Hi Abigail, thanks for your addition. Yes, there is a long list of places where Democrats -- either individual leaders, bureaucrats or the party itself -- has fought political reform. In Santa Fe NM, for years the Democratic Sec of State fought implementation of RCV, then a new SoS was pro-RCV which helped a lot, but the Democratic city clerk in Santa Fe put up one barrier after another. Finally in 2018 we had to sue the city of Santa Fe, and a judge forced its compliance with the law, and Santa Fe has used RCV ever since. Even in San Francisco, the first city to use RCV, we had to sue the city to force compliance with the law. If I had more time, I would generate a list of all the places that Democrats have fought political reform, not just RCV but public financing, AVR, and more. Please share my article with your colleagues, since maybe by calling out this hypocritical behavior by Democrats, in which their actions do not match their rhetoric, we can pressure Democrats to support political reform.
I think that Democrats are not interested in implementing left wing economic policy. Are they not there mainly to talk about it, and perhaps to moderate Republican excesses? Both parties are surely guided by the same donor groups, and both parties support policy that would be extreme right in any other country. So the Democrat powers that be are not motivated to change much.
RCV is just an example of this. Instead of promoting party-proportional reprsentation, Democrats advocate for RCV, which does not change much and certainly does not challenge the two-party system
Actually, in my 30 years of experience advocating for electoral system change, including both PR and RCV, Democratic leaders and elected officials generally do not really support RCV. Otherwise we would have seen RCV used in far more locations, especially cities which are dominated by Democrats, than we see right now. As my article says, there have certainly been some individual Democratic legislators and leaders who have embraced RCV and advocated for it. But those are the exceptions. In truth, neither political party has embraced political reform of any type, though individual Democrats have been more supportive than Republicans in general. That's why enacting political reform of any type is always an uphill battle.
Also, I do not agree that RCV “does not change much.” Just look at the results in New York City, where there is a “woman of color” majority city council, and 31 out of 51 seats (61%) are held by women. Before RCV, woman of color had never won more than a handful of seats. Here is an article about that, in case you are interested
Also Illinois, where the Democratic county clerk’s office has refused to implement RCV in Evanston despite a referendum passed by voters with >80%
Hi Abigail, thanks for your addition. Yes, there is a long list of places where Democrats -- either individual leaders, bureaucrats or the party itself -- has fought political reform. In Santa Fe NM, for years the Democratic Sec of State fought implementation of RCV, then a new SoS was pro-RCV which helped a lot, but the Democratic city clerk in Santa Fe put up one barrier after another. Finally in 2018 we had to sue the city of Santa Fe, and a judge forced its compliance with the law, and Santa Fe has used RCV ever since. Even in San Francisco, the first city to use RCV, we had to sue the city to force compliance with the law. If I had more time, I would generate a list of all the places that Democrats have fought political reform, not just RCV but public financing, AVR, and more. Please share my article with your colleagues, since maybe by calling out this hypocritical behavior by Democrats, in which their actions do not match their rhetoric, we can pressure Democrats to support political reform.
I think that Democrats are not interested in implementing left wing economic policy. Are they not there mainly to talk about it, and perhaps to moderate Republican excesses? Both parties are surely guided by the same donor groups, and both parties support policy that would be extreme right in any other country. So the Democrat powers that be are not motivated to change much.
RCV is just an example of this. Instead of promoting party-proportional reprsentation, Democrats advocate for RCV, which does not change much and certainly does not challenge the two-party system
Actually, in my 30 years of experience advocating for electoral system change, including both PR and RCV, Democratic leaders and elected officials generally do not really support RCV. Otherwise we would have seen RCV used in far more locations, especially cities which are dominated by Democrats, than we see right now. As my article says, there have certainly been some individual Democratic legislators and leaders who have embraced RCV and advocated for it. But those are the exceptions. In truth, neither political party has embraced political reform of any type, though individual Democrats have been more supportive than Republicans in general. That's why enacting political reform of any type is always an uphill battle.
Also, I do not agree that RCV “does not change much.” Just look at the results in New York City, where there is a “woman of color” majority city council, and 31 out of 51 seats (61%) are held by women. Before RCV, woman of color had never won more than a handful of seats. Here is an article about that, in case you are interested
https://democracysos.substack.com/p/nyc-makes-history-with-a-majority-60a
I could point to other places that have seen similar results: San Francisco, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Salt Lake City and more.