The
2016 presidential season may foretell the end of the two major political
parties. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are not really members of the
two parties whose nomination they have run so effectively to win. Indeed,
both reflect as much as anything else frustration and anger against the parties
whose nominations they seek.
The two major political parties are seen by most Americans not as a path
to the solution of those difficult issues we face, but rather as a major
sickness in our system of government.
Do we need these parties? Not
really. Party labels allow politicians to mask the reality of
policies behind the fog of partisan rhetoric. This is compounded by the
ugly fact that instead of having two national political parties, we really have
the Party of Washington (A) and the Party of Washington (B), with all the
goodies that come from controlling the White House and Congress providing the
real motivation to win national elections.
What
are the alternatives to our system of two national political
parties?
State governments could make all
elections nonpartisan: all candidates for congressional and state
offices, perhaps even including presidential electors, would run on their own
good names and arguments, and no candidate would have a "Republican"
or "Democrat" by his name. Nebraska already has a nonpartisan
state legislature, and a number of cities have nonpartisan city councils.
If
enough states did that, then the number of nonpartisan members of Congress
would be a majority in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, and the
whole rotten system of party control of committees, with endless opportunities
for mischief, would end. The Speaker of the House would actually
represent the House and not the majority party in the House, and such drab
offices as "Minority Floor Leader" and "Majority Whip"
would vanish.
This
reform would also make it simpler to require runoff elections for all state and
federal offices so that every senator, congressman, and governor won with a
majority of the vote and not simply a plurality. This change in elections
further dilutes the political party system by compelling the two runoff
candidates to present themselves not as candidates of a particular party to
voters. (Indeed, today, it is not uncommon for the two runoff candidates
to belong to the same party.)
If we keep political parties, then
there is nothing that requires that these parties should be national.
Regional parties are common in Europe, and these parties serve a vital purpose
in providing a natural counterweight for regions that would otherwise feel
subject to an unsympathetic national party leadership.
Britain,
Belgium, Germany, France, and Spain all have significant regional parties whose purpose is largely to
protect those regions from overbearing behavior by a national government.
In fact, our nearest neighbor, Canada, has a major party dedicated
entirely to the regional cultural interests of Quebec.
America
is really a land of many regions with divergent cultural values and economic
interests. The Constitution was intended to protect those regions through
the sovereignty of states, but the crushing of states under the heel of
Washington has destroyed that balance. Regional political parties could
do much to restore regional and state power.
What
might this mean? What about a "Rocky Mountain Party" to unite voters in
those eight states who support prudent land use and profitable energy
production? This party could send sixteen senators to Washington whose
purpose would be to bring sanity to those federal agencies that today treat
this region as London once treated colonies.
Another regional party might
be a "Heartland Party" of the Great Plains and Deep South to send
senators and congressmen whose purpose was to prevent the imposition from the
federal bench of secular humanism on those states that rejected this particular
religion. The "Great Lakes Party" could agitate for fair trade
with nations like China and sane environmental rules.
The
effect of regional parties that actually represented regional interests would
force attention to be continually focused away from Washington and back toward
the fifty states. These parties could exercise a veto on federal judicial
appointments within the region as well, which would provide another practical
check on rogue federal power.
We
ought to view the chaos in this nominating cycle as an opportunity to replace
the old, vested national political parties with political institutions and
processes that serve us better. Washington Party (A) and Washington
Party (B) are broken beyond repair.
