• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Big Picture>
  3. big picture>

Democracy reform’s welcome arrival as a Democratic cause

Mark Schmitt
February 12, 2020
Bill Weld

Democratic presidential candidates debate in the run-up to the New Hampshire primary. They each have staked out positions on democracy reform issues.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Schmitt is director of the political reform program at New America, a nonpartisan think tank.

A presidential campaign is a contest of ideas, not just personalities. As candidates set out policy priorities and develop proposals, we learn more about what they care about, but we also see in their reflection what voters and party activists want to hear. The proposals that even the failed candidates embrace, and the priority they give them, can foreshadow ideas that will take hold in the future.

New America looked into how the major candidates for president have been talking about reform of democracy. We took an inventory of the ideas emerging in this high-intensity laboratory. What we found validated our colleague Lee Drutman's recent observation that "from the long arc of American political history, I see the bright flashing arrows of a new age of reform and renewal ahead."

Not since 1976, after Watergate and an earlier impeachment, has the vision of reforming democracy itself been as central to a presidential contest as it is now.

While curbing the influence of money in politics has been on the agenda in previous campaigns — it was central to 2008 Republican nominee John McCain's career, and Barack Obama emphasized restrictions on lobbying — the range of different democracy reform issues on the agenda this year is unprecedented. In the decade since the Citizens United v. FEC and Shelby County v. Holder decisions, citizens have been mobilized by concerns about voting rights, corruption and the relationship between economic and political power.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

President Trump has embraced some limits on the "revolving door" between lobbying and government, but he has appointed more lobbyists to key positions in three years than his two predecessors did in eight. Otherwise, Trump has not endorsed any elements of a political reform agenda, and promotes removing voters from the rolls.


His only remaining Republican challenger, William Weld, the former Massachusetts governor and Libertarian vice presidential nominee in 2016, has challenged the winner-take-all allocation of electoral votes and embraced ranked-choice voting.

William WeldRepublican presidential candidate Bill Weld, campaigning in New Hampshire, has embraced ranked-choice voting.Scott Eisen/Getty Images

The Democratic candidates' positions on democracy can be grouped in three categories. One involves expanding voting rights, reinstating provisions of the Voting Rights Act, ending voter ID and felon disenfranchisement laws and otherwise extending the promise of democracy. A second focuses on corruption, limiting the influence of lobbyists and regulating campaign donations. Last are changing three institutions to make it easier for a majority to achieve lasting policy changes and overcome the barriers to majoritarian government: the Electoral College, the Senate filibuster and the Supreme Court.

In the first category, a candidate who has left the race, Cory Booker, was the pacesetter in advocating expanded voting rights, automatic voter registration, voting by mail and making Election Day a holiday. Pete Buttigieg has similarly proposed a "21st Century Voting Rights Act," which would "use every resource of the federal government to end voter suppression." Others, embrace automatic voter registration and reviving more robust oversight of elections in places with discriminatory histories.

A related stream of reform in this category would fix the failures of our winner-take-all system of voting. The most prominent alternative is ranked-choice voting. Several candidates have said they're "open" to such reforms. Bernie Sanders, Michael Bennet and Andrew Yang have been more explicit in endorsing RCV.

Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have approached political reform almost entirely in the second category — promising to end a system that's "rigged" for the wealthy. Warren, unsurprisingly, has the most specific plans to end corruption. She would ban campaign contributions by lobbyists and institute lifetime lobby bans on former elected officials from lobbying. While that could raise constitutional questions and deter people from public service, it directly targets the intersection of money and influence.

Amending the Constitution to reverse both Citizens United and the 1974 Buckley v. Valeo rulings, in order to permit broader regulation of political spending, has consensus support among Democrats. Sanders, Warren, Bennett and Amy Klobuchar all voted for such an amendment in 2014. Most also support a system of public financing based on matching small contributions, though some are vague about its design. Michael Bloomberg takes credit for expanding New York City's model small-donor matching program.

The third category is where the newest and most controversial ideas are found. Particularly during the Obama era, when the Senate blocked most of his initiatives after his first year, Democrats became alarmed by the parts of the system that stymie progress, even when a majority favors change. That alarm remains, with the legislative filibuster the most immediate obstacle. Tom Steyer, Andrew Yang and Warren support ending it. Joe Biden, who was a senator for 36 years, opposes the change. Others are more ambivalent about it.

The Supreme Court also has the power to reverse policies that are popular, leading Buttigieg, Steyer and Yang to embrace changes such as expanding the court or imposing term limits. After the Electoral College vote determined a winner of the 2000 and 2016 elections different from the popular vote, there is new interest in eliminating or reforming that institution as well. Six candidates have expressed support for amending the Constitution or employing an interstate agreement to effectively guarantee the presidency to the winner of the popular vote.

The scope of political reform has expanded well beyond the narrow focus just a few years ago on limiting the power of money in politics and lobbying. But while previous efforts had broad support in both parties, enthusiasm for reform is now concentrated among Democratic candidates and voters.

While this divide is concerning, as is the partisan polarization across so many issues, the crisis of democracy and the hunger for real change makes it plausible the ideas on the agenda this year will capture the imagination of voters and politicians across the political spectrum in the decade ahead.

From Your Site Articles
  • End Citizens United ranks lawmakers on democracy reform - The ... ›
  • Klobuchar leans into a democracy reform agenda - The Fulcrum ›
  • 2020 is make-or-break time for democracy reform - The Fulcrum ›
  • Coronavirus caused a lobbying boom. It's hurting democracy. - The Fulcrum ›
  • Democratic ticket hasn’t pushed the reform agenda - The Fulcrum ›
  • What I learned covering the democracy reform movement - The Fulcrum ›
  • What I learned covering the democracy reform movement - The Fulcrum ›
big picture

Want to write
for The Fulcrum?

If you have something to say about ways to protect or repair our American democracy, we want to hear from you.

Submit
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

Texas leads the way

Lawrence Goldstone

Why the Founders would be aghast at the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling

Beau Breslin

Risks and rewards in a polarized nation: Businesses face tough choices after Roe v. Wade ruling

Richard Davies

The economic blame game, part 1: Blame your opponents

David L. Nevins

How a college freshman led the effort to honor titans of democracy reform

Jeremy Garson

Our poisonous age of absolutism

Jay Paterno
latest News

Coalition aims to recruit 100K veterans and military families to staff 2022 elections

David Meyers
17h

Video: David Levine & Georgia Election Official Joseph Kirk Discuss 2022 Primary

Our Staff
17h

Wait, what? Democrats are also funding election deniers?

Damon Effingham
20h

Podcast: The crucial role of political centrists

Our Staff
21h

Busy day ahead with primaries or runoffs in seven states

Richard Perrins
Reya Kumar
Kristin Shiuey
27 June

The state of voting: June 27, 2022

Our Staff
27 June
Videos

Video: Memorial Day 2022

Our Staff

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
Retired Army Gen. George Casey

Coalition aims to recruit 100K veterans and military families to staff 2022 elections

Leadership
Video: David Levine & Georgia Election Official Joseph Kirk Discuss 2022 Primary

Video: David Levine & Georgia Election Official Joseph Kirk Discuss 2022 Primary

Elections
Doug Mastriano

Wait, what? Democrats are also funding election deniers?

Podcast: The crucial role of political centrists

Podcast: The crucial role of political centrists

Leadership
U.S. and Texas flags fly over the Texas Capitol

Texas leads the way

State
Founding Father John Dickinson

Why the Founders would be aghast at the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling

Judicial