our electoral systems. We can have our cake and eat it, too. Voters can cling to broad-based brand names (the phyla of Republican or Democrat) and we can express more nuanced views — classes.

Craig Ruff is, among many things, a senior policy fellow and former president of Lansing-based Public Sector Consultants.