Nobody likes a monopoly. Choice and competition are inherent in the American spirit.
Competing ideas and vigorous debate are critical to keeping our political system in check. The two of us have spent our lifetimes doing it. Compete against each other during the day, and have cocktails and dinner at night.
Let’s face it, we Americans like competition — football, baseball, basketball, even soccer these days. Sports or politics, we go at it — jerseys, banners, cheers, painted faces and frivolous hats.
But all this is premised on real competition, where everyone gets an opportunity to play. Whether it’s amateur or professional, there’s competition for the whole lot. And in most sports competitions, the winners are determined by how they were ranked and performed against the top competitors in the league. Just think of our Stanley Cup champions Avalanche or championship Denver Nuggets (and try to forget the Rockies and Broncos). But in politics? These days, the polarization that has emerged from our two-party system is polluting the way politics operate. Competing ideas, vigorous debate, and disagreeing without being disagreeable are vestiges of the past. We don’t blame political parties, though. The problem is how the power is exercised.
But there is a path emerging in Colorado to start addressing the increasing polarization and decreasing representation. For those unfamiliar, Initiative 310 will be on the ballot this fall. It would modify Colorado’s election process through the creation of nonpartisan “Open Primaries,” where all voters participate and all candidates for state offices appear on the same ballot. In other words: a real competition.
Given the current state of affairs, it will be a huge improvement. If you’re an unaffiliated voter now, which by the way is nearly half of registered voters in Colorado, you’re relegated to picking a party in order to vote in a primary. Let that sink in: one has to pick a party to vote, even though that voter intentionally said “no” to affiliating with a party when he or she registered. Why not let every voter vote for whomever they want in a primary, regardless of party, just as they do in the general? Parties still fight it out, but everyone — Democrats, Republicans, and unaffiliated voters — get to vote in every election. Following our sports metaphor, everyone gets to play.
The way politicians are elected by their rules, exercise their political power and behave has evolved into a tragic scrum of self-interest, extremes, and egos. Nonsensical polarization at the federal level and embarrassingly less and less representative democracy at the state level are threatening the very foundational power of the people that our Founding Fathers so presciently wanted to protect.
Nationally, just when one thinks the polarization has reached its peak, politicians from each party will start preaching on primetime “news,” effectively, “you’re with me, or you’re against me,” with a volume of vitriol that’s deafening. At the state level in Colorado, the discord is just as bad, with our state Legislature recently recognized as the most polarized in the nation.
That should come as no surprise as most legislators are in safe seats and are effectively chosen in the primary where only 26% of registered voters cast a ballot for candidates in either party. And that’s for seats where there’s an actual election. About 30 members in the Colorado General Assembly were appointed by a cabal of party insiders. Those legislators got their seats via a political process, not an election.
Initiative 310 offers a better path.
Each voter gets one vote, and the four candidates with the most votes — regardless of party — advance to the general election. In the general election, voters can rank their choices in order of preference, and an “instant runoff” is used to guarantee a majority winner in each contest. Think of this part as filling out your March Madness bracket and watching it play out — through real competition.
Initiative 310 encourages candidates to appeal to more voters and offers incentive for representatives to take a solution-oriented approach to governing. By ranking voter choices and requiring a majority vote (50% +1), candidates cannot just kowtow to narrow segments of their constituency to win an election. Instead, they are encouraged to find common ground and build coalitions with each other in an effort to seek the second-place votes of an opponent’s supporters.
The result, as demonstrated in states like Alaska that implemented the process in 2022, is a shift toward positive campaigning focused on personal qualifications and policy positions rather than tearing down opponents at the risk of losing their potential votes.
The system also encourages a broader and more diverse field of candidates to participate in elections, and incentivizes collaboration among representatives by rewarding politicians who take a problem-solving approach to governing without fear of “being primaried” by extreme factions within their party.
A functional democracy requires competitive elections just like functional sports require real competition. Political competition does not require, or warrant, the sort of inflammatory rhetoric that has come to define modern discourse. Nor should the competitors be dictated by the special interests and egos. Frankly, we deserve better.
It’s time we put the power over our Colorado elections back in the hands of Coloradans. It’s time we turn down the temperature through election reforms that don’t encourage tearing your opponent down. And it’s time we make politics about actual governing.
Ted Trimpa is CEO of Trimpa Group, specializing in progressive public policy advocacy and political strategy.
Tyler Sandberg is a Republican strategist and founder of Timor Strategies.
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Publish date : 2024-08-11 00:00:00
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