We have two sets of election problems in New York State. One is that gerrymandering and campaign finance abuses make the number of legislative districts that are competitive between Republicans and Democrats slightly smaller that it would otherwise be, allowing the Republicans to control one small part of the government – the State Senate – despite a majority of the voters being Democrats. The New York Times and Citizens Union, among others, are passionate about this election problem and Governor Spitzer was willing to go to the mat for reform last year, before being thwarted by…Republicans in the State Senate. The second problem is that, gerrymandering or no, the majority of legislative and Congressional districts are not competitive between Republicans and Democrats, so there really is no election on Election Day. And given that running against incumbents in a primary is verboten for those who want to remain in good standing in the political portion of the ruling class, there aren’t any of those either.
The Governor and the Times are less concerned with the second problem. The former seems more concerned with winning swing districts from Republicans than creating election challenges in one-party districts for Democrats and Republicans alike. The latter would prefer more primary challenges in one-party districts, despite the fact that only members of the dominant party can vote in those elections, and only insiders and grifters tend to show up and do so. As a resident of a one-party district, I am much more concerned with the second type of problem. While I have either been a non-affiliated voter or minor party enrollee for my entire voting life, I don’t have a problem with the two-party system. It is the one party system I have a problem with. Is anyone willing to do something about it? Governor Spitzer, how about you?
The best solution, the one that has worked so well in New York City, is term limits. The press reports over 300 candidates are lining up to run for open seats in 2009, because when there is an open seat, there is an actual possibility of winning, or at least getting your point of view in the newspaper. Term limits opponents should face up to the plain evidence – we have real elections for City Council every eight years, but none for state legislature.
Even death or indictment, the only way state legislators are ever replaced, tend not to create open seats that would attract a variety of candidates, because those leaving generally honor the machine’s wish to designate a successor in a special election when only those in on the deal(s) show up. According to Citizen’s Union “one-third of all currently serving state legislators was first elected to either his or her Assembly or Senate seat in a special election when voter turnout was extremely low. Compounding this fact is the realization that once elected, state legislators are practically assured a lifetime position since the re-election rate for incumbent legislators in New York is over 95%.” The designated recipients of those sinecures are subsequently expected to vote yes on whatever deals those who matter cook up, as I wrote with regard to Senator Lachman’s book Three Men in an earlier Room 8 post. He was appointed my State Senator, and then expected to be treated as an independently elected official, and thought it was an affront to democracy that he wasn’t.
Because we are faced with a self-interested ruling oligarchy, however, there is no possibility of term limits for the state legislature or Congress.
So what I am asking is whether our overlords are willing to give us one-quarter of a loaf by making it easier for independent candidates to get on the ballot and run against an incumbent on Election Day, in order to maintain the fiction that we are living in a democracy and perhaps head off an outright rebellion. I’m not looking for elected officials to allow real elections, just the sorts of cursory challenge I mounted four years ago.
While there is no real reason for them to care, our elected officials do seem to want people to believe that we live in a democracy even if – especially if – it isn’t true. Perhaps so we will grudgingly accept that we played a role in decisions that led to the increasingly bad deal on offer. Take, for example, all the information, effort, and advertisements intended to convince people to vote even though, for the most part, their Election Day votes don’t matter. It really is a joke. I’ve voted in just about every election, but aside from those where citywide or statewide offices are going contested, I find it increasingly difficult to criticize those who choose to stay home. Here in New York, non-voters are merely acting on the reality of their situation.
There is plenty of information on voting and attempts to encourage the practice. Information on how to pay your taxes is widely available, since that is something our political overlords definitely want us to do. There is, in contrast, no information available on the requirements for running for office. What there is, instead, is a whole system designed to discourage the practice by those other than the designated member of the political class, running at the designated time. Very soon, however, the meaningless exercise of voting will not be enough to make people believe they have an obligation to pay those very meaningful taxes. In 1776 people rebelled because of taxation without representation, not taxation without the ability to vote for the one name on a ballot. And for the most part, we have no representation in the State Assembly, State Senate and House of Representatives.
So what I am asking for is the following.
First, that early in each year – in the vicinity of President’s Day perhaps – a postcard be sent to every registered voter describing the public offices that will be filled on Election Day, the qualifications for holding them, and the websites and other locations where information can be found on how to run for the offices.
Second, that information should be made available, in plain language, on everything that is required to run for public offices, from the number and form of the signatures, to related forms such as the certificate of acceptance, to the campaign finance law and financial disclosure forms, calendar, and requirements. This information should be posted on line and available at libraries, just as tax information is. If the state can put a pile of IT-201 guidebooks in every post office, it can do the same with information about running for office.
Third, the number of signatures to get on the ballot as an independent candidate should be no greater than that required for party nomination for an incumbent, not three times as many. The number should be low enough, and the amount of time available to collect them long enough, that someone with a job and other responsibilities, and no taxpayer-financed staff collecting signatures during its “free time,” would have a reasonable chance to meet the requirement and get on the ballot. Don’t tell me that the incumbents are only getting on a primary ballot, not a general election ballot, with one-third the signatures. They generally don’t face primaries. For Assembly it should be 500 signatures for the incumbent and 500 for the independent challenger, not 500 for the former and 1,500 for the latter. Or, perhaps it should be 300 for each, with the requirements for the State Senate and House of Representatives lower as well.
I for one would like to see a tabulation of how many of those who collected signatures for state legislators in 2006 had taxpayer-funded jobs.
Fourth, the signatures should be considered valid no matter how many formatting errors there are, as long as the signer intended to nominate a candidate to be on a ballot and was legally entitled to do so. Would signatures on the back of restaurant napkins make the Board of Elections’ jobs harder? Very well, then assess a small fine per incorrectly formatted to offset the added work.
Fifth, if at the deadline for submission no one other than the incumbent had met the requirement to be on the ballot, a second opportunity should be provided to avoid an uncontested election. Whoever showed up first and paid a small filing fee should be allowed on. If the goal is uncontested elections, we might as well stop having them and end the charade.
Sixth, the campaign finance laws should be modified to increase the amount of money that can be raised and spent without complex reporting requirements for inflation, beginning with a retroactive adjustment for the years since the mid-1970s when the law was passed. And that figure should be higher for offices where candidates are required to reach more people, such as Congress or State Senate, than for State Assembly. There is no excuse for adjusting the limits on individual contributions each year, in order to keep the extent of influence buying by special interests constant with regard to inflation, while imposing a huge paperwork burden on novice candidates who choose to challenge those interests with limited funds.
Finally, the State Board of Elections should produce and distribute a voter guide similar to that provided by the NYC Campaign Finance Board for city elections, with everyone on the ballot permitted to say their piece and provide a link to their website. The media certainly isn’t going to acknowledge challengers exist, but the government should.
Why do I bring this pipedream up now? Well for one thing the perhaps-soon-to-disappear State Senate Republicans have, in recent years, indicated a willingness to support provisions like these that do not affect the outcome of elections in swing districts, and do not involve enabling well-financed opponents with a real chance to win. Now I realize that in Albany elected officials often pretend to support reforms knowing other elected officials, such as Sheldon Silver, can be counted on to stop them. Still, having Sheldon Silver look like what he is might be educational. Perhaps Governor Spitzer, if he really believes in democracy, could push measures like these this year, with the help of the State Senate Republicans, and redistricting and campaign finance reform next year, when the Senate Republicans would presumably be out of the way.
Once again, I’m not proposing changing the rules to allow real contested elections and enable well-financed challengers who might actually force members of the state legislature and House of Representatives to care about the insignificant 90 percent of the people in the state. I’m talking about enabling the type of campaign I ran four years ago. And how scary is that? I got 1,000 votes, and virtually all of the press made a non-decision to pay absolutely no attention to anything I had to say.
And think of the potential benefits. After re-election, that same press, quoting from incumbent press releases for a cheap and easy story as usual, could report that “despite a strong challenge from a serious opponent, the residents of the X district nonetheless overwhelmingly voted to re-elect Assemblymember/State Senator/Congressmember Y, thereby signaling their acquiescence in all the decisions that have been made, and their acceptance of their obligation to suffer the consequences.”
And, by the way, I find it particularly amazed that Democrats, the party of government, would allow government to be so unfair, so unrepresentative, and of so little value to those who pay for it. Because if that’s what government is, let’s get rid of it. If the Republican goal in making government so terrible was to whip up anti-government sentiment, let’s just say that based on personal experience they have not been entirely unsuccessful. If nothing else, the pretense of actual elections might make people less likely to listen years from now when people like me advocate disavowing the debt and pension obligations our elected officials are running up. Once it becomes obvious that we will be paying more and more taxes with no public services or benefits in return, they might just listen otherwise.