Brown out, but what now?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It had to happen.

British PM Gordon Brown has announced that he will step down as Labour leader by September, once a new leader (and PM?) is chosen. All to facilitate a desired Labour-LibDem coalition (with the backing of the smaller progressive parties), all to keep David Cameron and the Tories out of power -- given that LibDem leader Nick Clegg doesn't much care for Brown and is much more likely to strike a deal knowing that Brown will be gone.

As Chris Bowers notes at Open Left, this broad coalition would have a narrow majority of 328 seats. Would it last? Surely not, and I wonder if it wouldn't be best for Labour to let it go, to let Cameron either govern with a minority or to force another election (if no government is formed by later this month), and to regroup under a new leader while Cameron imposes tough spending cuts, pushes the Tories hidden right-wing agenda, and proves to be a failure. That's a risk, but it may be a risk worth taking for the long-term well-being both of the party and of the country.

I realize that it's hard to give up power, and I understand why Brown and Labour want to hold onto it. But at what cost? The LibDems, who are demanding a great deal in return for their votes, want electoral reform, and specifically a proportional representation system that would benefit themselves most of all. Now, whether you support PR or not (and I generally don't), what's clear is that PR wouldn't benefit Labour (unless it received a majority of the popular vote, which would be rather difficult to achieve under PR, it would forever be required to form coalition governments with the LibDems and/or other left-of-center parties, hampering its ability to govern effectively) and would, in my view, be bad for the country generally. And for what? For a few more months of power, or for another year or two, at most, of unstable government?

Anyway, coalition talks are underway. I just can't see a Tory-LibDem union, and non-Labour Brown seems to have the upper hand. Stay tuned.

NH allocation rules

By MSS

Most of the world's democratic countries elect their legislators by some form of proportional representation (PR). While Americans tend to think of proportional representation--if they think of it at all--as some sort of "foreign" idea, all Democratic voters and some states' Republican voters will be voting in "proportional" elections for delegates to their party's nominating conventions.

New Hampshire Democrats today will be selecting 14 district delegates and 5 statewide delegates. Each of the state's two US congressional districts elects seven delegates, via "proportional representation" to candidates winning at least 15% of the district's votes. The five statewide delegates are also allocated via "PR" among those candidates that win at least 15% in the state. (Quotation marks because the high threshold means it is hardly proportional, unless we understand "proportional" to mean "not block plurality.")

As with several list-PR systems around the world, there is a gender quota. In district 1, there must be four men and three women, while the gender balance is the reverse in district 2.

Most states have similar rules to New Hampshire's on the Democratic side.

If there was any information on the allocation rules for today's NH Republican presidential primary on the party's website, I failed to locate it. I believe it uses some form of "proportional" representation in a more limited sense, though most states that will be having upcoming GOP primaries use winner-take-all rules. Due to the winner-take-all primaries coming up, the Republican party could find itself with a large lead in delegates for a candidate with well under majority support. The Democrats' allocation system makes such a non-consensus result far less likely, no matter what happens the rest of the way.

Update: Fortunately, someone e-mailed me something from CQ that shows that the Republicans "proportionally" allocate 3 delegates in each congressional district, plus award three bonus delegates to the statewide plurality winner. So, in the GOP, there will be a substantial bonus to the leading candidate. (NH has its normal delegate total cut in half because it violated RNC rules by holding the primary so early.)

ONTARIO VOTE 2007

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I'm busy watching the election returns this evening. Ontario voters went to the polls today to elect 107 provincial legislators, or MPPs, as well as to vote in a referendum on electoral reform, the first provincial referendum since 1924. The Liberal Party won a comfortable majority in 2003 and have, according to projections, won another one, the first back-to-back Liberal majorities in 70 years.

Which means that Dalton McGuinty will remain premier. John Tory, the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, is doing poorly in his own riding and may not win a seat. The New Democratic Party is doing better than in '03 but will remain a distant third. The Green Party, the largest of the smaller parties (but one that has never won a seat in the Legislature), is doing well in central Ontario, where the NDP is weak.

I'm sure that readers of this blog, even infrequent ones, even new ones, can guess accurately my political leanings in Ontario. I am, indeed, partial to the Liberals, and was once even a dues-paying member. Owing to the nature of my work, however, which I recently mentioned here, I do not blog about Ontario politics and will not comment on the election other than to say this:

Good for the Liberals. Good for Ontarians.

This is the right choice for Ontario.

If you want to find out more about the election, with up-to-date returns, see the CBC or CTV -- or, for a more Toronto-centric perspective, CityNews.

For those of you who don't know much, or anything, about Ontario -- and I realize this blog has an international, if still mostly American, readership -- we are the financial and industrial center of the country, the most populous of Canada's ten provinces with a population of over 12 million. (See Wikipedia for more. Speaking of which see also the Wikipedia entries for the election and the referendum.)

As for the referendum, I have been intimately involved with the government's electoral reform initiative -- as well as with its democratic renewal agenda generally -- over the past three years, and so will defer to one of the world's leading experts on elections, electoral systems, and electoral reform, co-blogger MSS, who recently posted on the referendum here. (He will no doubt have more to say in response to the vote in the coming days.)

Enjoy your evening, everyone.

Ontario's big decision

By MSS

(Disclosure: Some of you may know that I am a policy advisor with the Government of Ontario's Democratic Renewal Secretariat, which was created a few years ago to implement the current government's democratic renewal agenda, including this electoral reform initiative. I do not blog about Ontario politics here at The Reaction and will not comment publicly on the referendum -- or at least not in my capacity as a blogger. Public servants are generally free to express their opinions, without violating confidentiality, but I have been intimately involved with these issues and prefer not to. The views expressed here, therefore, are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect my own. Still, I encourage you to learn more about what is going on here in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada with respect to democratic reform in general and electoral reform in particular -- MJWS)

**********

On October 10, today, voters in Ontario will vote in a general provincial election. They will also vote in a very important referendum on whether to change the electoral system for future provincial parliamentary elections.

The proposed system is known as "MMP," which stands for mixed-member proportional. But what it really stands for is better democracy.

As a political scientist who actually studies electoral systems for a living, I consider MMP one of the very best ways of electing legislators ever devised. I am not alone: A recent survey of electoral-systems experts ranked MMP as the best democratic electoral system. MMP has been used in New Zealand for over a decade now, with very good results. It is the electoral system used in Germany since 1949. The new assemblies of Scotland and Wales are also elected by MMP. Now Ontarians have a chance to vote for better democracy for their province. In doing so, they would be setting a good example for the rest of North America.

Currently, Ontario, like the rest of Canada and the United States, elects its legislators by the system known as "plurality" or "first past the post" (FPTP), in which each legislator is elected in a single-seat district by the most votes cast, even if this is less than a majority. No governing party in Ontario in over forty years has won a majority of the votes, and Ontario has several minor parties that get little or no representation at all, because they do not have their votes sufficiently concentrated to win any districts. MMP would be a very big improvement.

Plurality/FPTP is a bad form of democracy that still exists only because of inertia. That is, we have it because we have always had it, not because anyone has looked at the system carefully and concluded it is the best. Well, looking at the system and concluding something else is best is exactly what a Citizens' Assembly, made up of ordinary Ontarians, has done. It determined that MMP would be an improvement. Now it is up to the electorate to pass its judgment. Ontario voters can decide on October 10 whether to keep or change FPTP. Or, rather, a super-majority of Ontario voters can decide to change, as the proposal must obtain 60% provincewide, and majorities in at least 60% of the 107 provincial ridings (electoral districts).

Under the proposal, voters would have two votes--one for a candidate in their local riding (as now), and a second vote for a party list. There would be 90 (instead of the current 107) districts in which a single legislator would continue to be elected by plurality of votes cast. There would be 39 compensatory seats, allocated to "top up" the seats of any party that had won more than 3% of the provincial party vote, but whose number of districts won was a proportional share (of the full 129 seats) that was less than its party vote share. The candidates for these compensatory seats would come from the party lists, which would consist of candidates nominated by the parties (through procedures that they would have to publicly declare, and which would probably be at least as democratic as how they choose their current candidates).

There is video debate on CBC that you can watch (about 6.5 minutes long), and CBC also has a list of some of the key arguments for and against.

Meanwhile, in the provincial parliamentary election, it will be business as usual for FPTP. One party--and it will be the incumbent Liberal party, unless there is a very big surprise -- will get "reelected" with around 42% or so of the vote, and is projected to win more than three fifths of the seats. The Conservatives -- led by, and I kid you not, John Tory -- will win around a third of the votes, but probably under 30% of the seats. The New Democratic Party (NDP) may win around 17% of the votes, but only around 11 seats (10%). The Greens may win five or six percent -- and one poll says 11% -- of the vote, but almost certainly no seats.

Obviously, Ontario has a multiparty system, and would be well served by a more proportional electoral system, which would raise the prospect of Liberals cooperating with one or more parties. If MMP were being used in this election, perhaps the Liberals would cooperate, after the election, in forming a government and passing policy with the NDP. Or they might strike a deal with the Greens, who would win anywhere from 7 to 14 seats, depending on their vote total, rather than zero. Under the current system, the Liberals will rule alone in spite of their having only 43% (or so) of the vote. Nonetheless, the referendum's chance are considered a long shot.

The MMP proposal may not even make it over 50%. To get to 60% is hard. After all, one former FPTP jurisdiction, New Zealand, has MMP today because a vote of more than half the voters was sufficient in its 1993 referendum. The MMP proposal would have been considered defeated if 60% had been required; the change was endorsed by "only" 54% of the voters. In British Columbia in 2005 a referendum on a different electoral reform, also proposed by a Citizens' Assembly, obtained around 58%, where, as in Ontario, 60% was required. (In BC, a second referendum is scheduled on the proposal.) Meanwhile, most governments in New Zealand under FPTP, as well as in Ontario and BC have been single-party majorities based on well under half of the vote--and sometimes on less than 40%.

Given the comfortable majority of seats the Liberals won in 2003, it is somewhat surprising that the party actually promised prior to that election to convene a Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform, and that they then went ahead with it. Now we are at the decision point. Will Ontario voters agree with their fellow citizens who deliberated over this issue for several months that MMP would be an improvement, or do they like the status quo electoral system in which they will most likely "reelect" their current government with only around 42% of the vote?

(Full disclosure here: I am acknowledged in the Citizens' Assembly's technical report for advice I gave; however, I was consulted only after the citizens had come to their decision that they would propose MMP, and I received no compensation -- other than a free copy of the report and the honor of playing a very small part -- for my advice.)

Much more on MMP, and on Canadian elections, at Fruits & Votes.

Greek elections

By MSS

Greeks went to the polls Sunday in general elections.

The ruling New Democracy clings to a narrow majority: 152 seats (50.6%), despite only 41.8% of the vote. The Socialist Party (known by its Greek acronym, PASOK) came in second with 38.1% of the vote and 102 seats. (See more-detailed results below.)

In part because of the recent devastating fires, the vote was closer than expected a month ago when the Prime Minister opted to go to the polls early. As a result, it was not immediately clear on election night who had won. Also in part because of the fires, voting for smaller parties was significantly higher than in past elections. These smaller parties include a far-right party that has not been in parliament previously and has been internationally denounced for its "virulent nationalism, anti-semitism, racism and xenophobia."

I still am not clear on the details of the electoral system (despite electoral systems being a specialty of mine), which has been changed since previous elections. However, the broad outlines are that the party with the most votes is guaranteed 40 "bonus" seats, while the other 260 now appear to be allocated as if there were a single national district. (I explain my "backwards induction" regarding the election at Fruits & Votes.)

Results in more detail, via EuroTrib -- the parties that made it into parliament have the following seat totals, vote percentages (and change in seats and votes from 2004):

ND (conservative) 152 41.84 % (-13 seats, -3.52%)
PASOK 102 (socialist) 38.10 % (-15, -2.45%)
KKE 22 (old school communist) 8.15 % (+10, +2,26%)
SYRIZA 14 (antineolib left - greens - radicals) 5.04 % (+8, +1.78%)
LAOS 10, 3.79 % (not in the 2004 parliament)

Constitution Day of Awe

By AviShalom

September 17 is US Constitution Day, a public commemoration first officially observed only in 2005, but which marks the day, in 1787, of the final meeting of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

This year, Constitution Day falls during the Days of Awe, the period between Rosh ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur when Jews the world over assess their actions in the past year and atone for their sins and thereby seek to "return" (t'shuvah) to the right path.*

The coincidence of Constitution Day and the Days of Awe is thus a perfect opportunity for Americans -- Jew and Gentile alike -- to assess whether our path is the right one. Has the Constitution been faithfully upheld by the party in power? By the "opposition"? By the media? By us as individuals? Are we as a nation even aware of the core precepts of limited, constitutional, government? How many of our citizens know that Madison's original "Virginia Plan" for the constitution was radically different from what was completed as a politically feasible draft 220 years ago this day?**

Limited government is a radical idea of which America was one of the originators, but it seems we have strayed very far from the path set by our founders 220 years ago. What steps can we take as a nation to return to the constitutional path? What have we, individually and collectively, failed to do in the last year to reinvigorate our electoral and constitutional processes? Many of us who were fortunate enough to live in the handful of swing districts and swing states thought we were taking an act of t'shuvah by voting for the party opposed to the incumbent executive. And then what? In the fundamental sense of restraining the president's claimed wartime powers at home as well as abroad, not much. We as a nation have a lot of "returning" and atoning yet to do.

What can we do in the coming year to set the constitutional and democratic path straight again? Work for fundamental electoral reform, so that we can be represented swing voters without regard to our address? Work for constitutional reform in the spirit of the original idea of constitutional government, if not in its precise, politically bargained, structure?

We should not fear reform, or shrink from even "radical" ideas for improvement in our democracy. Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1810, and in words that are literally carved in stone in the Jefferson Memorial, said:

I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions... But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the same coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

Even more, Jefferson warned against what he referred to as "sanctimonious reverence" for the Constitution and its founders.

If we use Constitution Day, and other patriotic commemorations, as an opportunity for "sanctimonious reverence," we as a nation are idolators--as any student of Jewish history and the Bible will know, one of the worst of all sins.

We Jews give honor to our Torah as a guide to life --a "constitution," in a sense. We don't idolize it, but we revere it as the document of our people's quest to make sense of the world and to guide us in living ethical lives. The progressives among us read it critically and while we certainly do not propose to amend the Torah, we do regularly reform how it is understood in our era, to keep it going hand in hand with progress of the human mind.

So, just as Jews have historically read the Torah and interpreted it and shaped its application -- even in early rabbinic times through Talmud -- and endeavored to keep it up to date through commentaries and discussion, so we Americans should do with our Constitution. We must not idolize it, or its original authors. For we are its authors. It is our Constitution, and we are responsible for making sure that our leaders -- and we ourselves -- live by its precepts.

Wherever Americans gather -- in public events for patriotic days, in our schools and civic clubs, and in our synagogues, churches, mosques, and other religious institutions--we should make the Constitution come alive by reading it and discussing its relevance to our times. We should embark on a national program not only to read the Constitution itself, but to read the Federalist Papers (an "American Talmud"?), and to read generations of commentaries, controversies, and reform proposals. Always to ask ourselves, is its implementation consistent with its principles? If not, how can we return to the original paradigm in our own days?

This Constitution Day, let us be in justifiable awe of our constitutional heritage, but let's not be afraid to be critical, to be reformist, to take the difficult steps towards national t'shuvah.

Notes

(Yes, I know this post barely made it up while it was still Sept. 17, but I posted it only after some gentle prodding from Michael. Thanks, Michael!)

* It is worth noting here that "right path" does not carry the theological implications for Jews that it might for members of other religions, nor does it mean primarily seeking forgiveness from the Divine (though it means that, too). It means first and foremost repairing our own personal relationships, working to correct injustice, and committing acts of gemilut chasidim or "loving kindness."

** The Virginia Plan, in a nutshell, called for both houses of congress to be apportioned to the states based on population and for the executive to be elected by congress, and to have no veto over legislation. The upper house members would actually have been elected by the House of Representatives (from candidates nominated by the state legislatures) and while the president would not have had a veto, he could have convened a Council of Revision, which would have included judges, to consider a law's constitutionality. Congress would have retained the final say on which laws were constitutional--including those passed by state legislatures. Madison was a "federalist," but his constitutional proposal was centralizing, nationalizing, and majority-empowering. These remain fundamental democratic principles worthy of reenactment in our time.

Canadian by-elections

By MSS

There were by-elections (i.e., to fill vacant seats) in three Canadian federal parliamentary ridings (districts) today. All three are in Quebec: Outremont, Roberval/Lac Saint Jean, and Saint Hyacinthe-Bagot.

Why are these seats vacant. Canada.com explains:

Liberal Jean Lapierre, elected in Outremont in the past two federal elections, stepped down to resume his media career. Yvan Loubier, elected five times for the Bloc Quebcois in Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot, switched to provincial politics and ran unsuccessfully for the Parti Quebcois in the March Quebec election. Five-term Bloc member Michel Gauthier quit his Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean seat, partly for health reasons and to work in the media.

Given the unexpectedly large swing in Quebec during the 2006 general elections from the Bloc Quebecois (BQ) to the Conservatives, which resulted in the current minority Conservative government (the smallest minority government in Canadian history), the by-elections might give us nationally relevant information about voting trends.

Following are the 2006 and 2004 results in these districts (independents with small vote totals excluded).

Outremont
2006: Lib 35.2, BQ 29.0, NDP 17.2, Cons 12.7, Green 4.8
2004: Lib 40.9, BQ 33.2, NDP 14.0, Cons 6.0, Green 4.3

Roberval/Lac Saint Jean
2006: BQ 45.2, Cons 37.2, Lib 7.7, NDP 5.5, Green 4.3
2004: BQ 59.4, Lib 23.3, Cons 8.7, NDP 5.7, Green 3.6

Saint Hyacinthe-Bagot
2006: BQ 56.0, Cons 24.8, Lib 9.8, NDP 5.5, Green 3.9
2004: BQ 62.4, Lib 22.1, Cons 11.0, NDP 2.5, Green 2.0

Note that even though the Conservatives did not win any of these in 2006, their votes surged in each from very low levels in 2004.

The Globe and Mail reports that Liberal leader Stéphane Dion leader could be in trouble if his party fails to hold Outremont, which has not been won by a Liberal only once since 1935. If the Liberal lose this seat, it would most likely be to the NDP candidate, who may be picking up some tactical voting from BQ supporters. The NDP previously has been shut out in Quebec other than a by-election win in 1990, so a win there would be significant for both the Liberals and the NDP.

The other ridings are in rural areas, and the BQ may hold them both, but if it does not, it will be interpreted as another sign that the party is faltering badly. In Sainte-Hyacinthe the Conservatives are getting help from the provincial ADQ (which had surprising success in the recent provincial election), and the Conservative candidate in Roberval is the local mayor. So a pick-up of a seat (or two) for the federal governing party is possible.

Aside from extrapolations to possible trends in party support, the other potential impact of these by-elections is that, if the NDP wins Outremont, it would be in a pivotal position to support the Conservative government in exchange for policy concessions, given the current party standings. FPTP* parliamentarism in action: on a single local race the national power balance rides.

(Cross-posted at Fruits & Votes.)

*"FPTP" = first-past-the-post, or the single-member district, plurality vote system used in Canada, the USA, and the UK.