[EL] Polarization and reform

Sat Apr 13 21:34:05 PDT 2019

I'd disagree. See for instance, No Labels, its affiliated PACs, and a
variety of other entities that move millions of dollars quite explicitly
attempt to serve as "moderate" PACs and seek to influence primaries.
Several NGOs with lots of funders in their orbits try to do the same (Third
Way, or the DLC).

The New Dem caucus has a PAC:

https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00409730&cycle=2018

The Blue Dogs have a PAC:

https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00305318&cycle=2018

Big businesses don't always fund the far right (especially for instance, in
safe D seats where they'll try to tilt a primary to the less progressive
D).

Lots of large sectors/businesses fund both parties basically in equal
measure.

Like here's Marriott's PAC-

https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00284810&cycle=2018

Comcast skewed Dem for a couple of cycles, then was about even, now skews
more R but stills funds Dems at a high clip even as Dems have antagonized
ISPs through support for net neutrality over the last 4 or 5 years-

https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?strID=C00248716

The effect of this is to skew the whole system in a more business-centrist
direction.

Then there's a whole universe of individual funders who tend to back
institutionalists over populist insurgents on the left and right for any
number of reasons. There are plenty of people who are on "Team Democrat"
who eschew Bernie's politics, and plenty of Repub loyalists who for
instance don't like Trumpists or extreme libertarian ideologues.

Individual donors with substantial sums of money to spend in elections,
perhaps especially on the D side, are on average at tension with their
party's populist base and support more moderate candidates in primaries.
Sometimes more ready access to larger donors isn't enough for such
candidates to carry the day in a primaries, sometimes it is.

In a PR system you'd see more of these actors backing new centrist
formations rather than trying to play in primaries or funding both Rs and
Ds in generals.

-David

On Sat, Apr 13, 2019 at 11:16 PM <larrylevine at earthlink.net> wrote:

> There likely will be a difference between Primary and General Elections.
> In the General for partisan offices the parties and major donors to party
> candidates would weigh in. In Primaries, the parties are not inclined to
> take sides, leaving the fundraising to the candidates and their campaigns
> and any PACs that might want to participate. PACs tend to be left / right,
> business / labor, etc. But I’ve never heard of a “moderate super PAC.”
> Exceptions can be found to any of these things, often depending on the
> individual candidates and their support bases, the community in which the
> race is being waged, and other factors.
>
> Larry
>
>
>
> *From:* David Segal <david at demandprogress.org>
> *Sent:* Saturday, 13 April 2019 7:56 PM
> *To:* larrylevine at earthlink.net
> *Cc:* Suresh S. <suresh_surya at protonmail.com>; law-election at uci.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Polarization and reform
>
>
>
> Methods of fundraising might differ between such tendencies, but I'm not
> aware of the evidence that more "ideological" candidates raise more money
> than those who are more "moderate" -- understanding that these terms aren't
> easy to define. (Though the former might be more successful crowd-funders
> and the latter more successful at courting more institutional donors, all
> else equal.)
>
>
>
> This seems pretty easily tested based on 2018 -- there were dozens of
> Congressional races wherein Dems who were more outwardly progressive ran
> against relative moderates to vie to contest open swing seats or run
> against vulnerable Rs. (My anecdotal observation of that cycle leads me to
> believe that, if anything, more "moderate" candidates had a fundraising
> advantage on average.)
>
>
>
> And if evidence of "moderate" fundraising deficiency did exist, one would
> need to discount for the reluctance of donors to back moderates that would
> follow from the lesser likelihood that they would make it out of primaries
> wherein their ideology is at tension with the bulk of the more polarized
> primary electorates. This sort of reluctance would be less likely to
> operate in an election whose electorate included people representing the
> whole spectrum of ideologies.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 13, 2019 at 9:17 PM <larrylevine at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> My intuition, based on 49 years as a political consultant who led more
> than 200 campaigns, is that it still will all come down to has sufficient
> funds to communicate his or her message to the voters. The extremes – left
> and right – still will have a solid base and funding from sources that
> support those kinds of candidates. From there, it would be up to the
> individual moderate candidates to identify funding sources, remembering
> there is little passion in the middle, and then identify enough voters who
> are night pre-inclined right or left. It also would be impacted by the
> number of candidates fighting for each of the three bases – left, right,
> and what’s left. If there are enough left and right voters in a district,
> the moderate could be left out. So, there is no one answer to this beyond
> who has the financial resources for the campaign and the ability to
> position himself or herself beyond the base on issues.
>
> Larry
>
>
>
> *From:* Suresh S. <suresh_surya at protonmail.com>
> *Sent:* Saturday, 13 April 2019 5:59 PM
> *To:* larrylevine at earthlink.net
> *Cc:* 'Kogan, Vladimir' <kogan.18 at osu.edu>; law-election at uci.edu
> *Subject:* RE: [EL] Polarization and reform
>
>
>
> If your and Vladimir's view that lower threshold does not equate to less
> spending is true, i.e., moderates hold a slim chance of getting voted to
> the Congress, would you both disagree that an elected candidate who was
> considered moderate^ will not be forced to polarize from duress^^?
>
>
>
> [^] John Sides: I was struck by this statistic early in the book: Even if
> voters had picked the most moderate candidate in every U.S. House election
> between 1980 and 2014, 80 percent of the polarization between Democratic
> and Republican members would have occurred anyway.
>
>
>
> [^^] Any extralegal means to hold a person captive.
>
>
>
>
>
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>
> On Sunday, 14 April 2019 01:35, <larrylevine at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> The flaw in this logic is that the need to spend is more dependent on the
> number of potential voters in a district. If one were to reduce spending as
> presented here, would that reduction be by 1) spending less to communicate
> with all likely voters, or b) omit certain voters from the universe in
> which you are campaigning. The first weakens the ability of winning support
> from all potential voters. The latter increases the need to garner an
> unlikely percentage of votes from a reduce universe. The threshold may be
> lower, but it is lower for everyone. The one(s) with the most money will be
> able to communicate more effectively with more voters.
>
> Larry
>
>
>
> *From:* Suresh S. <suresh_surya at protonmail.com>
> *Sent:* Saturday, 13 April 2019 10:28 AM
> *To:* larrylevine at earthlink.net
> *Cc:* 'Kogan, Vladimir' <kogan.18 at osu.edu>; law-election at uci.edu
> *Subject:* RE: [EL] Polarization and reform
>
>
>
> Can campaign spending increase due to din from elections to Congress,
> President equate to campaign spending _for_ Congress?
>
>
>
> My reasoning is, if spending to get elected to Congress being X with
> district size D for 50%+1 criteria, without proportional voting, district
> size D+ will proportionately increase expenses to X+. However, with
> proportional voting (lower threshold to get elected), X or a lower value
> appears to  be sufficient to muster support though the district size has
> increased to D+.
>
>
>
> Suresh
>
>
>
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>
> On Saturday, 13 April 2019 21:57, <larrylevine at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> City of Los Angeles switched its municipal elections from odd numbered
> years to even numbered years. Odd year elections were drawing turnouts of
> 11 to 25 percent. To have more participation, the city switched to a cycle
> in which turnout would be between 50 percent and 75 percent. This led the
> city ethics commission to increase the spending limits for campaigns and
> increase the matching funds for which candidates could qualify. The
> executive director of the ethics commission testified at a hearing before
> the switch and said it would be more difficult for municipal candidates to
> raise funds in an environment that included statewide and legislative
> candidates, have their messages heard in the din of Presidential and
> gubernatorial campaigning, and raise the funds to campaign for the larger
> audience. She was correct on all fronts. Not a reason to not change; just a
> reality of campaigning for office.
>
> Larry
>
>
>
> *From:* Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> *On
> Behalf Of *Suresh S.
> *Sent:* Saturday, 13 April 2019 9:18 AM
> *To:* Kogan, Vladimir <kogan.18 at osu.edu>
> *Cc:* law-election at uci.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Polarization and reform
>
>
>
> The reformed multi member district by meeting the one person, one vote
> criterion offers a lower threshold of favorable vote to get elected. A
> determined minority has a chance to get elected without requiring to
> canvass the support of 50%+1 of the larger district. If there was no
> proportional voting scheme, your concern about moderates finding it harder
> to raise campaign funds for coverage of a larger district would be valid.
> Please feel free to disagree as the above reasoning is book knowledge, no
> practical experience raising money or running political campaigns.
>
>
>
> Regarding polarization, in my efforts to request elected officials attend
> to misuse of technology described earlier, their earnestness is subject to
> manipulation. Case in point, my efforts to seek the help of a Congressman
> from Maryland described in:
>
>
> https://competitionunlimited.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/md_congressman_ruppersberger_request.pdf
>
> and
>
>
> https://competitionunlimited.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/md_congressman_ruppersberger_response.jpg
>
> demonstrates the ability of the said form of coercion/manipulation silence
> any good intention the elected official may have.
>
>
>
> Disallowing moderation* and marshalling support for polarizing topics is
> achieved by the said technology misuse. My 11+ years of meeting leaders in
> government and academia in the U.S. and India (where I currently live) go
> coy has made me recognize the inertia to conscientious decision-making. Not
> knowing (a) from which direction one is prone to be victimized, (b)
> recognize leading indicators of failing health, (c) how to defend oneself
> and (d) who the perpetrator is, gives valid cause for reticence.
>
>
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Suresh
>
>
>
> [*] In this email sent to the National Treasury Employees Union,
> I describe the loss of moderating forces who give primacy to due process
> rather than personality politics
> https://competitionunlimited.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/nat_treasury_employees_union-john_mccain.pdf
> .
>
>
>
>
>
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>
> On Saturday, 13 April 2019 20:14, Kogan, Vladimir <kogan.18 at osu.edu>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> If one is convinced by Andy’s supply-side argument —that polarization has
> increased because the type of candidates who are willing to run have become
> more extreme, then there is reason to worry about reforms like Fair
> Representation Act. Andy argues that one of the major costs of running that
> discourages moderates is the need to raise money from donors. And
> increasing district size (as the Fair Representation Act would do) would
> almost certainly increase the costs of campaigning, and the contributions
> necessary, which may actually further shrink the supply of willing
> candidates and skew it to be more extreme.
>
>
>
> [image: image001.png]
> *Vladimir Kogan*, Associate Professor
> *Department of Political Science*
>
> 2004 Derby Hall | 154 N. Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210-1373
> 510/415-4074 Mobile
>
> 614/292-9498 Office
>
> 614/292-1146 Fax
>
> http://u.osu.edu/kogan.18/
> kogan.18 at osu.edu
>
> [image: image002.gif]@vkoganosu <https://twitter.com/vkoganosu>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Law-election [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
> <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu>] *On Behalf Of *Rob Richie
> *Sent:* Saturday, April 13, 2019 9:35 AM
> *To:* law-election at UCI.EDU
> *Subject:* [EL] ELB News and Commentary 4/11/19
>
>
>
> Looks like an important read. As people discuss electoral  reform and
> polarization, I would urge them to zero in on the potential of two
> proposals associated with my organization FairVote before coming to any
> conclusions about the impact of reform on polarization.
>
>
>
> One is the Fair Representation Act as first introduced in Congress in
> 2017, and soon to be introduced in updated form this year. This modest
> statutory revision of winner take all congressional elections would provide
> backers of both major parties with the power to elect candidates in every
> part of the country, and reliably represent the left, center and right in
> any given area. Both David Brooks and Matthew  Yglesias last year wrote
> commentaries with headlines to the effect that this is the best approach to
> save our democracy. We provide detailed simulations of how it might work,
> and relevant commentary here.
>
>
> https://www.fairvote.org/fair_rep_in_congress#why_we_need_the_fair_representation_act
>
>
>
> The other proposal is to the Top Four primary: that is, modify the top two
> primary to advance more than two candidates, allow writeins, allow
> candidates and parties association rights,  and use ranked choice voting.
> While not as comprehensive as the Fair Representation Act, its potential
> impact is worth a close look.
>
>
>
> An impressive group of political scientists and law professors evaluated
> the potential impact of a slew of 37 reforms back in 2015, putting the Fair
> Representation Act atop the list.  See the final report here:
>
> https://www.fairvote.org/comparative-structural-reform
>
>
>
> - Rob Richie
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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