Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from a chapter in The Entrenchment of Democracy.
In Federalist 10, Madison famously wrote that the expanded size of the Republic would be an antidote to faction and the guarantor of broader deliberation in the service of the public interest. History proved him wrong on both counts.
National political parties eventually formed and deliberation proved more effective across the party divide than among the unrepresented citizenry. The impetus for ranked choice voting (RCV) begins at the local level, where party competition is typically nonexistent and the ready capture by extremes is difficult to surmount.
Consider the 2021 Buffalo mayoral election as a cautionary note. The incumbent mayor, Byron Brown, stunningly lost to a declared socialist, India Walton, who drew support from national party progressives, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Buffalo is a reliably one-party Democratic town, meaning the party primary typically is the only election, even though the primary draws few voters.
In the primary, Walton received 11,000 of the 21,000 votes cast. Brown was forced to run for re-election as a write-in candidate, appearing nowhere on the ballot – in fact, there were no other candidates on the ballot other than Walton.
Brown managed to win almost 60 percent of the votes, despite not being on the ballot, in an election where over 64,000 voters turned out. With the weakness of the parties in terms of money and messaging, they too readily become subject to takeover by an activist minority, fueled by small donors or a few large benefactors, and reflecting the margins of electoral politics, rather than what the majority in a large-turnout election wants.
To be sure, the absence of majority vote requirements is but a subset of design defects that enshrine outsized minority control. The Senate, by virtue of the state- based distribution of population, enhances the power of national minorities, and the Electoral College can do so as well. It is possible to make the Electoral College more majoritarian, if all states, for example, would choose to allocate their electors in proportion to the popular vote in their state. But coordinating the states in that fashion, when Congress lacks the centralized power to impose a uniform approach on the states, is an unlikely prospect. Short of such options, these institutions are hardwired into the Constitution and cannot be made more majoritarian except by constitutional amendment.
But the excess factional control today pushes further to the core understanding of how democratic accountability should work. After all, following Goldwater and McGovern, the Republicans and Democratic parties veered to less ideological candidates and in short order could speak of Presidents Nixon and Carter. Partly, no doubt, the Democratic Party was exhausted by the Vietnam War and the Republican Party discredited by Watergate. More fundamentally, each party had the internal wherewithal to hew back to the center to reform an electoral foundation that could provide a governing coalition.
This pull toward electability identified by the median voter theorem might have been most realistic in an era in which party leaders had more control of both who the party nominated to run and of rank-and-file members once in office. Party leaders have the strongest incentive to internalize the need to form winning coalitions capable of giving the party strong control of a legislative chamber.
Those incentives are not extinct – witness Senator MitchMcConnell trying to play a more significant role in Republican Senate primaries after the disastrous 2012 cycle in which the party ended up saddled with unelectable nominees who destroyed the party’s opportunity to gain control of the Senate, or Rahm Emmanuel’s successful efforts as Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2006 cycle to recruit conservative Democrats to run in competitive districts, which enabled Democrats to capture control of the House.
Nonetheless, the inescapable fact is that party leaders now have much less control than decades ago in both determining who the party’s nominees will be and corralling those in office to unify behind a party position. In the primaries, as politics has become hyperpolarized and more tribal, more voters are determined to vote for “purists” even if those candidates are widely viewed as less electable.
With the emergence of social media, the rise of outside spending, the increasing prevalence of “safe” election districts, and the explosion of small- donor Internet-based fundraising, candidates and officeholders are now more capable of existing as independent free agents. They can reach a national constituency, through cable television and social media, without being dependent on high-ranking positions on major committees. They can fund their campaigns in the manner of start-ups without being as dependent on party resources. They do not need plum committee assignments for national visibility or fundraising power.
As a result, party leaders have lost significant control over who gets nominated and have lost significant leverage over members once in office. This is why the parties are more internally fragmented and more difficult for party leaders to govern.
Indeed, a major theme of John Boehner’s recent memoir is his complete inability, as Speaker of the House, to control the extreme right flank of his party – what he called the “chaos caucus.” All this means the median voter theorem might well not be applicable to the current structure of politics and political competition. In the absence of stronger party institutions, the polarizing effects of small donors, campaign activists, and social media come to dominate the political scene.
The newly minted verb “to primary” is now the most important disciplining device in fidelity to the agenda of the poles of the parties. This is why devices such as RCV or majority run-off or top-four, which give the majority a chance to reclaim electoral results, have become more appealing.
In the early days of the law of democracy, the Court was able to strike a major blow for majoritarianism. Even if the Court had the will to do so today, though, it is not clear how much judicial decisions can bring about the structural reforms necessary under current conditions to enhance majoritarianism.
These changes will more likely come through voter-initiated measures or legislation. Such mechanisms are necessary precisely because of the inability of the party to deliver majority- appealing candidates. Yet these same majority-reinforcing tools risk obviating the need for parties altogether, and compounding the problem that gave rise to their appeal.
Reforms always risk entry into the world of the second best. Here the risk is that reinforcing the majoritarian strain of democracy may further erode the party structures, whose weaknesses are a major reason for the need for majoritarian protection at present. In the absence of meaningful bipartisan competition, however, whether at the local, statewide, or even national level, current tides might require redirection in favor of the majority at present.
Persistent minoritarian capture threatens democratic legitimacy. The threatened tyranny of the minority of the majority now looms as a central challenge that democratic thought, policy, and doctrine must confront.
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from a chapter in The Entrenchment of Democracy.
In Federalist 10, Madison famously wrote that the expanded size of the Republic would be an antidote to faction and the guarantor of broader deliberation in the service of the public interest. History proved him wrong on both counts.
National political parties eventually formed and deliberation proved more effective across the party divide than among the unrepresented citizenry. The impetus for ranked choice voting (RCV) begins at the local level, where party competition is typically nonexistent and the ready capture by extremes is difficult to surmount.
Consider the 2021 Buffalo mayoral election as a cautionary note. The incumbent mayor, Byron Brown, stunningly lost to a declared socialist, India Walton, who drew support from national party progressives, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Buffalo is a reliably one-party Democratic town, meaning the party primary typically is the only election, even though the primary draws few voters.
In the primary, Walton received 11,000 of the 21,000 votes cast. Brown was forced to run for re-election as a write-in candidate, appearing nowhere on the ballot – in fact, there were no other candidates on the ballot other than Walton.
Brown managed to win almost 60 percent of the votes, despite not being on the ballot, in an election where over 64,000 voters turned out. With the weakness of the parties in terms of money and messaging, they too readily become subject to takeover by an activist minority, fueled by small donors or a few large benefactors, and reflecting the margins of electoral politics, rather than what the majority in a large-turnout election wants.
To be sure, the absence of majority vote requirements is but a subset of design defects that enshrine outsized minority control. The Senate, by virtue of the state- based distribution of population, enhances the power of national minorities, and the Electoral College can do so as well. It is possible to make the Electoral College more majoritarian, if all states, for example, would choose to allocate their electors in proportion to the popular vote in their state. But coordinating the states in that fashion, when Congress lacks the centralized power to impose a uniform approach on the states, is an unlikely prospect. Short of such options, these institutions are hardwired into the Constitution and cannot be made more majoritarian except by constitutional amendment.
But the excess factional control today pushes further to the core understanding of how democratic accountability should work. After all, following Goldwater and McGovern, the Republicans and Democratic parties veered to less ideological candidates and in short order could speak of Presidents Nixon and Carter. Partly, no doubt, the Democratic Party was exhausted by the Vietnam War and the Republican Party discredited by Watergate. More fundamentally, each party had the internal wherewithal to hew back to the center to reform an electoral foundation that could provide a governing coalition.
This pull toward electability identified by the median voter theorem might have been most realistic in an era in which party leaders had more control of both who the party nominated to run and of rank-and-file members once in office. Party leaders have the strongest incentive to internalize the need to form winning coalitions capable of giving the party strong control of a legislative chamber.
Those incentives are not extinct – witness Senator MitchMcConnell trying to play a more significant role in Republican Senate primaries after the disastrous 2012 cycle in which the party ended up saddled with unelectable nominees who destroyed the party’s opportunity to gain control of the Senate, or Rahm Emmanuel’s successful efforts as Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2006 cycle to recruit conservative Democrats to run in competitive districts, which enabled Democrats to capture control of the House.
Nonetheless, the inescapable fact is that party leaders now have much less control than decades ago in both determining who the party’s nominees will be and corralling those in office to unify behind a party position. In the primaries, as politics has become hyperpolarized and more tribal, more voters are determined to vote for “purists” even if those candidates are widely viewed as less electable.
With the emergence of social media, the rise of outside spending, the increasing prevalence of “safe” election districts, and the explosion of small- donor Internet-based fundraising, candidates and officeholders are now more capable of existing as independent free agents. They can reach a national constituency, through cable television and social media, without being dependent on high-ranking positions on major committees. They can fund their campaigns in the manner of start-ups without being as dependent on party resources. They do not need plum committee assignments for national visibility or fundraising power.
As a result, party leaders have lost significant control over who gets nominated and have lost significant leverage over members once in office. This is why the parties are more internally fragmented and more difficult for party leaders to govern.
Indeed, a major theme of John Boehner’s recent memoir is his complete inability, as Speaker of the House, to control the extreme right flank of his party – what he called the “chaos caucus.” All this means the median voter theorem might well not be applicable to the current structure of politics and political competition. In the absence of stronger party institutions, the polarizing effects of small donors, campaign activists, and social media come to dominate the political scene.
The newly minted verb “to primary” is now the most important disciplining device in fidelity to the agenda of the poles of the parties. This is why devices such as RCV or majority run-off or top-four, which give the majority a chance to reclaim electoral results, have become more appealing.
In the early days of the law of democracy, the Court was able to strike a major blow for majoritarianism. Even if the Court had the will to do so today, though, it is not clear how much judicial decisions can bring about the structural reforms necessary under current conditions to enhance majoritarianism.
These changes will more likely come through voter-initiated measures or legislation. Such mechanisms are necessary precisely because of the inability of the party to deliver majority- appealing candidates. Yet these same majority-reinforcing tools risk obviating the need for parties altogether, and compounding the problem that gave rise to their appeal.
Reforms always risk entry into the world of the second best. Here the risk is that reinforcing the majoritarian strain of democracy may further erode the party structures, whose weaknesses are a major reason for the need for majoritarian protection at present. In the absence of meaningful bipartisan competition, however, whether at the local, statewide, or even national level, current tides might require redirection in favor of the majority at present.
Persistent minoritarian capture threatens democratic legitimacy. The threatened tyranny of the minority of the majority now looms as a central challenge that democratic thought, policy, and doctrine must confront.
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from a chapter in The Entrenchment of Democracy.
In Federalist 10, Madison famously wrote that the expanded size of the Republic would be an antidote to faction and the guarantor of broader deliberation in the service of the public interest. History proved him wrong on both counts.
National political parties eventually formed and deliberation proved more effective across the party divide than among the unrepresented citizenry. The impetus for ranked choice voting (RCV) begins at the local level, where party competition is typically nonexistent and the ready capture by extremes is difficult to surmount.
Consider the 2021 Buffalo mayoral election as a cautionary note. The incumbent mayor, Byron Brown, stunningly lost to a declared socialist, India Walton, who drew support from national party progressives, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Buffalo is a reliably one-party Democratic town, meaning the party primary typically is the only election, even though the primary draws few voters.
In the primary, Walton received 11,000 of the 21,000 votes cast. Brown was forced to run for re-election as a write-in candidate, appearing nowhere on the ballot – in fact, there were no other candidates on the ballot other than Walton.
Brown managed to win almost 60 percent of the votes, despite not being on the ballot, in an election where over 64,000 voters turned out. With the weakness of the parties in terms of money and messaging, they too readily become subject to takeover by an activist minority, fueled by small donors or a few large benefactors, and reflecting the margins of electoral politics, rather than what the majority in a large-turnout election wants.
To be sure, the absence of majority vote requirements is but a subset of design defects that enshrine outsized minority control. The Senate, by virtue of the state- based distribution of population, enhances the power of national minorities, and the Electoral College can do so as well. It is possible to make the Electoral College more majoritarian, if all states, for example, would choose to allocate their electors in proportion to the popular vote in their state. But coordinating the states in that fashion, when Congress lacks the centralized power to impose a uniform approach on the states, is an unlikely prospect. Short of such options, these institutions are hardwired into the Constitution and cannot be made more majoritarian except by constitutional amendment.
But the excess factional control today pushes further to the core understanding of how democratic accountability should work. After all, following Goldwater and McGovern, the Republicans and Democratic parties veered to less ideological candidates and in short order could speak of Presidents Nixon and Carter. Partly, no doubt, the Democratic Party was exhausted by the Vietnam War and the Republican Party discredited by Watergate. More fundamentally, each party had the internal wherewithal to hew back to the center to reform an electoral foundation that could provide a governing coalition.
This pull toward electability identified by the median voter theorem might have been most realistic in an era in which party leaders had more control of both who the party nominated to run and of rank-and-file members once in office. Party leaders have the strongest incentive to internalize the need to form winning coalitions capable of giving the party strong control of a legislative chamber.
Those incentives are not extinct – witness Senator MitchMcConnell trying to play a more significant role in Republican Senate primaries after the disastrous 2012 cycle in which the party ended up saddled with unelectable nominees who destroyed the party’s opportunity to gain control of the Senate, or Rahm Emmanuel’s successful efforts as Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 2006 cycle to recruit conservative Democrats to run in competitive districts, which enabled Democrats to capture control of the House.
Nonetheless, the inescapable fact is that party leaders now have much less control than decades ago in both determining who the party’s nominees will be and corralling those in office to unify behind a party position. In the primaries, as politics has become hyperpolarized and more tribal, more voters are determined to vote for “purists” even if those candidates are widely viewed as less electable.
With the emergence of social media, the rise of outside spending, the increasing prevalence of “safe” election districts, and the explosion of small- donor Internet-based fundraising, candidates and officeholders are now more capable of existing as independent free agents. They can reach a national constituency, through cable television and social media, without being dependent on high-ranking positions on major committees. They can fund their campaigns in the manner of start-ups without being as dependent on party resources. They do not need plum committee assignments for national visibility or fundraising power.
As a result, party leaders have lost significant control over who gets nominated and have lost significant leverage over members once in office. This is why the parties are more internally fragmented and more difficult for party leaders to govern.
Indeed, a major theme of John Boehner’s recent memoir is his complete inability, as Speaker of the House, to control the extreme right flank of his party – what he called the “chaos caucus.” All this means the median voter theorem might well not be applicable to the current structure of politics and political competition. In the absence of stronger party institutions, the polarizing effects of small donors, campaign activists, and social media come to dominate the political scene.
The newly minted verb “to primary” is now the most important disciplining device in fidelity to the agenda of the poles of the parties. This is why devices such as RCV or majority run-off or top-four, which give the majority a chance to reclaim electoral results, have become more appealing.
In the early days of the law of democracy, the Court was able to strike a major blow for majoritarianism. Even if the Court had the will to do so today, though, it is not clear how much judicial decisions can bring about the structural reforms necessary under current conditions to enhance majoritarianism.
These changes will more likely come through voter-initiated measures or legislation. Such mechanisms are necessary precisely because of the inability of the party to deliver majority- appealing candidates. Yet these same majority-reinforcing tools risk obviating the need for parties altogether, and compounding the problem that gave rise to their appeal.
Reforms always risk entry into the world of the second best. Here the risk is that reinforcing the majoritarian strain of democracy may further erode the party structures, whose weaknesses are a major reason for the need for majoritarian protection at present. In the absence of meaningful bipartisan competition, however, whether at the local, statewide, or even national level, current tides might require redirection in favor of the majority at present.
Persistent minoritarian capture threatens democratic legitimacy. The threatened tyranny of the minority of the majority now looms as a central challenge that democratic thought, policy, and doctrine must confront.
About the Author
Samuel Issacharoff
Issacharoff is a founding Faculty Director of the Democracy Project and Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at NYU School of Law. He is a leading expert on democracies and constitutions worldwide and author of “Fragile Democracies: Contested Power in the Era of Constitutional Courts” and “Democracy Unmoored: Populism and the Corruption of Popular Sovereignty.”
About the Author
Samuel Issacharoff
Issacharoff is a founding Faculty Director of the Democracy Project and Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at NYU School of Law. He is a leading expert on democracies and constitutions worldwide and author of “Fragile Democracies: Contested Power in the Era of Constitutional Courts” and “Democracy Unmoored: Populism and the Corruption of Popular Sovereignty.”
About the Author
Samuel Issacharoff
Issacharoff is a founding Faculty Director of the Democracy Project and Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at NYU School of Law. He is a leading expert on democracies and constitutions worldwide and author of “Fragile Democracies: Contested Power in the Era of Constitutional Courts” and “Democracy Unmoored: Populism and the Corruption of Popular Sovereignty.”
