In Defense of America’s Two-Party System

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Mar 13

In 2022 a group of some 200 historians and political scientists submitted an open letter calling for the House of Representatives to reorganize itself on the basis of proportional representation in place of the present single-member district system, in which voters in each district elect a single Representative. The current system is not required by the Constitution, but was authorized by a 1967 law requiring that each district elect no more than one representative – reportedly adopted out of fear that Southern states would somehow use multimember districts to marginalize black voters, although versions of the single-member rule had been in effect since 1842. The real goal of the advocates of “reform” is to make it more likely that America’s longtime two-party system will be replaced by a multiparty one.

In a January 26 article in the New York Times Opinion section, two writers, one a member of the editorial board and one a political scientist who had signed the 2022 letter and authored a book titled Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America, argued the case for the change under the title “How to Fix the Two-Party Problem.” Their central complaint is that the existing, single-member system “disenfranchises” those who vote for the losing candidate in their district, since it deprives them of influence in Congress – whereas states populous enough to elect numerous representatives, might each be divided into a number of districts, with each district electing as many as five representatives (rather than just one), making it more likely that many districts might elect a mix of Republican and Democratic representatives and, most importantly, often candidates from three or more parties. (The proposed reform would be accompanied by an increase in the size of the House, so as to create the opportunity for more multi-member districts.)

The proposed alteration would solve the “problem” lamented by “Squad” member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2020 that she and Joe Biden – touted at the time as a “moderate” Democrat – were situated in the same party, whereas in any other country, offering proportional representation, they wouldn’t be. For instance, in the authors’ imagination, if the 2026 election were held under proportional representation, the Democratic party could be broken up into three parties (Progressives, New Liberals, and New Populists), the winning candidates of which would each have to bargain with each other – not only with members of the Republican party (which would itself be divided into several parties as well).

The argument for promoting a multiparty system rests on flawed premises both theoretical and practical. The theoretical problem lies in the mistaken argument that if you vote for the losing candidate in a single-member district, you somehow aren’t “represented” in the election outcome. This misstates the meaning and purpose of representation. Representative government is a system supposed to reflect the overall will of the people. Under the existing system, given the diversity (lamented by AOC) of factions or interest groups within each party, legislation is the outcome of a deliberative and bargaining process among Congressional representatives – admittedly (in recent years) more strictly along partisan lines, but nonetheless requiring such bargaining within each party, but not a party formally divided in advance into separate factions. (This is a process dubbed by political scientists “interest aggregation.”) The bargaining normally has the effect of moderating the demands of individual factions, and hence the position of the party as a whole.

The hoped-for goal of our existing system is that the policies adopted by the Federal government – with the House having to cooperate with the Senate and President – will be reasonably acceptable to a large majority of the electorate, whichever party they favor, and that there will be a reasonable amount of stability of policy over time. In other words, the purpose of representation isn’t to make each voter “feel” that they got to elect a candidate who “reflects their values,” but to generate policy that is over time satisfactory enough to the people as a whole that supporters of the losing party don’t feel driven to emigrate elsewhere, like the losers of elections in various Latin American countries like Venezuela or Colombia today, where the stakes are much larger.

The practical objection to promoting the replacement of our two-party system with a multiparty system can be seen by examining governance in major countries that already have the latter today, such as Germany, France, Italy, and Israel. In those countries, even those that have independently elected presidents, policy is often less stable, and major parties, lacking the ability to form a majority, are forced into coalitions with extreme groups representing a smaller minority of voters, but giving the latter the ability to blackmail the major party into submitting to its demands. (This is obvious, for instance, in the longstanding hold that ultra-Orthodox parties have had on the Israeli government, forcing it to make concessions – exemptions of Orthodox students from service in the armed forces; special subsidies for yeshiva study – that are opposed by a large majority of the public. But the system has also heightened the influence of the far-right Alternatives for Germany in that country, along with the militant “Greens.”)

Finally, the authors of the Times piece understate the Constitutional changes that would be required if their principles were really to be followed. Why shouldn’t Presidential parties in turn be broken up on the basis of proportional representation (requiring a Constitutional amendment to dictate the winning candidate when, as is likely, none receives a majority of the electoral vote)? ((The authors do predict that a multiparty House would compel the President to choose a cabinet that reflects a variety of groups within the winning coalition – as if that will promote effective cabinet deliberation rather than continued arguments among the factions.) Why shouldn’t the Constitutional division of votes for Senate and President, which is not strictly majoritarian, similarly be replaced by a “National Popular Vote” system for the former and a majoritarian vote for Senators? (Note that our existing system makes it more likely that the winning Presidential candidate, and Senate majority, will reflect the wishes of a majority of voters in states across the country – rather than being dominated by the heavily populated coastal states, at the expense of “flyover country.”) Additionally, is there any reason to think that the expansion of the House from its present size would promote more effective deliberation, rather than more extreme rhetoric from representatives belonging to fringe groups?

Whatever the problems of excessive partisanship that have characterized American politics in recent years, there is no evidence that a multiparty system will ameliorate them. And a survey of major countries that do follow such a system gives scant evidence that it will promote sounder policymaking or greater civic harmony.

A final note of caution: history demonstrates that citizens should be wary of following the ostensibly expert advice contained in open letters or reports issued by collections of political science professors. In 1948 the American Political Science Association released a report titled “Towards a More Responsible Two-Party System.” The report’s complaint was that the Republican and Democratic parties weren’t homogeneous enough: the more conservative Republican party contained northern liberal senators like Jacob Javits (NY) and Clifford Case (NJ), reflecting the overall outlook of their constituents, while the Democrats were a coalition, largely forged by Franklin Roosevelt, between Northern and Western liberals and Southerners who were not only more conservative but were generally outright defenders of racial segregation. The APSA’s report rested on an abstract model of democracy according to which elections should offer a clear choice between a “liberal” party and a “conservative” one, so that voters could indicate which ideology they favored. So conservatives should exit the Democrats, and liberals the Republicans. The underlying premise was that liberalism and conservatism are each distinct, coherent ideologies, so that (let’s say) being a budgetary hawk meant being a foreign-policy hawk, and someone who had no interest in civil rights, while liberals held the opposite positions on these issues. But that notion was false, as was documented, for instance, in the early 1960s: the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed only thanks to a Republican-Democrat coalition; it was Democratic President Kennedy who favored a tax cut on the ground that “a rising tide lifts all boats,” and who authorized the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion as well as increasing American military involvement in Vietnam.)

Anyway, decades later, the APSA got its wish: there is clearly more ideological homogeneity within each party today, and hence sharper partisan division between them, than there was three-quarters of a century ago. (This is not to deny the existence of major intraparty divisions over foreign policy towards threatening aggressors like Russia, Iran, and China.)

In the words of a song from the 1950’s (performed by my then-fellow New Jerseyan Connie Francis): Who’s sorry now?