Change the rules Congress abides by to prevent future manufactured crises

Recently, Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner, R-Ohio, let the government shut down in order to adhere to the informal “Hastert Rule,” where the Speaker of the House does not allow for a vote on a bill unless a majority of the congressmen in the majority party of the House of Representatives approves of legislation. When the “world’s oldest democracy” is subjected to blackmail and extortion, when legislation is decided by a mere 25.01 percent of congressmen and even fewer voters, something needs to change.

The causes of this travesty are systemic: the two-party system, congressional rules and our outdated Constitution.

Ideally, we could rewrite the Constitution to reflect demographic realities by eliminating Congress as it is currently organized. Interests are divided more clearly by rural versus urban versus suburban rather than by state. Furthermore, a mechanism must be implemented in order to eliminate gerrymandering, or the shifting of the boundaries of electoral districts to exemplify demographics favorable to a particular party, and bring the political narrative back to the middle ground on which it belongs.

So what can we do to improve and unjam the federal government? Reducing polarization could be a potential path to pursue, first and foremost. By bringing politicians toward the middle, we create a situation where they can find more common ground: the basis for good compromise.

The most obvious way to eliminate polarization is to undermine gerrymandering, making it less accessible of a practice. Less secured districts would mean more politicians would have to take moderate stances. Unfortunately, districts for the House of Representatives must be drawn by humans, who will be biased by nature.

An alternative to eliminating gerrymandering is to tilt elections such that candidates at the extreme end of the ideological spectrum will lose consistently. This requires elimination of the two-party system. 

To enact such a change, we should institute open primaries in which all candidates compete with no party affiliation. In the fall, the top two candidates could then compete in the general election. In this case, even if a district leans toward either side, the moderate candidate has a better chance of winning over extremists from both sides in the general election.

This can be accomplished fairly easily, but currently requires the help of state legislatures, who would have to merely change the rules governing their respective primary systems — often a simple matter of state law. Unfortunately, some state governments have proven to be partisan, unjust and all-around petty.

A better process would be an instant-runoff system, although entrenched media interests would detest such an idea. In an instant-runoff election, voters rank their choices for a particular elected office. The votes are tallied and candidates are eliminated sequentially by an algorithm. As candidates are eliminated, the votes cast for them are moved to those voters’ next choices. Ultimately, two candidates remain and one of them has a higher vote tally.

Not only would this system ameliorate extreme polarization, but it would also shorten the election cycle to one election day each year (rather than two, a fall and a spring). Although this may seem like a detrimental quality, since less time would be available to vet candidates and see where they stand on issues, it would mean less time spent by politicians campaigning and more time spent governing.

However, these state-by-state changes are daydreams. The party-based, two-election primary system is here to stay.

There is somewhat of a silver lining, though. Altering congressional rules is a realistic change that could prevent “showdowns” and other harmful grandstandings. In the current fiscal crisis, simply giving each chamber the ability to force the other to bring a bill to vote in an expedited manner would likely proffer a solution. The Senate would vote to override Boehner and force a vote in the House, which would, in turn, cause a clean spending bill to be passed and move us past the current situation.

The big, sweeping changes may be impractical, but there are things that can and should be done. Let’s come together to prevent future iterations of manufactured crisis by implementing common-sense reforms.

Write Rohith at rop33@pitt.edu.