The Problems...
"The absent party is also faulty."
- George Herbert, 1611.
While it is easy to focus blame on the self-serving oligarchs holding court in our legislator - those of us who have not become part of the solution are certainly part of the problem. We have allowed the worst to continue to be reelected. Some of us let this persist by accepting their bad behavior as the nature of politics. Others letit go on because they have become so turned off that they have dropped out and do not vote. Two-party politics and the negative campaigning it has wrought have compounded the voter apathy problem but more on that later. The bottom line is that "the only thing necessary for bad things to happen is for good people to do nothing.4"
Prof. Theodore Lowi, of Cornell, has said that the two-party system is on life support. Based on the amount of graft and corruption it consumes to keep it so dominant in Pennsylvania, it would seem that this life support system is bankrupting our Commonwealth.
Initially, and for the last 150 years, two-party apologists have contended that having just two parties cut down on the amount of acrimony and divisiveness in politics and policy making. It is arguable whether this was ever the case, but since the advent of candidate-centered, media-intensive, negative campaigning, the less divisive arguement for perpetuating the two-party system is indefensible.
While it has always allowed for patronage, graft and corruption, as the mover and shakers could hide their misdeeds behind party structures; in today's climate, the two-party oligarchy is practically a guarantee that the few will profit to the detriment of the many. Check out our analysis of the current Pennsylvania Legislature Operating Budget to see a glaring example of this.
The reason the two-party system leads to greater acrimony, less policy discussion and increased voter apathy has been borne out by comparisons between campaigns with and without third party participation. In 1992, it was Ross Perot who focused national attention on the deficit and the crisis of leadership in the two major parties. As his polling numbers rose, we saw Bush and Clinton focus on conveying their own economic plans and strive to talk about the kinds of political reforms (such as campaign finance reform) necessary to restore citizens faith in their leaders. When Perot dropped, it was only a matter of weeks before substanitive policy discussion disappeared, and the topics were Murphy Brown and 'family values'.
In Pennsylvania, more recently, we had a U.S. Senate race with four participants. The traditinal Republican and Democrat, plus a Patriot (now Reform) and a Libertarian. Whenever all four were included, such as the two televised debates, largely substanitive policy proposals ensued. On numerous occassions when only the two major party candidates were involved, discussion degenerated into negative attacks, finger pointing and even name calling. During an hour long Ann Devlin interview on WTAE radio, both Wofford and Santorum repeatedly interrupted each other, talked over each other and engaged in the kind of name calling and arguementative babble that would get any grade school kid a visit to the principal's office.
The reason for this dichotomy is that with just two people running, a campaign can take either the high road or the low road. The high road requires presenting clear solutions to the challenges that our government is capable of addressing. This takes a lot of work, is risky because your solutions may offend some, and requires significant attention span on the part of the citizenry. A series of thirty or sixty second commercials repeated often to get penetration, would be required for this approach. The hope is to get out more people who support your ideas to vote for you. The low road involves characterizing your opponent as someone without honor, incapable of addressing problems or somehow ill suited for the position being sought. The risk of this approach is minimized by having someone other than the candidate do the attacks. A few fifteen second attack commercials, repeated enough, are quite effective. The goal here is to get your opponent's supporters to stay home and not to vote in this election.
Not surprisingly, it is easier to get people not to do something than it is to get them to do something. The kicker is though that if there is a third opponent running, then keeping one opponents voters at home helps your other opponent as well as yourself. While voters hold independent candidates in low esteem, Republicans and Democrats want to keep it that way. When faced with a three or four-way race, they clean up there act some what.
Our state courts are participatory allies in the corruption of state politics. In the late eighties, a prominent state senator met with a sitting state supreme court judge in Erie to discuss a lawsuit between the City of Philadelphia and a number of large labor unions. A little later the state supreme court used its King's bench power (which should be abolished immediately) to pull the case out of the lower courts. They ruled in favor of Philadelphia and, not too amazingly, a little later Philadelphia awarded a large bond float contract to the supreme court justice's brother's firm.
As currently constituted, our state courts can become tools of the politically powerful
Gas tax, by definition is a user tax. Those that use the roads more buy more gas and pay more for the roads. On the surface this seems fair. Unfortunately in Pennsylvania, this system has taken on some riders. Road construction and maintenane is not an end in and of itself, but rather has becomes a means to generate campaign contributions and pay off political debts5.
THE GAS TAX IN PENNSYLVANIA IS CURRENTLY AN ABUSER TAX, NOT A USER TAX. IT BENEFITS THOSE WHO ABUSE THE PUBLIC TRUST. INCREASING ITS RATE WITHOUT REMOVING THE CORRUPTION AND GRAFT IS LIKE EXPECTING A JUNKIE TO CLEAN UP HIS ACT BY GIVING HIM MORE DRUGS.