Proportional Representation: Next Step for Democracy
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Roll Call, February 14, 2000
Last year, the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution heard
several witnesses discuss proportional representation in a hearing on HR
1173, Congressman Mel Watt's (D-NC) States' Choice of Voting
Systems Act, which would lift a 1967 ban against conducting multi-seat
elections for the U.S. House.
Supporters of the bill that day ranged from a representative of the U.S.
Justice Department to affirmative action opponent Rep. Tom Campbell
(R-Calif.). Nathaniel Persily, an attorney at the Brennan Center for
Justice, testified that the bill "might be the most important piece of
election-related legislation considered by this body in 25 years."
Proportional representation is a powerful idea whose time surely will
come in our Congressional elections this century, just as it has in all other
mature democracies around the globe, as well as in American cities
ranging from Amarillo, Texas, to Peoria, Illinois.
The principle of proportional voting is simple: that like-minded voters
should be able to win seats in proportion to their share of the vote
-- which is to say that 20% of voters in Peoria can fill one of five city
council seats, and 51% will win a majority. Its mechanisms range from
party-based systems, which allow small parties to win seats, to
candidate-based systems such as cumulative voting that would simply
widen the "big tent" of the major parties. Either way, its impact
would be
powerful in reinvigorating American politics, encouraging more
cooperative policy-making and giving voters a greater range of choice.
In 1992, I experienced first-hand what it meant to largely rural
African-Americans in Georgia for the first time in their lives to have a real
hope of electing their candidate of choice to Congress. In 1996, my
redesigned, now white-majority district returned many of my former
constituents back to the neglect of the old Southern districts and left me,
in the opinion of many analysts, little more than political road-kill.
Contrary to the naysayers, I was able to raise more than $1 million and
win re-election in a tough campaign that demanded both great
mobilization of African-American voters and sustained outreach to
open-minded white constituents who had a chance to learn about me as
an incumbent.
"Fair representation of racial minorities" sounds good on paper, but
believe me, it's far better in the real political world.
My experiences in mobilizing voters to win and then keep a seat in
Congress helped me see that the reasons for our low voter turnout and
restless electorate go beyond a lack of reform in our campaign finance
and lobbying systems. Voter choices on election day are usually so
limited that when Americans find themselves going to the polls, all too
often it is to vote against a candidate rather than for one. In a
multi-Member district with proportional representation, voters would
have a chance to choose among a range of viable candidates. A voter
would likely have the option of supporting and electing a candidate who
agreed with him or her on the individuals issues of greatest
concern--abortion rights, perhaps, or tax policy or child care--rather than
having to settle for the lesser of two evils.
I work hard to represent everyone in my district, but I have no illusions; a
large number of my constituents would prefer another Representative.
And as the only Congresswoman from Georgia and the only black
woman Representative from the deep South states of South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, I feel an obligation to
speak for many people outside my district. Proportional systems would
allow elections to be based on this reality, rather than the fallacy that
Members speak only for the people in their districts.
My experience in the 1990s certainly underlines the fact that districts are
a construct of politics, not geography. The Supreme Court, under Chief
Justice William Rehnquist , has argued that districts can be
gerrymandered "bizarrely" to protect white incumbents, but not to
promote representation of black and minority voters. Critics of
race-conscious districting who suggest that race is the only cause of
gerrymandering--and only a problem if blacks become a majority in a
district--are either astoundingly naive or dangerously manipulative.
Redistricting as now practiced allows legislators to choose their
constituents before their constituents choose them. Whatever tools were
used in 1991 and 1992 to draw black-majority districts will soon be
applied with far greater vigor to create "safe" districts to protect
incumbents of all races from their constituents.
Most of the democratic world long ago abandoned one-seat district
representation in favor of proportional systems in "super districts" with
more than one member. In 1996, South Africa cemented its rejection of
one-seat districts when President Nelson Mandela signed a new
constitution with a requirement for proportional representation.
It is noteworthy that 33 of the world's 36 major, full-fledged democracies
use forms of proportional representation for national elections. Even the
"mother" of American democracy, the United Kingdom, plans a national
referendum to adopt a proportional system in the wake of proportional
elections in Scotland, Wales, London and Northern Ireland.
I have long been convinced of the merits of proportional representation,
which is why I twice introduced the Voters' Choice Act, a forerunner of
the States' Choice of Voting Systems Act. The Voters' Choice Act was a
modest but very important step toward promoting serious debate about
proportional representation in the United States. It would have restored
the opportunity for states to use proportional systems to elect their
delegations to the House -- a power they held as recently as the 1960s.
Its potential appeal is broad enough that in announcing my 1995 bill, I
had beside me the directors of U.S. Term Limits, the Committee for the
Study of the American Electorate and the National Women's Political
Caucus.
The political establishment in Washington can have a difficult time with
PR because it requires that its members earn their power, not inherit it.
But the political imperative of history demands that we take action.
Women's suffrage began as a so-called unrealistic idea, as did the
concept of democracy itself. Yet today these precepts are so firmly
rooted in our polity that they seem almost part of our societal DNA. The
discussion on proportional representation must begin in earnest as public
discontent increases, voter turnout decreases, and representation of our
diversity is challenged in court.
It is high time to challenge the "winner-take-all" notion that a candidate
securing 50.1 percent of the votes deserves 100 percent of power.