Go back a couple of weeks and Democrats

thought they were drawing nearly even

with Republicans in the gerrymandering

force. Yes, Texas had tried this

aggressive midcycle redistricting, but

California countered them. And that was

the pattern we were seeing. For every

red state that was doing a big

redistricting, there was a blue state

now trying to match it. But then over

the past couple weeks, Democrats caught

a series of very bad breaks. One was a

Supreme Court decision in Calala which

gutted the Voting Rights Act, gutted one

of the last boundaries on what you could

do in terms of partisan and racial

redistricting. And the second was that

Virginia, which had paused their

commission and drawn new maps, had its

new maps thrown out by their courts. And

so now Democrats are going to be down,

depending on who you talk to, something

like 7 to 10 seats from these

redistricting fights. So I think there

are two questions here. One is what this

means for this midterm and the fights

over gerrymandering that will come after

it. And the second is how can we

actually put an end to this because this

is a disaster for our democracy. This is

exactly how our system is not supposed

to work. Lee Drutman is a senior fellow

in the political reform program at New

America. He's the author of the 2020

book breaking the two-party doom loop,

the case for multi-party democracy in

America. He writes a newsletter under

current events and he is one of the most

persistent and thoughtful advocates for

something you see in a lot of other

countries. Something that might be an

answer we need to turn to here which is

proportional representation.

As always my email Ezra Kleinshown

times.com

Lee Drman welcome to the show.

>> Hey it's real treat to be having this

conversation Ezra. So before we get into

everything that has happened with

gerrymandering over the past couple of

weeks, months, years, what is

gerrymandering?

>> What is gerrymandering? That that is a

great question that nobody has the

perfect answer to. Gerrymandering

is an old word. It it goes back to 1812

when the Boston Gazette coined the

phrase for Elbridge Jerry who was uh

actually one of the signers of the

Declaration of Independence. and he was

a a big puba in Massachusetts politics

and he drew these maps that looked like

crazy shapes and one of them looked like

a salamander. So the Boston Gazette

called it a gerrymander and we've used

that term for over 200 years to describe

sort of messing with district lines for

partisan or incumbent advantage. But I

mean it's a good question because nobody

has has a clear definition of what

counts as a gerrymander.

But I think we know what is being

attempted with with gerrymandering and

and I think it's worth walking through

that. So you imagine a state where you

have a 6040

Democrat Republican split in the

electorate. You know if you have

whatever it is 10 House districts in

that state. You might think well that

should give you a distribution where you

get some Republican ones a little bit

more Democratic ones right

>> but it turns out if you're smart and

you've got computers and you've got

algorithms you can cut that up. So

functionally there are no Republicans or

very few who get elected in that state,

>> right? And you can be an even bigger

state like California and be a you know

roughly 65 35 Democratic state and cut

up 52 districts in a way potentially

that gives you 52 Democrats. So th this

to me is what is a problem and somewhat

offensive about gerrymandering which is

it is an act of of effective

disenfranchisement at least in house

elections that the that the people in

power are choosing their voters rather

than the voters choosing the people in

power right and so there have been

efforts to say isn't this illegal or

unconstitutional in some ways a couple

of years ago there were a series of

cases brought to the Supreme court that

basically wanted the court to hold that

there were levels of partisan

gerrymandering right

>> that were unconstitutional. What

happened in those cases?

>> So that that series of cases culminated

in the Russo decision of 2019 in which

the conservative majority said we can't

find a standard that would be

justiceable uh to declare what is

partisan gerrymandering and anyway it's

not our role. it's up to the states and

it's not something that we should be

ruling on. And that cleared the way for

more aggressive partisan gerrymandering.

I think now there are also state states

have their own constitutions and some

challenges are brought under state

constitutions. But broadly in the 2019

decision, the Supreme Court gave a green

light to partisan gerrymandering.

>> And it's worth noting this thing on the

states that there were a bunch of states

where this was unpopular. People do not

like gerrymandering. So places like

California and Virginia had created

independent commissions to make the maps

nonpartisan,

>> right?

>> Okay.

>> And then there is this other thing

happening in the political system,

>> right?

>> Which is that Trump and Texas kick off

what's called a midcycle redistricting,

>> right,

>> effort that then begins to ping pong

back and forth between red and blue

states. So explain to me what has been

happening just in the past year,

>> right?

>> And how it's different than what we

normally see,

>> right? So usually districts are drawn

after a census. So there's a a every 10

years there's a census and so if a state

grows and another state shrinks, maybe

some congressional districts shift

between states and that means that the

uh states get to redraw the maps. And

you know there are various approaches to

how states have done that over the years

none of which are are great. Uh but the

the sort of standard was you you do it

once those maps last for the decade and

then after the next census you get

another turn to to draw those maps. But

what President Donald Trump does last

summer is he says, "Hey, I'm looking at

Texas and you know, I think if they were

a little more aggressive in their maps,

Republicans would win even more seats.

So, hey Texas, why don't you do this

thing that is pretty outside of of what

we normally do?

>> Not a legal,

but outside the norms, right? I mean,

this is an important distinction. You

know, a certain amount of restraint. and

why why don't you get a little bit more

aggressive and redraw the map. So, this

is a big fight. Uh eventually Texas does

this. They they they get about five more

Republican seats. And so in California,

Gavin Newsome says, "Hell no. We're

going to run a ballot initiative. We're

going to get rid of our redistricting

commission, at least for the time being,

and we're going to redraw maps that give

Democrats more seats." So then that

passes. There's also a a challenge in

Indiana where actually some Republicans

in the state legislature say, "Actually,

we're not going to do what Trump wants

us to do. We're not going to redraw the

maps to give us an extra Republican

seat." Then Virginia passes this uh

ballot measure where they narrowly

approve also overriding their

independent redistricting maps that were

fair to give Democrats 10 out of 11

seats. Although then the state court

says actually you violated some obscure

procedure about what counts as an

election. So we're invalidating that

that that is now as we speak the Supreme

Court will rule on who's right there.

>> The Virginia Supreme Court

>> the Virginia no the the US Supreme

Court.

>> They've brought a challenge to the US

Supreme Court. the Texas move and the

fight for House control leads to a

situation where blue states are one

after the other now destroying their

independent uh redistricting

commissions. Uh whether or not there's a

holding like in Virginia, you know,

we'll see. But it's a allout

redistricting war. Which means if you

are a voter in the minority, and here I

mean the minority party,

>> right,

>> in a state, you are functionally you are

becoming more likely to be functionally

disenfranchised, right? It is becoming

more likely that you will just not have

a voice in house elections because they

will have drawn your district in a way

where you don't matter. And this is true

for Democrats in red states, true for

Republicans in blue states,

>> right?

>> Then there is a series of fights around

the Voting Rights Act,

>> right?

>> Uh culminating in this Klay case that

just came before the court,

>> right?

>> What is that set of I guess previously

restrictions on jerrymandering that are

now gone? So section two of the voting

rights act basically said that

there are prohibitions against racial

gerrymandering. So partisan

gerrymandering is okay as of 2019, but

racial gerrymandering, which is

basically depriving minority voters of a

chance to elect their candidate of

choice, uh is is still illegal. And so a

state like Louisiana couldn't draw

districts that prevented black voters in

Louisiana from being able to elect their

candidate of choice. And so there's no

like one standard. It's been litigated

on and off over the years. But basically

what the Supreme Court said in the Klay

decision is that unless you are wearing

a KKK mask and saying I don't want black

people to be allowed to vote like a high

standard of intentionality, racial

gerrymandering is not something that's

able to be proved. You can just draw

maps however you want.

>> It's worth noting that the part of the

case here was ba was an argument that

this was illegally disenfranchising

white voters. Yes.

>> Who would be I mean straightforwardly

more powerful if they could jerrymander

out these minority districts.

>> Yes. And also that racism was no longer

a problem in America and therefore the

Voting Rights Act had outlived its

usefulness. I mean you can argue with

the logic of this case from any number

of directions. But the Supreme Court

gets to decide because they're the

Supreme Court. And we are left with a

landscape in which there are no

prohibitions on partisan gerrymandering,

no prohibitions on racial

gerrymandering, and

it's just a a free-for-all.

>> So any guard rails that might have come

from the Constitution or the courts are

bulldozed over the past decade.

>> Gonzo. So, walk me through what's likely

to happen in part of the southern states

in this post clay era.

>> Okay, so we've got Louisiana where the

governor had immediately said we're

going to redraw the districts, forget

about the primaries, postpone them, and

uh it looks like they've they've settled

on a map that's probably 5 to one

Republican. So, they they didn't go for

the most aggressive gerrymander. Uh

Mississippi currently 3-1 Republican.

um they will

probably wind up eliminating that one

black district, one Democratic district,

and go four-0 East Alabama. Uh currently

5 to2 Republican, you know, they could

they're going to redraw their maps. Uh

you know, whether it's 6 to1 or 70, see

how aggressive they get. Florida. Uh, D

Santis already had it ready to go and

they have redrawn their maps to go from

expected 20 to 8 Republican to 24-4

Republican. Pretty aggressive. Uh, South

Carolina just announced that they're

going to 70 Republican. Tennessee is

going all Republican. They eliminated

the one Democratic district that was

Memphis. Georgia could could go more

aggressive. That's that's uh you know

uncertain. There are some estimates that

Republican controlled legislatores

across the South could target as many as

19 majority minority districts all held

by Democrats. I don't know they may be a

little cautious in some places given

that it's not a great year for

Republicans, but it's basically

eliminating a lot of majority minority

districts. They're going

>> which means eliminating a huge amount of

black representation in Congress.

>> Yes. So the the term that Hakeem Jeff uh

has been using is quote maximum warfare

everywhere all the time. What does that

mean to have maximum jerrymandering

warfare everywhere all the time?

>> I mean it basically means we're turning

the the house into the electoral college

which is that whichever party controls

the state legislature uh and is the

majority party in the state no matter

how narrow you know they're going to

maximize

the the seats that they can get. And I

mean that basically means we'll have no

competitive elections. I mean we basic I

think the latest analysis suggests we'll

only have 15 meaningful toss-ups in this

November election out of 435. So what

was that like 20 years ago?

>> 20 years ago you know it was closer to

like 50. Uh

>> that's amazing. So we've gone from house

elections where routinely you'd have 50

competitive house elections in a cycle

>> to you said 15. 15. And you know, some

of that is gerrymandering. A lot of it

is partisan sorting. I mean, you think

of two, you know, 20 20 years ago, 2006,

right? I mean, you had blue dog

Democrats who were winning in a lot of

districts that are now completely safe

Republican districts. And so there's

been, you know, this increasing uh

nationalization of partisanship. I think

I remember a book by a guy named Ezra

Klein who wrote a book about this this

uh polarization thing that that has been

happening to to America. Great book gets

>> more relevant every day unfortunately.

>> Uh but I mean so so that's so so part of

it is just the geography that that

Democratic places have become more

democratic. Republican places have

become more Republican and because we

have these placebased districts that

means just a lot of them are safe

naturally. And then gerrymandering is

another level on top of that.

>> So in your best guess, what does this

mean this year for the midterms when

everything shakes out given where things

would have been if nothing had changed?

So if nothing had changed, I would say

Democrats easily take the house, right?

I mean, Donald Trump is unpopular.

Enthusiasm among Republican voters is

down. Enthusiasm among Democratic voters

is up. And every incumbent president

loses his party loses seats during a

midterm unless there's a war or some

extraordinary circumstance like like

that is just how the electorate moves.

Uh with the latest shifts in the maps,

it's

>> I mean how many seats do you think this

has taken away from Democrats?

>> I mean probably

10 or so. I mean, it's hard to hard to

say for sure where we we don't know

where things are going to wind up, but

you know, best estimates, you know,

around 10.

>> Yeah, it's interesting. So, I've seen uh

estimates around nine and then I've

talked to Democrats who sort of run me

through the way they think about it and

and they've sort of pegged it closer,

they think, to seven, but it's a

significant number. Yes. Whichever those

you're looking at.

>> Maybe not enough to keep them from

taking the house, but it

>> it it shifts the math of the

competition. It does significantly. Now,

I mean, the one thing about about

spreading out your advantage,

as Republicans are trying to do in

states like Florida, is

>> like that could backfire.

>> I know Democrats who think they were way

too aggressive in the Florida

gerrymander specifically. Yeah. And and

these maps that they're putting out now

that it's going to be all red, they're

going to break that map,

>> right? So, you know, if if you think,

well, I want to have a bunch of 55 45

Republican seats, uh, well, if it's a

really bad year for Republicans,

those could all go Democratic. I

>> I want to draw something you're saying

here. When you're gerrymandering, there

is a choice you have to make as the

gerrymandering party, right?

>> Which is that you can draw extremely

safe districts, right? a 60/40

Republican Democratic district

>> or you can try to draw more districts

where you have an advantage, right?

>> But maybe that means you're drawing 45

555 districts or, you know, 53 47

districts. And so the more you are

spreading your voters to to to make sure

you have the maximum number of

districts, the less safe you are making

every individual district. Now, if

you're in an incredibly lopsided state,

>> that may not matter, right? But if

you're in a state that you know is in

any way competitive in a bad year, you

might lose a bunch of those elections.

>> And this is this is what's sometimes

known as a dummy mander where in trying

to maximize your gerrymandering

advantage, you you do a a thing that is

a thing that dummies do, which is you

over

overreach and then that that that

backfires.

>> Okay. So there is then a question of

what happens after this election,

>> right?

>> There's only so much that that Democrats

and Republicans can do before 2026. So

you can tell me if you think this is

wrong, but the forecast here from people

I talked to is this doesn't end in 2026

absent changes. If nothing changes, this

goes on into 2028. This goes on into

2030 as people keep torquing the maps

for more and more

>> advantage. Because if the other side is

doing it, aren't you an idiot to not do

it as well?

>> Yes, you would be an idiot. Uh and now

that that's that's the logic of our

trench warfare politics. And so

absolutely unless Congress outlaws mid

decade gerrymandering, which I I doubt

they will do. Uh there will be a whole

bunch of other attempts after the 2026

midterms to redraw the maps and

>> get rid of the independent commissions.

rid of the independent commissions like

Colorado is an independent commission.

You know, that's a Democratic state that

will probably be gone. There's also

reality that after the V, the Voting

Rights Act, there are blue states that

were maintaining minority districts. And

I think this is like an undernotic way

this might play out, but it like

Jeffrey's and others been talking about

look like we need to maximize partisan

advantage here. And so like the end

result of this might be much more

partisan maps and and less minority

representation in Congress

>> because one way to get more more

Democratic maps is to split up majority

minority districts

>> in blue states. Yeah.

>> In blue states. Yeah. And that's a real

tension within the Democratic coalition.

>> Okay. This system, I'm just going to say

it is a disaster and broken. I know

people who are deeply involved in the

effort right now to do counter

gerrymandering to gerrymander the blue

states and they they will tell you that

this is bad for everyone. Like they have

to do it but they think this is bad.

They think it is bad for America's

politics. They think it is bad to be

disenfranchising these voters and being

like locked into the system where they

don't see a choice is not what they

want.

I don't see a way to repair the system.

It is fundamentally broken and so the

question is what could be built to

replace it? You are an advocate for

something called proportional

representation,

>> right?

>> What is that?

>> So proportional representation describes

a a family of voting systems widely used

throughout the world in which the party

gets seats in the legislature

in direct proportion to the vote chair.

So I mean this is your intuitive sense

of proportionality which is that a party

that gets 40% of the votes in a in a

state should get 40% of the seats. Now

in a proportional representation system

proportionality is generally achieved by

having larger districts that elect

multiple members typically through party

lists. And so you could imagine New York

State uh instead of being 26 districts

maybe being three districts, you know,

split between the the north, the mid,

and the the the New York City area. So

you might have an eight member district

and nine member district and nine member

district. And then parties would put

forward lists of candidates. And you

know, say in a mid-state eight member

district, if you know, Republicans get

50% of the vote, their top four

candidates on their party list go to

Congress. And Democrats get 50% of the

vote, their top four candidates go to to

Congress. Now, under the current system,

you know, if you get 51%,

you get 100% of the representation.

under a proportional system, if you get

51% of the vote, you get 50% of the

representation, which seems intuitively

fair. And there there are a bunch of

different ways to do proportional

representation. And there are better

ways to do it and worse ways to do it.

But the the big thing that people should

know is that this is a system in which

we are mechanically doing what we think

is fair, which is that parties should

get seats in the legislature in direct

proportion to the share of votes that

they get in the election.

>> Okay. But but walk me through this at a

deeper level of granularity. So, let's

say that we do we we do the Drutman

proportional representation plan

>> and I'm here in New York City and I'm in

an eight member district right now. You

know, if I when I walk into the voting

booth,

>> right,

>> I have a choice between a single

Democratic representative um a single

Republican and then sometimes some other

parties and and so on.

>> But but really there are two candidates

who I'm deciding between. And really,

there's only one candidate. You're

deciding.

>> Well, I could vote for the the the

Republican, but they're just probably

not going to win here in New York City.

>> Yes.

>> Okay. What am I looking at? And then and

then am I just, you know, marking

Democrat or Republican or working

families or whatever it might be? Or am

I voting for individual candidates on

these lists? Like, how is this working?

>> So, the the most commonly used form of

proportional representation is an open

list party system. And I I think that's

probably the best system that that would

be the one that I would choose. And what

that means practically is that you go

into the voting booth and there's a

Democratic party uh and they have a list

of candidates. It's a Republican party

and they have a list of candidates and

you can choose the candidate from the

party that you like. And all of the

candidates are essentially running

together. their votes get tallied

together, added together, and that's the

party's vote share, and then the party

gets seats in the legislature in

proportion.

>> But am I marking a box for the Democrat

versus Republican party, or am I

individually voting for candidates or

>> under under an open list system, you're

voting for a candidate on a party list?

So, you're So, you're getting to choose

the the party and the candidate,

>> but I still only have one vote. But you

still only have one vote, right? Okay.

Exactly.

>> So, I have a couple of questions about

this.

>> Yeah.

>> First, who is choosing this list of

party candidates? If Democrats are now

running uh, you know, in this nine or

eight eight seat district, I assume

they're running eight candidates,

something like that.

>> Yeah, they probably run eight

candidates, maybe fewer.

>> Is there a primary those candidates get

decided? Is it just up to party bosses

now? Like, who is choosing? So there are

a few ways that parties under this

system choose their candidates. One is

to have some sort of convention. Two is

to have some sort of, you know, where if

you're a party member, you get to vote.

Uh but you could have a primary in which

like the the top seven or eight

finishers go on to the general election,

but this sort of obviates the need for a

primary.

>> I don't understand at all why this would

obviousate the need for a primary in in

the situation you're talking about. It

seems incredibly important who ends up

on the party list and who is choosing,

right? If there's no primary and I'm

just expecting, you know, the local

Democratic Party convention to do it or

the local Democratic Party bosses, I

mean, that's a lot of power moving to

the party structure, which which maybe

you think is a good idea, but it really

matters who we're voting for,

>> right? Like I'm in a district where Dan

Goldman and Brad Lander are running

against each other, right, to be the

Democratic Party's nominee for the House

and they are different candidates who

have different views on on things and

like it is meaningful which one of them

advances in the in the primary. So how

under these systems do you become the

nominee?

>> So

>> or get on the list. So you would

participate in your local Democratic

party and there would be a convention

for example and you know candidates

would put themselves forward and then

whoever is part of that convention would

say these are the candidates we want.

Now if I'm the if we're sticking within

the two-party framework for now and I'm

the local Democratic party and I want to

appeal to a lot of different people. I

want somebody who's going to appeal to

progressives and somebody who's going to

appeal to moderates. So, I don't want to

load it with just moderates or just

progressives. I want to run candidates

who are going to appeal to different

groups within the electorate because I

want to maximize the total vote for the

party. Okay. So, I want to go through

some of the arguments for this and then

I want to go through some of the

arguments against it.

Let's just start with where we began

this conversation. What does this do

about gerrymandering? If the thing we're

trying to fix here is the maximum

warfare gerrymandering world we've

entered, what is the proportional

representation

answer to that?

>> Well, the the thing that we don't like

about gerrymandering is that it's highly

disproportional. Take Louisiana, right?

You have six districts. So you can draw

them in a whole lot of different ways to

maximize your advantage if you're the

Republican state legislature.

If you make Louisiana one six member

proportional district, there are no

lines to draw.

There's no possibility for

gerrymandering.

>> Okay. So what happens in a state like

California where you have more than 50

currently you have more than 50

districts.

>> Let's say you're doing five member

districts. you now have, you know, 10ish

districts.

>> You got to draw those somehow. Can you

just gerrymander that?

>> I mean, you can. Um, but now if you're

drawing a five member district where

Republicans have 40%.

>> Well, they they still have two seats.

So, the whole idea that anything over

50% gives you 100% and everything under

50% gives you zero goes away. So, the

results are going to be proportional

within those districts. So you can't

marginalize the opposition party. So So

even though there are lines to draw and

somebody have to draw those lines and

probably they should be drawn by an

independent redistricting commission,

the the consequences of drawing those

lines becomes less predictable and less

clearly partisan.

>> All right. So then I want to get to the

second major implication here, which if

I'm just being blunt about my own views,

this is why I support proportional

representation.

in this world. Let's say you're the

Democrats in California,

>> right?

>> Right now, you have to worry in every

single district about getting to 51%.

>> Right?

>> But it doesn't actually benefit you at

all to get to 60 versus 51, to get to 70

versus 60, etc. And same thing for say

Republicans in Louisiana. But all of a

sudden here it does begin to matter

whether or not you appeal to people who

are skeptical of you, who are not

totally sold.

And conversely, the minority party is

not competing ineffectually.

It actually matters for them if they get

30% of the vote, 40% of the vote, 45% of

the vote.

And so it creates competition

for voters

who are just currently disenfranchised.

So how because we do have proportional

representation all all over the world in

other countries. How do we see political

parties acting competing differently in

places where they have to compete for

these votes versus in the United States

where you know in many of these red and

blue states like Texas Republicans don't

really have to worry about doing

anything to moderate to win over Texas

Democrats

>> right so one thing we know comparatively

is that systems of proportional

representation have much higher voter

turnout uh and that is for a couple of

reasons and the perhaps the most

important reason is that parties are

actively seeking out different parts of

the electorate because every vote

matters equally. So right now in our

current system, votes only matter in

swing districts essentially. So if I'm

the

>> 15

or a handful of states. So you know if

I'm the majority party in the you know

if I'm the the Republicans in Louisiana

like you know what what do I need to to

expand my electorate? they already have

the the majority and people are just

voting for for partisanship. And voters

are not stupid. They know that in these

lopsided districts, their vote doesn't

matter. And the idea that we're just

going to tell people vote harder when

there's all these districts where

doesn't matter how hard you vote, you're

still the minority party, that that is

just insulting to voters. When elections

are competitive, voters are more engaged

and parties are more engaged and that

brings a larger share of the electorate

in. It brings more under represented

groups into the electorate because

parties are going to look and say who

who where are the underserved groups?

And when you look comparatively actually

parties that control their nominations

do a much better job of elevating

diverse candidates because they have a

strong incentive to try to appeal to

different groups in the electorate.

Whereas in our current system of primary

elections, which are very

candidacentric, it's often the loudest

and brashest and most overconfident

folks who who advance as opposed to

folks who are just maybe good team

players. So I think there is a problem

with our current primary system. I I I

wonder.

>> But do you think it would be better if

people were just good team players

advanced?

>> Yeah.

>> I mean, what do you say to somebody who

says, "No, no, no. I prefer a Zoran

Mandani to a Bradlander. I prefer a

Graham Platner to a Janet Mills. That

what you're describing here is going to

charge up the power of party

establishments I already don't trust.

Well, that's because the there is only

one party on the left and only one party

on the right. There's no competition. So

I think the the point that you're

getting at here is like Graham Platner

and Janet Mills are not really in the

same party. Brad Lander and Dan Goldman

are not really in the same party. Maybe

Brad Lander and Zoran Mani are in the

same party. Uh but politics is a team

sport ultimately and if you want to get

anything done you need to be part of a

team and parties are really the

essential institutions of modern

democratic governance and they are

absolutely broken

in the United States right now. But the

idea that we're going to give up on

party democracy is like saying we're

going to give up on Congress. So this is

this gets into another big point about

proportional representation,

>> which is we are not a two-party system

in America by accident,

>> right?

>> We are a two-party system in America by

structure,

>> right?

>> And proportional representation, at

least at the House level, might break

that structure,

>> right?

>> So why is proportional representation

friendlier to a multi-party system? Why

would it break the two-party system,

>> right?

>> Uh compared to what we have now. Well,

the reason we have the two-party system

is not because Americans want just two

parties. And you see in poll after poll,

Americans say, "I'd like to have more

choices." But the structure of single

winner elections is such that third

parties become spoilers and wasted

votes. So all of the energy concentrates

in both of the major parties because

they essentially have a monopoly on

opposition to each other and there's a

lot of pressure to join one of the two

teams. We also have a a primary system

to be in the primaries where if you're a

denter, it's better to run as a Democrat

or a Republican. Like Bernie Sanders

could have run as a third party. He's

not even a Democrat, but he's going to

run in the Democratic primary. Donald

Trump ran as an as a reform party

candidate the first time he ran for

president. Uh then he realized I can run

as a Republican and I can control the

Republican party if I win. So under a

proportional multi-party, under a

proportional system, uh you don't need

to get 51% of the vote to represent a

district. If it's a five member

district, 20%. And that allows

>> would give you a seat

>> would give you a seat. And

>> so you could have a situation where you

have the Republicans winning most votes,

Democrats coming in second, and a third

party coming in third, and the third

party has a seat in Congress as opposed

to just made the Democrats lose.

>> Right. Exactly right. So 20, you know,

you could in theory have have five

different parties winning a seat in a

five member district.

>> So Donald Trump wins the Republican

nomination in 2016. There was at that

time a fairly large faction of

Republican voters who are dissatisfied

with that choice. But really they are

then offered a choice between um

particularly at the House level uh

voting for Republicans which is their

party or voting for the Democrats on

whom they sort of disagree with on

everything. Now, you could have imagined

a conservative party emerging saying,

"We're the real conservatives and, you

know, we hold traditional Republican

party views on a bunch of different

issues and, you know, vote for us at at

the House level and, you know, we'll

represent you in Congress and sort of

work with Republicans and Democrats as

as needed." The issue right now is to

vote for that party would be to throw

your vote away because it would get, you

know, even if it did really well, if it

got 10% or 15% in say Utah, it wouldn't

get any representation. and it might

have just made Democrats who you really

disagree with win the election. But the

theory now is that new parties could

emerge because getting, you know, 20% of

the vote somewhere is actually enough to

begin building a party and have power

and maybe get 30% next time and and it

it creates a sort of different, you

know, dimension of uh possibility.

>> Yeah, that's that's exactly right. And

but but I mean it's even worse than

that. It's not that you're throwing away

your vote. It's that that part, you

don't even have the choice of voting for

that party because that party doesn't

exist because nobody's organizing that

party because they know that it is a

fool's errand under our current system.

There is uh a dimension of this I think

is interesting for the the major parties

too. So something I've covered on the

show before is the degree to which

Democrats have been annihilated in rural

areas of the country. Now, if you

imagine a proportional representation

system, you they would be getting at

least some rural seats, which would mean

there would be rural representation

inside the Democratic party, which would

at least in theory make the Democratic

party more able to continue thinking

about what it needs to do to appeal to

rural voters. That there is a a way in

which it it makes sure you have members

from the kinds of places where you are

overall losing,

>> right? And it means you don't get quite

as out of touch with what it means to

compete in those places. And I think

that's actually important. I think that

it is a bad thing Republicans are so bad

at competing in urban areas right now. I

think it's bad the Democrats are so bad

at competing in rural areas. And you

can, you know, name this down for a lot

of different forms of American division

and difference. Whereas if you're able

to do this, you know, kind of system

where you get you get something for

getting 35% of the vote, then you still

have representation inside your party

from those kinds of places.

Yeah, that that is that is a tremendous

benefit and something that you see in

multi-party democracies throughout the

world is that there is a party of the

right that competes in urban areas and

in most multi-party countries and a

party of the left that competes in rural

areas and that makes the coalition

broader. It makes the government also

seem more legitimate to folks in these

places. And that that is part of the

this animosity and this sense that

Americans view each other as immoral. I

mean, it's not just that Democrats are

the party that Republicans disagree

with. It's that like Democrats are

dangerous communist Marxists who want to

turn everybody transgender and let

immigrants get all the the social

benefits.

>> Yeah, but that bill hasn't passed yet.

>> Well, yeah, not yet. We're working on

it. So the we've been making here what I

would call the the minimalist case for

proportional representation which is to

say that it it reenfranchises people who

are being disenfranchised by

gerrymandering on the one hand and by

winner take all districts on the other.

uh you make what I would call the

maximalist case for proportional

representation which is that we are in a

a two-party doom loop in which the form

of competition between the parties has

become toxic

and it has collapsed what you call

dimensionality

>> right

>> in the electorate in a dangerous way. So

walk me through that argument.

>> Okay. So, you know, if if you if you

went back to say 1965 when the Voting

Rights Act passed, you had a a coalition

of Democrats and Republicans supporting

this. And you had liberals in both

parties. You had liberal Republicans who

were supporting the Voting Rights Act.

You had liberal Democrats who were

supporting the Voting Rights Act. You

also had a lot of conservative Democrats

who were opposed and some conservative

Republicans who were opposed. And what

you see in that is there is a a way that

people thought about social issues, the

way that people thought about states

rights issues that was different from

the way that the parties were

structured. And it was a it was a

contentious time in US politics, but we

had a party system in which both parties

contained multitudes and both parties

contained broad geographies. And so you

could fight out some of these issues

both within the parties and between the

parties in a way that

did not collapse everything into

Democrats versus Republicans. And really

over the last three decades we have lost

that that you used to have conservative

Democrats, you used to have liberal

Republicans, you had Republicans from

New England, you had Democrats uh from

the West and and some of the plain

states and they were really different,

right? Barry Goldwater was in American

politics was really different than what

George Romney was, was different than

what John Lindseay, the the liberal

Republican mayor of New York was

>> or Jacob Javitz

>> or Jacob Javitz in the Democratic party.

You know, Lynden Johnson and Hubert

Humphrey were just extremely different

politicians before they served on a

ticket together.

>> Kennedy and Johnson were very different

politicians. Like you really did have, I

think, a I mean, this is the whole story

I tell in my book, Why We're Polarized.

I don't think today we have any

intuition

for how wide the parties were. That's

right. Yeah. It was just a completely

different party system. And you you see

that in in the way that that a lot of

bills pass with these broad Republican

uh Democratic coalitions. And now you

you the only legislation you you see

that looks like that is the stuff that

nobody cares about. When you talk about

the way in which the these differences

in the parties collapse down, one place

you really see it is in how closely

the way people vote for House and Senate

candidates now tracks the way they vote

for president.

>> Right.

>> And this is something that that I've

paid a lot of attention to and even

paying a lot of attention to it. You put

up a series of charts on say the way

people voted for the Senate candidate

and the president in 2000, which is, you

know, a while ago now, not that long

ago, and the way they did it in 2024.

Can can you just walk me through what

has happened in in in that kind of

voting, what it means for the the

system?

>> Yes, I would love to. So one way to

think about it is to to think of a data

point which is Jim Jeffs running in 2000

as a Republican in Vermont and Jim Jeffs

wins overwhelmingly gets like 70% of the

vote or Lincoln Chaffy as a Republican

in Rhode Island. But those states go

very heavily to to Gore. You cannot

imagine a Republican winning statewide

in Rhode Island or Vermont for the

Senate now. And what you see between

2000 and 2024 is the disappearance of

the Jim Jeffs and the Lincoln Chaffies.

You

>> They both switch parties.

>> And they both switch parties. Yes. As a

as a good example of that. The the sort

of last

dot that is off is Joe Mansion. And you

know, he's a Democrat who wins in a very

Republican state. Although not that long

ago, West Virginia had been a pretty

Democratic state. Uh, and so even a

candidate with the with the generational

talent of John Tester in Montana cannot

outperform the Democratic party. And

that is just just a tremendous collapse

in the effect of individual candidates.

>> The numbers here though, so you have

this chart and and I just want to

describe it. It's like you see all the

bubbles of the different Senate

elections and then the line that is

showing, you know, the the correlation

between,

>> you know, how people are voting for the

Senate candidate and how they're voting

for for the president.

>> In 2000, according to your data, the

correlation is 0.2. It's 20%. Pretty

weak correlation.

>> It's a pretty weak correlation. So,

knowing how a state is voting for

president does not really tell you how

they're going to vote for Senate.

>> Yes.

>> And by 2024, it's over 90%.

>> Right. So that that whole ability

I mean this is a argument you made is

like we have we're having in the the in

in politics right now and particularly

among Democrats this debate about how

much moderation is worth and and you're

some a point you make which I find

compelling is that moderation might be

worth a couple of points but what's

really happened is that the whole

ability to diverge from your party has

weakened tremendously like how much a

shared brown a John Tester

um you know a liberal Republican can

diverge. I mean still you can get like

in high cases you know a 6 to 8 point

overperformance against the party but

compared to what you could do in 2000 or

2004 and 2006 which is like fairly late

into polarized American politics.

It's just we just vote yes

>> with the presidential level

>> and and it's even more extreme at the

house level. the the the correlation

there is now 98 which is like basically

100%.

>> So you're the the reason I'm bringing

this up is that one of the arguments you

make is that we just need to have more

parties

that in the two party system when it's

become this rigid and people hate the

other party so much that there's no

other way to have real political

competition except to make it possible

to form new parties. Make that case for

me. Well, you just made it excellently,

but a lot of people are dissatisfied

with the Democratic party. A lot of

people are dissatisfied with the

Republican party, but they have no other

options because our system of single

member districts limits those options.

And what happens every election is we

just keep swinging back a little bit

towards Democrats, a little bit towards

Republicans because there's some portion

of the electorate that's just

disaffected, just wants change. And

there's a lot of people who just not

voting alto together. And Democratic

Party is a big coalition. There are a

lot of fights within the Democratic

Party. And the way that the Democratic

Party holds that coalition together is

they say, "Well, do you want Republicans

to win?" No, they are fascists. You

cannot deviate. You got to get on with

the party line. Republicans are a big

heterogeneous coalition. And Donald

Trump's political genius is that he

brought that coalition together by just

owning the libs, just hating the

Democrats. The Democrats are the enemy.

Whatever you think of me, I I may have

done something weird on January 6, but

if you don't defend me, you're helping

Democrats. and everybody gets locked

into that binary psychology and that is

the thing that keeps holding these

coalitions together and it just traps

our political system into this spiral of

demonization or what I have called the

two-party doom loop.

>> But is proportional representation

enough to do anything about that?

Because that would really just affect

house elections.

>> Um so proportional representation would

elect would impact house elections. Now,

for Senate elections, you could use

fusion voting, which is a system that

was once widely legal in the US. It it

exists in New York. And what that allows

for is you can have multiple parties

basically forming a proportional

coalition on a single candidate. So,

minor parties could play in those

elections. You could also do that for

presidential elections and gubernatorial

elections. So this would be something

like imagine in Michigan where there's

this you know Abdul El Sayad is running

and and if he wins a primary you could

have a Michigan progressive party right

>> where people voted for him through that

party and so the Michigan progressive

party is running in house elections it's

able to be on the ballot and in Senate

elections so it's just building strength

that's basically the argument

>> it's building strength and it's also

signaling the coalition right like if if

if he wins and

but he only gets like 12% of of the the

general election vote from the

progressives, then says, "Oh, maybe my

progressive support is is less than I

thought it was." And so, actually, I

need to represent my coalition in a way

that's maybe a little bit more moderate,

for example.

>> Or the the the converse is that, you

know, maybe the Progressive Party says,

"If you don't do X, you don't vote this

way with us, we're going to not endorse

you in the next election." And then he's

got to serve them,

>> right? Yeah. Okay. So, he he's got to

navigate that. But I mean all politics

is coalitional politics. The And the

problem is that we just have these two

coalitions that are locked in permanent

death struggle with each other when

there's actually a lot of other possible

coalitions that could happen in any

given election or any given Congress

that would perhaps offer some different

approaches to solving some of our uh

current problems. and we just get locked

into this. Well, I I I need an issue,

not a solution. So, here's where I am

skeptical that multi-party democracy

would solve the range of problems we're

talking about here. I I believe it would

solve the gerrymandering problem. I

believe it would uh actually lead to

healthier competition for voters who are

currently functionally disenfranchised.

But I look around the world and I see in

the UK a multi-party democracy is not

looking so much healthier than ours. The

center-left party there is in shambles.

Nigel Farage's party, the reform party

is probably going to win. The Tories are

somewhat in shambles. I look at Israel

and Netanyahu has a coalitional um

majority that is built on highly extreme

members and so is very unstable. It's

actually particularly unstable at this

exact moment that we're talking. But it

has not led to a healthy politics in

Israel. In Germany, the the AFD is

surging. Um, you know, in Italy, a more

far-right party one. So, if what you're

saying is listen, there is a kind of

toxic competition that is allowing a

more extreme right or for that matter

even like I guess people could worry

about an extreme left to emerge and

having a multi-party system would would

be stabilizing.

What about the international scene right

now gives you confidence that that is

true?

>> We we we we put four countries on the

table. So, let's work work through each

of them. So, the UK has a has first pass

the post. It does not have proportional,

>> but it does have a multi-arty.

>> It does have a multi-party system, but a

multi-party system in a first pass the

post system.

>> Can you describe what that means?

>> A first pass the post same system that

we have single winner elections, single

member districts.

And so I mean in some ways that's

actually the worst system is multi-party

within single member districts because

it means that the reform party could get

27% of the votes and and a majority in

in the House of Commons in the same way

that Labor won the last election with

only 33% of the vote and they got

twothirds of the seats. So Israel has an

extreme form of proportional

representation where the entire Knesset

is one electoral district 120 members

and the threshold for representation is

just 3.25%.

So if you get more than 3.25%

you get a seat in parliament. There were

a couple weird things that happened the

last elections where a couple parties

that probably should have run together

ran separately and they were just under

that threshold. But it's too many

parties and you know at an extreme end

of of too many parties that leads to too

much fragmentation and then it makes it

harder to pull together a coalition.

It's too proportional. There is such a

thing as too proportional. So what

you're saying what you're saying in the

Israel case is that you're getting a bad

outcome because there are like specific

design questions that they have messed

up that if the margin for representation

was 5% or 7% or something that would be

much better. I mean it might be it would

also be better if they had a

constitution. I think that would that

would probably help. But you know I mean

it's also a country that has a lot of

challenges of being beset by enemies on

on all sides and and

there are there are a lot of complicated

things going on in Israel that are I

think somewhat unique to Israel as a

country.

>> I guess the point I'm trying to make

here is that every country is unique.

Every country has its own factors. No

country is going to like perfectly tune

its electoral system.

>> Every country is unhappy in its own way.

>> This is true.

>> But like imagine an alternative, you

know, world in this country where in

2016, Donald Trump did not quite win the

Republican nomination or he didn't win

the election. And in our system, if that

had happened, if Hillary Clinton had

beat him, uh, you know, maybe that's

kind of the end of the Donald Trump

insurgency. But in the system you're

talking about maybe MAGA becomes a you

know proportion you know a party that is

winning like you know half or a little

bit less than half of the seats

Republicans are and rather than the

gatekeepers in Republican party being

able to hold it at the door which

obviously they did not do anyway

>> it didn't happen but

>> but it could have right I mean it seems

to me you are

>> I I have my thoughts on this but it

seems to me that

>> the system we had was relying on

gatekeepers for a long time and the

system you're talking about here allows

for much more entry of new parties.

right? A DSA party, a farright party, um

you know, all kinds of different things.

And maybe that is more representative of

the public. I think that's a fairly good

argument for it. It is not obvious to me

that it is stable in some way that, you

know, we are not or we have not been.

>> Yeah. So, you want to talk about

Germany, you want to talk about Italy,

these are good examples that there is a

a far-right party. I mean, Georgia

Maloney was of the farright party and

she became the the head of government

there and she had to form a coalition

and she had a had to move to to a more

moderate position to to build a

coalition. Uh AFD has been basically

kept out of the German government. if if

they reach a point where it's impossible

to form a government without them, they

they will have to make a a compromise

with another party. Uh and so the

problem I think is what has happened in

the US and you know maybe you could tell

an alternative history in which things

went differently in 2016 and we were in

a different place but that's not the the

place that we're in which we have half

of the electorate who thinks if the

other party wins it's illegitimate and

you can't maintain

>> or at least very very very dangerous

>> very dangerous and that leads to a kind

escalation of well, we're just going to

do everything that we can do whether or

not it's it's democratic, whether or not

it's legitimate. I mean, you you look at

the way that the the Trump

administration is really

eroding norm after norm because they

think that Democrat or they've convinced

themselves that Democrats are evil. They

want to maintain power. And a lot of the

Republican voters are like me Democrats

are evil so whatever is justified and

and that is the situation that that is

incredibly dangerous to democracy. So,

you know, you think about like, you

know, I don't know if

>> why would this make it different? Why

would this make it different to have

like you imagine this situation we're

talking about, but now there's not just

a Democratic party, there's the DSA

party, there's the anti-ionism party,

there's the, you know, the blue dog,

whatever it is, right? Probably not that

many. Probably not that many.

>> But let's say that in the world you

imagine there, I think you've said you

think we would split into something like

five or six parties. So, there are,

let's call it two to three parties on

the left. would not would maybe in that

world, you know, the Republican figure

we're talking about or the right-wing

figure is actually saying, "Look, you

can't let like this DSA party in, right?

They're really dangerous." And so, like,

how is that different? I would I would

posit that there there is a portion of

the Republican electorate who

thinks Donald Trump is not great but

thinks Democrats are worse and they have

no alternative party to vote for

in which they can say you know like I

don't like Democrats I don't like Donald

Trump but I I want something that's like

more of a traditional like an Adam

Kinzinger Liz Cheney party that would

push against some of Trump's extremism

but maybe, you know, give me some of the

just straight up conservative policy.

And you know, you do do a comparison to

Brazil, for example, and there great

piece by Zach Bechum in in Fox looking

at what why was Brazil able to put

Bolsinaro in jail after his attempted

coup. And part of the story is that, you

know, Bolsinaro built a coalition of

parties. Brazil is a multi-party system

and those parties after they saw what

Bolsinaro tried to do they said you know

what like we can move on we're we're not

tied to Bolsinaro Republican party in

the US they could have pushed back

against Trump but they didn't because

they were so tied to Trump and Trump

said whatever you think of me Democrats

are worse and in that binary condition

you cannot hold your side accountable

because it means the other side is going

to win. When things become so zero sum,

so binary,

so all or nothing that you will tolerate

even an attempted coup,

that's when things get really dangerous.

And that is the the danger of the

two-party system.

>> Here's another way of looking at at

least part of what is going wrong um

from my political perspective in in a

bunch of these countries around the

world. which is that the leftist center

parties suck and you're a big parties

guy and and you argue I think correctly

that parties are like the fundamental

organizers of political conflict that

part of the problem in our political

system is we don't have an official

place for them and so they're they're

poorly balanced against each other. We

haven't thought very hard about how we

want to relate to parties. And one thing

that that you sometimes argue is a good

dimension of of this and related reforms

would be that it would empower parties

more.

>> Yeah. I just look at the way the

Democratic party is acting

and it is making just in my view like

terrible strategic decision after

terrible not all of them right I

actually think like for instance Jeff

has done a quite good job as um leader

of the house Democrats but you look at

the DNC under Ken Martin I think it's

been a mess you look at the uh uniting

around Joe Biden in the 2024 election

before it became completely untenable

the the unwillingness also to have any

kind of like open process to decide who

would replace him. You look at the the

tendency sort of just organized around

candidates who have institutional

weight. I mean, and we're watching that

fail in place after place. Andrew Cuomo

in New York City, um Janet Mills in

Maine. And it seems actually somewhat

similar in other countries to I mean,

Kier Stormer has a again a part of this

problem as a just candid who is really

fluent at navigating institutions

more than at connecting with a public.

>> And I'm seeing that kind of failure in a

lot of left of center parties. A

preference for people who can navigate

the institutions. And the institutions

are just quite different than the public

is. They are they have different

internal voices. they have more intense

policy demands and there's a a a kind of

consistent

diminishment or discounting of the

importance of actual like what I would

call political or communicative talent

and there's just actually something

wrong in these you know left center

parties these are institutional

structures at an anti-institutional

moment and that's why they're failing

I'm curious how you think about that

>> so I I think that's right that that a

lot of center-left parties are really

struggling in this moment and

it it is a it is a moment of of

collective distemper. People are are

very frustrated with the way

institutions are working. I think a lot

of that is the hangover from COVID and

and and inflation. And you know, yes, I

share all your frustrations and

critiques of of the Democratic Party,

and I probably take that up another 50%.

Uh,

but the problem is that there there's no

alternative to the Democratic Party in

the US. In the UK, although, you know,

they do have a first pass both, the

Greens are rising. In Germany, there

there is an alternative. the that's not

the alternative for Germany, but the

Greens have also been doing better in

elections. So, if there were a

progressive party in the US, they would

have a opportunity to say, "Hey, you

know, you you you want uh left politics

and you don't like the the mainstream

Democrats, you can vote for us." If

there were a blue dog party that was

more of a populist, you know, center

center left party, they could say, "Hey,

you don't like the mainstream Democrats,

you can vote for us. We're an

alternative." So there is a sense of

dynamic competition but I agree we are

in a moment in which there is just

tremendous anti-institutional

frustration in a lot of places a lot of

western democracies and and that's a

real challenge for democracy so you know

question is how do we manage that and I

think the best way to manage that is to

create a space where multiple parties

can compete to capture that energy and

to harness that in a way that is, you

know, I think more progressive and

hopeful about the future as opposed to

the right-wing parties which just say,

"Hey, we just got to kick out all the

immigrants and and uh go back to how

things were in some Palcian lost era."

So the other question that that instit

set of institutional failures presents

though is

how would you get something like this

done?

Because there's first a question of you

know can you just do proportional voting

with a bill? But the other issue you're

facing here is

that to vote for proportional

representation as a member of Congress

or as a party in Congress

is to

ask a lot of current incumbents to

knowingly give up their seats, right? in

this fair world we're talking about

where you know California seats are

aortioned you know whatever it is like

Democrats get 65% of them and

Republicans get 35% of them and you know

something like the reverse in Texas to

vote for this for California Democrats

means some set of them are knowingly

voting away their seats

and that makes it a very it seems to me

hard push I mean there's a bill from

represent Don Byer to to do a version of

proportional representation it doesn't

have like a mass of co-sponsors. It

>> does not.

>> So, so, so talk through this. Can you do

this just through a bill? Um, right. Can

it be, can you do it in one shot? And

two, like how would you get a bill like

that passed?

>> So, yes, you can do it in a bill. The,

uh, current controlling statute is the

Uniform Congressional District Act of

1967, which mandates single member

districts. Congress could amend that

bill and mandate proportional

multi-member districts

and that would be just a law of

Congress. Uh, article 1, section 4 of

the elections clause of the constitution

gives congress pretty broad power to

decide how its members get elected. So,

Congress could pass a bill. Now, the the

the politics question of it is the

complicated one. Now you you know you'd

say well okay members would be giving up

their seats. Now there's a way to pass

proportional representation and for

members to not risk losing their seats

which is to just increase the size of

the house alongside doing proportional

representation. So if you just make

California have more representatives or

Massachusetts have more representatives

then the incumbents can keep their seat

>> and there's an argument for that. There

is a very strong argument. Do you want

to just make that briefly because I

think that's an interesting way of of of

thinking about how you might blunt some

of the initial um opposition to this

>> right and you know the argument is

basically for you know the most of our

history up until well actually all of

our history up until 1911 as the country

got bigger the house got bigger and

every decade we'd do a census and then

there would be an aortionment and as the

population grew so did the house. So the

original House of Representatives was

only 65 members. It kept growing and at

uh 435 members in 1911,

Congress couldn't agree on how to

reaportion things and eventually they

said, "Oh, we'll just keep it at 435."

Now country is a lot bigger now than it

was in 1911. It's about it's more than

three times as large and yet we've kept

that that size the same. So

given that the country is a lot bigger,

given that members now represent uh

765,000

constituents, that's very high. There's

a strong argument for increasing the

house. In fact, I I co-wrote a piece

with the American Academy of Arts and

Sciences arguing that we should increase

the size of the House by 150 uh members.

could push for even more although I

think might be a little disruptive to do

more than that but you know you increase

the house by 150 members it's increasing

it by about about a third uh and you

know that would be good I think to

better represent the diversity of this

country to bring in a bunch of new

members bunch of French members and also

it would I think ease the path to

proportional representation and make

more states benefit from proportional

representation

because there are some states that have

smaller delegations.

>> So in Iowa, Rob Sand, who is a Democrat

running for governor, who looks like

he's got a very good chance of winning

that election, which was not, I think,

anticipated. And in Iowa, which has

become quite a lot redder in in recent

years,

>> and he's running very explicitly on

destroying the two-party system. I mean,

he's a Democrat, but he's like, we

should not have this duopoly in our

politics. That's been a resonant message

in in Iowa, and I think it could be

elsewhere.

You could imagine a Democratic party

under new leadership, right? A

presidential candidate, you know,

running on some mix of aggressive

campaign finance reform. Get the money

out of politics. Um, you know, elections

reform like proportional representation.

Uh, you know, maybe Supreme Court term

limits would be another one I would I

would put on that. But you can have a a

party that is fundamentally saying,

"Look, the stakes on this have gotten

too high. People are unhappy. You're all

cynical with politics. this is not

serving you.

The problem is that while you can

imagine that as serving the interests of

like an individual presidential

candidate or an individual candidate for

governor, we are talking about something

that has to pass the house. And so I'm

curious as we kind of come to an end

here, we have seen a lot of systems

switch over to proportional

representation um you know in other

countries.

What are the politics that usually allow

that to to happen given that, you know,

oftentimes politicians are pretty

jealous about, you know, preserving a

system that they've figured out how to

benefit from?

>> That is true. Now, you know, I think

when you look at at the switchovers, you

know, there's a few things that tend to

come together. One is intense

dissatisfaction with the status quo and

just a a public that is

feeling like the system is fundamentally

broken and putting pressure on

politicians to do something different to

change the rules. Second is that there

is a clear sense of what is the

alternative right because there are a

lot of ways you could change things and

you know I think to the extent that

people say you know proportional

representation this is a fair way to do

things and we agree on that that's

important as well. So those two things

have to come together there's a sense of

what the problem is and a sense of what

the solution is. But then the third

thing and this is the thing that that

you raised is well politicians

ultimately have to vote for this and

they have to change the way they get

elected and they may not love the way

they get elected now but they know it.

They've mastered that system.

Now,

from the perspective of Democrats who

will potentially be in the majority in

2029 and have a trifecta,

2030 looks terrible, right? I mean, that

they will they will then pay the midterm

penalty. There will be reortionment and

you know the we're just going to keep

doing this Jerry Manning.

>> The post 2030 redistricting would be

terrible. You mean?

>> Yeah. But even the 2030 midterms will be

terrible for Democrats because basically

every midterm is a wipeout. That's just

how things are in our politics.

>> And so there is a there's a political

sense that, you know, we're going to

lose. So we better use this opportunity

to to end the gerrymandering wars cuz

ultimately if we keep doing the

gerrymandering wars throughout the

2030s,

that's going to be very bad for us. Now,

there's another political argument that

I would make to Democrats in Congress,

which is to say, do you think of

yourself as part of the Democratic party

or part of the Democratic coalition? And

if you talk to progressive Democrats,

they will say, "We're not the corporate

Democrats, and we think that the

corporate Democrats are just terrible

for the party. We want to make our case

directly to the voters that we're going

to offer bold progressivism." moderate

Democrats would say, you know, the

progressives are killing us with all

these crazy issues, all this big

government, all this woke stuff. You

know, we want to speak to the moderate

Democrats and we want to run

independently. And then to the extent

that there are some blue dogs say

Democratic brand is terrible, we would

just like to run as blue dogs because we

think we can connect with voters who

have written off Democrats but might

consider us and uh might support us. So

you can imagine that there are three

factions roughly within the Democratic

party and

members of Congress see themselves, many

of them inside of one of these factions

and they can be different things in

different parts of the country into

different voters rather than having to

be one thing which winds up just being

this muddle that nobody can quite figure

out what they're for and they can't

agree what they're for and then they

wind up fighting all these fights in

primaries. So I I think there is a

political case in that respect and you

know then there's just some sense of

like do we care about these basics of

voters having

representation and feeling like their

vote matters and if we care about

democracy because we are Democrats maybe

this is just the right thing to do for

the country and besides it's pretty

miserable being here in Congress under

this maximum gerrymandering where we

don't know whether we're going to have

our district next year and it's just a

miserable place to be.

>> What do you say to a Republican

listening to this saying, "Oh, you guys

are just liberals who you're you're

losing now and you're, you know,

Virginia gerrymander didn't work out and

so now you just want to change the

rules."

>> Well, I've been saying we should move to

proportional representation for a very

long time. Uh but I I think there is a

problem for the Republican party which

is like the Democrats. They Republicans

are are a heterogeneous coalition and

there are a lot of folks who vote

Republican who don't feel well

represented by the Republican party. And

I think if Republicans had a party or a

faction or a new party that was

competing in urban areas, the the party

could actually grow. And there are a lot

of uh urban areas where Democrats have

not governed well. A lot of lot of blue

states where Democrats have not governed

particularly well. and an alternative

party that maybe is not the Trump

Republicans but maybe is the growth and

opportunity party that doesn't have the

baggage of that could actually make some

valuable inroads in those places. And

you know fundamentally this is you know

I think a very msonian argument about

American democracy is that we shouldn't

have two permanent factions.

What we need is a multiplicity of

factions that allow us to constantly

argue and constantly recoales from

election to election. And I think

the the situation that we're in is is

not good for anybody, Democrats or

Republicans.

>> What about simply the the argument, this

is I guess one I find convincing, that

Republicans in blue states should be

represented too, that that it's just not

good for voters anywhere. Yeah. for the

way the system is done to be a

protection and maximization

for the incentives of the politicians as

opposed to the representation of the

constituents.

>> Right? Competition is good. Uh and

having two parties or five parties or

six parties that are competing

everywhere, it's good for America. It's

good for voters and nobody should be

shut out of power anywhere.

>> I think that's a good place to end.

Always a final question. What are three

books you'd recommend to the audience?

>> All right. So, one book that I think

people should read is Lonnie Guineir's

Tyranny of the Majority. Now, this was a

a

book that really influenced me in

thinking about the value of proportional

representation uh particularly for

minority communities. Lonnie Gwineer was

writing these law reviewview essays in

the 80s and early 90s about how

proportional representation would

actually be better for minority

communities and that sort of cost her a

job in the Clinton administration as the

head of civil rights because she had

some weird ideas on proportional

representation. But these ideas are

newly relevant. I think a lot of folks

in the civil rights community are are

are

giving these ideas a second look and and

she just writes really eloquently about

them. Uh, another book I'd recommend is

Sam Huntington's American uh, politics

promise of disharmony, which is a a

historical look at these eras of reform