Politics & Policy FOR SURAYA ONLY
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Lessons>Week 7>Week 7 Readings and Notes
Voting in America
What I am about to describe is not only anomalous, but also one of the most troublesome aspects of our representative republic -- an outcome with a negative
unintended consequence of a policy. And, we have been unable to recover from it for nearly 100 years. It stems directly from our last conversation. The underlying issue
comes to core of the rationale for our republic, as you have read in the words of James Madison. If liberty is the centerpiece of the Constitution, voting is its
quintessential expression. Voting is to politics as money is to the economy. Voting elects people who express how scarce values are to be allocated.
The history of exclusion is well known; blacks could not legally participate until 1870 (XVth amendment) and women until 1920 (XIXth amendment) -- to say nothing of
insidious practices thereafter. Yet, in every presidential election between 1860 and 1900, at least 70 percent of the eligible voters went to the polls. In 1860 to 1876
over 80 percent voted. In the non-southern states, over 84 percent of the eligible population participated in presidential elections between 1884 to 1900, but only 68
percent between 1936 to 1960 and around 50 percent since then. (Nor did lowering the voting age to 18 in 1971 with the XXVI Amendment have any effect; only about
one-third of people between 18 to 21 vote.) Moreover, what can explain the rapid drop in voter participation between 1896, with its nearly 80 percent to 1916 when it
dropped to 60 percent -- during the very period when the nation experienced its most rapid growth in population through immigration? During that 20-year period,
over 20 million immigrants came to these shores.
Correspondingly, adding 10 percent more voters in 1870 when blacks were
enfranchised and the equivalent to doubling the eligible population in 1920 when women were enfranchised, yet, voting participation still has declined precipitously.
Indeed, in 1920 and 1924 voting did not even reach 50 percent.
Let us explain why. Here comes the anomaly, though some think the situation is tantamount to a tyranny of the minority. As noted above, from 1890 or so, the great
wave of European immigration redefined the fabric of American cities. Those millions of people entered the U.S.A. primarily from eastern and southern Europe to work in
its factories. About the same time the Progressive movement emerged -- bringing
more regulatory powers into federal hands to protect consumers and workers. Many of the supporters of this movement came from the same middle and upper middle
class eastern homes that formed the Abolitionist movement to end slavery from the 1840s onward. Their allies included some of the leading journalists of the time.
They reached the zenith of their public influence in 1912, when, they bolted the Republican Party and managed to run Theodore Roosevelt for president as the
Progressive Party candidate. He lost to Woodrow Wilson, though he won 27 percent of the vote, the largest ever for a third-party.
The two states where progressives won greatest reform victories were in California and Wisconsin. Under Governor Hiram Johnson of California between 1910-1911
(who was TR's running mate in 1912), Progressives contributed greatly to instituting more power to the voters by getting approval for the initiative and referendum,
respectively, where citizens could initiate and vote directly on propositions, thereby bypassing the legislature. They were also instrumental in changing voting practices,
especially in getting the direct primary passed that is of great interest to us more recently.
The direct primary takes the power to nominate candidates, particularly the
presidency, away from party bosses who were well entrenched at that time. Tammany Hall of New York City comes to mind. The direct primary shifted
nominations away from bosses and into the hands of the voters, usually those
registered in one of the parties. You might say, hey, that sounds great! Isn't that what a representative republic is all about anyway? Yes and No, because it depends
on who you include as “the people.” Not only were progressives appalled at factory working conditions where immigrants worked, they were also alarmed at the people
who worked in them. They did not speak English and they looked different in many ways.
While the Progressives helped these people by improving regulations over child labor
and working hours, they believed it unimaginable that these folks might also have the same right to vote as they did. Surely, over time and with the proper
socialization towards American ways these immigrants might become better
prepared to enjoy participating as citizens. (The progressives were not mean spirited, on the surface, but they were trying to hold on a world they were rapidly
losing.) Along with the direct primary, they lobbied in various states for greater restrictions on voting, including written literacy tests as a part of required voter
registration. Obviously, immigrants would be excluded.
Effectively, the direct primary coupled with voter party registration and literacy testing curbed the newly eligible from voting. The immediate impact was to lower
the percentage of eligible population from voting. In 1896, 77 percent of the eligible voters participated, by 1904 voting fell to 65 percent, by 1916 to 62 percent and in
1920 and 1924 (the year women--including immigrant citizens--could first vote),
voting fell to 46 and 47 percent respectively. Progressives may have been vindicated by all those years of fighting the good cause(s), as the power of political bosses
diminished somewhat, but the lasting legacy has been a disinclination of immigrant working classes to vote. Indeed, their legacy is also visible in those two lowest
participation election years—as clearly reflected in legislation whose passage Progressives heavily influenced. Those years witnessed public agitation to limit
further immigration as captured in two far-reaching pieces of legislation.
By 1940, voter participation rose to 58 percent, especially in response to FDR's handling of the Depression, and by 1960, it rose to 63 percent, the year a Roman
Catholic, John Kennedy, was elected. Voter participation has averaged 55% ever
since 1960, including the years after the passage of the first Civil Rights Act in 1965.
The percentage translates into almost 100 million voters staying home on national election days--and more during off-year elections! It may be harsh, but the legacy of
Progressives lingers on and the nation has never recovered from it. In addition, the direct primary has led to creating at least two structures within each party -- the
national or presidential party comes into being every four years; in off-year elections state or local parties generally operate to elect candidates from Congress on down.
It is now evident that there is also a separation of the parties between congressional candidates and state and local candidates as well.
Surely, many other reasons explain low voter turnout. But, as you will see, the
effects of non-voting have now become the cause of the peculiar kind of politics that is both compounding and confounding various types of disaffection with the political
system we are experiencing. In other words, if parties have become weak and if
candidates of opposing parties sometimes mimic each other and make promises that cannot be kept, taken together, they cause low voter participation that, in turn,
confirms the disaffections.
Let's get some perspective on these matters. If 80 percent of eligible people voted, we would have a very different kind of politics. That's the turnout in Australia,
Belgium, New Zealand, Italy, Austria, Venezuela, Turkey, Sweden, Portugal, Germany, Iceland, Luxembourg, Denmark. Voter turnout in The Netherlands, France,
Norway, Sweden Israel, Greece, Spain, and England is 79 percent. The only country of at least quasi-industrial status with less than the U.S.A. is Columbia with 48
percent.) With 80 percent voting, in all likelihood, we would have three parties that
reflect the three divisions nationwide: conservative, moderate and liberal.
As my colleague here at Marist argues; only 5 percent of the eligible voters elect a president. How is this possible? As we said, only 50 percent of the eligible voters
participate in elections, and say 80 percent of them vote their parties that leave 20 percent who are independent, so a candidate must get 10 percent of this vote. This
percent translates into 5 percent of the eligible voters.
Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances
In some ways, the legacy of divided government can be traced to the Framers and their forming a procedural democracy. They certainly wanted dispersed units of
government, as well as a divided or separated governance system. They were quite clear about actually building roadblocks to obstruct smooth governance. They were
equally deliberate in establishing distinct power centers of government as much as they were in creating checks and balances among the three branches of government.
Madison’s 1788 Federalist Number 25:
“To what expedient than shall we finally resort for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the
constitution? The only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so
contriving the interior structure of the government, as that is several constituent
parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.
In order to lay a due foundation for that separate and distinct exercise of the
different powers of government, which to a certain extent, is admitted on all hands to be essential to the preservation of liberty, it is evident that each
department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted, that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in
the appointment of the members of the others.
It is equally evident that the members of each department [branches] should be
as little dependent as possible on those of the others, for the emoluments annexed to their offices. Were the executive magistrate, or the judges, not
independent of the legislature in this particular, their independence in every other would be merely nominal.”
But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the
same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist
encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all
other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counterattack ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with
the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what
is government itself but the greatest reflection of all reflections of human nature? A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government;
but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.
This policy of supplying by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives, might be traced through the whole system of human affairs, private as
well as public. We see it particularly displayed in all the subordinates distributions
of power; where the constant aim is to divide and arrange the several offices in such a manner as that each may be a check on the other. . .
But it is not possible to give to each department an equal power of self defense.
In republic government the legislative authority, necessarily, predominates. The remedy for this inconveniency, is to divide the legislature into different branches;
and to rend them by different modes of election, and different principles of action, as little connected with each other, as the nature of their common functions, and
their common dependence on the society, will admit. [He then goes on to discuss "fortifying" the executive by giving it veto powers, which require two-thirds of
both houses to override. Madison now presents two considerations particularly
applicable to the federal system of the USA that gives that system a very interesting perspective.]
First, in a singular republic, all the power surrendered by the people, is submitted
to the administration of a single government; and usurpations are guarded
against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people, is first
divided between two distinct federal and state governments, and then the portions allotted to each, is subdivided among distinct powers of each
government. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the people. The different governments will control each other; at the same time that each will be
controlled by itself.
Second. It is of great importance in a republic, not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers; but also to guard one part of the society
against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the
rights of the minority will be insecure. There are but two methods of providing
against this evil. The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States. While all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on
the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals or of the minority, will be in little
danger from interested combinations of the majority. In a free government, the security for civil rights must be the same as for religious rights. It consists in the
one case of the multiplicity of interests, and in the other, in the multiplicity of sects. . . .”
There should be no doubt that Madison would be horrified to see how things turned
out. On the last point, indeed, that certain religious sects have worked hard, as did
the Protestant Progressives, to create more exclusive voter participation might not have shocked him, for he certainly believed that outcome was possible. Although he
thought the multiplicity of sects would prevent any kind of dominance. In our time, religious sects continue to play an important role, as they have been responsible for
supporting more conservative stands within the Republican Party. That wouldn’t trouble him. The framers were ardent about expressions of liberty.
What would have bothered him most was the emergence and critical importance
played by Independents. Indeed, in both of his articles you read he is quite optimistic that in the normal course of society people would organize into, and then
vote, their interests. He believed this factor would give both governance and politics
their stability. That is, interests don't change suddenly. Even in our time, yesterday's leading interests don't suddenly disappear. They may fade away and gradually be
replaced by new ones. Farming once represented nearly all of the economy, but now comprises less than 5 percent of it. This gradual evolution would give governing
bodies time to reflect and debate concerns that would lead to balancing those interests within the confines of republican representation. The exact opposite
happened.
The main difficulty is twofold. One is that since 1960 presidential candidates are principally chosen by primaries, usually direct ones. Thus, by the time the
nominating convention rolls around, the candidates are largely known, as rivals have
already squared off in states over primaries for over a full year. The problem is that
generally one must be a party member to vote in them. Although it appears democratic, the candidates are forced to tailor issues of interest on a state-by-state
basis that usually does not lead to a cohesive whole.
The other issue is that independents may exhibit sentiments and desires that lead them to one party or another yet don't want to join a party. A majority of self-
declared independents have voted for the winning candidate, though about 20 to 25 percent of them vote for non-major party candidates. This phenomenon even makes
figuring out how that majority will vote even more important to the major parties. During elections, both parties, through constant poll-taking, must become capable of
appealing to that majority band of independents who are less likely to be significantly different from their own supporters. It is not an easy business because
that majority shifts over time, as recent presidential elections suggest.
Social Equity in the 21st Century
Diversity, Michaels argues, is a second-order issue that distracts policymakers and
public administrators from the central issue – Inequality. In the case of economics, diversity treats its differences along the lines of race and gender differences, thus
shifting the problem from economic differences to ones of racial or gender prejudice.
However, as argued in the chapter, race and ethnicity put the face on poverty and give economic inequalities and identity. Frederickson, suggest that the battle is to
influence policy and policy implementation to move in the direction of both diversity and equality.