All right, folks — I’m going to lay it on you straight.
To Bernie supporters: Sorry, but Hillary has effectively won. Let the remaining States vote, by all means — but be ready to support Hillary, flawed as she is, because Trump is absolutely f*cking batsh*t. For the sake of the continued survival of the human species, I don’t want his hands on the nuclear button — another eight years of incrementalism (at best) isn’t good, but we can survive it better than we can survive a nuclear apocalypse!
To Hillary supporters: Sorry, but one point Bernie’s made is correct — well, many are, but I had one in particular in mind. There are serious structural problems with the Democratic Party, and it needs to fix them sooner rather than later if it wants to remain as a viable force in US politics. Gloating about the Republicans’ “demographic death-spiral” is distinctly premature; they may effectively be barred from the White House by “virtue” of insanity, but they control twenty-three State trifectas to the Democrats’ seven. What’s more, some of those GOP trifectas are in States which vote reliably Democratic for the White House, such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada, so it’s not just the ruby-red States where the Democratic Party is falling over. This needs to change, and soon.
Therefore, here’s my $0.02 worth of “how-to” for Moving Forward in the Democratic Party. Each idea will be followed with a short explanation of what it involves and why I consider it a good idea.
1) Cut the lobbyists out of the party.
This one should be a no-brainer: One of the rules then-Sen. Obama placed into the DNC in 2008 was a ban on direct donations by lobbyists. Put charitably, removing that rule — in an anti-establishment, anti-business-as-usual election — was stupid. It undermined what should be a Democratic strength: that only one Party is standing meaningfully against corruption. Change the rule back, and strengthen it — cut the lobbyists out of Party policy at all, including as superdelegates. Which brings me to my second point:
2) Formalize a specific set of rules for pledged-delegate selection and allocation.
This includes both pledged (“normal”) and unpledged (“super”) delegates to the DNC. Some principles which I believe would command broad (in-principle) support, as well as being workable, might be:
- Each State gets a set multiplier of its Electoral College (EC) votes as pledged Delegates, split evenly between winner-take-all for Congressional districts and proportionally for the Statewide vote. For example; if the multiplier was set at 6xEC votes, Montana would get 18 Delegates, 9 to be awarded to the winner of the (only) Congressional district and 9 to be split proportionally between all candidates who meet a set threshold. Meanwhile, New York would get 174 Delegates, with 87 split between the Congressional districts (probably rounded down to 81 for convenience’s sake, to avoid partial-delegate allocation) and the other 87 split proportionally to the State-wide vote (probably rounded up to 93 to account for the six delegates lost from the first half). By splitting the delegate allocation like this, there are likely to be far fewer mixed results from individual States;
- If I were feeling particularly bold, I might even suggest adopting a variant of mixed-member proportional voting for delegates, treating each campaign as a “list” and thus equalizing the popular vote and the delegate totals, but that may be a bridge too far;
- Each State’s pledged delegates to be selected by one homogenous set of rules governing who votes, when and how. Ideally (imo) a system of semi-open primaries would be best, but closed primaries with reasonable deadlines to register (yes, I’m looking at you, New York!) would be good too. Above all, the rules need to be clear, concise, fair and consistent across State boundaries;
- Move away from State-funded primaries. By funding the primaries, the States get a large say in when and how they happen, and that has to go (for instance: the NH Constitution’s opinion on primaries...). One way to make it (relatively) cheap to run these primaries would be to do it by mail: At a set date (say, two weeks before the official “voting day” for the State’s primary), every registered Democrat in the State gets mailed out a ballot and a postage-paid return envelope to seal it in. Ballots returned prior to the official date get securely stored, with occasional spot inspections by representatives of any campaign to ensure security, and on the official date, the ballots are opened and counted in the presence of scrutineers from any campaign who wishes to send them;
- End the Iowa/New Hampshire crap. Sorry, but it’s outlived any usefulness it may have had, as country-wide voting demographics have moved in one direction, and IA and NH have gone in the opposite direction. Ideally, have a draw well before each primary season to determine the order in which Democratic State parties hold their primaries, to avoid the regional clustering which can act as a barrier to entry for candidates who are stronger elsewhere. Incidentally, this would also have the beneficial effect of candidates trying to garner support across the USA, not just in specific areas. Also, it’s quite possible to do this, with the idea of voting-by-mail above to mitigate the costs. (Yes, I’m looking at the Great Southern Firewall here — under most circumstances, the effect of clustering that many States where even the Democratic voters are more conservative near the start of the primaries acts as a barrier to progressive ideas, which is Not Good);
- End caucuses. Whatever the outcomes, caucuses need to go — it’s just that simple. Caucuses are cumbersome, unwieldy processes which require people to commit a full day to voting (which many people, especially poorer people, are unable to do due to having work commitments) and drive down participation rates, which is the opposite of what the Democratic Party, anywhere, should be seeking. On top of that, they’re arcane processes, in which the losing campaign can always find some interpretation to hang cries of unfairness on to try to get a better deal. That kind of publicity, the Democratic Party doesn’t need! Caucuses may have once had a legitimate purpose, but they really don’t any more.
You may have noticed a general pattern here: I’m trying to put forward rules that encourage voter participation, rather than discouraging it, to increase voter affiliation and identification with the Democratic Party. I’m trying to put forward a set of rules that is easy to understand and easy to justify if asked, to avoid controversy and negative publicity. And I’m trying to put forward rules to make the Convention a size that is manageable (with around 3,000 total delegates inc. supers, rather than the 4,750 and growing of today), to make the process less riotous and help with setting a narrative at the very start of the general election season. I believe that adherence to these principles will increase voter affiliation/identity with the Democratic Party, resulting in a stronger Party for years (and possibly generations) to come.
3) Superdelegates. Reform them.
Once again, this really should go without saying. Right now, the procedure of allocating superdelegates is largely whatever the DNC says it is, and they’ve made some really...puzzling choices, especially this time around. With that in mind, here’s a way to keep the idea of “party elders” having a special say in the Party in which they’re invested in seeing a future of, while making the process — again — simpler, easier to comprehend and more defensible. Formulate a specific, non-changing set of rules by which Party superdelegates are chosen, a formula which is reasonable and easily justified. Here’s one way it could be done — there are other reasonable ways, too:
- Past Democratic Presidents and Vice-Presidents get super-delegate status (4 — Clinton and Gore, and Carter and Mondale);
- The current President and Vice-President, if Democratic, get super-delegate status with double votes (2 — Obama and Biden — with double effect, for 4);
- Current Democratic Governors and Lieutenant-Governors get super-delegate status (32 — 18 Governors, 14 Lt.-Governors);
- Current Democratic State/territory legislative leaders get super-delegate status, irrespective of whether they’re majority or minority in the legislatures (102 — 2 per State, 2 for Puerto Rico, but only 1 for unicameral Nebraska and DC);
- All current Democratic members of Congress (either chamber) (234 — 188 House + 46 Senate); and
- All current members of the Democratic National Committee, plus all past Chairs (9 current DNC members, plus 14 former DNC Chairs by my count).
There. Done. Simple. And, above all, fair. Any person on this list can quickly, easily articulate why they themselves either have done the Party great services in the past, or have a direct, vested interest in the Party’s wellbeing into the future (or both!). And it won’t be such a number as to outweigh the popular vote (it’ll hover between 400 and 450, depending on Democratic electoral fortunes, or around 1/7 of the delegate total if my earlier ideas for pledged delegates are accepted), but it will be significant enough that they can choose between two near-tied candidates on the basis of electability in November.
4) Make DNC membership a full-time job.
As everyone reading this should already know, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the current DNC Chair, has done….less than spectacularly well at her job. Well, this job, that is — because Wasserman-Schultz is also a member of Congress, which most people would argue is a full-time job in itself. This is, incidentally, true of all nine positions on the central Committee. Some of this is unavoidable — for instance, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid hold DNC positions ex officio of their public positions (POTUS, VP and Democratic House and Senate leadership respectively), and that makes sense — any decent election strategy at the Federal level must involve those four people. But it can be avoided for other positions — the organizational, rather than leadership, positions - and it should be.
It’s not fair to the DNC chairs to expect that they perform two full-time jobs at once, and it’s not fair to the Democratic Party to expect that they make do with a part-time effort from the organizational head of the Party. With a DNC (not just the Chair, but all organizational members of the central Committee) which serves and works full-time, more co-ordination can be made with State and local Parties and candidates to build the Democratic bench even in reliably Republican areas. More coherent strategies can be debated, planned and implemented to ensure maximization of Democratic wins and minimization of Democratic losses for Congressional elections. And more effort can be put into a coherent, consistent approach to voter outreach, not just asking ad hoc for donations for this candidate or that initiative.
If the Democratic Party wants to do better in elections, the DNC has to do a better job. If the DNC is to do a better job, then it must be a serious job for its members, not a part-time sinecure or fiefdom, and not an extra burden on someone’s already overloaded plate. It’s that simple.
5) Make sure the DNC does its job!
This isn’t particularly easy to set up on a self-sustaining basis, but some rules that could be implemented to ensure the DNC actually tries to do its job might include:
- DNC (each member, and collectively) to take all reasonable efforts to secure positive media attention, both for the Party as a whole and for individual candidates at all levels (Yes, I’m looking at The Invisible Debates from this campaign season — what an absolute clunker of a decision that was!);
- DNC to co-ordinate with each State party on maximizing grassroots involvement (small donations, volunteering, ongoing outreach) within all parts of that State;
- DNC to approach Members of Congress for campaign funding and transfers, rather than the reverse;
- DNC members (as well as superdelegates in general, possibly) to refrain from endorsing any candidate more than 14 days before the set date for the primary in their home State;
And so on. Like I said, it’s hard to (pseudo-)legislate this, but there could at least be some effort made in this direction.
A little more on that “positive publicity” part, and this is an anecdote. As my handle indicates, I’m an Australian — by birth, citizenship and whatever else you care to examine. I’m also a Greens voter, here in Australia — we don’t use first-past-the-post, so I’m free to vote my conscience without helping the (worse) ratbags into power. But this election, I’m not only going to vote for Labor (for the first time in my life!), but I’m volunteering for a Labor candidate! Why? Because I know the candidate.
I’m not doing this for Labor. I’m doing this to support Anne Azza Aly, whom I met years ago in passing, who always had a kind word for me at social, academic or professional events to ease me out of my social awkwardness, whom I personally know to be a good, decent, highly-intelligent and hardworking woman. So, despite my depression and my social anxiety, I’m phonebanking two nights a week. I’m doing back-end office work to process constituent outreach results and get responses. I’m doing honk-and-waves.
And I didn’t even find out from Labor that she was the candidate. If I hadn’t spotted her name on the electorate analysis on a third-party website, I would never have known, and Labor would never have gotten my vote, much less my time (I live in a neighbouring electoral division, so wouldn’t have even seen her name on the ballot).
This is the kind of outreach that major Parties — our Labor Party and your Democratic Party — need to do much, much better at. Because without showing each and every candidate in the best light possible, it’s all too easy for far, far too many people to fall into the trap of “a pox on both their houses!” which today’s politics inspires all too often.
So, there it is — my $0.02 worth on how to best move forward at this point. As always, constructive criticism and civil debate are appreciated in my diaries :)