"I think a lot of people on both sides of the fence have a sneaking suspicion that democracy is kind of falling apart," Susan, a Cleveland voter, said in The New York Times last year. Indeed, I fear the veil has long been pulled on the Oz that is American Democracy.
Far from the leading model that once struck awe in states spanning the globe, igniting hope in people long crushed by tyranny and instilling trepidation in despots grappling with a newfound tenuity on their claim to power, the 2000 U.S. elections were infamously deemed a failure by international observers. Even Mexico's elections that year were judged cleaner.
As front-row spectators to the epicenter of this nation's fraught political institutions, and residents of a capital notoriously denied congressional representation, AU students are all too familiar with the sickbed in which our republic finds itself today. Here are two prescriptions for a resuscitation:
First, we need to address the issue of campaign finance. Traditional federal reform has focused on placing a ceiling on contributions, a practice that has raised first amendment concerns and, critics contend, been a whack-a-mole strategy, redirecting money from the party to less accountable special interests. A bipartisan commission led by four ex-senators recently offered a more viable reform package that would move to a publicly financed system. Candidates who meet various standards would be awarded the funds necessary to run a competitive campaign. Former Senator Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., became a supporter after reflecting on how much time he spent fundraising when he should have been legislating or meeting with regular constituents instead of the fat-cat elite.
The price tag for such a system is pegged at $6 per person, easily worth the value of our democracy. Supporters contend it will even pay for itself by reducing the massive pork spent wooing wealthy interests for campaign cash. In addition, we should follow the model of many other nations in requiring mandatory or subsidized commercial time (television stations are already making a killing in ad revenue every election cycle). Our first priority should always be about making elections turn on the informed desires of voters offered a fair choice.
Second, our doleful presidential primary system cries out for reform. The Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by Jimmy Carter and James Baker III - and organized by AU's own Center for Democracy and Election Management - warns that "the presidential primary system is organized in a way that encourages candidates to start their campaigns too early, spend too much money, and allow as few as eight percent of the voters to choose the nominees."
The Commission's suggestion for a thorough overhaul consists of allowing Iowa and New Hampshire to retain their first in the nation caucus and primary, followed by four regional primaries a month apart (with the order rotating every election cycle). This would represent a major improvement over the status quo, but I would take it a step further. Iowa and New Hampshire's frivolous claims to lead each cycle are almost offensive in their vainglorious fits of privilege. The opportunity to reap the economic benefits and political prestige, not to mention the power of nominating a candidate for mightiest person in the world, should also be rotated, ensuring more geographic, demographic, and ideological diversity.
This is obviously a truncated recipe for reform. A truly thriving democracy would reign in lobbying largess and corruption, and include a foreign policy that truly respected the right of self-determination abroad. But then again, this is not a proposal to make our democracy thrive again: It's a desperate bid to keep it from the graveyard.
Jacob Shelly is a junior in the School of Public Affairs and a liberal columnist for The Eagle.
