| A Republican Characteristic of the Democratic Party |
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| by Tara Ross | Thu, May 8, 2008, 06:14 PM |
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You have to admit, it’s pretty entertaining to watch some Democrats defend their presidential primary process, including its reliance on superdelegates. The system could lead the party to nominate a candidate that doesn’t win the national popular vote among Democratic primary voters. (Even though that prospect is looking increasingly unlikely.) How ironic, given the widespread Democratic outrage at the outcome of the 2000 election—an election that was won by a candidate who won the Electoral College vote, but lost the national popular vote.
The Democratic system of superdelegates and the Electoral College are two completely separate institutions. Yet they were created with similar goals in mind. Both combine democratic characteristics (small "d"!) with republican characteristics (small "r"!). Voters are used to hearing the words "Republican" and "Democratic" in reference to the two political parties, but these terms also refer to two different forms of government. In its purest form, a republic is governed by representatives who are elected based on their wisdom, integrity, and civic virtue. These representatives are expected to deliberate and reach wise compromises with other officials. In a pure democracy, by contrast, there is no such expectation of wise deliberation. Voters elect representatives who are expected to carry out the majority will without independent deliberation. Our founding generation did not aspire to create a democracy. The men who gathered at the Constitutional Convention were students of history, and they knew that a pure democracy will always fail due to one fatal flaw: In a pure democracy, 51 percent of the people rule the other 49 percent without any need for compromise. The majority rules even when it is acting emotionally, perhaps in the wake of an event like 9-11. Minority interest groups thus often find themselves subject to the emotional whims of a bare majority. The Founders knew that the American experiment would fail if their new form of government was a pure democracy. On the other hand, the Founders valued and wished to preserve one aspect of democratic governments: In democracies, the people govern themselves. Indeed, the American Revolution had been fought over this principle. The colonists had been subjected to oppressive laws enacted by a government in which they had no representation, and they deemed such a situation to be unjust. The Founders might have distrusted pure democracies, but they would not abandon the important value of self-government, either. The delegates to the Constitutional Convention pondered questions that seemed impossible to resolve. How could the Founders take advantage of the benefits of democracy, but avoid its downfalls? How could the new Constitution allow the people to govern themselves, while simultaneously protecting the rights of the minority? The Founders accomplished their objective by incorporating both republican and democratic principles into the new Constitution. The Congress that they created, for instance, consists of one democratic arm that is directly accountable to the people (the House of Representatives) and one more republican arm (the Senate—which was composed of appointed members until passage of the Seventeenth Amendment). Other Constitutional provisions provide for majority rule, but also allow sizable minorities to slow down or stop unreasonable majorities. For instance, constitutional amendments cannot be passed without a supermajority, and the President has a veto power which can be overridden only by a supermajority in Congress. The Electoral College, as this author has written elsewhere, operates on similar principles and ensures that large and small states are represented by the nation’s chief executive. Media commentators and politicians often discuss American "democracy," but such representations are inaccurate. The U.S. Constitution does not create a pure democracy. Indeed, the Founders had very important reasons for deliberately avoiding such a creation, instead creating their own unique American hybrid: a republican democracy. (The Founders also added federalist principles to the Constitution, but that is a discussion for another day.) The Democratic Party did not err when it created a primary process that relies on democratic and republican principles. Instead, such reliance follows in the steps of the founding generation and operates in the spirit of the Constitution. There is a time and a place for a debate about whether the Democratic primary process has worked effectively. But if the process is unsuccessful, it will be because the Democratic nominating process, as implemented, is not resulting in the wise deliberation that it was meant to engender. The Democratic Party would serve itself well if it works on improving the implementation of republican principles in its nomination process, rather than shunning them altogether. The Founders knew that governments work best when they incorporate both democratic and republican principles. Americans today—of every political persuasion—would do well to follow in their footsteps.
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Comments (5)
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written by Bob Reagan , May 09, 2008 Well done. Democracies are dangerous. Athens put Socrates to death by majority vote. Pilate acted on the approval of the crowd. A republic can be a masquerade for totalitarian states. Witness the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. A democratic republic, on the other hand, checks the excesses and shortcomings of each. It provides the mechanism to facilitate maximum individual freedom and protects the rights of those in the minority. A tyrannical majority is no different than a tyrannical oligarchy. As for the Democratic Party, the super-delegate scheme makes a lot of sense. The late Chicago columnist Mike Royko once opined that Party became a “political booby hatch” after the 1972 “reforms” which overly democratized the party. Over democratization of the nomination process tends to favor candidates closer to the extremes of the political spectrum because the true believers are the ones most likely to vote in primaries. The only non-fringe candidate they nominated since then was Bill Clinton, who was elected twice and, on balance, was a competent executive. (I haven’t forgotten Jimmy Carter; he was the product of a unique situation.)
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written by mvy , May 09, 2008 A "republican” form of government means that the voters do not make laws themselves but, instead, delegate the job to periodically elected officials (Congressmen, Senators, and the President). The United States has a "republican” form of government. If a "republican” form of government means that the presidential electors exercise independent judgment (like the College of Cardinals that elects the Pope), we have had a “democratic” method of electing presidential electors since 1796 (the first contested presidential election). Ever since 1796, presidential candidates have been nominated by a central authority (originally congressional caucuses, and now party conventions) and electors are reliable rubberstamps for the voters of the district or state that elected them. The small states are the most disadvantaged of all under the current system of electing the President. Political clout comes from being a closely divided battleground state, not the two-vote bonus. Small states are almost invariably non-competitive in presidential election. Only 1 of the 13 smallest states are battleground states (and only 5 of the 25 smallest states are battlegrounds). Of the 13 smallest states, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska regularly vote Republican, and Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC regularly vote Democratic. These 12 states together contain 11 million people. Because of the two electoral-vote bonus that each state receives, the 12 non-competitive small states have 40 electoral votes. However, the two-vote bonus is an entirely illusory advantage to the small states. Ohio has 11 million people and has “only” 20 electoral votes. As we all know, the 11 million people in Ohio are the center of attention in presidential campaigns, while the 11 million people in the 12 non-competitive small states are utterly irrelevant. Nationwide election of the President would make each of the voters in the 12 smallest states as important as an Ohio voter. The fact that the bonus of two electoral votes is an illusory benefit to the small states has been widely recognized by the small states for some time. In 1966, Delaware led a group of 12 predominantly low-population states (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kentucky, Florida, Pennsylvania) in suing New York in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that New York’s use of the winner-take-all effectively disenfranchised voters in their states. The Court declined to hear the case (presumably because of the well-established constitutional provision that the manner of awarding electoral votes is exclusively a state decision). Ironically, defendant New York is no longer a battleground state (as it was in the 1960s) and today suffers the very same disenfranchisement as the 12 non-competitive low-population states. A vote in New York is, today, equal to a vote in Wyoming—both are equally worthless and irrelevant in presidential elections. The National Popular Vote bill being discussed state-by-state, is a promising approach for mending the Electoral College system, to make every vote equal in presidential elections. The bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and D.C.). Under the Constitution, the states have exclusive and plenary (complete) power to allocate their electoral votes, and may change their state laws concerning the awarding of their electoral votes at any time. Under the bill, all of the states' electoral votes in the interstate compact would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states and D.C. The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes -- that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). In less than two years, the National Popular Vote bill has been signed into law in the small and large states of Maryland, New Jersey, Hawaii, and Illinois -- states possessing 19% of the electoral votes necessary to bring it into effect (50 of 270). The bill has passed one-sixth of the legislative chambers in small and large states of the U.S. -- one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, and Vermont. For more information, see www.NationalPopularVote.com
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written by Dallasite1 , May 10, 2008 Keep spreading the myth, Tara. The two words, republic and democracy, are not mutually exclusive. We live in a democratic republic, i.e. a republic whose leaders are elected by the people they rule over. All other aspects of our democracy have direct election of representatives, including state legislatures and all of Congress. Only the Presidency has an indirect electoral format, but it is still democratic in that the people elect the electors. Trying to compare this system to the ancient republics of Rome and Greece is intellectually dishonest at best. We have full suffrage. Our elections are not limited to a limited number of people in power. From the Encyclopedia Britannica: democracy: Form of government in which supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodic free elections. republic: Form of government in which a state is ruled by representatives elected by its populace. In the case of the United States, we are both a Democracy and a Republic.
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written by RelicMM , May 12, 2008 We are now seeing our intended republican government at its most critical trial since FDR tried to pack the Supreme Court. That is akin to the Democrats packing the Supreme Court against Roe V Wade if they win this election. The tyranny part of democratic government is too close for comfort. You do good work Tara. Write comment
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