Feb. 20, 2000

More Than Score Card Needed in This Unusual Election

In the game of baseball, a score card is helpful in identifying players. In this year’s game of politics, a score card is more confusing than helpful.

Current elections are whopperjawed – thanks to open primaries, a population census, term-limits, court interventions, and constitutional tinkering.

Fifteen states have some form of “open” primaries. These permit votes by so-called independents without party affiliation, or by “cross-overs” registered with another party. We are entitled to wonder if wimp voters should be allowed to handicap one party or another – or both.

As this column is being written, results of the South Carolina Republican primary have not been tabulated. Polls indicated that Bush and McCain were statistically even. The Democratic primary will be held a few weeks from now and be subject to the same meddling.

Once upon a time, political parties held conventions at which their candidates were chosen. Then, petitions were submitted to state election boards for listing on general election ballots.

Tales of deals made in “smoke-filled rooms” led to calls for reform of the convention procedure. The Supreme Court in 1941 held that the federal government had power to regulate primaries at public expense. As usual in the name of reform, other abuses sprang up – soft money and negative advertising being most noticeable.

Elections this year coincide with the decennial census. The Bureau of Census estimates that 15 states will win or lose seats in Congress as a result of population changes.

The census determines the number of seats allotted to the U.S. House of Representatives for the next ten years. After the population is counted, state parties will re-design congressional districts. They will gerrymander as best they can for political advantage. One side or the other undoubtedly will challenge the boundaries in Federal Court.

Messing up state legislatures this year – and, indirectly, movement of members to Congress – is term limits. Political groupies will remember that 18 states imposed term limits on their legislators a few years ago. The goal was to break up the monopolies of professional politicians.

The U.S. Supreme Court held that limits could be imposed on the president, vice-president and state legislators – but not on Congress members. The Court’s distinctions are convoluted but now the law of the land.

Political pros complain that term limits deprive legislatures of “seasoned leadership." Of course, citizen representatives of limited powers was the original objective. Nonetheless, termed-out reps hate to give up the perks.

The greatest fault of term limits is that less than a third of the states have adopted the restriction. To be effective, and fair, all states must adopt the system or lose out ultimately in Congress where experience is favored.

Thus, the future of term limits is undecided. Much will depend upon the outcome of this year's elections.

The fate of republican (small r) government – the supreme achievement of the U.S. Constitution – is slowly being eroded by democratic (small d) impulses.

Greek and Roman democracies of the past collapsed when the poor – always a majority -- discovered they could confiscate the assets of producers simply by organizing and voting as a bloc.

In recent years, we characterize this propensity as communism – “To each according to need. From each according to ability.” Compassionate but, unchecked, the sure road to collapse.

Authors of our Constitution tried to check extremes of “popular factions” by mandating an Electoral College of wise citizens to select the president and vice-president. It consists of one democratically-chosen “elector” for every seat a state holds in Congress. This system worked as planned only in the election of George Washington.

Popular factions quickly hijacked the process. Electors then, and still today, are chosen at political party conventions and registered with state election boards.

Not many Americans know that when they vote for a president they really are voting for a cadre of pre-chosen electors. Some states print names of the president and vice-president nominees at the top of the November ballot. Other states list only the electors’ names. In either case, electors of the party sponsoring the winning ticket are elected – not the president.

Electors committed to the winning presidential ticket meet a month later at their respective state capitals to cast their pro-forma votes. Only then is the president duly elected.

Another check-and-balance written into the original Constitution is Article 1, Section 3, which mandated the election of U.S. senators by state legislatures. This procedure was cast aside by the Seventeenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, which now elects U.S. senators by direct, popular vote.

The drive to turn over government completely to popular whim is disturbing. Is it possible that our representative-democracy is on a slippery slope to join Greek and Roman popular-democracy in the ash can of history?

PARTING SHOTS

When Democrats appoint a firing squad, the captain orders: “Ready, fire, aim!”

When Republicans appoint a firing squad, they form a circle.

Lindsey Williams is a Sun-Herald columnist and can be reached at linwms@lindseywilliams.org