A Modest Proposal for an Apartisan Strategy

The least attractive thing about politics for most people is what happens when it gets strongly partisan. Even dedicated partisans dislike partisanship on the part of their opponents. Still, it has been argued that the formation of parties is a completely necessary element of any representative political system. Judging by history it is hard to argue with this point.

The formation of a party is not automatically ban, but when you step back and look at how they actually function, its not very pretty.

For now just consider the party system in the US. There is nothing in the Constitution that requires that parties form, but they did almost immediately and periods of extreme partisanship have always been part of our political landscape.

What do I mean by “partisanship?” Things like this:

Ideological constriction:

What can start out as a common-ground of ideas and approaches that unite a party can also become a pressure to suppress a diversity of ideas to present a unified front. People talk about “Big Tents” and “Rainbow Coalitions” because it is obvious that there are not only two dominant lines of thinking across a wide range of issues. That sounds good, but when you see vote after vote where there is little or no overlap between parties, it is clear that party loyalty is trumping personal conviction. In fact, when everyone in one party votes the same way on some law or resolution that is clearly not that black-and-white, you can be sure that there is some sort of “arm twisting”, “deal making” or “threatened party discipline” going on in the background.

Party Hyper-Loyalism:

I’m sure no politician would admit to being more loyal to their party than to the nation as a whole, but sometimes you have to be suspicious that they are losing perspective in that regard. When you see very important issues like national security, war policy, social security, immigration or health care being exploited for political gain it is unsettling. The truth is that by using a little distortion or mis-information about what your opponent thinks or would do, these emotionally charged and controversial issues become very powerful tools to advance a party cause. Of course what is lost is the opportunity to do something constructive or positive about the issue – but seems to be something that a true partisan can easily rationalize.

Fiscal Irresponsibility:

Whenever a single party is in control of both the legislative and executive functions, spending balloons. It doesn’t matter which party it is, the result is the same and the pattern has been repeated over and over again. Its not that there is all that much fiscal restraint when the power is divided, but it tends to be less extreme.

Campaign Cost Inflation and Degradation:

When partisan purposes prevail, ideals of one-man-one-vote or regional sovereignty are thrown out the window and money will flow wherever needed to advance the national party agenda. Since I live in the 50th congressional district that attracted national attention and money in the off-cycle election to replace our crooked congressman, I got to experience this first hand. I don’t watch television so I avoided some of the externally funded barrage, but I got multiple “personal phone calls” from party luminaries. I also got a daily avalanche of outrageously misleading and distorted glossy fliers in my mail. It was all about 90% negative, 3% accurate and 0% helpful in understanding what sort of candidate I was choosing. It successfully disgusted the moderates and let the election go to the candidate that was best able to stir up a base using fear. Unfortunately, this is not that unusual. In the partisan frenzy of an election, honesty and constructive governmental policy formation don’t even have a chance – and then we wonder why people are disillusioned about politics.

Is there an alternative? I think there is. Although it would be far from easy because of the gritty and expensive realities of our system, what we need to do is to elect a handful of actually independent congressmen and senators (Even better, one actually independent President). Because majorities are usually small, even a few people dedicated to disrupting partisanship could be highly influential. They could break filibusters. They could block or carry veto over-rides. They could help make majorities in close votes. They are like (and would probably represent) the “swing voters” of the broader population. This is what splinter parties have figured out in parliamentary governments.

By independent I certainly mean someone who is specifically not a member of either major party, but it could also be a member of such a party who has the luxury of being in a district where constituents will support them even against the wrath of their own party. These people would probably have a great diversity of ideas and agendas, but the thing that they would share is the desire to be “Apolitical” (pronounced with a soft “A”). The idea is NOT to create another party, just a loose alliance of players dedicated to these principles:

Ø Voting on the strengths or weaknesses of the legislation only – not on what some party leadership is demanding
Ø Refraining from negative campaigning even in the face of such attacks
Ø Attempting to present as balanced an argument as possible and refraining from intentional distortion of the facts or of an opponent’s positions
Ø Seeking functional compromises that will advance the needs of the nation as a whole

Note that there are no ideologies in this list (except for apartisanship). There is no assumption that this group would vote together on any given topic.

It would also be desirable to add a few more principles:
Ø Refraining from the practice of “earmarking” when funding for pet projects and other “pork” are slipped into un-related legislation (and if their numbers are sufficient, voting against bills of this nature as much as possible)
Ø Not accepting PAC or other monies from out of district entities except for those from grass-roots based organizations that support the general goal of apartisanship (this is a compromise necessary to make this approach feasible – at least at the beginning)

I don’t want you to think that I under-estimate the difficulty of pulling this off. The system is well designed and tuned to favor incumbents most and members of a major party second. The public pays little enough attention to political things and though such limited sources (television, talk radio…) that it is extraordinarily difficult for any alternative voice to be heard. Great personal wealth or celebrity can sometimes overcome the bias of the system, but that can also back-fire. Sometimes there are unusual special elections where things can change (e.g. the one that gave us the “Governator” – the jury is still out on his performance, but he was at least somewhat more centrist than the options that we get through the normal system).

That is why I favor the idea of a national organization that could counter-act the targeted funding power of existing parties for selected races where apartisans would have a shot. I could be wrong, and I would like to hear from any readers on the question, but I believe that there are a fair number of latently politically active people out there who would be mobilized by this sort of option.

The goal is not to move every office holder or even that large a proportion of office holders to apartisanship. It’s a much more modest agenda to have enough elected players outside of the partisan world to limit the excesses of a system that will inevitably be dominated by traditional parties.