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Full Description
With lessons learned from the national elections of 2000 and 2002, this issue focuses on the specific challenges and opportunities in political reform that lie ahead. Mark Schmitt, director of the Program on Governance and Public Policy of the Open Society Institute, argues that we are in the era of the fifty-fifty nation, with an electorate divided almost evenly between the two major parties, and elections decided by marginal voters along the dividing lines. Political scholar Thomas E. Patterson analyzes the downturn in voter turnout and proposed remedies to reverse this trend. The Center for Voting and Democracy provide several articles that focus on the relationships among incumbency, redistricting, and electoral competitiveness in making a case for substantive voting system reform. Carolyn J. Lukensmeyer and Steve Brigham, from AmericaSpeaks, note the difficulties in conducting town hall deliverations in the mdern age and detail the facilitated dialogues they conducted among nearly five thousand New Yorkers about the future of Ground Zero. Leonard J. Duhl, M.D., one of the founders of the Healthy Cities/Healthy Communities movement, provides a fitting close with the remarks on community first delivered at a ceremony at the Pan American Health Organization, where he received the Abraham Horvitz Award in recognition of his important contributions to improving health in the Americas. With scholarship and voices from the field, this issue will provide inspiration and insight to the political reform community at large as we collectively take up the continuing work of improving our democracy.
Contents
NOTE FROM THE PRESIDENT (Christopher T. Gates). ARTICLES. The Politics of Reform in the Fifty-Fifty Nation (Mark Schmitt): The narrow division of the electorate between two major political parties is the outcome of five interlocking elements of our political system: the role of money in politics, the broadcast monopoly on campaign communications, the low level of voter turnout, the effects of redistricting on incumbency, and the superficial malleability of the political issues put forth by the political parties. Political reform must be directed at each of these five elements if we are to succeed in opening up our politics to new candidates, new ideas, and new voters. Behind Closed Doors: The Recurring Plague of Redistricting and the Politics of Geography (Steven Hill): In Election 2002, 98 percent of House incumbents seeking reelection were returned to office. Only 39 of the 435 seats were competitively contested, with a margin of victory of 10 points or less. In our singlemember- district, winner-take-all voting system, the decennial redistricting process can have a determinative influence on electoral outcomes for years into the future. Redistricting Reforms (Eric C. Olson): A number of states have established a means of safeguarding the public interest within the redistricting process. In addition to reviewing the details of these procedures, this article raises the question of whether a full-representation voting system should be part of such reforms. New Means for Political Empowerment in the Asian Pacific American Community (Steven Hill, Robert Richie): Full-representation voting methods can increase the political representation of racial minorities above that which exists in the current single-member district, winner-take-all system. Examples from New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles indicate how the Asian Pacific American community might benefit from such voting methods. Taking Democracy to Scale: Creating a Town Hall Meeting for the Twenty-First Century (Carolyn J. Lukensmeyer, Steve Brigham): Information technology can be used to make large-scale public deliberations possible in a town hall setting. Through a sophisticated process design, citizens can deliberate together about major public issues and gain the attention of the news media and public decision makers. The recent Listening to the City event in New York City, which addressed rebuilding at Ground Zero, illustrates how this model can enhance citizens' voices in the democratic process. The Vanishing Voter: Why Are the Voting Booths So Empty? (Thomas E. Patterson): Voter turnout in presidential elections has been trending downward since 1960, with only 51 percent of the country casting a vote in 2000. Under the auspices of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University, the Vanishing Voter project interviewed nearly one hundred thousand voters during the 2000 election to uncover some of the reasons for this decline. Healthy Municipalities: Now "It's the Only Way to Go!" (Leonard J. Duhl, M.D.): This article, based on an address given at the Pan American Health Organization by one of the founders of the Healthy Cities/Healthy Communities movement, addresses the broad concept of community health in the Latin American context.
