Flashback: Time To Reform Our Elections

Well, Election Day is finally here. Only a few more hours of anticipation and advertising, then the results start coming in. The polls in Virginia close at 7 pm, a half-hour before North Carolina’s, and ought to give us an early indication of whether the national contest turns out the way the final polling suggests.

As for today’s “Daily Journal,” I was going to write up a set of proposed reforms of the electoral process in North Carolina — I don’t know, it just seems like a timely topic — until I remembered that I had already written such a piece four years ago. Unfortunately, it’s still topical. Back tomorrow with my initial take on the election results, from president all the way down to county bonds and tax votes.

RALEIGH – Our increasingly negative politics, dominated by well-heeled special-interest groups who buy politicians like brands of soap, has led ever-growing numbers of voters to become disaffected, disenchanted, and disconnected from the political process.

Or not.

You’ll read language very much like the paragraph above in the obligatory, hand-wringing, “whither our politics” pieces that run in newspapers about this time each election year. Similar rhetoric crops up on earnest talk shows and end-of-broadcast rants by TV curmudgeons. But as we’ve learned lately, just because something is asserted by the senior statesman of the “prestige press” doesn’t mean that it is true.

As John Samples explains in a new Cato Institute paper, measuring voter participation correctly yields a trend that doesn’t fit the standard explanation. While fewer Americans vote today than they did back in the 1960s, most of the decline happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In North Carolina, as I have previously written, there is no obvious downward trend in participation in recent decades — and thus the asserted linkage between big-money politics or “negative campaigning” and voter disaffection just isn’t evident. The Senate races won by Jesse Helms, for example, were said to be slime-fests designed to drive down turnout, but what actually happened is that high expenditures and sharp divisions brought out voters in large numbers, as Samples’ work suggests is also true nationally.

Real political reform in our state would consist of the usual bromides of more rules, less money, and less clash. Instead, in keeping with a previous “Daily Journal” theme, I’d like to present six simple tools for improving our politics:

Embrace freedom and openness. Rather than adding new restrictions on campaign donations or expenditures, let’s remove them. Let people, individually or in any grouping they desire, support the candidates of their choice to whatever extent they believe prudent. Require that any such contribution, dollars or in-kind, be reported to elections boards within 24 hours of receipt. Such reports should include correct names, addresses, and occupations (as defined by official federal codes).

End coercive funding of politics. It is unjust to force Americans to the esousal of ideas they may find erroneous or offensive. This should mean an end to taxpayer-subsidized mailings and broadcasts, firm rules prohibiting incumbents from using governmental employees or resources for campaign purposes, and no public financing system of any kind.

Ensure competitive elections. The ancient Greeks and Romans understood the importance of rotation in office. Most North Carolinians do, too. Let’s amend the state constitution to create an independent redistricting commission and impose strict, neutral rules on how legislative and congressional districts can be drawn, while also imposing term limits on all state and local elective offices.

Restore the citizen legislature. A related idea, as it would widen the field of good candidates, would be to end North Carolina’s semi-official full-time legislature. Because of lengthening sessions and relatively low pay, lawmakers feel justified in abusing expense accounts, taking freebies from lobbyists, and dragging out their work to maximize per-diem reimbursements. Let’s adopt a system of 60-day long session and 30-day short ones, do more legislative business by teleconference, and close down the gravy train. Trust me: the General Assembly doesn’t really have six or more months a year of legitimate work to perform.

Shorten the ballot. It is only an illusion of representative government to hold statewide elections for dozens of executive and judicial branch offices when most of the candidates are entirely unfamiliar to voters and, in the latter case, aren’t even identified by party. I’d suggest that we elect the governor and lieutenant governor as a ticket, an independent state auditor, and maybe a couple of other offices. Let most others be appointed (with legislative confirmation, if needed for checks and balances) and the rest – some of the “commissioner” jobs come to mind – can be abolished altogether.

Preserve public control of debt. The same politicians who pontificate about the importance of an elected Council of State have been stripping the voters of the right to control the issuance of public debt. Bond referenda are an important check and balance, given the unique role that debt issuances can play in imposing the costs and benefits of government across generations. If bonds are worthy, the voters will approve them. Of course, this means resisting the siren song of tax-increment financing, a way to issue public debt without a public vote, a matter to be decided in November with a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot.

There are other worthwhile reforms to consider, too. But these first steps would go a long way to ensuring that robust, competitive, well-financed, and informed politics prevail in North Carolina.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.