Progressive Strategy Blog 7/6/2007

From the Progressive Strategy Blog:

Mark Schmitt on How People Can Organize and Aggregate Power

Yesterday, Mark Schmitt commented at TPMCafe on two other posts, one by Nathan Newman on campaign finance reform, and another by Dan Cantor of the Working Families Party on fusion voting (The Working Families Party is also included in our report on contributions to progressive strategy, "Finding Strategy").

He is not just agreeing with both of them, but uses his commentary to argue that they represent an important and new way of

thinking about the political process, and steps toward reform, that puts people back in -- people, and the possibilities of organized power.

His emphasis on how to enhance the capacity of people to organize and aggregate power is very relevant for our project. The question of how to aggregate power is of particular interest for our project, because most strategies rarely address it. How can progressives accumulate power over time?

I have included the below excerpts to illustrate his approach, and have annotated them from the perspective of our project:

Money, organization, collective debate and action is not bad for democracy but precisely what makes it work:

It's the fundamental hostility to politics that reformers of democracy are prone to. They tend to hold an implicit view of democracy as a process of isolated rational decision-making that must be shielded from bad influences -- money, organized groups, passion.

But those are the very things that make democracy work: participation, and the ability of people to exercise power collectively, to debate and act together. If you see the question in those terms, then things that enhance people's ability to organize and aggregate their power -- whether it is the Wisconsin Right to Life committee or ACORN or a union or the Sierra Club or a political party or moveon.org -- become the solution, not the problem.

Schmitt hopes that progressives will manage to build broader coalitions to move beyond "single-issue politics." But he cautions that such coalitions are fragile, whereas a party is "the ultimate coalition," with the ballot line being a key asset. Fusion voting appears to be an effective way of using that asset:

There will be issue groups, of course, on the right and left, trying desperately to use money and/or membership to be heard, and sometimes being effective. And there will be attempts at broader coalitions, like moveon.org and USAction, and I think (hope) the trend is toward broader progressive coalitions and away from single-issue politics. That's long overdue. But such coalitions, especially at the state level, are fragile, they demand continued energy and there are always as many forces pulling people away as pulling them together. But over time it becomes apparent that the ultimate coalition is a political party. A party is not a letterhead alliance; it's a substantive ongoing operation with a significant asset: a line on the ballot. With fusion, it can share that line or use it for its own purposes. The party can exist both within and outside of the other major parties, as the Working Families Party does in New York. It is a way of organizing people's political passion and power that, for a change, does not depend completely on money.

At the end, he makes a very important suggestion:

The first thing we should ask about any reform is, does it help or hurt the ability of citizens to organize themselves in a political context?

So the challenge for progressive strategy is to generate reforms that not only achieve their substantive goals, but do so in a way that enhances peoples' collective capacity for political organization. Strategy in this sense is as much about process as it is about objectives. This indeed appears to be crucial when it comes to aggregating power in the long run.

TPM Cafe 7/5/2007

From TPM Cafe:

Political Reform with People In It

By Mark Schmitt | bio

There's a common theme to Nathan Newman's post, "Campaign Finance Reform is Dead; Long Live Clean Money," and Dan Cantor's welcome visit to the "Table for One" to talk about fusion voting and the Working Families Party in New York, and it's not just that I agree with both of them.

Rather, both are pointing toward a new way of thinking about the political process, and steps toward reform, that puts people back in -- people, and the possibilities of organized power.

There's a reason that purely limit-based campaign finance reform will inevitably run into a dead end, as it did in the Supreme Court last week when the Court effectively (and quite predictably) overturned the McCain-Feingold regulation on broadcast ads that mention a candidate for office in the weeks before the election. It's that reformers view the problem as money, particularly "big money," and set out to protect elections (but only elections) from this corrupting force. But in trying to shut out money, they have to go chasing after one loophole after another, and after a while, everything starts to look like a loophole. Yes, an anti-abortion group in Wisconsin running ads calling on Senator Feingold not to oppose Bush's judicial appointments might be -- and in part is -- sending a message to vote against Feingold. But it is also doing what it claims to be doing, which is an expression by an organized group of citizens of a view on an issue -- which is fundamentally protected expression. And that expression can't be neatly separated from elections. If the goal of reform is defined as chasing down big money wherever it is to be found, it will inevitably end up chasing money down rabbit holes where regulation doesn't fit -- and shouldn't. It's a stale, limited, airless way of looking at the problem that doesn't have any room for the complexity and flux of real politics.

(It is telling that reformers denounce the WRTL decision on the grounds that it would put "corporate" money back into politics. Which it would. But what is the "corporation" involved here? It's not Wal-Mart or Halliburton; it's the Wisconsin Right to Life organization itself, an incorporated entity. As are most political or social organizations. Yes, money from for-profit corporations could flow through these organizations, and organizations could be created that are shells. But the WRTL case shows that from fighting "corporate" or organized money, it is very hard to avoid fighting political organization itself.)

This is not just the logical fallacy of limits-based campaign finance reform. It's the fundamental hostility to politics that reformers of democracy are prone to. They tend to hold an implicit view of democracy as a process of isolated rational decision-making that must be shielded from bad influences -- money, organized groups, passion.

But those are the very things that make democracy work: participation, and the ability of people to exercise power collectively, to debate and act together. If you see the question in those terms, then things that enhance people's ability to organize and aggregate their power -- whether it is the Wisconsin Right to Life committee or ACORN or a union or the Sierra Club or a political party or moveon.org -- become the solution, not the problem. As Nathan points out, voluntary full public financing -- which has never yet lost a constitutional challenge and grows more popular by the election in Maine and Arizona -- is one way to enhance speech. These systems require some way to prevent the limited public funds from being overwhelmed by outside money, so they often provide extra funds to candidates who face attacks such as the Wisconsin Right to Life committee's. These provisions might be constitutionally vulnerable on the same basis as the BCRA law, but they are very different and so far they have not been overruled. But systems that use public funds to match small contributions -- small donor democracy -- are a little more flexible and probably have less need for disincentives to outside money, because candidates are not asked to accept a strictly limited and relatively low level of spending. These systems are not just second-best to McCain-Feingold-type limits-based reforms, they are morally and practically superior -- because they retain a greater role for human passion, intensity, and organization -- and we should be grateful to the Court for drawing a line under limits-based reform and quickening the arrival of a new era in which reforms seek to expand the ability for candidates to run and new voices to be heard, rather than restrict it.

Similarly. fusion voting is a modest question on its face: Can a political party sometimes endorse candidates from another party and sometimes run its own candidates, or must it always run its own candidates exclusively? Most people would say, "why not?" to the first part, which is why fusion has some hope of attracting broad support and as a neutral rule, it doesn't obviously advantage any faction. But it has major implications. Without fusion, the only political organizations that can have the clout that comes with a line on the ballot are the broad and clunky coalitions that are the two major parties, or third parties that will usually be symbolic and transient. There will be issue groups, of course, on the right and left, trying desperately to use money and/or membership to be heard, and sometimes being effective. And there will be attempts at broader coalitions, like moveon.org and USAction, and I think (hope) the trend is toward broader progressive coalitions and away from single-issue politics. That's long overdue. But such coalitions, especially at the state level, are fragile, they demand continued energy and there are always as many forces pulling people away as pulling them together. But over time it becomes apparent that the ultimate coalition is a political party. A party is not a letterhead alliance; it's a substantive ongoing operation with a significant asset: a line on the ballot. With fusion, it can share that line or use it for its own purposes. The party can exist both within and outside of the other major parties, as the Working Families Party does in New York. It is a way of organizing people's political passion and power that, for a change, does not depend completely on money.

The first thing we should ask about any reform is, does it help or hurt the ability of citizens to organize themselves in a political context? Limits-based campaign finance reform fails that test. But public financing, especially open-ended matching systems, pass the test, and so does fusion.

An Ordinary Person and Politics in America 7/4/2007

From An Ordinary Person and Politics in America:

Fusion Voting

From the TPM Cafe, Dan Cantor of New York's Working Families Party explains what Fusion Voting is and how it can benefit third parties.

We have run 3,000-plus candidates on our line since our founding in 1998, and have a solid field and local chapter operation in most parts of the state. But none of it would be possible without the “rules of the game” that make for a more hospitable environment for third parties.

Here is a response from the blog A New America.

If I read this right, this method sounds like a demographic tool to inform the winning candidate which supporters voted under which platform of importance. This is all fine and good, but the cynical part of my brain is asking how this would affect anything.

Here is an old blog post from MyDD

One system I've always been a huge fan of is New York's fusion voting. For those of you unfamiliar, candidates in the state can run on multiple party lines. The state's Conservative and Working Families Parties typically endorse the Republican and Democratic candidates, respectively, but have also been known to shake up elections by endorsing their own candidate.

Here's an interesting discussion on Fusion Voting from the Working Families Party blog:

I don’t mean to be a bore, but third parties without fusion (remember – it was once legal in EVERY state) are just writing themselves out of politics. Run in a close election, and you spoil. Run in a safe Dem district, and you might as well run in the Democratic primary instead.

Liberal Arts Dude sez:

Fusion Voting has intrigued me since I read the book Spoiling for a Fight by Micah Sifry. The book gives significant attention to the Working Families Party and how the party has made successful use of the strategy of Fusion Voting in New York State.

I'd like to learn more, especially if there are any efforts to bring Fusion Voting to other states. Anyone out there have any suggestions on good sources of info?

Hankster 7/3/2007

From Hankster:

TODAY'S NEWS HEADLINES for INDEPENDENT VOTERS

• New York Working Families Party executive director Dan Cantor talks about fusion voting and why it's a good thing.
• Independent Voters Revealed as Anti-War Extremists (Talking Stick Rules blog)
• Poll: Who Are the Independents? Study of Politically Unaffiliated Bodes Poorly for GOP (TRANSCRIPT - Washington Post)
• Disconnect Between Candidates And Voters (Internet Financial News)

Shakesville 7/2/2007

From Shakesville:

Back To The Old Drawing Board..

If the last few elections have taught me anything, it’s that we still need to revisit how we handle elections in this country. Voting fraud aside (save that for another post), I have never been convinced that our monolithic two-party system serves us best. How many times have friends or family members spoken about “choosing the lesser of two evils,” or “choosing either is the same as choosing both?” Regardless of majority or minority, neither party ever has anything to lose because they are always represented on the Hill, in one branch or another. As wacky as he might have been, I remember when Ross Perot really shook things up when he dove into the race. I rather liked the idea of shaking up the establishment, because the perception of power loss really whips these people into shape. Our ace in the hole, as it were.

But, how do we buck the system without feeling like we’re throwing away votes that would otherwise ensure an assclown doesn’t get elected?

Dan Cantor, the executive director of the Working Families Party, blogged today at TPMCafe about his ideas on fusion voting:

What is fusion? Also known as open ballot voting or cross-endorsement, fusion allows a candidate to run for office as the standard-bearer of more than one party. Suppose the WFP decides to cross-endorse the Democrat. That candidate will show up twice on the ballot, and voters will get to choose to support him or her on the party line of their choice. The votes will get counted separately but then added together to determine the final outcome of the race.

[…]

So why does it matter? Scott Shields put it well in a MyDD post:

Well, by supporting Eliot Spitzer as a Working Families Party candidate rather than as a Democrat…voters send the message that the issues Working Families champions – universal healthcare, a living wage, strong labor protection – are very important to a significant segment of their base. It also gives independent voters an excuse to vote for major party candidates that they might not otherwise vote for.

If I read this right, this method sounds like a demographic tool to inform the winning candidate which supporters voted under which platform of importance. This is all fine and good, but the cynical part of my brain is asking how this would affect anything. Even if a candidate wins by overwhelming endorsement from WFP voters, why would that fact provide any impetus for the candidate to address WFP’s issues with a higher priority over the candidate’s own party? I’m not seeing how the end result is different than what we already have.

What other election/voting ideas have you come across?