One issue missing from this November’s municipal election was the state of our democracy. Twice in the past five presidential elections, the winner of the popular vote lost the election. This is an issue that concerns all Americans. Per Gallup polls, 79 percent of Americans believe our congressional representatives and senators are “out of touch” and 69 percent believe they’re beholden to special interests. Oil and gas companies, pharmaceutical giants, huge investment banks and insurance companies, defense contractors, and soulless corporations, whose only priority is self-enrichment and shareholder profit, all have a larger say in the writing of laws and regulations than we do. They own Congress, put a plutocrat in the White House and control most of our state legislatures. How can we change this?
Starting with our first election in 1788, where 94 percent of Americans were disenfranchised, elites designed electoral systems that deliver predictable, pre-determined outcomes through skewed results. It was not an accident that four of the first five presidents were Virginia slavers, eight of the first 10 presidents were slavers, or that slavery persisted for 93 years after it was abolished peacefully in England in 1772 (Somerset v. Stewart). The persistence of slavery and control by slavers was an end goal and a designed result. We’ve been socialized to believe that skewed outcomes through political tactics such as the Electoral College and extreme gerrymandering are acceptable. At Best Democracy, we believe that we have a choice, that 230-year-old archaic systems designed by slavers to concentrate power and exclude voters from decision-making should be replaced. Better models exist that we can adopt.
Boulder uses an at-large election system designed to diminish minority representation, whatever that minority might be. Historically, at-large systems were utilized to discriminate against racial minorities. At-large systems have been found in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in U.S. District Courts: “Brown v. Board of Commissioners,” Chattanooga, Tenn., 1989 and “Charleston County, S.C. v. United States,” 2002. Unlike Chattanooga and Charleston County, Boulder does not discriminate by race; we discriminate by social class. For instance, there hasn’t been a renter on the Boulder City Council for decades. Renters comprise 51 percent of Boulder’s population.
Discrimination by social class is legal, but is legalized discrimination who we are?
The fact that one small group, PLAN-Boulder County, one-third of 1 percent of Boulder’s population, has controlled every Boulder City Council since 1975 — 42 years in a row — is not an accident. PBC control is a predetermined result of our at-large election system. Groups in power do not give up power voluntarily; it has to be taken away from them. We can do that peacefully in 22,000-plus home-rule cities across the United States, such as Boulder. Given that national and state election systems are extremely difficult to modify, home-rule cities across the country are our best opportunity to change how elections are conducted, where more representative forms of governing can be prototyped and introduced.
There’s a process to fixing problems. The first step is recognizing and acknowledging that a problem exists. The second step is understanding why and how problems persist. The third step is designing appropriate remedies. If a candidate for office can’t recognize that a problem exists, they are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The candidate you vote for should acknowledge and understand that the United States needs more accurate representation and accountable government.
Best Democracy is 2 years old on Facebook. Our membership is spread over 21 states and six countries. Seventy-one of our 299 members (23.7 percent) live in the city of Boulder. Our primary focus is election reform and the adoption of proportional representation, as used by 90-plus countries around the world. All five of the top five countries in the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index use proportional representation. You can learn more about fine grain proportional representation on Best Democracy on Facebook.
Jesse Kumin lives in Boulder.
