Back in February CNN and Opinion Research published results of a poll revealing that 86% (plus or minus 3%) of the American public thought that the system of American government was broken. The good news was that 81 out of the 86% believed that the problem could be fixed. I suspect that if the poll were taken today the results wouldn't be much different. The sad thing is that virtually no one is talking publicly about changing the system. Sure, the electorate put the Republicans back in charge of the House and left the Ds with a paper thin majority in the Senate. But despite the turbocharged fury of some of the new law makers, there is virtually no serious talk about how the system of government could be improved. Indeed many of the newbies would consider even the contemplation of systemic reform to be heresy or even unconstitutional. The GOP Pledge to America could have been a place to begin such a conversation, but it is full of foggy platitudes without an ounce of courage or concrete. Neither does President Obama's remaining wish list of policy legislation contain any mention of systemic reform of governance.
Ironically both political parties have established institutes that promote democratic reform in other countries: the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute. Both of these organizations are funded with taxpayer dollars through the National Endowment for Democracy. Outside the US both organizations have sponsored some interesting experiments with new ways of public decision making. But neither of their parent political parties seems to learned anything from these experiments.
There are thoughtful citizens who have interesting ideas. One person who has wrestled with this problem for twenty years is James S. Fishkin, head of the Center for Deliberative Democracy at Stanford University. Professor Fishkin holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale as well as a second Ph.D. in Philosophy from Cambridge. He and his collaborators have conducted Deliberative Polls in the US, Britain, Australia, Denmark, Bulgaria, China, Greece and other countries (including the great nation of Texas). In September Time carried an article describing how the city of Zeguo in Zhejiang Province of China was experimenting with Fishkin's deliberative polling.
Earlier in the year I was optimistic that California would implement some new processes to achieve needed constitutional reform. But once the state's budgetary gridlock was broken such reforms became unlikely.
No, I am not ready to start writing amendments to the Federal constitution to reorganize the legislative branch or the other two. But I would like to see some experimentation at the state level. Fishkin is not the only one with promising ideas. If you are dissatisfied with the way government is working, don't get angry, get smart. Get together with your friends and learn about new ideas for reform of governance and get organized to make them happen. It won't be easy; there are too many vested interests and too many people who are afraid of change. But it's worth the effort.
If you know of any interesting ideas, send them along and I will share them on the blog.
1 comment:
I think that primaries should be abolished and any other state-level rules and regulations that perpetuate a 2-party system. In a country of 330 million people, 2-parties are not enough.
I also believe that there do need to be changes at the federal level, like getting rid of archaic congressional rules and abolishing the electoral college.
If I could really dream, I'd recommend that the two houses of congress be melded into one large representative body, based on population as Benjamin Franklin wanted and strongly advocated.
Duplicating work (committees, bill writing, hearings, research, etc.) in each legislative body is absurd.
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