We must restore compromise in the American legislative process. Since our founding as a nation, compromise has been an essential element of our democratic republic.
The growing polarization of the American electorate is a troubling trend that serves as a barrier to compromise between the expanding divide between the two sides. We have become a nation of “us” against “them” with half of America in the “us” tribe and the other half in the “them.”
Based on the background work through The Art of the Compromise, I would recommend the following three changes to our democratic republic.
Private Negotiations
Since the 1970s with the scandal and downfall of Nixon’s administration, a popular trend in American politics is to bring more “sunshine” to governing and legislating. However, while some good comes from the transparency of sunshine, some bad also comes.
In particular, as the sunshine transforms into a spotlight, legislators are more likely to grandstand and regurgitate talking points than to listen and negotiate in good faith. As a result, sunshine has banished compromise to become a “four-letter word” where lawmakers avoid compromise even when such deals move the deal in their desired direction, so-called half-loaf solutions.
Mounting evidence from social psychology reveals that negotiating in private may be one approach to insulate legislators from the negative pressures to achieve compromise.
The proposal would be a four-step process in the legislative process.
- Public opening. Before negotiations, legislators should conduct a brief public forum announcing plans for negotiations and the intent to meet in private.
- Private negotiations. Legislators should meet without television cameras to negotiate the legislative compromise. Like the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the legislators should agree not to disclose the dealmaking process of the meeting in the public.
- Public presentation. Once a compromise is reached, the legislators should hold a public form to announce the deal and its details.
- Public vote. With the details of the compromise available, the legislators should then conduct a public vote on the deal.
These four elements should have appropriate time delays between each element before proceeding to the next one. Legislative processes should never be fast, and the slowed pace towards compromise is important for public acceptance of the private negotiations.
The critical point here, as authors Sarah Anderson, Daniel Butler, and Laurel Harbridge-Yong note, is that “private negotiation does not mean private lawmaking.”
private negotiation does not mean private lawmaking
Ranked-Choice Primaries
The Anderson et al., book, Rejecting Compromise, also points to the fear of retribution from primary voters as to why many legislators reject compromise solutions, even when those solutions half-loaf solutions that move legislation in their desired direction.
Primary voters are more adverse to compromise and see compromise as a legislator abandoning party principles. Primaries thus are less about the common good of the country and more about the ideologies of the parties. As Anderson et al. note, “ideologies breed moral absolutes, rigid agendas, and strong emotions.”
While many legislators have little fear of losing in the general election if they support a compromise position, they do fear retaliation by primary voters, who are typically more informed and less amenable to compromise.
Yet, the informed nature of primary voters and their penchant for less compromise is not the concern that I fear as a citizen. My concern is that most primary elections in the US are plurality-based.
Plurality elections, also known as first past the post, are a voting system where voters mark one candidate as their first preference, and the candidate with the most first preference votes wins. In principle, this system sounds reasonable. However, scrutiny reveals flaws.
The main flaw is that in a field of three or more candidates, the winning candidate may receive less than a majority of the votes, and in some cases much less.
Consider three candidates: Alice, Bob, and Charlie. Suppose Alice receives 35 first-preference votes out of 100 voters, and Bob and Charlie each receive 33 and 32 votes, respectively. With plurality voting, we would declare Alice the winner.
Yet, Alice would be 16 votes short of a 51-vote majority, and more voters (65 votes) would have voted against Alice than her 35-vote plurality. As the field grows larger (say adding Dan as a candidate), the potential for this small plurality to win looms larger. Dan as a fourth candidate could siphon votes from the other candidates and win in a 100-vote field with only 26 votes. The other three candidates receive 25 or less votes.
The plurality problem can also occur in a two-candidate field, though less likely. For example, a candidate may receive less than a majority of voters and win a plurality if sufficient voters do not choose a preference and in essence “abstain” from voting.
Consider Alice and Bob. Alice received 49 votes, and Bob received 48 votes in a 100-vote field, but three voters abstained. Alice again wins with a plurality but not a majority. This situation is less of a concern than the three- or more-candidate field.
Thus, in a plurality-based voting system, a small minority can affect the outcome and punish a candidate for taking a compromise position, particularly in a crowded field. As Tara Ross notes in her book, Why We Need the Electoral College, our Constitution is built on majority votes and not plurality votes whereby Congressional majorities determine the legislative direction of the country.
Our primaries should also be majority-based systems.
One such system is ranked-choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting. The system elects candidates by a majority vote. Unlike a plurality-based system where voters only rank their first choice, under this system, voters rank each candidate by their preference: first, second, third, and so on–not just their first preference, but each preference rank.
If we call our Alice, Bob, and Chalie example. Suppose voters ranked each candidate first with the previous vote tallies. Charlie, having received only 32 first-place votes would be dropped in the instant runoff round, and Charlie’s second-place votes would be redistributed to the vote counts of Alice and Bob.
Suppose that voters who ranked Charlie first only ranked Bob as their second preference. Alice received no second-place votes from Charlie’s voters. Charlie voters, thus, preferred Bob as their second choice. In the instant runoff, Bob would now receive Charlie’s 32 votes plus Bob’s own 33 first-place votes. Bob’s total would now be 65 votes and would defeat Alice (35 votes) with a clear majority.
Ranked-choice voting leads to majority wins in the primary system.
Majority voting would reduce the influence of small factions to punish candidates in the primaries, particularly for legislative compromises.
Congressional Committees
The final change that needs to occur to restore compromise in our political system is to restore the power of congressional committees over political parties.
One of my favorite Republicans is Newt Gingrich. However, I must confess that the changes that Newt ushered into Congress during the 1990’s Republican Revolution altered the power of Congressional committees and elevated the power of political parties.
Before the 1990’s Congressional committees and their chairpersons had strong power over the legislative process. Congress filled the chair positions based on party but with a strong consideration for seniority. After the Revolution, that power shifted whereby parties–regardless of seniority–selected the chair positions, and thus party influence became more dominant over the committee process.
The House (and somewhat the Senate) is now a reflection of party over committee influence.
This shift in power from the committee to the party has led to a shift away from compromise and towards polarization.
Gingrich had good intentions for this change as the seniority system also had its abuses, which the Revolution exposed and led to Gingrich’s election as Speaker. However, the loss of the inherent compromising mechanisms of the strong committee and chair system has exposed the polarized nature of a two-party political system.
The proposed changes are to restore the independence of committees away from party allegiance, perhaps by allowing the committees to choose their chairs, rather than party caucus or party leaders selecting chair positions.
In Sum
The path to restoring compromise in our democratic republic requires deliberate and thoughtful changes. Implementing private negotiations ensures that legislators can engage in good-faith discussions without the pressures of public grandstanding.
Adopting ranked-choice primaries will ensure that candidates are elected by a majority, reducing the influence of extreme factions and encouraging lawmakers to pursue balanced, compromise-driven solutions.
Finally, restoring the power of congressional committees over political parties will foster a culture of cooperation and collaboration, moving away from the current polarization.
These proposals are not just procedural tweaks; they represent a fundamental shift towards a more inclusive and effective legislative process. Together, they hold the promise of reducing polarization, enhancing public trust, and ultimately strengthening the foundation of our democratic institutions.