In case you want to think about something other than the presidential election, there are some of the most important political reform items in many years on the agenda this Tuesday in at least 8 states. I published this essay in the New York Times today to focus attention on these issues:
As we move closer to Election Day, most Americans are angry, exhausted and dissatisfied by the current state of our politics. Only 4 percent say the political system is working “extremely” or even “very well.” Sixteen percent say they trust the federal government always or most of the time, a historical low going back nearly 70 years. Trust in Congress is near record lows.
A silver lining is that eras of widespread dissatisfaction are often eras of major political reform. And while nearly all attention is fixated on the presidential race, Americans in a number of states will also be voting on some of the most significant sets of political reforms in decades. Taken together, these ballot measures — in red, blue and purple states — constitute a major referendum on whether we can reduce political extremism through institutional change.
These proposals are intended to make the political system more responsive to the preferences of a majority of voters, rather than continuing a system that has become easy prey for factional minorities.
The major reform, on the ballot in six states and Washington, D.C., would do away with traditional party primaries. Primaries have become a significant force in driving politics to the extremes and making governing more difficult. Turnout in midterm primaries is notoriously low — as low as about 14 percent of eligible voters in 2014, and rarely above 20 percent in the last decade (2022 marked a high of 21 percent). Moreover, studies show that primary voters tend to be unrepresentative of general-election voters. They are older, wealthier and whiter; there is more debate over whether primary voters are more ideologically extreme, but the most recent analyses of the past three midterms concludes that they are.
More important, politicians certainly believe primary voters are more extreme, and those in office behave accordingly. Research in the 2020 book, “Rejecting Compromise: Legislators’ Fear of Primary Voters,” is based on interviews with dozens of members of Congress and state legislatures, who said they know that “primary voters are much more likely to punish them for compromising than general election voters or donors….
To restore the principle of majority rule, voters in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and South Dakota will be voting on ballot measures that would replace traditional primaries with a single, unified primary in which all candidates would run (Nevada voters already approved that change once, but a second approval is required for it to take effect). The top few candidates (typically, top four or five) would then go on to the general election. That ensures that candidates who would have significant appeal in the general election are not prematurely eliminated at the early, primary stage….
Studies suggest that Americans might be less polarized than members of Congress. The initiatives on the ballot next week will not solve all the problems of American politics — but they can at least start to diminish some of the forces that are leaving so many Americans alienated from the democratic process.