American Popular
Election: The United States has not achieved a Quorum for Democracy since 1900
HA-29-10-10
By Anthony J.
Sanders
Contribute
to Health and Democracy
Part One: 66% Voting Age Population Turnout Quorum
Part Two: Restrictions on
Voter Eligibility
Part Three: Incumbent
Democratic-Republican Two Party System
Stage One: Hamiltonian
Federalists defeated by the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans 1788-1820
Stage Two: Jacksonian Democrats and the Whigs 1820-1856
Stage Three: Progressive
Republican Era 1860-1896
Stage Four: Republican
Populism 1900-1928
Stage Five: New Deal
Democrats 1932-1968
Stage Six: Split Ticket
Voting 1972-present
Part Four: Evolution of the Federal Corrupt Practices
Campaign Act
Part Five: Vote for Me: An Aspiring Young Multi-party
Democracy at 222
Part One: 66% Voter Age Population Turnout
Quorum
On Tuesday, 2 November 2010, voters in the United States will elect members of the 112th United States Congress, including all members of the United States House of Representatives and almost one-third of the United States Senate (IFES ’10). The Democratic and Republican (DR) bipartisan system holds all public offices at all levels of government in a nearly totalitarian grip. In 2005 ninety-nine of the one hundred U.S. senators were either republicans or Democrats, 434 of the 435 representatives in the House of Representatives are affiliated with one of the two major parties, all fifty of the state governors and more than 7,350 of the approximately 7,400 state legislators elected in partisan elections ran under major party labels (Maisel & Buckley ’05:267). Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe a third major political party is needed because the Republican and Democratic Parties do a poor job of representing the American people. Independents, express a greater degree of support (74%) for a third party, but 47% of Republicans and 45% of Democrats also expressed a desire for the creation of a third party. Sixty-two percent of those who describe themselves as Tea Party supporters would like a third major party formed, but so do 59% of those who are neutral toward the Tea Party movement. (Jones ’10). Congressional approval, averaging 35%, dipped to 16% in March 2010, Presidents usually enjoy a higher job approval rating, averaging around 50%, between 20-90% (Newport ’09). Overall Gallup's annual Governance poll finds a continued deterioration in public confidence in U.S. government institutions. Just 26% of Americans say they are satisfied with the way the nation is being governed, the lowest in the eight-year history of the Governance poll and tying a 1973 Gallup reading, as the lowest in the poll’s 34 year history (Jones ’08).
The
legitimacy of a democracy depends upon voter participation. In a democracy the people are sovereign. As a rule of thumb, endorsed by the now
defunct Election World website, a minimum of 2/3 voter participation is needed
to qualify as a popular democracy (Huntley ’98). Therefore, according to the US Census Bureau
Bicentennial Edition statistics, the United States has not technically
qualified as a popular democracy since 1900 when voter participation was 73.2
percent. The 2008 president election,
typically at least 10 percentage points more popular than midterm elections
such as the 2010 congressional election, garnered only 56.8 percent turnout -
the highest turnout rate since 1968 when it was 60.6 percent. For a while though, in the Civil War and
Reconstruction era between 1840 and 1900 US voter participation was between
69.6 percent in 1952 and 81.8 percent in 1876 including the newly eligible
black voters under the XV Amendment of 1870, 1900 was the last election to
enjoy 66% turnout. Equal suffrage for
women under the XIX Amendment of 1920 was more problematic and the presidential
elections of 1920 with 49.2 percent turnout and 1924 with 48.9 percent turnout
were the lowest presidential election, since the first popular presidential election
1824, with the exception of 1996 (49.1%), that reinstated Clinton with a
mandate to balance the budget. The XVI
Amendment of 1971 to allow all people 18 or older to vote similarly had a
negative impact on voter turnout pushing voting age turnout in the presidential
elections forever below the 60 percent enjoyed throughout the 1950s and ‘60s
(Morton & Barabba ’70). Turnout in the once awed European democracies is over 75 percent
in Great Britain and France, over 80 percent in west Germany, the Low Countries
and Scandinavia, over 90 percent in Italy.
Currently the United States ranks twentieth among twenty-one democracies
in turnout as a percentage of the voting-age population (only Switzerland is
worse). If people are too intimidated or
apathetic to come to the polls this indicates the government is either too
abusive or too negligent to elect a representative government, which means the
government should not be expansive but self-determinant. Fifty million additional American would have
had to vote in 1984 to bring turnout back to nineteenth-century levels
(Schlesinger 99: 256)
Turnout of
Voting Age Population in Presidential Election Years 1824-2008
2012 |
2008 |
2004 |
2000 |
1996 |
1992 |
? |
56.8% |
55.3% |
51.3% |
49.1% |
55.1% |
1988 |
1984 |
1980 |
1976 |
1972 |
1968 |
50.1% |
53.1% |
52.6% |
53.6% |
55.2% |
60.6% |
1964 |
1960 |
1956 |
1952 |
1948 |
1944 |
61.7% |
64.0% |
60.6% |
63.3% |
53.0% |
55.9% |
1940 |
1936 |
1932 |
1928 |
1924 |
1920 |
62.5% |
61.0% |
56.9% |
56.9% |
48.9% |
49.2% |
1916 |
1912 |
1908 |
1904 |
1900 |
1896 |
61.6% |
58.8% |
65.4% |
65.2% |
73.2% |
79.3% |
1892 |
1888 |
1884 |
1880 |
1876 |
1872 |
74.7% |
79.3% |
77.5% |
79.4% |
81.8% |
71.3% |
1868 |
1864 |
1860 |
1856 |
1852 |
1848 |
78.1% |
73.8% |
81.2% |
78.9% |
69.6% |
72.7% |
1844 |
1840 |
1836 |
1832 |
1828 |
1824 |
78.9% |
80.2% |
57.8% |
55.4% |
57.6% |
26.9% |
Source: Series Y 27-78 Morton, Rogers
C.B. Secretary of Commerce; Barabba, Vincent P.
Director of the Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United
States: Colonial Times to 1970. Bicentennial
Edition pg. 1071-1072
Voter participation is actually a function of
three factors- eligibility, registration and turnout. The first is who is eligible to register to
vote? The second factor involves how
many eligible people bother to register.
The third factor is the decision of those eligible and registered to
turn out to cast their ballot on Election Day.
Turnout is often expressed as a percentage of registered voters who
actually turn out and vote. Voter age population
(VAP) rates are however the standard by which elections are judged, VAP rate is
the percentage of voting age population (VAP) who votes. States vary tremendously in their turnout
rates. In the 2000 election, eleven
states had turnout rates greater than 60 percent of the voting age population,
led by Minnesota, at 68.8 percent, and Maine, at 67.3 percent, at the other
extreme sixteen states had turnout rates less than 50 percent of the voting age
population, with Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Nevada and Texas all below 45
percent. The debate over ease of
registration has been heated. Turnout
during congressional election years is typically under 40 percent (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 80 & 89). A factor that can overturn elections is a
percentage of invalid votes exceeding 0.7% in the Parliament and 2% in the
presidential election. Out of the past
20 biannual elections between 1968 and 2008 only two of the ten presidential
elections resulted in turnout of registered voters less than 66% but in the ten
mid-term elections has not achieved 66% turnout since 1970. The turnout of registered voters is not
typically used as the gauge of voter participation, however the voter turnout
of registered in the United States between 1968 and 2008 does indicate a
democratic belief in the President exclusively amongst registered party members
or independents. As a percentage of
voter age population (VAP) turnout during the 36 biannual elections between
1946 and 2008 not once has the USA achieved the requisite 66% participation of
the VAP. Not since the election of 1900
has US voter participation achieved 66% of the VAP (Morton & Barraba ’70: 1071-1072).
Parliamentary Election Turnout
United States of America 1946- 2006
The year the election took place
or a law was passed, etc |
Total vote The total number of votes cast in
the relevant election. Total vote includes valid and invalid votes, as well
as blank votes in cases where these are separated from invalid votes. |
Voter Turn- The voter turnout as defined as
the percentage of registered voters who actually voted |
Registration The number of registered voters.
The figure represents the number of names on the voters' register at the time
that the registration process closes (cut-off date), as reported by the electoral
management body. |
Registration as a percent of
voting age population (VAP) |
Voting age population The voting age population (VAP)
includes all citizens above the legal voting age |
VAP Turn- The voter turnout as defined as the
percentage of the voting age population that actually voted |
Population The total population |
2008 |
131,313,820 |
89.75% |
146,311,000 |
65% |
225,080,141 |
58.34% |
303,824,640 |
2006 |
82,121,411 |
47.52% |
172,805,006 |
78.5% |
220,043,054 |
37.32% |
298,444,215 |
2004 |
121,862,329 |
68.75% |
177,265,030 |
82.5% |
215,080,198 |
56.66% |
293,027,571 |
2002 |
73,844,526 |
45.31% |
162,993,315 |
77.4% |
210,464,504 |
35.09% |
278,058,881 |
2000 |
99,738,383 |
63.76% |
156,421,311 |
73.1% |
213,954,023 |
46.62% |
284,970,789 |
1998 |
73,117,022 |
51.55% |
141,850,558 |
67.4% |
210,446,120 |
34.74% |
280,298,524 |
1996 |
96,456,345 |
65.97% |
146,211,960 |
74.4% |
196,511,000 |
49.08% |
265,679,000 |
1994 |
75,105,860 |
57.64% |
130,292,822 |
67.3% |
193,650,000 |
38.78% |
262,090,745 |
1992 |
104,405,155 |
78.02% |
133,821,178 |
70.6% |
189,529,000 |
55.09% |
255,407,000 |
1990 |
67,859,189 |
56.03% |
121,105,630 |
65.2% |
185,812,000 |
36.52% |
248,709,873 |
1988 |
91,594,693 |
72.48% |
126,379,628 |
69.1% |
182,778,000 |
50.11% |
245,057,000 |
1986 |
64,991,128 |
54.89% |
118,399,984 |
66.3% |
178,566,000 |
36.40% |
239,529,693 |
1984 |
92,652,680 |
74.63% |
124,150,614 |
71.2% |
174,466,000 |
53.11% |
236,681,000 |
1982 |
67,615,576 |
61.10% |
110,671,225 |
65.2% |
169,938,000 |
39.79% |
233,697,676 |
1980 |
86,515,221 |
76.53% |
113,043,734 |
68.7% |
164,597,000 |
52.56% |
227,738,000 |
1978 |
58,917,938 |
57.04% |
103,291,265 |
65.2% |
158,373,000 |
37.20% |
221,537,514 |
1976 |
81,555,789 |
77.64% |
105,037,989 |
68.9% |
152,309,190 |
53.55% |
218,035,000 |
1974 |
55,943,834 |
58.15% |
96,199,020 |
65.8% |
146,336,000 |
38.23% |
214,305,134 |
1972 |
77,718,554 |
79.85% |
97,328,541 |
69.1% |
140,776,000 |
55.21% |
208,840,000 |
1970 |
58,014,338 |
70.32% |
82,496,747 |
66.3% |
124,498,000 |
46.60% |
203,211,926 |
1968 |
73,211,875 |
89.66% |
81,658,180 |
67.9% |
120,328,186 |
60.84% |
200,710,000 |
1966 |
56,188,046 |
|
116,132,000 |
48.38% |
197,730,744 |
||
1964 |
70,644,592 |
|
114,090,000 |
61.92% |
192,119,000 |
||
1962 |
53,141,227 |
|
112,423,000 |
47.27% |
186,512,143 |
||
1960 |
68,838,204 |
|
109,159,000 |
63.06% |
180,684,000 |
||
1958 |
45,966,070 |
|
103,221,000 |
44.53% |
175,038,232 |
||
1956 |
58,434,811 |
|
106,408,890 |
54.92% |
168,903,000 |
||
1954 |
42,509,905 |
|
98,527,000 |
43.15% |
162,725,667 |
||
1952 |
57,582,333 |
|
96,466,000 |
59.69% |
157,022,000 |
||
1950 |
40,253,267 |
|
94,403,000 |
42.64% |
151,325,798 |
||
1948 |
45,839,622 |
|
95,310,150 |
48.10% |
146,631,000 |
||
1946 |
34,279,158 |
|
88,388,000 |
38.78% |
142,049,065 |
Source:
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. County View:
United States 2009
Overall in 2008 225 million people were of
voting age, 74% of the total population of 303.8 million. 65% these 225 million adults, 146.3 million
registered to vote, 48.1% of the total.
Of those registered 131.3 million actually voted, a turnout of 89.75%,
the highest since the International Institute of Democracy and Electoral
Assistance (IDEA) began tracking this measure of voter turnout as a percentage
of registered voters in 1968. It is also
remarkable that voter registration declined significantly from 172.8 million to
146.3 million, 15.6% between the midterm election of 2006 and the presidential
election of 2008. There is not normally
much difference in voter registration between presidential and midterm elections,
voter registration has progressively increased in all but 8 of the past 20
biannual elections since 1968, with the exception of the midterm elections of
1974, 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2008. The 2008 presidential election was the first election
to ever register a decline in voter registration from the previous presidential
election and the first to register a decline from the previous midterm
election. Numerically voter registration
in the 2008 election regressed a decade to 1998-2000 levels. The 2008 presidential election had the lowest
rate of registration of voter age population (VAP), at 65% since records began
being collected in by IDEA in 1968, only in 1982 did it drop so
low as 65.2%, so soon after the high of 82.5% in the 2004 presidential election
when the HAVA of 2002 was enforced.
Otherwise voter age population (VAP) turnout rate, denied the vote of
convicted felons by many states, was 58.34%.
The 2008 election is remarkable, for electing a black man to the White
House by a landslide, for his record campaign finance contribution, low voter
registration and high turnout of registered voters.
General Election VAP Turnout Rates,
State by State 2000-2008
State |
VAP |
VAP 2006 |
VAP 2004 |
VAP
2002 |
VAP
2000 |
|
VAP
2008 |
VAP 2006 |
VAP 2004 |
VAP 2002 |
VAP
2000 |
United
States |
56.9% |
37.1% |
55.4% |
36.3% |
50.0% |
Missouri |
64.5% |
48.1% |
62.9% |
43.9% |
56.2% |
Alabama |
59.0% |
35.9% |
55.2% |
40.4% |
50.1% |
Montana |
65.6% |
55.6% |
63.4% |
47.7% |
60.6% |
Alaska |
64.0% |
47.8% |
65.2% |
51.0% |
65.0% |
Nebraska |
59.9% |
45.1% |
59.8% |
37.3% |
55.0% |
Arizona |
47.7% |
33.3% |
47.0% |
30.7% |
40.2% |
Nevada |
49.7% |
31.1% |
47.3% |
31.1% |
40.2% |
Arkansas |
50.1% |
36.5% |
51.0% |
39.7% |
46.0% |
New
Hampshire |
69.0% |
39.9% |
68.4% |
46.0% |
60.7% |
California |
49.7% |
32.2% |
47.1% |
29.0% |
44.1% |
New
Jersey |
58.4% |
34.1% |
55.2% |
32.6% |
50.1% |
Colorado |
64.1% |
43.1% |
61.2% |
42.0% |
53.7% |
New
Mexico |
55.8% |
38.6% |
53.9% |
35.7% |
45.4% |
Connecticut |
61.1% |
42.5% |
59.7% |
38.9% |
56.6% |
New
York |
50.8% |
30.3% |
50.2% |
31.4% |
47.5% |
Delaware |
61.3% |
39.0% |
59.4% |
37.9% |
54.9% |
North
Carolina |
61.3% |
28.7% |
53.9% |
37.2% |
47.5% |
District
of Columbia |
55.4% |
25.5% |
48.9% |
27.1% |
43.9% |
North
Dakota |
63.3% |
44.1% |
63.8% |
47.6% |
59.7% |
Florida |
58.3% |
34.3% |
56.1% |
39.5% |
47.9% |
Ohio |
64.7% |
46.3% |
65.1% |
37.6% |
55.4% |
Georgia |
54.7% |
30.7% |
50.0% |
32.2% |
42.4% |
Oklahoma |
53.2% |
34.3% |
55.3% |
39.6% |
48.0% |
Hawaii |
45.4% |
34.6% |
44.1% |
40.2% |
39.9% |
Oregon |
62.5% |
48.4% |
66.8% |
47.2% |
59.1% |
Idaho |
58.7% |
42.0% |
58.7% |
42.0% |
53.5% |
Pennsylvania |
61.4% |
42.6% |
60.6% |
37.3% |
52.3% |
Illinois |
57.0% |
36.3% |
55.7% |
37.7% |
51.4% |
Rhode
Island |
57.2% |
46.7% |
52.9% |
40.1% |
50.7% |
Indiana |
57.2% |
35.2% |
53.0% |
33.3% |
48.3% |
South
Carolina |
55.8% |
33.1% |
50.7% |
35.6% |
45.7% |
Iowa |
67.2% |
46.3% |
67.4% |
45.7% |
59.6% |
South
Dakota |
62.8% |
56.4% |
66.9% |
59.7% |
56.9% |
Kansas |
58.8% |
41.1% |
58.3% |
41.4% |
54.0% |
Tennessee |
54.5% |
39.5% |
54.1% |
37.3% |
48.1% |
Kentucky |
55.7% |
39.0% |
56.9% |
36.4% |
50.4% |
Texas |
45.8% |
25.8% |
45.4% |
28.8% |
42.4% |
Louisiana |
58.6% |
28.3% |
58.5% |
37.8% |
54.2% |
Utah |
50.4% |
31.8% |
54.7% |
35.0% |
50.3% |
Maine |
70.0% |
53.3% |
72.6% |
50.1% |
66.4% |
Vermont |
65.9% |
53.8% |
65.0% |
48.1% |
63.1% |
Maryland |
61.0% |
42.2% |
57.2% |
41.6% |
51.0% |
Virginia |
62.2% |
40.6% |
56.2% |
26.9% |
50.9% |
Massachusetts |
60.1% |
44.4% |
58.7% |
44.4% |
55.4% |
Washington |
60.3% |
42.7% |
60.8% |
37.9% |
56.2% |
Michigan |
65.7% |
49.9% |
63.9% |
42.3% |
57.3% |
West
Virginia |
49.9% |
32.3% |
53.4% |
30.8% |
46.1% |
Minnesota |
73.1% |
56.4% |
73.9% |
59.7% |
66.4% |
Wisconsin |
69.0% |
50.8% |
71.6% |
43.2% |
64.5% |
Mississippi |
59.3% |
28.5% |
54.2% |
29.2% |
47.8% |
Wyoming |
62.6% |
49.4% |
63.7% |
49.2% |
58.2% |
Source: United
States Election Project. General Elections 2000-2008. October 2010
State-by-state in the five biannual elections
between 2000 and 2008, turnout is much higher during presidential elections
than midterm elections. Not a single
state achieved a 66% quorum during midterm elections, however during the
Presidential elections a few states qualify every year. Average national VAP turnout in midterm
elections of 2006 was 37.1% with a high of 56.4% in Minnesota and low of 25.5%
in the District of Columbia, and in 2002, 36.3%, with a high of 59.7% in
Minnesota and low of 26.9% in Virginia.
In the 2008 presidential election average participation was 56.9%
however five states, Minnesota with 73.1%, Maine with 70.0%, Wisconsin and New
Hampshire with 69.0% and Iowa with 67.2% achieved the 66% supermajority VAP
turnout needed for a quorum. In 2004
average national participation was 55.4% nonetheless seven states achieved the
quorum, the same states as 2008, plus Oregon with 66.8% and South Dakota with
66.9%. In the 2000 presidential election
voting age turnout was 50.0%, only two states, Maine and Minnesota with 66.4%
VAP turnout were popular. Hawaii
consistently had the lowest VAP turnout in presidential elections with 45.4% in
2008, 44.1% in 2004 and 39.9% in 2000.
Americans have become more involved in the electoral process since a low
of in 1996 and 2000. Americans however
do not participate at the desired rates.
Voting Age Population Turnout in Recent Parliamentary Election in 21
Most Populous Aspiring Democracies
Country |
VAP Turnout - Parliamentary The voter turnout as defined as
the percentage of the voting age population that actually voted in the
parliamentary elections |
VAP Turnout - Presidential The voter turnout as defined as the
percentage of the voting age population that actually voted in the
presidential elections |
Country |
VAP Turnout - Parliamentary The voter turnout as defined as
the percentage of the voting age population that actually voted in the
parliamentary elections. |
VAP Turnout - Presidential The voter turnout as defined as
the percentage of the voting age population that actually voted in the
presidential elections |
87.60% (2004) |
74.77% (2004) |
61.91% (2007) |
62.22% (2004) |
||
83.54% (2006) |
83.57% (2006) |
60.57% (2004) |
|
||
79.13% (2008) |
|
58.32% (2005) |
|
||
76.23% (2007) |
|
54.87% (2007) |
|
||
73.99% (2007) |
|
54.52% (2007) |
76.75% (2007) |
||
71.99% (2005) |
|
54.08% (2008) |
67.62% (2005) |
||
66.62% (2005) |
|
46.63% (2003) |
65.33% (2003) |
||
66.19% (2005) |
|
46.59% (2008) |
64.17% (2007) |
||
64.57% (1996) |
53.10% (1986) |
38.77% (2008) |
|
||
63.62% (2006) |
63.26% (2006) |
37.32% (2006) |
58.23% (2008) |
||
|
|
|
19.75% (2005) |
16.41% (2005) |
Source:
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. Voter Turnout
With
37.32% voter age population (VAP) turnout during the United States
parliamentary elections of 2006 ranked 169th out of 188 nations
using recent election data recorded by the International Institute for
Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).
41%, 77 nations of the 188 had VAP turnout greater than the arbitrary
66% in their most recent parliamentary election. Vietnam reported VAP turnout of 100.79%,
either their children are voting or they are having technical
difficulties. Rwanda had 93.6% VAP
turnout, Indonesia 87.6%, Belgium 86%, Peru 84.1%, Denmark 83.2% while Japan
hangs on with 66.62%. While it might be
difficult to achieve 66% voter turnout, 41% of nations do, and 59% do not. China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and the
United Nations are conspicuously absent from the electoral statistics. India, often called the world’s largest
democracy, ranked 100th with 60.57% VAP turnout. Technically, the world’s largest popular
democracy is Indonesia with 87.6% of adults.
Of the 21 most populous aspiring democracies only 8 actually qualified
with more than 66% of the vote. Out of
106 nations the U.S. Presidential election of 2008 VAP turnout, usually much
higher than in the mid-terms, was 70th place, with 58.2% VAP
turnout, Afghanistan placed 71st at 57.9%, only 47, 44.3% of
participating nations, garnered the 66% supermajority of VAP turnout needed to
qualify as popular democracies. The US
Parliamentary elections ranked 20th out of the 21 most populous
aspiring democratic nations, only Egypt, a major recipient of US foreign
military assistance had lower turnout in their parliamentary elections. The United States scored much higher in the
presidential election of 2008 with 58.23% VAP turnout, 17th out of
21, while Brazil took first place with 83.57% while fewer Indonesians 74.77%
voted for their President than Parliament 87.60%. While the presidential election increases
voter turnout in some countries, France and Iran are the only nations whose
presidential elections helped the nation to achieve a passing VAP turnout, in
Mexico, Egypt and Indonesia turnout was lower during the Presidential than
Parliamentary election (IDEA ’09).
There is a saying that “people
get the government they vote for.” The implication of the maxim is that if
undesirable or unwise legislation is enacted, if executive branch officials are
inept or ineffective, or if the government is beset with widespread corruption,
then such unfortunate results are the consequence of the electorate’s decision
regarding whom to trust with the powers and prestige of public office. No right is more precious in a free country
than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under
which, as good citizens, we must live (Kant 1795 §2.1). However, when governments and political
parties have monopolized and manipulated all the options, voting becomes
counterproductive to the voter. It is argued that voting is a civic duty and
that the state can expect patriotic citizens to invest a certain amount of
effort toward that duty. By not voting however,
a citizen is expressing that they do not support the political system and
either fear or dislike it so much they do not want to be exposed it. If sufficient number of voters turnout to
support the government, then the legitimacy of the democracy to embark on
expansionist policies, is not typically questioned. However, if less than 66% of the VAP turnout,
the electorate has clearly expressed that they want the government to be less
intrusive. Secretaries of State aim to
ensure that the voting process is accessible to voters and also work to secure
the integrity of the ballot box against fraud, waste and abuse. Elections must be conducted in an orderly
fashion to guarantee a free and fair election that validly reflects the choice
of the electorate (Blackwell ’09: 107-123).
Democracy is only a form of despotism, where the executive power is
established by the election of a tyranny of the majority, therefore a
republican constitution must establish principles to ensure firstly, the
freedom of the members of a society, secondly, dependence of all upon a single common
legislation, as subjects, and, thirdly, by the law of their equality, as
citizens. A republican constitution gives a favorable prospect for the desired
consequence, i.e., perpetual peace (Kant 1795 §2.1).
Democratic peace theory is that
democracies do not make more upon each other, nor do they commit genocide
against their own citizens. If the
United States wishes to improve their low VAP turnout the USA must not make war
or abuse their citizens and come to identify their nation not as a democracy
but as an aspiring democracy (MD §34). The National Voter Registration Act of
1993, and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), have facilitated voter
registration and the ability to cast ballots with little success. The Acts had
four official purposes: (1) to establish procedures that will increase the
number of eligible citizens who register to vote in elections for Federal
office; (2) to make it possible for Federal, State, and local governments to
implement this Act in a manner that enhances the participation of eligible
citizens as voters in elections for Federal office; (3) to protect the
integrity of the electoral process; and (4) to ensure that accurate and current
voter registration rolls are maintained (Blackwell & Klukowski
’09:114). The NVRA of 1993 actually led
to the lowest percentage turnout of voting age population since 1924 in the
presidential election of 1996. HAVA of
2002, on the other hand, may have brought some people to the polls. In crafting a strategy to improve voter
participation the federal government must be sure that it not only reminds
citizens of their right to vote but protects the integrity of the ballot box
and voter registries against intimidation and injustice. People don’t want to the come to the polls for
two reasons. One, because they fear
having their identity stolen by abusive officials. And two, with the nearly absolute Democratic
and Republican monopoly of political parties at nearly every level of
government voting would do no good because all votes just perpetuate the
bipartisan system. The reason for the
decline in participation since 1900 is the taxman became more oppressive with
the epidemiologic surveillance of the U.S. Census Bureau of 1900, income tax of
1916 and prohibition of 1919.
Part Two:
Restrictions on Voter Eligibility
The federal constitution forbids
age or gender restrictions on voting rights for any citizen of at least 18
years, though some states restrict specific groups including those convicted of
felonies. Registration is
self-initiated and not compulsory. Most states require citizens to register by
some deadline well in advance of an election, though a few permit same day or
Election Day registration, and one
does not conduct registration at
all. State-level officials (Board of
Elections or Secretary of State) design registration
forms and determine requirements, but most election boards use continuous voter
registries maintained by local governments.
Two populations, people under 18 and convicted
felons are the two remaining populations to be legally disenfranchised from the
polling booth. No state in the world
allows children to vote. Four states (Maine,
Massachusetts, Utah, Vermont) do not disenfranchise
convicted felons. In forty-six states and the District of Columbia, criminal
disenfranchisement laws deny the vote to all convicted adults in prison.
Thirty-two states also disenfranchise felons on parole; twenty-nine
disenfranchise those on probation. And, due to laws that may be unique in the
world, and in violation of the “no previous condition of servitude” clause of
the XV Amendment, in fourteen states even ex-offenders who have fully served
their sentences remain barred for life from voting, although their crime had
nothing to do with electoral fraud.
These restrictions cut into the third party vote and overall VAP
turnout. An estimated 3.9 million
Americans, or one in fifty adults, have currently or permanently lost the
ability to vote because of a felony conviction, an estimated 1.7% of the voting
age population, 3% of voter turnout (JD §264: 882-887). The U.S. foreign-born population is 36.5 million,
with 14.4 million naturalized citizens. Research documents that naturalized
citizens are less likely to register and vote than native citizens (Crissey ’08).
Impact of Felon Disenfranchisement
on Voter Age and Voting Eligible Populations under State Voting Law 2008
State |
Total Turnout |
Voting Age Population |
VAP Turnout Rate |
Voting Eligible Population |
VEP Turnout Rate |
Non- Citizen |
Prison |
Probation |
Parole |
Total Ineligible Felons |
Overseas Eligible |
Alabama |
2,105,622 |
3,558,576 |
59.0% |
3,418,204 |
61.6% |
2.2% |
30,508 |
53,252 |
8,042 |
61,155 |
74,079 |
Alaska |
327,341 |
510,020 |
64.0% |
481,716 |
68.0% |
3.7% |
5,014 |
6,708 |
1,732 |
9,234 |
60,686 |
Arizona |
2,320,851 |
4,809,400 |
47.7% |
4,165,988 |
55.7% |
11.6% |
39,589 |
82,232 |
7,534 |
84,472 |
90,036 |
Arkansas |
1,095,958 |
2,167,235 |
50.1% |
2,064,173 |
53.1% |
2.9% |
14,716 |
31,169 |
19,908 |
40,255 |
43,963 |
California |
13,743,177 |
27,279,556 |
49.7% |
22,153,555 |
62.0% |
17.9% |
173,670 |
0 |
120,753 |
234,047 |
486,207 |
Colorado |
2,422,236 |
3,748,718 |
64.1% |
3,419,539 |
70.8% |
8.0% |
23,274 |
0 |
11,654 |
29,101 |
71,854 |
Connecticut |
|
2,695,793 |
61.1% |
2,443,533 |
|
8.5% |
20,661 |
0 |
2,328 |
21,825 |
45,799 |
Delaware |
413,562 |
672,304 |
61.3% |
620,448 |
66.7% |
5.3% |
7,075 |
17,216 |
551 |
15,959 |
12,658 |
District
of Columbia |
266,871 |
479,880 |
55.4% |
430,690 |
62.0% |
10.3% |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
6,916 |
Florida |
8,453,743 |
14,395,399 |
58.3% |
12,542,585 |
67.4% |
11.2% |
102,388 |
279,760 |
4,528 |
244,532 |
451,907 |
Georgia |
3,940,705 |
7,169,980 |
54.7% |
6,380,404 |
61.8% |
7.3% |
52,719 |
397,081 |
23,448 |
262,984 |
141,001 |
Hawaii |
456,064 |
1,000,026 |
45.4% |
897,488 |
50.8% |
9.7% |
5,955 |
0 |
0 |
5,955 |
20,090 |
Idaho |
667,506 |
1,116,659 |
58.7% |
1,028,291 |
64.9% |
4.9% |
7,290 |
49,513 |
3,361 |
33,727 |
26,779 |
Illinois |
5,578,195 |
9,684,345 |
57.0% |
8,743,436 |
63.8% |
9.2% |
45,474 |
0 |
0 |
45,474 |
200,530 |
Indiana |
2,805,986 |
4,808,900 |
57.2% |
4,636,209 |
60.5% |
3.0% |
28,322 |
0 |
0 |
28,322 |
89,605 |
Iowa |
1,543,662 |
2,285,881 |
67.2% |
2,203,793 |
70.0% |
2.6% |
8,766 |
22,958 |
3,159 |
21,825 |
43,108 |
Kansas |
1,264,208 |
2,102,464 |
58.8% |
1,994,038 |
63.4% |
4.2% |
8,539 |
16,263 |
4,958 |
19,150 |
42,495 |
Kentucky |
1,858,578 |
3,281,251 |
55.7% |
3,156,184 |
58.9% |
2.2% |
21,706 |
51,035 |
12,277 |
53,362 |
58,518 |
Louisiana |
1,979,852 |
3,343,411 |
58.6% |
3,206,903 |
61.7% |
2.0% |
38,381 |
40,025 |
24,636 |
70,712 |
68,285 |
Maine |
744,456 |
1,045,008 |
70.0% |
1,031,496 |
72.2% |
1.3% |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
21,362 |
Maryland |
2,651,428 |
4,317,486 |
61.0% |
3,901,736 |
68.0% |
7.8% |
23,324 |
96,360 |
13,220 |
78,114 |
77,074 |
Massachusetts |
3,102,995 |
5,123,478 |
60.1% |
4,672,376 |
66.4% |
8.6% |
11,408 |
0 |
0 |
11,408 |
77,830 |
Michigan |
5,039,080 |
7,613,003 |
65.7% |
7,311,245 |
68.9% |
3.3% |
48,738 |
0 |
0 |
48,738 |
163,673 |
Minnesota |
2,921,147 |
3,980,782 |
73.1% |
3,744,757 |
78.0% |
4.0% |
9,910 |
127,627 |
5,081 |
76,264 |
70,063 |
Mississippi |
|
2,176,453 |
59.3% |
2,099,663 |
|
1.9% |
22,754 |
22,267 |
2,922 |
35,349 |
45,082 |
Missouri |
2,992,023 |
4,533,017 |
64.5% |
4,352,278 |
68.7% |
2.5% |
30,186 |
57,360 |
20,683 |
69,208 |
96,710 |
Montana |
497,599 |
750,159 |
65.6% |
736,697 |
67.5% |
1.3% |
3,545 |
0 |
0 |
3,545 |
22,898 |
Nebraska |
811,923 |
1,337,385 |
59.9% |
1,264,519 |
64.2% |
4.3% |
4,520 |
19,606 |
846 |
14,746 |
27,311 |
Nevada |
970,019 |
1,946,641 |
49.7% |
1,650,759 |
58.8% |
14.1% |
12,743 |
13,337 |
3,908 |
21,366 |
45,656 |
New
Hampshire |
719,643 |
1,030,415 |
69.0% |
1,000,628 |
71.9% |
2.6% |
2,702 |
0 |
0 |
2,702 |
25,558 |
New
Jersey |
3,910,220 |
6,627,332 |
58.4% |
5,755,371 |
67.9% |
11.7% |
25,953 |
128,737 |
15,849 |
98,246 |
110,559 |
New
Mexico |
833,365 |
1,486,830 |
55.8% |
1,345,199 |
62.0% |
8.3% |
6,402 |
20,883 |
3,724 |
18,706 |
31,444 |
New
York |
7,721,718 |
15,048,837 |
50.8% |
13,099,560 |
58.9% |
12.4% |
60,347 |
0 |
52,225 |
86,460 |
263,787 |
North
Carolina |
4,354,571 |
7,029,536 |
61.3% |
6,521,263 |
66.8% |
5.9% |
39,482 |
109,678 |
3,409 |
96,026 |
133,483 |
North
Dakota |
321,133 |
499,894 |
63.3% |
492,052 |
65.3% |
1.3% |
1,452 |
0 |
0 |
1,452 |
11,179 |
Ohio |
5,773,387 |
8,802,396 |
64.7% |
8,557,033 |
67.5% |
2.2% |
51,686 |
0 |
0 |
51,686 |
174,703 |
Oklahoma |
1,474,694 |
2,747,092 |
53.2% |
2,596,910 |
56.8% |
4.0% |
25,864 |
27,940 |
3,073 |
41,371 |
57,046 |
Oregon |
1,845,251 |
2,925,885 |
62.5% |
2,709,299 |
68.1% |
6.9% |
14,167 |
0 |
0 |
14,167 |
63,480 |
Pennsylvania |
|
9,790,263 |
61.4% |
9,435,272 |
|
3.1% |
49,215 |
0 |
0 |
49,215 |
203,791 |
Rhode
Island |
475,428 |
824,604 |
57.2% |
762,509 |
62.4% |
7.0% |
4,045 |
0 |
0 |
4,045 |
13,827 |
South
Carolina |
1,927,153 |
3,445,524 |
55.8% |
3,284,019 |
58.7% |
3.4% |
24,326 |
41,254 |
1,947 |
45,927 |
72,241 |
South
Dakota |
387,449 |
608,222 |
62.8% |
596,337 |
65.0% |
1.2% |
3,342 |
0 |
2,720 |
4,702 |
20,144 |
Tennessee |
2,618,238 |
4,767,143 |
54.5% |
4,558,557 |
57.4% |
3.1% |
27,228 |
58,109 |
10,578 |
61,572 |
127,930 |
Texas |
|
17,654,414 |
45.8% |
14,841,794 |
|
13.5% |
172,506 |
427,080 |
102,921 |
437,507 |
549,216 |
Utah |
971,185 |
1,889,690 |
50.4% |
1,746,298 |
55.6% |
7.2% |
6,552 |
0 |
0 |
6,552 |
31,783 |
Vermont |
326,822 |
493,436 |
65.9% |
483,487 |
67.6% |
2.0% |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
10,546 |
Virginia |
3,753,059 |
5,982,805 |
62.2% |
5,518,704 |
68.0% |
6.6% |
38,276 |
53,614 |
4,471 |
67,319 |
124,689 |
Washington |
3,071,587 |
5,036,901 |
60.3% |
4,564,797 |
67.3% |
7.8% |
17,926 |
113,134 |
11,768 |
80,377 |
138,296 |
West
Virginia |
731,691 |
1,429,429 |
49.9% |
1,407,009 |
52.0% |
0.8% |
6,059 |
8,283 |
2,005 |
11,203 |
33,788 |
Wisconsin |
2,997,086 |
4,322,269 |
69.0% |
4,135,627 |
72.5% |
3.0% |
23,379 |
50,418 |
18,105 |
57,641 |
78,721 |
Wyoming |
256,035 |
406,742 |
62.6% |
394,627 |
64.9% |
1.7% |
2,084 |
5,438 |
727 |
5,167 |
13,832 |
U.S. Total |
132,645,504 |
230,782,870 |
56.9% |
213,231,835 |
62.2% |
8.4% |
1,605,448 |
2,451,085 |
627,680 |
3,144,831 |
4,972,217 |
Source: United States Election Project. General Elections
2008. October 2010
The impact of various factors, such a felony disenfranchisement laws,
non-citizenship and overseas eligibility need to be analyzed. In the 2008 election of the
230.8 million people of voting age and 132.6 million showed up to vote between
56.9%-57.5% allowed by the 8.4% margin of non-citizens. Only 213.2 million of the
230.8 million voter age population, in 2008 were
eligible to vote, 17.6 million votes were disqualified either because they were
one of the 20 million non-citizens, not all of them permanent residents, or
they were among the 3.1 million convicted felons disenfranchised by state law,
or the ballot was unreadable. There are
nearly 5 million overseas votes (US Election Project ’08). The disenfranchisement
of felons weighs particularly heavily upon the 1.4
million African American men, or 13 percent of the black adult male population,
are disenfranchised, reflecting a rate of disenfranchisement that is seven
times the national average. More than one-third (36 percent) of the total
disenfranchised population are black men. Ten states disenfranchise more than
one in five adult black men; in seven of these states, one in four black men
are permanently disenfranchised.
Given current rates of incarceration, three in ten of the next generation of
black men will be disenfranchised at some point in their lifetime. In states
with the most restrictive voting laws, 40 percent of African American men are
likely to be permanently
disenfranchised (Human Rights Watch ’98; JD §264: 882-887). The United States really needs to review the
previous condition of servitude clause of the XV Amendment reinstate the right
to vote to people who have served their sentence, and consider reinstating it
to all 3.1 million people have been denied the right to vote on the grounds
that were sentenced to prison, probation and parole. This reform would be more likely to improve
than detract from voter turnout because felon disenfranchisement is more of a
continuation of the black slavery issue than the overprotection of women and
children
In colonial times only those white males who owned land were empowered
to vote. The first step in expanding the
franchise involved eliminating the property requirement that only taxpayers
could vote. This reform happened on a
state-by-state basis, starting before the ratification of the Constitution,
when Vermont granted universal male suffrage in 1777 and when South Carolina
substituted a taxpayer requirement for a property-holding requirement. In 1789
only white males who owned property were generally eligible to vote, only
around one in thirty Americans. At independence, the newly
formed states rejected some of the civil disabilities inherited from Europe;
criminal disenfranchisement was among those retained. In the mid-nineteenth
century, nineteen of the thirty-four existing states excluded serious offenders
from the franchise. Convicted felons
were not the only people excluded from the vote. Suffrage was extremely limited
in the new country: women, African Americans, illiterates, and people without
property were also among those unable to vote.
Before the Civil
War the United States Constitution did not provide specific protections for
voting. Qualifications for voting were matters which neither the Constitution
nor federal laws governed. At that time, although a few northern states
permitted a small number of free black men to register and vote, slavery and
restrictive state laws and practices led the franchise to be exercised almost
exclusively by white males. The history of equal suffrage has four
phases, first, an increase in white male eligibility, enfranchisement of black
citizens, enfranchisement of women, and enfranchisement of those between the
ages of eighteen and twenty-one. The
property qualification finally disappeared when Virginia eliminated it in 1850
(Morton & Barabbas ’70: 1071-1072). It is possible a compromise between
the North and South could have been reached allowing the Republican Party to
enroll southern blacks as members of their party pursuant to voting and Union
rights. A great many people participated
in the political process during this time known as the Gilded Age of political
parties, the only era to consistently achieve the 66% quorum, hoping to
influence the system and be rewarded by philanthropic parties.
Shortly after the end of the Civil War
Congress enacted the Military Reconstruction Act of 1867, which allowed former
Confederate States to be readmitted to the Union if they adopted new state
constitutions that permitted universal male suffrage, and militarily occupied
the Southern States. The 14th Amendment, which conferred citizenship to all
persons born or naturalized in the United States, was ratified in 1868. The Fifteenth Amendment to the constitution,
ratified in 1870, provided specifically that the “right to vote shall not be
denied or abridged on the basis of race, color or previous condition of
servitude”. This superseded state laws that
had directly prohibited black voting. Congress then enacted the Enforcement Act
of 1870, which contained criminal penalties for interference with the right to
vote, and the Force Act of 1871, which provided for federal election oversight. As a result, in the former Confederate
States, where new black citizens in some cases comprised outright or near
majorities of the eligible voting population, hundreds of thousands -- perhaps
one million -- recently-freed slaves registered to vote. Black candidates began
for the first time to be elected to state, local and federal offices and to
play a meaningful role in their governments (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 70). By 1877 about 2,000
black men had won local, state, and federal offices in the former Confederate
states. As
many as a million blacks registered to vote and voter age participation
remained above 66% from 1860-1896 (Morton & Barabbas ’70: 1071-1072).
Electoral
success changed when Reconstruction ended in 1877 and federal troops withdrew
from the old Confederacy. The extension of the franchise to black citizens was
strongly resisted and the prisons never reviewed. With federal troops no longer
present to protect the rights of black citizens, white supremacy quickly
returned to the old Confederate states. Among
others, the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, and other
terrorist organizations attempted to prevent the 15th Amendment from being
enforced by violence and intimidation. Two decisions in 1876 by the Supreme
Court narrowed the scope of enforcement under the Enforcement Act and the Force
Act, and, together with the end of Reconstruction marked by the removal of
federal troops after the Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877, resulted in a climate
in which violence could be used to depress black voter turnout and fraud could
be used to undo the effect of lawfully cast votes. Once whites regained control of the state
legislatures using these tactics, a process known as "Redemption,"
they used gerrymandering of election districts to further reduce black voting
strength and minimize the number of black elected officials. In the 1890s,
these states began to amend their constitutions and to enact a series of laws
intended to re-establish and entrench white political supremacy. Such disfranchising laws included poll taxes,
literacy tests, vouchers of "good character," and disqualification
for "crimes of moral turpitude." These laws were
"color-blind" on their face, but were designed to exclude black
citizens disproportionately by allowing white election officials to apply the
procedures selectively. Other laws and practices, such as the "white
primary," attempted to evade the 15th Amendment by allowing
"private" political parties to conduct elections and establish
qualifications for their members (Maisel &
Buckley ’05: 70).
The
Southern states experimented with numerous additional restrictions to limit
black participation in politics, many of which were struck down by federal
courts over the next decades. As a
result of these efforts, in the former Confederate states nearly all black
citizens were disenfranchised by 1910. The
problem of racial discrimination in voting, by white Southern legislators
legally limiting blacks from voting with Jim Crow laws, including literacy
tests, tests on interpreting the Constitution, whites
only primaries, poll taxes and residency requirements. By 1960 fewer than 10 percent of the African
American citizens in Mississippi were registered to vote. The
process of restoring the rights taken stolen by these tactics would take many
decades. In Guinn v. United
States, 238 U.S. 347 (1915), the Supreme Court held that voter registration
requirements containing "grandfather clauses," which made voter
registration in part dependent upon whether the applicant was descended from
men enfranchised before enactment of the 15th Amendment violated that amendment. In Smith v. Allright
321 U.S. 649 (1944) the Supreme Court ruled that primaries that the Texas
whites only primary was unconstitutional. By the 1960s all but five states had
eliminated even nominal poll taxes (Maisel &
Buckley ’05: 73-74). In Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1 (1964), the
Supreme Court established the one-person, one-vote principle (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 71). In Richardson v. Ramirez 418 U.S. 24,
41-55 (1974) the Court rejected
the argument that the disenfranchisement of felons violates the Equal
Protection Clause, ruling felon disenfranchisement is a matter of state policy
(Blackwell ’09:113).
Black Voter Registration in Southern States 1960-2000
State |
1960 |
1970 |
1980 |
1990 |
2000 |
Alabama |
13.7 |
66.0 |
55.8 |
71.8 |
72.0 |
Arkansas |
38.0 |
82.3 |
57.2 |
62.4 |
60.0 |
Florida |
39.4 |
55.3 |
58.3 |
54.7 |
52.7 |
Georgia |
29.3 |
57.2 |
48.6 |
53.9 |
66.3 |
Louisiana |
31.1 |
57.4 |
60.7 |
82.3 |
73.5 |
Mississippi |
5.2 |
71.0 |
62.3 |
78.5 |
73.7 |
North Carolina |
39.1 |
51.3 |
51.3 |
64.0 |
62.9 |
South Carolina |
13.7 |
56.1 |
53.7 |
62.0 |
68.6 |
Tennessee |
59.1 |
71.6 |
64.0 |
77.4 |
64.9 |
Texas |
35.5 |
72.6 |
56.0 |
63.5 |
69.5 |
Virginia |
23.1 |
57.0 |
53.2 |
64.5 |
58.0 |
Average |
29.7 |
63.4 |
56.5 |
66.8 |
65.66 |
Source: Table 3.1
pg. 76 Maisel & Buckley ‘05
The Constitution requires a
national census to be conducted once per decade, and this mandate serves as the
basis for apportioning seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. For each
state, the number of people in each constituent congressional district must be
precisely equal (Blackwell & Klukowski ’09). Congress
passed legislation in 1957, 1960, and 1964 that contained voting-related
provisions. The 1957 Act created the Civil Rights Division within the
Department of Justice and the Commission on Civil Rights; the Attorney General
was given authority to intervene in and institute lawsuits seeking injunctive
relief against violations of the 15th Amendment. The 1960 Act permitted federal
courts to appoint voting referees to conduct voter registration following a
judicial finding of voting discrimination.
In the early 1960s, the Supreme Court also overcame its reluctance to
apply the Constitution to unfair redistricting practices. In Baker v. Carr,
369 U.S. 186 (1962), the Supreme Court recognized that grossly mal-apportioned
state legislative districts could seriously undervalue -- or dilute -- the
voting strength of the residents of overpopulated districts while overvaluing
the voting strength of residents of under-populated districts. The 1964 Act
also contained several relatively minor voting-related provisions. In 1971, 13 individuals created the Congressional Black
Caucus (CBC). Between 1970 and 1992, the
number of African Americans serving in state legislatures increased 274 percent
(from 168 to 463). According to 2003 figures from the National Conference of
State Legislators, 595 African Americans held seats in the upper or lower house
in state legislatures, accounting for 8.1 percent of all. in 1970 there were
only 15 black women state legislators—accounting for less than 10 percent of
all African-American state legislators. By 1992, the number of black women
state legislators had increased to 131, or roughly 28 percent of all black
state legislators. As with other women in Congress, legislative experience at
the state level provided a vehicle for election to the U.S. Congress. In 1971,
there was only one African-American woman in Congress—Shirley Chisholm of New
York—among a total of 14 blacks in Congress. By late 2007, African-American
women accounted for nearly one-third of all the sitting black Members of
Congress.
Apportionment of Representatives among
the States 1790-1970
Year |
Congress |
Population Base (1,000) |
Number of States |
Number of Repre-sentatives |
Date of Act |
Apportionment Population per
Representative |
1970 |
93rd
|
203,053 |
50 |
435 |
|
469,088 |
1960 |
88th
-92nd |
178,559 |
50 |
435 |
|
410,5481 |
1950 |
83rd
-87th |
149,895 |
48 |
435 |
|
334,587 |
1940 |
78th
– 82nd |
131,006 |
48 |
435 |
November
15, 1941 |
301,164 |
1930 |
73rd
– 77th |
122,093 |
48 |
435 |
June
18, 1929 |
280,675 |
1920 |
No
re-app. |
|
48 |
435 |
|
|
1910 |
63rd
– 72nd |
91,604 |
48 |
435 |
August
8, 1911 |
210,583 |
1900 |
58th – 62nd |
74,568 |
45 |
386 |
January
16, 1901 |
193,167 |
1890 |
53rd
– 57th |
61,909 |
44 |
356 |
February
7, 1891 |
173,901 |
1880 |
48th
– 52nd |
49,371 |
38 |
325 |
February
25, 1882 |
151,912 |
1870 |
43rd
– 47th |
38,116 |
37 |
292 |
February
2, 1872 |
130,538 |
1860 |
38th
– 42nd |
29,550 |
34 |
241 |
March
4, 1862 |
122,614 |
1850 |
33rd
– 37th |
21,767 |
31 |
234 |
July
30, 1852 |
93,020 |
1840 |
28th
-32nd |
15,908 |
25 |
223 |
June
25, 1842 |
71,338 |
1830 |
23rd
– 27th |
11,981 |
24 |
240 |
May
22, 1832 |
49,712 |
1820 |
18th
-22nd |
8,972 |
24 |
213 |
March
7, 1822 |
42,124 |
1810 |
13th
– 17th |
6,584 |
17 |
181 |
December
21, 1811 |
36,377 |
1800 |
8th
-12th |
4,880 |
16 |
141 |
January
14, 1802 |
34,609 |
1790 |
3rd
– 7th 1st
– 2nd |
3,616 ---- |
15 13 |
105 65 |
April
14, 1792 Constitution
1789 |
34,436 30,000 |
Source: Series Y 215-219 Morton, Rogers
C.B. Secretary of Commerce; Barabba, Vincent P.
Director of the Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United
States: Colonial Times to 1970. Bicentennial
Edition pg. 1084
Women first came together in the famous
conference at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848 to asset their own rights. From that point until the successful adoption
of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, women suffragists waged a valiant,
prolonged, often brilliant and frequently frustrating battle to win the right
to vote. Women were first given the
right to vote on school issues in the frontier states in the 1890s. Wyoming had granted women the right to vote
on all matters in 1869 and in applying for admission to the Union, Wyoming included
women’s suffrage in its constitution, Congress however did not admit Wyoming
until 1890 as the first state with universal female suffrage. Other Western states followed Wyoming’s lead,
in at least partial recognition of the important and equal role women played in
the settlement of the frontier, but the progress was slow and often
frustrating. By 1916
women’s suffrage was included in both party platforms, though the suffragists
still wanted state action. In 1917 women
turned to more militant actions, picketing the White House and delivering
petitions to the president. Some were
jailed, others replaced them. When
female prisoners were force fed, the press had a field day. More women came to Washington and the jails
became more crowded. The women’s
suffrage amendment passed the House in the second session of the Sixty-fifth
Congress, but it failed to achieve the two-thirds vote necessary in the
Senate. More women came to Washington,
more picketed, more were jailed, and more hunger strikes ensued. Finally President Wilson was won over to the
cause. Then the Republican controlled
House passed the measure in 1919, Wilson pressured his fellow Democrats in the
Senate to enact women’s suffrage. At
long last, in August 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified by
three-quarters of the states, and women won the right to vote in all
elections. No further legal barrier
could be used to prevent women from voting (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 78-79).
Voter Turnout in Presidential Elections, by Gender, 1964-2008
Source: Center for
American Women and Politics. Gender Differences in Voter
Turnout. Eagleton Institute of Politics. Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. November
2009
The
women and children of the 20th century were not as well received as
the freed blacks of the Gilded Age.
Voter turnout for women remained low in the years immediately after
enfranchisement. Voter participation in
1920 and 1924 was the lowest voter participation in history at 49.2% and 48.9%
respectively, probably as the result of the restrictions on freedom imposed by
the XVIII Amendment prohibition of alcohol one year from 1919. Despite the adversity, the number of female
voters steadily increased, exceeding the male number by 1964, and leveled off
in 1972, at a turnout level only slightly below that of men. Since 1980 turnout rates of women voters have
exceeded the rates for men in every national election. Today, women
still constitute only 19 per cent of the members of parliaments around the
world. In the United States House of
Representatives 73 of 435 seats, only 16.8% were filled by women. In the Senate only 15 seats, 15% were
occupied by women. This is below
international mean. No woman has ever
been elected President or Vice President although many unsuccessful challengers
have nominated women as their Vice-Presidential candidate. Female candidates suffer no electoral or
fund-raising disadvantage compared to male candidates. A gender related
fund-raising disadvantage may have existed in Congressional elections prior to
the mid-eighties, but this seems to have disappeared or even reversed in recent
years. Since 1984, female candidates for
the House have been slightly more successful than males at raising funds and at
least as successful in raising PAC contributions, large contributions and even
early contributions. At the state level,
female candidates also raise more money than their male counterparts. Consequently, the current dearth of female
office holders is thought to be primarily the result of prior barriers to women
entering politics, the effects of which are still realized today because of the
generic incumbency advantage. Older and
more male-dominated cohorts are being replaced by younger and less
male-dominated cohorts (Milyo & Schosberg ’00: 2).
2004 Voter Turnout by Age
Age Group |
Turnout |
18 – 24 |
47% |
25 - 34 |
56% |
35 - 44 |
64% |
45 - 54 |
69% |
55 - 64 |
73% |
65 and older |
71% |
Source:
Old Enough to Fight but Not Old Enough to Vote: The 26th Amendment. The Free Library. Scholastic Inc. 2008
During World War II, when eighteen year olds were conscripted into
military service, many people believed that the voting age should be lowered to
eighteen. In 1943 Georgia lowered its
voting age to eighteen, but no other state followed suit. President Eisenhower expressed support for
eighteen-year-old voters during his first term (1953-1957), but only Kentucky
amended its constitution to effect that change.
When Alaska and Hawaii were admitted to the Union in the late 1950s,
their constitutions called for voting ages of nineteen and twenty,
respectively. No further changes ensued
until the United States became embroiled in the Vietnam War. The cries were heard, “old enough to die but
not old enough to vote.” In response
Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1970, one provision of which made
eighteen year olds eligible to vote in all national, state, and local
elections. In Oregon v. Mitchell 400 U.S. 112 (1970) the Supreme Court struck
down this provision, asserting that Congress could not constitutionally take
such actions for state and local elections.
In response Congress passed and the requisite 37 states ratified, the
Twenty-sixth Amendment, making eighteen the minimum voting age for all
elections (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 85). In 1974 the US abolished the draft and became
a volunteer military. 11 million 18 – 20 year olds gained the right to vote and
between 1970 and 1972 the voter age population increased by 16.3 million from
124.5 million to 140.8 million, 13.1% growth.
Between 1972 and 1974 growth in VAP was 3.9% and between 1968 and 1970
3.5% close to the birth rate. The 26th
Amendment set voter age participation back ten percentage points from the
60-70% in the 1960s presidential elections and 40-50% in midterm elections to
the 50-60% in all subsequent presidential elections and the 30-40% in
congressional elections (IDEA ’09).
Young voters are easy to register but least likely to show up to the
polls, of any age group.
The easing of voting restrictions has a checkered history. Property requirement were eased and during
Reconstruction former Confederate states were obligated to enfranchise black
voters in their constitutions, the XV amendments guaranteed blacks the right to
vote and participated in politics. Voter
participation was never higher between 1860 and 1900 voter participation did
not fall below 71.3%. However
when Union occupying forces left southern states legislated a Redemption and by
1890 few blacks were registered to vote. Segregation cast a pall over the elections
and since 1900 no national election has achieved a 66% turnout. By 1900 the voting franchise had been tainted
by apartheid and to assure a fear for one’s health the U.S. Census Bureau began
keeping accurate epidemiologic statistics.
Women’s suffrage, the XIX amendment of 1920, was falsely associated with
the cruel prohibition of alcohol of the XVIII amendment of 1919-20, and 1920
and 1924 had the lowest voter participation rates of the 20th
century. The U.S. Census Bureau uniquely
did not even bother to re-apportion the districts in 1920. The admission of an estimated 33.9 million
women doubled the size of the voting age population from 27 million males in
1910 to 60.9 million men and women in 1920 a 226% increase (U.S. Census ’48 : 1). It took a
while for voter turnout to pick back up as a percentage but by 1964 there were
numerically more women registered to vote than men, by the 1972 women had equal
turnout rates and since 1980 more women have turned out to vote than men. The XVI amendment of 1971 allowed 11 million
people ages 18-20 to vote at the polls, but these youths have the lowest participation
rates of any age group, and subsequently voter participation has dropped 10
percentage points. The enfranchisement
of convicted felons offers to expand the electorate by 3.1 million votes. Extending the right to vote to people under 18 would increase the voting age population by 74.6
million, 32%. These captive populations
would be particularly easy to motivate to go to the polls. The penal system would stay out of the
electoral process. Third parties could
appeal for prison votes. Probation
officers could give out election material.
Parents could vote for their infants so long as they had identification
and were registered to vote. Only
genuine third party option would be as likely to foster voter turnout.
Part Three:
Incumbent Democratic-Republican Two Party Electoral System
We elect one president of the United States,
fifty governors, one hundred senators, 435 members of Congress, 1,984 state
senators, 5,440 state representatives, thousands of mayors, city council
members, county commissioners, judges of probate, clerks of court, water
district commissioners and other public officeholders. In 2005 ninety-nine of the one hundred U.S.
senators are either republicans or Democrats, 434 of the 435 representatives in
the House of Representatives are affiliated with one of the two major parties,
all fifty of the state governors and more than 7,350 of the approximately 7,400
state legislators elected in partisan elections ran under major party labels (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 267). Although federal officials get most of the
attention, state and local officials often make decisions that have more direct
impact on our daily lives. State and
local officials holding some elective office are also qualified candidates for
higher office (Maisel & Buckley ’05:
200-201). The States have the
constitutional responsibility for delivering the vast array of governmental
programs and services that characterize life in the United States. There are about 85,000 local governments in
the United States. One of the usual
responsibilities of nearly every county government is the conducting of
elections. Sometimes, local governments
supplement their finances with federal aid (Dover ’03: 67). The distribution of power within the American
federal system places extensive responsibilities at the local level, yet the
structure of public finance leaves those local governments with only limited
funding to carry out their numerous responsibilities. The federal government dominates the most
lucrative types of taxation, while the states rely upon the ones that follow in
their ability to produce revenue. Local
governments, such as counties, are often left with the least-productive types
of taxation to finance their myriad activities (Dover ’03: 68).
Nearly two-thirds of U.S. cities with a
population of over five thousand hold nonpartisan elections to determine who
will hold local offices. The movement
toward nonpartisan government was part of Progressive era reforms,
advocates of nonpartisan local government feel that running a local government
should be more like administering a business than playing partisan
politics. Frequently they cited the
corruption and the inefficiency of partisan politics as, “There is no
Democratic or Republican way to clean a street”. Critics contend that nonpartisan elections
tend to draw fewer voters because citizens do not care who wins these elections
and because elections without the cue of party often confuse voters (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 473). States have also delegated
considerable power to the people in regards to initiatives and referendums. The California recall process begins with an
official “Notice of Intention to Recall”, signed by at least sixty-five voters,
filed with the California secretary of state’s office, whereby the lieutenant
governors will set the date of the recall election within sixty to eighty days
(Maisel & Buckley ’05: 262). In Maine organized parties rarely have enough
strength to help state legislative candidates significantly, however, in states
such as Minnesota, party organizations practically run the campaign for
candidates. In Massachusetts in 1998
eighteen of the forty seats in the state senate were won without any major
party opposition, 45 percent, 68 out of 160 house members won reelection with
no opponent, 42.5 percent. In Florida in
the 1998 elections for representative to the state house of representatives,
Democratic candidates ran unopposed by Republican opponents in 37 of 120
races. Republican candidates faced no
major party opposition in twenty races (Maisel &
Buckley ’05: 25).
The modern two party system evolved in six
distinct party systems in American political history, Jeffersonian
Democratic-Republican, Jachsonian Democrats,
Progressive Republican Era, Republican Populist, New Deal Democrats and the
modern age of split ticket voting whereupon informed voters divide their vote
so that the President’s party does not also hold a majority in Congress (Maisel &
Buckley ’05: Xxiii). The Founder
envisioned directly elected Representatives connected to their populace and two
Senators selected by the state parties.
The other elected officials of the federal government were chosen
through a filtering process. The
elaborate mechanism for choosing the president has given the office a great
deal of independence from the ruling party (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 10-11). The Electoral
College was created in 1787 as part of the original writing of the national
constitution. Some convention delegates
wanted the president chosen by a direct popular vote of the people, while
others preferred a more indirect method, choice by Congress,
the electoral college was a compromise.
The House of Representatives would choose the president if the Electoral
College failed in its designated task.
One unusual feature of the Electoral College was the method designated
for choosing the vice president, now deferring to the Presidential candidate’s
counsel. Originally the vice president
would be the second highest vote getter in the Electoral College and would have
the responsibility of presiding over the Senate. Electors were each given two votes for
someone not of their state (Dover ’03: 23-25). The Electoral College helped to
produce a clear winner in three elections.
In the elections of 1860, 1912 and 1992, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson
and Bill Clinton, respectively, finished first in the popular vote in campaigns
in which there were more than two major candidates. Lincoln attained 39.8 percent of the popular
vote, Wilson 41.8 percent and Clinton 43.4 percent. None of these are convincing victories. The distributions of electoral votes in these
elections provided more convincing evidence for claims of victory. Lincoln attained 180 votes of the 303 that
were cast in 1860; Wilson garnered 435 out of 531 while Clinton won 370 votes
from the grand total of 538 that comprised the electoral college of 1992. The size of these electoral vote triumphs
allowed these presidents to claim popular mandates when their actual votes may
have suggested otherwise (Dover ’03: 33).
The ability of the president to lead his own
party in Congress, to win support in the other party, or to coalesce opposition
measured by presidential support scores and presidential opposition scores
changes. Poor showing in public opinion
polls certainly works against the president’s credibility as a leader to his
fellow partisans in Congress. But
increased popularity does not necessarily equate legislative success. American is not a parliamentary
democracy. Congress is a separate branch
of government, representatives and senators have separate electoral bases from
the president. Therefore, the ability of
the president to lead his party in Congress will depend on two criteria, first,
institutional constraints, where his agenda falls relative to the preferences
of his party’s majority, second external factors from scandal to war to the economy,
all of which affect the ability of a president to persuade even members of his
own party to follow his lead (Maisel & Buckley
’05: 465). Vice presidential running
mates for major-party candidates are officially nominated by the two parties’
conventions. But the choices are made by
the presidential candidate. The vice
presidential nominee can help or hurt the ticket. Certainly the nominee is evaluated in party
on this choice, the first important decision he has to make after confirmation as
his party’s standard bearer. The process for choosing vice presidential
candidates is not a formal one, but it has been a careful and organized one (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 325 & 326). The party leadership roles of majority leader
and minority leader and majority whip and minority whip developed out of the
intense partisan conflict at the turn of the 20th century. Although Speakers are officially elected by
the entire House, the vote to elect them is essentially party line. Each party’s caucus, a meeting of all party
members, nominates a candidate for Speaker.
The Speaker’s right hand is the majority leader. Elected by members of his or her own party to
handle the day-to-day leadership of the party, the majority leader schedules
legislation, coordinates committee work, and negotiates with the president, the
House minority leader, and the Senate leadership. The goal of a majority leader is to build and
maintain voting coalitions and essentially to keep peace in the family. Next in line in the party hierarchy are the
whips, their job is to link the rank and file to the party leadership. They are the information disseminators, in
house pollsters, and vote counters. They
make the party position known to all members of the caucus, assess who is for,
against, or on the fence on any given piece of legislation and try to persuade
reluctant members to follow the party line and report back to the Speaker and
the majority and minority leaders with the expected vote tallies (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 438). Nancy Pelosi is a generous
fund raiser, she gave $1 million in 2002 to her colleagues for their reelection
bids, more than any other House Democrat (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 447).
The incumbent has a distinct advantage. In only six elections since World War II have
fewer than 90 percent of those seeking reelection been reelected. Over 90 percent of House incumbents seeking
to return are successful in election after election. The average reelection rate for incumbents
seeking reelection in the last three elections was over 97 percent. Senators too are rarely defeated (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 471).
State legislators seeking reelection also win
virtually all of the time (Maisel & Buckley ’05:
258). Incumbent presidents do not have
to prove that they are capable of handling the office or that they have the
requisite background and experience, they have held the job for four years. What is better experience for being president
than having been president? Incumbent
presidents have a political organization in place (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 369). Incumbents are
winning because challengers are poor campaigners. When challengers run good campaigns,
incumbents can lost. But good
challengers appear too infrequently for too many important offices. The lack of good challengers and good
campaigns insulate incumbents in congressional races, the same factors insulate
those incumbents seeking reelection to less visible and less attractive offices
as well (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 260). Early in the
twentieth century, Presidents Taft, Hoover and Bush I lost bids for reelection,
but these defeats are easily explained.
Taft lost because former president Theodore Roosevelt ran as a
third-party candidate, as the candidate of his famous Bull Moose Party splitting
the Republican vote, allowing Woodrow Wilson to win with less than a
majority. Hoover lost because the voting
public blamed him for the Great Depression.
Bush lost votes on the economy to Perot.
Each loss took place before the electronic media multiplied the
advantages of incumbency (Maisel & Buckley ’05:
369). Nearly 90 percent of respondents
report having had some contact with their congressional leaders, almost a
quarter had personally met their representatives, and almost three quarters had
received mail from their representative in Washington. Challengers are not known at all, voters do
not choose between two candidates on equal footing but between one who is well
known and positively viewed and another who has to fight to be viewed at all (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 80 & 89).
The most prevalent rules call for candidates
to run in their party’s primary if they meet certain fairly simple
criteria. First, the prospective
candidate must be a registered member of the political party whose nomination
he or she seeks. Second, candidates must
meet some sort of test to gain access to the ballot. Often this test involves gathering a certain
number of signatures on a petition. The
number of signatures necessary and who is eligible to sign are important
factors. In Tennessee, only 25
signatures are required for most offices.
In Maine a percentage of those voting in the last election are needed,
only registered party members may sign petitions, and they must sign a petition
that contains only the names of party members from their home town (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 208). Despite the lip service given to the basic
principle of majority rule, majority rule is an exception in American
politics. Most elections in America, and certainly most primaries are determined by
plurality rule. That is, the person with
the most votes, not necessarily 50 percent plus at least one, in the primary
wins the nomination (Maisel & Buckley ’05:
217). Politicians generally like to
avoid hotly contested primaries.
However, under certain circumstances, such as when a candidate is not
well known and/or a candidates organization has not tested, a little primary can
be a good thing (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 230).
Credential disputes are the most easily understood. In party rules and in the call to the
convention, each party establishes the procedures through which delegates are
to be chose. In most cases no one challenges
the delegates presenting themselves as representing a certain state. Each party appoints a Credentials Committee
that hears challenges to proposed delegations and rules on the disputes. The report of the Credentials Committee is
the first order of official business before the nominating convention. Credentials, and rules disputes which can
determine who wins and who loses, are seen as critical matters. The whips
inform the delegates and the delegates fall into line (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 321 &324).
After the national conventions, party members
sometimes even reject the top candidate of their party and cross over to split
their ballots at election time. Only
party regulars can more or less be counted on to vote the straight ticket. Many
people find choosing between the parties a hard decision, or may reject
both. Many don’t bother to register, or
frustrated, they leave a blank or register Independent. Unwillingness to join one side disregards the
fact that the membership of a major party includes a surprising diversity of
conservatives, moderates, liberals, pro and anti-government, pro-regulation and
deregulation, internationalist and isolationist and other attributes that
divide people. Both the rise of blind
allegiance to Party and rejection of Party have gotten out of hand. Asked about their orientation in 2002,
Americans replied that they were Moderate (40%), Conservative (36%) and Liberal
(19%). Liberal is the meaning of recent
years, not the 19th century one which was rooted in freedom from
government authority. Being Independent
takes one out of the party arena and may seem to reduce stress and strain, but
it excludes one from party primaries in many, but not all states. It facilitates tuning out of the kinds of
meaningful disputes over issues that perennially occupy those who affiliate
with a Party. It also diminishes the
percentage of the electorate who participate in our primary elections. While Independents tend to revel in their
freedom form the controls of Party, they actually prevent themselves from
having much to do with the orientation of the American System of Government,
whose power is rooted in political parties and those who work effectively
within the party machinery. After all, a political party is at its core an
organization that consists of individuals, leaders and followers alike, at
national, state, and local levels (Bornet ’04:
10-11).
A party system is a pattern of interaction in
which two or more political parties compete for office or power in government
and for the support of the electorate, and must therefore take one another into
account in their behavior in government and in election contests. The American national party system is
generally classified as a competitive two party-system. The Democratic and Republican parties compete
with each other for national offices; each has a chance of winning. Minor parties may be on the ballot from time
to time, but they neither persist nor have they had much of a chance of
winning. In the 1992 presidential
election, and to a lesser extent in the 1996 campaign, Ross Perot’s third party
threatened the hegemony of the Democratic and Republican (DR) parties. But in the final analysis his effort to
undermine the two-party system fell short.
Thus our national system remains the competitive two party-system. It is decentralized in the sense that local
and state politics are not generally disciplined (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 15 & 17). Theoretically
the Democrat and Republican parties are organized in each of the roughly
190,000 precincts in the United States.
Oftentimes, only one party has a precinct. In the 1980s and 1990s the Christian right
motivated their members to show up for local precinct committee meetings in
their areas and to attend the nominating caucuses to promote conservative
candidates. This grassroots strategy
eventually led to conservative control of local Republican party organizations
in states such as Texas and Minnesota and has continued to provide a critical
base of electoral support for GOP candidates (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 59). Today, state party central committees operate for both
parties in each of the fifty states, and the means of choosing committee
members is set by state law. Those who
favor strong party organization believe that the state should interfere as
little as possible with the internal working of political parties. Effective state party chairs not only lead
the state committee, they define its tasks and setting its goals, they also act
as the linchpin between grassroots party and the national party. The average budget for state parties rose
nearly five times, to nearly $300,000 annually, between 1961 and 1979. By 1984 the average had risen to nearly $350,000
with the largest state budgets reaching $2.5 million and with only a quarter of
the party committees operating with budgets of less than $100,000. State parties
recruit and de-cruit candidates for local and state
offices. State parties are continually
at work to increase turnout in both primary and general elections. At the national level there are the
Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Republican National Committee (RNC)
(Maisel & Buckley ’05: 61-63).
In Federalist 10 (1787) Madison warns of the
mischief of faction, reasoning that many groups must be allowed to flourish so
that no one group becomes too powerful.
Such was the concept of party at the time the Constitution was drafted
to the tune of “taxation without representation is tyranny!” The major American political parties exist,
as do other political organizations, to organize large numbers of individuals
behind attempts to influence the selection of public officials and the
decisions these officials subsequently make in office. The differences between parties and other
political organizations are often slender.
We may define “political party” generally as the articulate organization
of society’s active political agents, those who are concerned with the control
of governmental power and who compete for popular support with another group or
groups holding divergent views (Maisel & Buckley
’05: 14). The Democratic Party traces its origins back to Thomas Jefferson’s
Democratic-Republican Party that murdered the Federalist Party. President Andrew Jackson split with the party
retaining only the name Democrat. By the
1830s hundreds of delegates from state party affiliates would convene to
nominate the candidates (Dover ’03: 27).
The Republican Party emerged as the foe of the expansion of slavery into
the territories and won the Presidency in 1860 with Abraham Lincoln, who served
as president and commander in chief during the four years of the Civil War. It was the Republicans who pushed for the
adoption of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments
during Reconstruction but they took their Union pensions and ran from the
racial discrimination that swept the nation until the middle of the 20th
century. Modern political parties were
in their infancy at the dawn of the nineteenth century. The Republican Party, reliant upon the
military occupation of the former Confederate states, was dominating the
American political landscape at the dawn of the twentieth century (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 468). In the beginning of the 20th
century Republicans vacillated between Progressivism, trust busting, government
regulation of business and Conservatism, pro-business and protective
tariffs. Republicans held office for the
entire post-Civil War era with the exception of Grover Cleveland’s
non-consecutive terms, and Woodrow Wilson’s two terms. The New Deal Democrats elected FDR by a
landslide for four consecutive terms, and usually held the presidency and
majority until the 70s (Bornet ’04: 1 & 4).
FDRs party identifies with the New Deal’s
public works programs and federal help for the unemployed of the Great
Depression and with the Social Security act of 1935, civil rights and trade
union legislation, and Medicare. The
Democrats are at one with use of the national government regulate the private
sector of the economy and increasing the federal power. Republicans advocate the well-being of
business and entrepreneurship, and minimum taxes and governmental regulations
espoused by Reagan. The Democratic Party
remains the party of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In contrast the Republican Party has become the party of Reagan. Scratch
an orthodox Republican and you will quickly find someone who professes distrust
of Government. Yet at the same time that
individual will happily use Government to crate and operate the Nation’s
military establishment, and FBI. Scratch
and orthodox Democrat, and you will uncover an
expressed belief in a form of government that uses its power to regulate and to
collect income taxes from the affluent, with the money supposed to be spent on
improving the circumstances of mankind at home and abroad. Tax policies commonly divide the parties,
with some Republican conservatives eager to cut taxes in upper brackets to help
the economy, not of course themselves.
Democratic liberals, meanwhile, seem sometimes to desire using taxes not
just to balance the budget or pay for programs, but to level the playing field
of income distribution and property ownership.
Democrats say they are champions of individual security and of
protection of free speech. Republicans,
meanwhile, tend to observe that they try to keep the good of the whole Nation
in the forefront of their thinking. They
assert that they believe fervently in the right to earn a living free of most
government intervention, and that the right to own property certainly ought to
include most aspects of the right to its use as the owner sees fit (Bornet ‘4: 5, 7, 8 & 13). In basic political matter we
are more alike than we may think. Fundamentally, paraphrasing Jefferson’s first
Inaugural Address, “we are all Republicans, we are all Democrats”. We are democrats in that we insist on one
person, one vote, and majority decision-making.
We are republican in relying on representative government, a necessity
where large populations, widely scattered, are involved. We are Democratic-Republican in our belief
System, which is solidly federalist yet also nationalist, solidly rooted in
democratic principles yet clearly republican in electoral activities (Bornet ’04: 6).
This is an enormous country, with sections and
regions. There are variations in
economic conditions and recourse, and differing landscapes. Some blame for the rejection of party
affiliation by young people should be placed on those who routinely besmirch
party heroes. College professors as a
whole are sharply divided in politics.
In the social sciences and humanities they are overwhelmingly Democratic
liberals. Some remember the old
Socialist Party, still hoping for government ownership and regulation of the
means of production and distribution.
The science and physical education departments are by no means
Democrats, while the business division faculty is probably Republican up and
down the corridors. Judges vary in party
affiliation. When they are appointed to
the highest court, justices often change their ideology appreciably during
their years of service, emerging in old age with beliefs foreign to their early
careers (Bornet ’04: 9-10). Terrorism is defined as
the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to attain goals that
are political, religious or ideological in nature, through intimidation,
coercion or instilling fear (Chomsky ’04: 79).
Presidents from the Democratic Party led the Nation’s military
establishment as commander in chief in World War I and II, Korea, Vietnam,
Haiti, Somalia and Bosnia. Presidents
from the Republican Party accepted the burden of leading the Union in the Civil
War, the Spanish-American War and inherited the Vietnam War,
they sought wars in Grenada and Panama and led the Nation during both the Gulf
War and the Iraq War. Criticism of the
United Nations is normally Republican, for it was President Wilson, a Democrat,
who pioneers international organization with his ungratified League of Nations,
while Roosevelt and Truman helped create the United Nations. Presidents from both parties have relied on
NATO. They were both aggressive during
the Cold War in confronting the Soviet Union (Bornet
’04: 7).
A representative democracy rests no just on
the consent of the governed but on the informed consent of the governed. One conception of democratic society is one
in which the public has the means to participate in some meaningful way in the
management of their affairs and the means of information are open and
free. If you look up democracy in the
dictionary you’ll get a definition something like that. An alternative conception of democracy is
that the elections bar the public from managing their own affairs and the means
of information must be kept rigidly and narrowly controlled, the democratic
official is a popularly elected despot, not necessarily an aristocrat, but
despot nonetheless (Chomsky ’02). The
question of how responsible men get into the positions where they have the
authority to make decisions is by serving people with real power. The people with real power are the ones who
own the society, and have instilled in them the beliefs and doctrines that will
serve the interests of private power.
Unless they can master that skill, they’re not part of the political
class. So we have one kind of educational system directed to the responsible
men, the political class. They have to
be deeply indoctrinated in the values and interests of private power and the
state-corporate nexus that represents it.
As society becomes more free and democratic, propaganda is needed to
control the masses. The business
community controls the media and has massive resources. The political system trains the political class
to work in the service of the masters the people who own the society. The rest of the population ought to be
deprived of any form of organization, they ought to be working. If they can
achieve that, then they can be part of the political class, who create and
perpetuate the “necessary illusions” and emotionally potent
“oversimplifications” to keep the naďve simpletons more or less on course
(Chomsky ’02: 19-20). Parties have
essentially become one of a class of participants in modern elections. Parties have become little more than super
PACs. Candidates view parties as a source of money (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 479). The most interesting debate about the role of
political parties in the twenty-first century is how the two parties define
themselves (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 480). When parties are weak, the linkage role of
the electoral process is not played well.
When parties are strong, a possibility exists
that representation and accountability will follow. Other institutions, the media, interest
groups, have tried to pick up the slack, but they have done so without notable
success. And thus we are drawn back to
the conclusion that if political parties did not exist, someone would have to
invent them. Since ours already exist,
we should get on with the work of making them function more productively (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 486). A progressive theory of liberal democratic
thought argues that a revolution in the art of democracy could be used to
manufacture consent and bring about agreement on the part of the public for the
election of third party candidates (Chomsky ’02: 9-17).
Stage One: Hamiltonian Federalists and Jeffersonian
Democratic-Republicans
George Washington won the election in 1788 and
reelection in the nation’s second presidential election of 1792. Under the original rules electors were
selected in November, they voted in December and Congress counted the votes in
January. He deigned to run for a third
term. In 1788 all 69 electors voted for
Washington but with their second vote 34 voted for John Adams and the remaining
35 were split with John Jay receiving 9 votes.
In the election of 1792 each of the 135 electors from fifteen states
voted for Washington and with their second vote indicated Adams as their pick
for vice president over New York Governor George Clinton (Dover ’03: 28) The first American party was the Federalist
party, it was shaped largely by Alexander Hamilton, George Washington’s
treasury secretary. James Madison,
author of famous Federalist Paper Number 10 regarding the need for faction,
pressured a reluctant Thomas Jefferson to join him in organizing an opposition
party to Hamilton’s Federalists.
Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans formed as a reaction to the rising
tide of Federalist policies gaining support in Congress, favoring New England
merchants and manufacturers at the expense of southern and western farmers and
tradesmen (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 33). The classical Greek philosophy of the
Democratic-Republican (DR) was superb.
By Washington’s retirement the nation had developed two active political
parties, the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. Jefferson stood against Hamilton’s statist
ideas for good administration and an expansive executive, for an empowered
federal government, with a capacity for managing finance, taking control of
debt and banking, and encouraging manufacture.
Hamilton had wanted to unite the interest and credit of rich individuals
with those of the state in order to foster economic growth. The Jeffersonians,
in heated contrast, proposed to limit the intrusiveness of the federal
government in the market. In 1804 Treasury
Secretary Hamilton was killed in a duel by Burr, the Anti-Federalist candidate,
who returned to finish his term as Vice President before being acquitted for
murder. Instinctively the Jeffersonians aligned
themselves with the likes of the Whiskey Rebellion and thus with popular rule
over federal authority. Jefferson set
out his party’s core principle as “equal rights for all, special privileges for
none” (Greenberg ’04: 9).
Electoral College Count in Presidential Elections 1789-1820
Year |
# States |
Candidates |
Party Affiliation |
Votes |
1820 |
24 |
James
Monroe |
Republican
|
231 |
|
|
John
Q. Adams, |
Independent-Republican |
1 |
|
|
Not
Voted |
|
3 |
1816 |
19 |
James
Monroe |
Republican |
183 |
|
|
Rufus
King |
Federalist |
34 |
|
|
Not
Voted |
|
4 |
1812 |
18 |
James
Madison |
Democratic-Republican |
128 |
|
|
De
Witt Clinton |
Fusion |
89 |
|
|
Not
Voted |
|
1 |
1808 |
17 |
James
Madison |
Democratic-Republican |
122 |
|
|
C.C.
Pinckney |
Federalist |
47 |
|
|
George
Clinton |
Independent-Republican
|
6 |
|
|
Not
Voted |
|
1 |
1804 |
17 |
Thomas
Jefferson |
Democratic-Republican
|
162 |
|
|
C.C.
Pinckney |
Federalist |
14 |
1800 |
16 |
Thomas
Jefferson |
Democratic-Republican |
73 |
|
|
Aaron
Burr |
Democratic-Republican |
73 |
|
|
John
Adams |
Federalist |
65 |
|
|
C.C.
Pinckney |
Federalist |
64 |
|
|
John
Jay |
Federalist |
1 |
1796 |
16 |
John
Adams |
Federalist |
71 |
|
|
Thomas
Jefferson |
Democratic-Republican |
68 |
|
|
Thomas
Pinckney |
Federalist |
69 |
|
|
Aaron
Burr |
Anti-Federalist |
80 |
|
|
Samuel
Adams |
Democratic-Republican |
15 |
|
|
Oliver
Ellsworth |
Federalist
|
11 |
|
|
George
Clinton |
Democratic-Republican |
7 |
|
|
John
Jay |
Independent
Federalist |
5 |
|
|
James
Iredell |
Federalist |
3 |
|
|
George
Washington |
Federalist |
2 |
|
|
John
Henry |
Independent |
2 |
|
|
S.
Johnston |
Independent
Federalist |
2 |
|
|
C.C.
Pinckney |
Independent
Federalist |
1 |
1792 |
15 |
George
Washington |
Federalist |
132 |
|
|
John
Adams |
Federalist |
77 |
|
|
George
Clinton |
Democratic-Republican |
50 |
|
|
Thomas
Jefferson |
|
4 |
|
|
Aaron
Burr |
|
1 |
1789 |
13 |
George
Washington |
|
69 |
|
|
John
Adams |
|
34 |
|
|
John
Jay |
|
9 |
|
|
R.H.
Harrison |
|
6 |
|
|
John
Rutledge |
|
6 |
|
|
John
Hancock |
|
4 |
|
|
George
Clinton |
|
3 |
|
|
Samuel
Huntington |
|
2 |
|
|
John
Milton |
|
2 |
|
|
James
Armstrong |
|
1 |
|
|
Benjamin
Lincoln |
|
1 |
|
|
Edward
Telfair |
|
1 |
|
|
Not
Voted |
|
12 |
Source: Series Y 79 – 83. Morton, Rogers C.B. Secretary of Commerce; Barabba,
Vincent P. Director of the Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the
United States: Colonial Times to 1970. Bicentennial
Edition pg. 1073-1074
This first party-system allowed for the orderly
succession after Washington stepped down when John Adams (F) defeated Thomas
Jefferson (D-R) in 1796 and Jefferson defeated Adams in 1800. In the election of 1796 Adams, a Federalist,
won with 71 votes and nine states, while Jefferson, Democratic-Republican, won
68 votes and seven states. For Vice
President Pinckney had been slated by the Federalists and Aaron Burr by the Anti-Federalists. Jefferson however had won the second largest
number of electoral votes and took the post of Vice President. Because of
partisan rivalry, was never assigned any executive responsibilities. In 1800 the problems with the
electoral-college became worse. Both
Adams and Jefferson ran again, with Jefferson winning this election by a close
margin of 73 to 65 electoral votes.
There was more party unity this time because Burr also received 73
votes. Burr had marched with the
traitor Benedict Arnold during the war.
The House of Representatives chose Jefferson over Burr, who was elected
Vice President (Dover ’03: 28). On July 11, 1804, at the Heights of Weehawken in
New Jersey, Alexander Hamilton was mortally wounded in a duel with Aaron Burr,
who was later acquitted of murder charges and returned to finish his term as
Vice President before leaving politics. Thus ended the rise of two-party competition
in a limited electorate, limited by low suffrage and the dissemination of
information. Given
that presidents and senators were not popularly elected, the Federalists and
Democratic-Republicans had to extend their efforts to the states to woo
potential presidential electors and to recruit state legislators who were
supportive of their respective parties national candidates (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 33). In his inaugural address in 1800 Jefferson reflected,
“Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of
the same principle. We are all
Republicans, we are all Federalists.”
During Jefferson’s administration, few legislators identified themselves
according to party. The
Democratic-Republicans dominated the political scene for twenty-four years,
without serious opposition during the administrations of Jefferson, Madison and
Monroe (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 35).
The Federalist Party declined significantly
after John Adams lost the election of 1800.
After the election of 1800 the Federalist party
soon became a New England sectional party, promoting policies too conservative
to appeal to the greater electorate.
More specifically, the Federalists denouncement of Congress’s
declaration of war against Britain in 1812 further diminished the party credibility. It competed in national elections for nearly
two decades after that but never won, nor did it appear likely to do so. It ceased its efforts entirely after 1816. The last Federalist presidential nominee was
defeated by Monroe in 1816. With the
virtual collapse of the Federalist party, the first
American party system essentially collapsed.
The adoption of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804 had two effects. First it eliminated the problem that had
developed from the initial language of the Constitution by repealing the
provision that electors must cast two undesignated votes for President. Second, it informally recognized political
parties as the nominating institutions in presidential elections by providing
separate ballots for president and vice president (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 35 & 36). By 1824
the Federalist Party had ceased to exist (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 35 & 36). James Monroe was unopposed for a second term
in 1820 but the lack of a rival damaged the ruling Democratic-Republicans in
the battle for a successor to Monroe in 1824.
With little opposition Monroe was reelected in 1820, his two terms were
so lacking in party conflict that the pundits deemed it the “era of good
feelings.” But, the lack of another
party to compete with in the electoral arena did not mean a lack of conflict
within the dominant party (Maisel & Buckley ’05:
35 & 36).
A great distinction must be made between
parties. Some countries are so large
that the different populations who are in perpetual state of opposition. If a civil war breaks out the struggle is
carried on by rival states. But when the
citizens entertain different opinions upon subjects which affect the whole
country alike, such, for instance, as the principles upon which the government
is to be conducted, then distinctions arise that may correctly be styled
parties. When the War of Independence
was terminated and the foundations of the new government were to be laid down,
the nation was divided between two opinions, as old as the world, one tending
to limit, the other to extend indefinitely the power of the people. The Party
that desired to limit the power of the people were Federalists. The other party was exclusively attached to
the cause of liberty, the Democratic-Republican (DR). America is the land of democracy and the
Federalists were always in the minority, but they relied upon the moral power
of the great men from the War of Independence. In 1801 the DR got hold possession of the
government, Thomas Jefferson was elected President and he increased the
influence of their party. The means by
which the Federalists had maintained their position were artificial, and their
resources temporary, and the Federalists found themselves in so small a
minority they perceived they were vanquished and fell into two divisions, one
joined the victorious DR and the other laid down their banners and changed
their name. Society is convulsed by
great parties, it is only agitated by minor ones. When the Democratic-Republican
party got the upper hand, it took exclusive possession of the conduct of
affairs, and from that time on the laws and the customs of society have been
adapted to its caprices. The two chief
weapons that parties use in order to obtain success are the newspapers and
public associations (DeToquevile 1835:174- 180)
Stage 2: Jacksonian Democrats 1824 - 1856
1824 was the first year the electoral-college
vote for President was decided by popular election, and it was so flawed as to
need to be decided by the House. Turnout
for the Presidential election jumped from 26.9% in 1824, the first year, to
57.6% in 1828 to an all-time high of 80.2% in 1840 (Greenberg ‘04:10). By 1824 there were four candidates all
claiming membership to the Democratic-Republican Party, as a result no
candidate won either a majority of the electoral or popular vote and the
election was decided in the House of Representatives. John C. Calhoun, Monroe’s secretary of war
declared himself a candidate in 1821.
Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Secretary of the Treasury William
H. Crawford, Speaker of the House Henry Clay and the hero of the battle of New
Orleans, General Andrew Jackson, had all been put forward by their
supporters. Crawford might have been the
front-runner, but he suffered a paralyzing stroke in the fall of 1823 and had
to stop campaigning. Calhoun withdrew
when he was promised the vice presidential nomination by both Adams and
Jackson. Andrew Jackson led in the
popular vote with 41.3 percent of the popular vote and 99 electoral votes and
eleven states, followed by John Quincy Adams with 84 electoral votes, 30.9
percent of the popular vote and seven states.
William Crawford and Henry Clay each won three states. Crawford finished third in electoral votes,
with 41 votes, but fourth in popular vote, with 11.2 percent, while Clay
finished third in the popular vote with 13 percent, but fourth in electoral
votes with only 37 votes. Since no
candidate had a majority of the electoral vote, the House of Representatives
decided the election. Clay was Speaker
of the House. He actively supported
Adams, and his backing proved crucial.
Adams was elected because thirteen state delegations voted for him on
the one and only ballot. Jackson won the
support of seven states, and Crawford of four.
Adams named Clay his Secretary of State. The House election of Adams and his deal
with Clay convinced the people of the undesirability of allowing the House of
Representatives to choose the president (Dover ‘03: 30). The election of 1924 created a violent split
in the Jeffersonian Democratic-Republican party, between the backers of Adams,
the National Republicans, and those of Jackson, the Democrats (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 37).
Popular and Electoral Votes in Presidential Election 1824- 1856
Year |
# States |
Candidate |
Party Affiliation |
Electoral College Votes |
Popular Votes |
Vote Eligible Population Turnout |
1856 |
31 |
James
Buchanan |
Democratic |
174 |
1,832,955 |
78.9% |
|
|
John
C. Fremont |
Republican
|
114 |
1,339,932 |
|
|
|
Millard
Fillmore |
American
|
8 |
871,731 |
|
1852 |
31 |
Franklin
Pierce |
Democratic |
254 |
1,601,117 |
69.6% |
|
|
Winfield
Scott |
Whig |
42 |
1,385,458 |
|
|
|
John
P. Hale |
Free
Soil |
|
155,825 |
|
1848 |
30 |
Zachary
Taylor |
Whig |
163 |
1,360,967 |
72.7% |
|
|
Lewis
Cass |
Democratic |
127 |
1,222,342 |
|
|
|
Martin
Van Buren |
Free
Soil |
|
291,268 |
|
1844 |
26 |
James
K. Polk |
Democratic |
170 |
1,338,464 |
78.9% |
|
|
Henry
Clay |
Whig |
105 |
1,300,097 |
|
|
|
James
G. Birney |
Liberty |
|
62,300 |
|
1840 |
26 |
William
H. Harrison |
Whig |
234 |
1,274,624 |
80.2% |
|
|
Martin
Van Buren |
Democratic |
60 |
1,127,781 |
|
1836 |
26 |
Martin
Van Buren |
Democratic |
170 |
765,483 |
57.8% |
|
|
William
H. Harrison |
Whig |
73 |
|
|
|
|
Hugh
L. White |
Whig |
26 |
739,795 |
|
|
|
Daniel
Webster |
Whig |
14 |
|
|
|
|
W.P.
Mangum |
Anti-Jackson |
11 |
|
|
1832 |
24 |
Andrew
Jackson |
Democratic |
219 |
687,502 |
55.4% |
|
|
Henry
Clay |
National
Republican |
49 |
530,189 |
|
|
|
William
Wirt |
Anti-Masonic |
7 |
|
|
|
|
John
Floyd |
Nullifiers |
11 |
|
|
|
|
Not
Voted |
|
2 |
|
|
1828 |
24 |
Andrew
Jackson |
Democratic |
178 |
647,286 |
57.6% |
|
|
John
Q. Adams |
National
Republican |
88 |
508,064 |
|
1824 |
24 |
John
Q. Adams |
No
Majority |
84 |
108,740 |
26.9% |
|
|
Andrew
Jackson |
Decided
in House |
99 |
153,544 |
|
|
|
Henry
Clay |
No
Parties Designations |
37 |
47,136 |
|
|
|
W.H.
Crawford |
|
41 |
46,618 |
|
Source: Series Y 79 – 83. Morton, Rogers C.B. Secretary of Commerce; Barabba,
Vincent P. Director of the Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the
United States: Colonial Times to 1970. Bicentennial
Edition pg. 1073-1074
By 1828 the party system had been
redesigned. Jackson’s supporters created
the Democratic Party, while Adams and Clay started the National Republican
Party. The latter entity did not last
long and was succeeded by the Whig Party in 1834. The Whigs were, in turn, replaced by the
current Republican Party in the election of 1856. Since that time, the two major parties have
performed the role of nominating the two final candidates for president, with
the Electoral College serving as the electing institution (Dover ‘03: 30). By 1928 all but two of the 24 states
selected their electors by popular vote.
The popular vote in 1828 more than tripled that of 1824. Jackson’s victory in 1828 put a premium on
party organization to mobilize voters.
The successful grassroots organization by Jackson supporters was due
much in part to the leadership of Martin van Buren. Often referred to as the “father of parties”
Van Buren was the chief architect of the first American mass party and the
chief defender of the patronage system that supported it. Nominating conventions have been integral
components of Presidential elections since the 1830s (Dover ‘03: 2). Supported by a loyal following Jackson
readily won reelection in 1832, having been re-nominated by his party at the
first national party convention, with Van Buren on the ticket as vice
president. As Jacksonian
Democrats continued to build support, using the spoils system that rewarded
legions of friends, a new opposition party led by Henry Clay and Daniel
Webster, the Whigs, was formed to oppose Jackson (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 38). By the election
of 1836, competition between the Democrats, as the Jeffersonian or Democratic
Republicans came to be called and the Whigs became intense. Strong party organization on both sides of
the presidential campaign of 1840 between Van Buren and Henry Harrison yielded
a record number of voters at the polls.
78 percent of adult white males voted in the 1840 presidential election,
up from the record set previously by Jackson, the 56 percent turnout in 1828
was more than double the 1824 percentage.
In 1848 Martin van Buren broke with the Democrats to head the Free-Soil
party (Greenberg ’04:11).
Politics had emerged as the true national
pastime and the spoils system retained its place as a powerful tool in the
arsenal of nineteenth-century party warfare.
Once in office, even the Whigs, who criticized the Democratic use of
patronage as corrupt, proved to be as adept as their counterparts in utilizing
the spoils of success to their maximum electoral advantage (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 39). Political
parties cling to principles, in them private interest is more studiously veiled
under the pretext of the public good.
The Jacksonian Democrats emerged with a
philosophy of government and citizens consistent in content and style with
those of the Jeffersonians. They gained clarity in opposition to Henry
Clay’s “American system”, where the government expanded credit, protected
industry and financed internal improvement, for the purpose of promoting
America’s modernization. But while the
Whig opponents proffered a government should exert a beneficial paternal
fostering influence upon the Industry and Prosperity of the People, the
Democrats wanted to stop government from overreaching, the Democrats as they
put it preferred the “voluntary system”.
They opposed high tariffs, arguing it was a system for plundering the
laboring classes, The Democrats assumed special guardianship over the
principles of the Constitution, to block those who would expand government with
a doctrine of expediency and general welfare.”
The Democrats sought to center the American in the common man, but not
slaves or Native Americans who were cruelly mistreated in this era. Democrats
built support in all regions of the country by 1838 that would keep them in
power for decades. Every Democratic
ticket from 1836 to 1860 was by design regionally balanced, one Southerner and
one non-Southerner. The Democrats’ rules
required then, and up until 1936, that the nominee win two-third of the votes
at the convention (Greenberg ’04:10).
The election of Zachary Taylor, a Whig, in 1848 was the only election in
this cycle of nine presidential elections who was not a Democrat.
In 1845 Congress designated the first Tuesday
after the first Monday in even numbered years as the day in which states had to
conduct elections to select members of Congress. In response to this law, state governments
tended to schedule elections for their own and local officials on these same
days (Dover ’03: 70). By the 1850s, it
was clear the leaders of the two major parties could no longer sidestep the
slavery issue. The slavery question had
been a latent source of political conflict since the Missouri Compromise of
1820 that decreed all territories above latitude 36ş 30’ north, slavery would
be forever prohibited, solidifying sectional division between the northern and
southern wings of the two parties. The
Compromise of 1850 secured the admission of California as a free state and
abolished the use of the District of Columbia as a depot in the interstate
slave trade, and also opened New Mexico and Utah to popular sovereignty on the
slavery issue. Third parties rose to
take a stand, or fall, on the slavery issue, the Liberty party, then the Free
Soil party. A coalition of antislavery
parties united in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 gave birth to
the Republican party.
John C. Fremont got nearly 40 percent of the vote in 1856, a majority in
the North, but he was not even on the ballot in most of the Southern
states. In the election of 1860 Abraham
Lincoln, the second Republican presidential candidate, defeated Democrat
Stephen A. Douglas as well as Southern Democrat candidate John C. Breckinridge
and the Constitutional Union party’s John Bell, ushering in the third party
system. By 1850 the basic features of the American political system were not
unlike those in place today (Maisel & Buckley
’05: 40-42).
Stage Three: Progressive Republican Era
1860-1896
In the election of 1860 Abraham Lincoln, the
second Republican presidential candidate, defeated Democrat Stephen A. Douglas
as well as Southern Democrat candidate John C. Breckinridge and the
Constitutional Union party’s John Bell, ushering in the third party system. The
third party system roughly coincided with the “Gilded Age” or the “Progressive
Era” following the Civil War to the mid-1890s, when political parties achieved
unprecedented levels of power and organization.
This period had the highest turnout of any in American history, from
1868 to 1892, almost 80 percent of all eligible voters showed up at the polls
for presidential elections, including black males of voting age. The most significant political innovation of
this period was the urban political machine.
Each machine was organized as a structured hierarchy, a dominant leader,
the political boss, ward leaders beholden to the boss,
precinct captains beholden to the ward leader, and those who worked the streets
beholden to those organizing the precinct.
The glue that held these machines together was material incentives,
tangible rewards for work well done, and the withdrawal of those rewards if
work was not done. Patronage jobs were
the reward for electoral success. Aid,
to the newly arrived immigrant, the unemployed, or the underemployed, ensured
loyalty to the machine (Maisel & Buckley ’05:
43-44). Perhaps the classic example of
an urban political machine during this era was Tammany Hall, the Democratic New
York City machine and its notorious ringleaders, Boss William Marcy Tweed. George Washington Plunkitt,
ward boss of the Fifteenth Assembly District in New York said, the importance
of patronage, material good and constituent services in securing party loyalty
to the machine is clear, “You can’t keep an organization together without patronage. Men ain’t in
politics for nothin’”. The machine boss flourished in a time when a
complex industrial society outstripped the instruments of governance. Not only did the gilded Age parties control
patronage jobs, but they were the gate-keepers to elected offices as well. However while bosses dominated politics
industrialists dominated society (Maisel &
Buckley ’05: 46).
Popular and Electoral Votes in Presidential Election 1860-1896
Year |
# States |
Candidate |
Party Affiliation |
Electoral College Votes |
Popular Votes |
Vote Eligible Population Turnout |
1896 |
45 |
William
McKinley |
Republican |
271 |
7,102,246 |
79.3% |
|
|
William
J. Bryan |
Democratic |
176 |
6,492,559 |
|
|
|
John
M. Palmer |
National
Democratic |
|
133,148 |
|
|
|
Joshua
Levering |
Prohibition |
|
132,007 |
|
|
|
Charles
H. Matchett |
Socialist
Labor |
|
36,274 |
|
|
|
Charles
E. Bentley |
Nationalist |
|
13,969 |
|
1892 |
44 |
Grover
Cleveland |
Democratic |
277 |
5,555,426 |
74.7% |
|
|
Benjamin
Harrison |
Republican
|
145 |
5,182,690 |
|
|
|
James
B. Weaver |
People’s |
22 |
1,029,846 |
|
|
|
John
Bidwell |
Prohibition |
|
264,133 |
|
|
|
Simon
Wing |
Socialist
Labor |
|
21,164 |
|
1888 |
38 |
Benjamin
Harrison |
Republican |
233 |
5,447,129 |
79.3% |
|
|
Grover
Cleveland |
Democratic |
168 |
5,537,857 |
|
|
|
Clinton
B. Fisk |
Prohibition |
|
249,506 |
|
|
|
Anson
J. Streeter |
Union
Labor |
|
146,985 |
|
1884 |
38 |
Grover
Cleveland |
Democratic |
219 |
4,879,507 |
77.5% |
|
|
James
G. Blaine |
Republican
|
182 |
4,860,293 |
|
|
|
Benjamin
F. Butler |
Greenback-Labor |
|
175,370 |
|
|
|
John
P. St. John |
Prohibition |
|
150,369 |
|
1880 |
38 |
James
A. Garfield |
Republican |
214 |
4,453,295 |
|
|
|
Winfield
S. Hancock |
Democratic
|
155 |
4,414,082 |
79.4% |
|
|
James
B. Weaver |
Greenback-Labor
|
|
308,578 |
|
|
|
Neal
Dow |
Prohibition |
|
10,305 |
|
1876 |
38 |
Rutherford
B. Hayes |
Republican
|
185 |
4,036,572 |
81.8% |
|
|
Samuel
J. Tilden |
Democratic |
184 |
4,284,020 |
|
|
|
Peter
Cooper |
Greenback |
|
81,737 |
|
1872 |
37 |
Ulysses
S. Grant |
Republican
|
286 |
3,596,745 |
71.3% |
|
|
Horace
Greenley |
Democratic |
3
(died) |
2,843,446 |
|
|
|
Charles
O’connor |
Straight
Democratic |
|
29,489 |
|
|
|
Thomas
A. Hendricks |
Independent
Democratic |
42 |
|
|
|
|
B.
Gratz Brown |
Democratic
|
18 |
|
|
|
|
Charles
J. Jenkins |
Democratic |
2 |
|
|
|
|
David
Davis |
Democratic |
2 |
|
|
|
|
Not
Voted |
|
17 |
|
|
1868 |
37 |
Ulysses
S. Grant |
Republican |
214 |
3,013,421 |
78.1% |
|
|
Horatio
Seymour |
Democratic |
80 |
2,706,829 |
|
|
|
Not
Voted |
|
23 |
|
|
1864 |
36 |
Abraham
Lincoln |
Republican |
212 |
2,206,988 |
73.8% |
|
|
George
B. McClellan |
Democratic |
21 |
1,808,787 |
|
|
|
Not
Voted |
|
81 |
|
|
1860 |
33 |
Abraham
Lincoln |
Republican |
180 |
1,865,598 |
81.2% |
|
|
J.C.
Breckinridge |
Democratic
(S) |
72 |
848,356 |
|
|
|
Stephen
A. Douglas |
Democratic |
12 |
1,382,718 |
|
|
|
John
Bell |
Constitutional
Union |
39 |
592,906 |
|
Source: Series Y 79 – 83. Morton, Rogers C.B. Secretary of Commerce; Barabba,
Vincent P. Director of the Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the
United States: Colonial Times to 1970. Bicentennial
Edition pg. 1073-1074
The new Republican Party won in 1860, based
exclusively in the North and militarily occupied the South for the entire Progressive
era. The Republican Party would win the
great majority of elections between 1860 and 1928 although they faced close
elections in 1876, 1880 and 1888.
However, Democrat Grover Cleveland won the White House in nonconsecutive
terms in 1884 and 1892 when Jim Crow laws were most ascendant. The essential voting patterns were
established as early as 1856 and confirmed in 1880 when the South was
reintegrated into the Union. Lincoln
established the Republicans as the party that held the nation together, and by
abolishing slavery and breaking the power of the South landed classes they had
set the country irrevocably down a modernizing and industrial path. Republican leaders from Lincoln to Teddy
Roosevelt to Coolidge described their party as the American Party, ready to
defend America. The Civil War was a
reference point where Republicans could continually remind voters that they
defended America’s virtues with force of arms.
The great majority of the party’s presidential nominees were military
figures, especially in this period after the Civil War. The states of the Old South at the outset of
the 1890s began enacting statutes to disenfranchise the black voter and to end
the prospect of competitive general elections in the Southern states. The Republicans, for their part, constructed
a system of Civil War pensions available only to veterans of the Union Army,
one in ten voters concentrated in the Northeast and Midwest, not much. The payment exploded from 1880 to 1910, when
the Republicans were retrenching their position to fend off the Populists. The Grand Army of the Republic, 400,000
strong, backing the Republicans through all the election battles (Greenberg ;04:12). The
Republicans won the Civil War.
Two elections in the post-Civil War period
were defined by electoral-college difficulties.
In 1876, voters appeared to have chosen the Democratic nominee Samuel
Tilden for president over Republican Rutherford Hayes by a margin of over
250,000 popular votes and an electoral vote count of 203 to 166; 51 percent of
the popular vote to 48 percent. There
were serious discrepancies in the vote count in three former confederate
states, South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida.
In each of these states, competing governmental institutions submitted
final vote tallies that showed the party of the leaders of those institutions
winning the state, with Tilden leading in all three. Congress had to choose between the party
slates and appointed a commission comprised of five House members, five senators
and five justices to investigate the claims and decide which slates to accept.
The commission voted eight to seven, strictly on party lines, to seat the
Republican electors. The Senate accepted
this decision, but the House indicated it would disapprove. In a move of historic significance, a number
of Southern congressmen agreed to vote for the Republican slates in exchange
for an end to Reconstruction and the appointment of several Southerners as
executives in the new Republican administration. This deal made, the disputed
electors went to Hayes, who won the presidency through an electoral vote count
of 185 to 184 despite the fact that he had lost the popular vote. Without the existence of the electoral college, Tilden would have become president. The Congress responded to this controversy by
enacting a law, which is still in effect today, that says Congress must accept
the slate of electors that is certified as official by a state’s governor
unless it can be proven that such a slate was chosen in a fraudulent manner
(Dover ’03: 31).
The second difficult election occurred in
1888. The Democrats nominated Grover
Cleveland for a second term as president, while the Republicans chose Benjamin
Harrison. The election was close, as
were most of the elections, during this time, with Cleveland garnering 48.6
percent of the popular vote compared to Harrison’s 47.8 percent. While this margin may not seem large, only
0.8 percent of 1 percent, it was large when compared to its two predecessors. The popular vote difference in the election
of 1880 was only 0.02 percent, and Cleveland had won the popular vote when
seeking his first term in 1884 by only 0.25 percent. There was an important difference between the
elections of 1884 and 1888, Cleveland had won the electoral votes of twenty of
the nation’s thirty-eight states in 1884, by 1888 he
carried only eighteen. Two of the states
he had carried in 1884, New York and Indiana, went for Harrison. As a result, Harrison won the electoral vote
by an overwhelming margin of 233 to 168.
Cleveland won the popular vote by scoring massive victories in the
former confederate states, where nearly all voters supported the
Democrats. Harrison won most of the
other states by far closer margins.
Cleveland had more votes, but Harrison had a broader and more national
base of support. The election of 1888
was the last time when the winner of the popular vote did not also win the
electoral vote, until 2000 (Dover ’03: 31).
Progressive reforms in the electoral arena had more immediate
impacts. The first was the Australian
ballot, a state-printed ballot cast in secret and listing all candidates for a
particular position, no one party’ candidates for all position. The new ballot, adopted in all but two states
from 1889 and 1891, enabled split-ticket voting and reduced voter intimidation
at the polls (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 48 &
49).
The Populist platform began, “corruption
dominates the ballot box, the legislatures, the Congress and touches even the
ermine of the bench. The people are
demoralized. Most of the states have
been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal
intimidation or bribery”. Popular
momentum for anti-machine reforms was provided by Charles J. Guitenau, the deranged disappointed office seeker who
shot President Garfield. His crime and
Garfield’s death focused popular criticism on the spoils system and indirectly
create the civil service system. The
Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883 was the first step in the decline of
the urban machines, depriving them of their very lifeblood, patronage (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 48 & 49). The immediate post-Civil War years were, the golden age
of American parties. Flush with
industrial contributions party regularity was higher, party loyalty deeper and
party stability greater than at any other time in American history. In 1876 the Greenback Labor Party nominated a candidate for
president, Peter Cooper of New York, paradoxically one of the richest men in
the country, a “limousine liberal”, and in 1878 the party attracted 1,060,000
votes in congressional elections, enough to elect fourteen congressmen (Gordon
04: 268). Third parties such as the Greenback party in 1880, the
Anti-Monopoly party in 1884, the Labor party in 1888 and the Populist party in
1892 flourished (Schlesinger 99: 265).
In the nineteenth century visiting Europeans were awed by the popular
obsession with politics. Tocqueville in
the 1830s thought politics “the only pleasure an American knows.” Bryce half a century later found parties
“organized far more elaborately in the United States than anywhere else in the
world.” Voting statistics justified
transatlantic awe. In no presidential
election between the Civil War and the end of the century did the American turnout,
the proportion of eligible voters actually voting, fall below 70 percent. In 1876 it reached nearly 82 percent. But in no presidential election since 1968
has the American turnout exceeded 55 percent.
In 1984, only 52.9 percent voted (Schlesinger 99: 260).
The
Republican Party was defined by its modernizing, unifying and nationalist
vision that became more ideologically developed as the parties battled through
the industrial revolution. Between 1880
and 1910 national wealth increased 275 percent and the urban population grew
from 28 to 46 percent, while massive immigration brought downward pressure on
wages. This was a time for the rise of
corporations, holding companies, trusts and monopolies, but also a time for
deep downturns, including most of the 1890s, after the panic of 1893. The election of 1896 was hot. The Democrats, breaking with their tradition
of running fiscally austere, antigovernment nominees, chose William Jennings
Bryan, the populist, evangelical candidate who would change the identity of the
Democratic Party. His politics were
rooted in the civic virtue and common man themes that carried the Democrats
through the nineteenth century, but it included the premise that the country
should be enriched from the bottom up, “if you legislate to make the masses
prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class which
rests upon them”. Republicans thought the
government should promote the country’s growth and advancement with
mercantilist policies, by creating markets, protecting American manufacturing
behind high tariffs, and create a favorable climate for surging big
corporations. McKinley said, “We are not
a nation of classes, but of sturdy, free, independent and honorable people
\aspiring to achieve the highest development and greatest prosperity, out of
come the greatest gains to the people, the greatest comforts to the masses, the widest encouragement for many aspirations. There is no way in the world of earning money
except by work”. Republicans associated
themselves with business and Americans accepted this pro-capitalist model and
Republican won elections (Greenberg ’04:14).
In 1896 an era of reform began.
Before 1896 both parties favored industrialization, and both parties
sought to appeal to urban populations.
Civil War allegiances shifted in the election of 1896. The realignment signaled the “end of the era
of no decision” (Maisel & Buckley ’05:
47-48).
Stage Four: Republican Populism 1900-1928
When
Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901 on the assassination of William
McKinley, he moved sharply in the direction of the progressive wing of the
Republican Party that dominated the House 185 to 163 with 9 Independents and
Senate 53 to 26 with 8 Independents and ushered in a fourth party system of
Republican Populism. The Republicans would hold the White House for sixteen consecutive
years and for 28 of the next 36 years.
With the realignment of the electorate after 1896, Republicans dominated
the North and Midwest while Democrats maintained a stronghold in the “Southern
states and border states. The decline in
competition between the two major parties would take its toll on party
organization, no longer were the tightly run, vote mobilizing institutions of
the Gilded Age needed to win. The
mandated primary, which most states instituted from 1905 to 1910, stripped the
parties of a critical source of power, control over nominations. Candidates no longer needed the party nod to
get on the ballot. In addition many
cities introduced nonpartisan elections, in which party names do not even
appear on the ballots, further reducing the stronghold of parties at the local
level. The Progressive era empowered the
populace with such procedures as the initiative, the referendum and the
recall. The Seventeenth Amendment,
adopted in 1913, further reined in the parties, by mandating the direct
election of U.S. senators (Maisel & Buckley ’05:
49). Although Democrat Woodrow Wilson
won the presidency in 1912 and 1916, the electoral coalitions did not change
and the Republicans remained the majority party. Wilson won the 1912 election because Teddy
Roosevelt split the Republican vote, running on his own third-party ticket, that
of the Progressive Bull Moose party. Wilson
barely won again in 1916, as many old Progressives marched back to the
Republicans. By 1920 the Republican
coalition had regained prominence. (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 47-48).
Popular and Electoral Votes in Presidential Election 1900-1928
Year |
# States |
Candidate |
Party Affiliation |
Electoral |
Popular Votes |
Congress |
Split |
Turnout |
1928 |
48 |
Herbert
C. Hoover |
Republican |
444 |
21,391,993 |
72nd
House |
220
D, 214 R, 1 I |
|
|
|
Alfred
E. Smith |
Democratic |
87 |
15,016,169 |
72nd
Senate |
47
D, 48 R, 1 I |
|
|
|
Norma
Thomas |
Socialist |
|
267,835 |
71st
House |
167
D, 267, 1 I |
56.9% |
|
|
Verne
L. Reynolds |
Socialist
Labor |
|
21,603 |
71st
Senate |
39
D, 56 R, 1 I |
(1928) |
|
|
William
Z. Foster |
Workers |
|
21,181 |
|
|
|
|
|
William
F. Varney |
Prohibition |
|
20,106 |
|
|
|
1924 |
48 |
Calvin
Coolidge |
Republican |
382 |
15,718,711 |
70th
House |
195
D, 237 R, 3 I |
|
|
|
John
W. Davis |
Democratic |
136 |
8,385,283 |
70th
Senate |
46
D, 49 R, 1 I |
|
|
|
Robert
M. LaFollette |
Progressive |
13 |
4,831,289 |
69th
House |
183
D, 247 R, 4 I |
48.9% |
|
|
Herman
P. Faris |
Prohibition |
|
57,520 |
69th
Senate |
39
D, 56 R |
|
|
|
Frank
T. Johns |
Socialist
Labor |
|
36,428 |
|
|
|
|
|
William
Z. Foster |
Workers |
|
36,386 |
|
|
|
|
|
Gilbert
O. Nations |
American |
|
23,967 |
|
|
|
1920 |
48 |
Warren
G. Harding |
Republican
|
404 |
16,143,407 |
68th
House |
205
D, 225 R, 5 I |
|
|
|
James
M. Cox |
Democratic |
127 |
9,130,328 |
68th
Senate |
43
D, 51 R, 1 I |
|
|
|
Eugene
V. Debs |
Socialist |
|
919,799 |
67th
House |
131
D, 301 R, 1 I |
49.2% |
|
|
P.P.
Christensen |
Farmer-Labor |
|
265,411 |
67th
Senate |
37
D, 59 R, 2 I |
|
|
|
Aaron
S. Watkins |
Prohibition |
|
189,408 |
|
|
|
|
|
James
E. Ferguson |
American |
|
48,000 |
|
|
|
|
|
W.W.
Cox |
Socialist
Labor |
|
31,715 |
|
|
|
1916 |
48 |
Woodrow
Wilson |
Democratic |
277 |
9,127,695 |
66th
House |
190
D, 240 R, 3 I |
|
|
|
Charles
E. Hughes |
Republican |
254 |
8,533,507 |
66th
Senate |
47
D, 49 R |
|
|
|
A.L.
Benson |
Socialist |
|
585,113 |
65th
House |
216
D, 210 R, 6 I |
61.6% |
|
|
J.
Frank Hanley |
Prohibition |
|
220,506 |
65th
Senate |
53
D, 42 R |
|
|
|
Arthur
E. Reimer |
Socialist
Labor |
|
13,403 |
|
|
|
1912 |
48 |
Woodrow
Wilson |
Democratic |
438 |
6,296,547 |
64th
House |
230
D, 196 R, 9 I |
|
|
|
Theodore
Roosevelt |
Progressive |
88 |
4,118,571 |
64th
Senate |
56
D, 40 R |
|
|
|
William
H. Taft |
Republican |
8 |
3,486,720 |
63rd
House |
291
D, 127 R, 17 I |
58.8% |
|
|
Eugene
V. Debs |
Socialist |
|
900,672 |
63rd
Senate |
51
D, 44 R, 1 I |
|
|
|
Eugene
W. Chafin |
Prohibition |
|
206,275 |
|
|
|
|
|
Arthur
E. Reimer |
Socialist
Labor |
|
28,750 |
|
|
|
1908 |
46 |
William
H. Taft |
Republican |
321 |
7,675,320 |
62nd
House |
228
D, 161 R, 1 I |
|
|
|
William
J. Bryan |
Democratic |
162 |
6,412,294 |
62nd
Senate |
41
D, 51 R |
|
|
|
Eugene
V. Debs |
Socialist |
|
420,793 |
61st
House |
172
D, 219 R |
65.4% |
|
|
Eugene
W. Chafin |
Prohibition |
|
253,840 |
61st
Senate |
32
D, 61 R |
|
|
|
Thomas
L. Hisgen |
Independence |
|
82,872 |
|
|
|
|
|
Thomas
E. Watson |
People’s |
|
29,100 |
|
|
|
|
|
August
Gillhaus |
Socialist
Labor |
|
14,021 |
|
|
|
1904 |
45 |
Theodore
Roosevelt |
Republican |
336 |
7,628,461 |
60th
House |
164
D, 222 R |
|
|
|
Alton
B. Parker |
Democratic |
140 |
5,084,223 |
60th
Senate |
31
D, 61 R |
|
|
|
Eugene
V. Debs |
Socialist |
|
87,814 |
59th
House |
136
D, 250 R |
65.2% |
|
|
Silas
C. Swallow |
Prohibition |
|
258,536 |
59th
Senate |
33
D, 57 R |
|
|
|
Thomas
E. Watson |
People’s |
|
117,183 |
|
|
|
|
|
Charles
H. Corregan |
Socialist
Labor |
|
31,249 |
|
|
|
1900 |
45 |
William
McKinley |
Republican |
292 |
7,218,491 |
58th
House |
178
D, 208 R |
|
|
|
William
J. Bryan |
Democratic |
155 |
6,356,734 |
58th
Senate |
33
D, 57 R |
|
|
|
John
C. Wooley |
Prohibition |
|
208,914 |
57th
House |
151
D, 197 R, 9 I |
73.2% |
|
|
Eugene
V. Debs |
Socialist |
|
87,814 |
57th
Senate |
33
D, 57 R |
|
|
|
Wharton
Barker |
People’s |
|
50,373 |
|
|
|
|
|
Jos.
F. Mailoney |
Socialist
Labor |
|
39,739 |
|
|
|
Source: Series Y 79 – 83. Morton, Rogers C.B. Secretary of Commerce; Barabba,
Vincent P. Director of the Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the
United States: Colonial Times to 1970. Bicentennial Edition pg.
1073-1074, Table 1.5 & 1.6 pgs. 18-22 Maisel, L. Sandy; Buckley, Kara Z.
Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process. Fourth
Edition. Lanham Maryland. Roman & Littlefield
Publishers. 2005
In
1906 Roosevelt advocated a tax on inheritances.
Taft, a far more conservative man than Roosevelt, revered the Supreme
Court. Indeed he would serve as chief
justice, an office far more congenial to his nature than the presidency, for
most of the 1920s. He was horrified at
the idea of defying the Supreme Court so he proposed the idea of a
constitutional amendment that would permit an income tax and proposed a corporate
income tax on profits. In 1911 the
Supreme Court agreed unanimously. The
Sixteenth amendment meanwhile passed the Senate 77-0 and the House 318-14. The amendment was ratified by the required
number of state legislatures and was declared effective on February 3,
1913. By that time the Republican Party
had split between the conservative Taft Republicans and the progressive
Roosevelt Republicans, who stormed out of the 1912 convention to form their own
party under the symbol of the bull-moose.
As a result, the Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected president with less
than 42 percent of the popular vote but with almost 82 percent of the electoral
votes (Gordon 04: 271). Among the first
acts of the new Wilson administration was the passage of a personal income tax
law. Although only fourteen pages long,
it contained the seeds of the vast complexity that was to come. Incomes more than $3,000 was to be taxed, on
a progressive scale from 1 to 7 percent on incomes more than $500,000. But there were many exemptions, such as
interest on state and local bonds and corporate dividends up to $20,000. Interest on all debts, depreciation of
property, and many other things were deductible from taxable income. The corporate income tax remained a
completely separate tax. The financial
exigencies of the twentieth century’s great wars would send income tax rates
soaring to heights undreamed of by even its most passionate advocates (Gordon
04: 277). Justice Oliver Holmes said, “Taxes are the price we pay
for civilization.”
After the
Democrats took control of the House of Representatives in 1910, Congress
finally passed a bill creating a Cabinet level department to “promote and
develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their
working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable
employment”. William Howard Taft
grudgingly signed the bill into law on March 4, 1913, the final day of his
presidency (Cohen 09: 195). American
manufacturing increased rapidly as the result of the World War in Europe. Markets in Latin American and Asia, which had
been served by European companies, were now open to be taken over by American
firms. Far more important was the
avalanche of order that began to roll in to American firms form Great Britain
and its allies, for steel, vehicles, railroad rolling stock and rails, and a
new invention barbed wire. Munitions were of course n the greatest demand. Du Pont had been only a midsized manufacturer
of gunpowder before the war, but would come to supply the Allies with fully 40
percent of their munitions. In the four
years of war Du Pont’s military business increased by a factor of 276 and it
became one of the world’s largest chemical companies as well. By the end of the war Du Pont had revenues
twenty-six times as large as they had been in 1913 (Gordon 04: 292). Overall the gross national product of the
United States increased by 21 percent in the four years of the war, while
manufacturing increased by 25 percent (Gordon 04: 289).
Between 1910
and 1920 only about 21 large firms a year started pension plans, in the 1920s
the number rose to about 45. By 1925
over 200 firms, led by the railroads, which dominated the expansion of private
pensions, offered them. By the late
1920s retirement funds for policemen, teachers and firemen had become nearly
universal. In 1921 the national
government gave employers tax exemptions for contributions to trust funds
designed to accumulate and distribute capital for fringe benefits. Treasury rulings in 1914 and 1921 allowed
businesses to deduct pension expenses from the recently enacted income
tax. The 1926 Revenue Act wrote these
administrative rulings into law. Calvin Coolidge at the end of this period of Republican dominance was
president for the 1920s, when incomes grew by 20 percent between 1921 and 1929
and the number of automobiles rose from 9.3 million to 23.1 million, by the end
of the decade there was almost one care for every family. But this was also a decade for speculative
booms, with rising inequality. Coolidge,
with Andrew Mellon, likely the wealthiest man in the country, as his secretary
of the treasury, proceeded with an economic policy of aggressive tax slashing
for the wealthy. They cut the
inheritance tax in half, abolished the gift tax, and reduced the income tax to
5 percent. Like their predecessors in
1896, Coolidge and Mellon attacked those who “seek to perpetuate prejudice and
class hatred and pit one class of taxpayers against another”. The Republican bargain, Mellon declared, was
straightforward, “In no other nation and at no other time in the history of the
world have so many people enjoyed such a high degree of prosperity” (Greenberg
’04: 14-15).
To be sure 659 banks failed in 1929,
but that was slightly below the annual average for the decade and no major banks
had collapsed as a result of the crash (Gordon 04: 318). President Herbert Hoover called a conference
of businessmen in November 1929 and urged them to invest in construction, he
telegraphed state governors, who funded 80 percent of government construction,
to do the same and in the spring he promised to increase spending by $140
million. No small sum in a federal
budget that amounted to only $3.3 billion or about 3 percent of GNP. At the time twenty-five percent of the
federal budget went to debt service, and most of the
rest to fund the 139,000 man army and the 95,000 man navy. The winter and early spring of 1930 the stock
market rebound regaining about 45 percent of what had been lost. By the Spring of
1930 it didn’t look as if more would be needed and President Hoover told a
religious group, “You have come sixty days too late. The depression is over.” (Gordon 04:
320). Unfortunately Hoover then signed
the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. This was
economic folly. Tariffs are taxes and
taxes inescapably are always a drag on the economy. But far worse, high tariffs breed retaliation
from other countries. Professional
economists knew this and a thousand of them signed a petition asking Hoover to
veto the tariff bill. The economist’s
arguments proved all too true and world trade began to collapse. The Federal government that Hoover presided over was
small and limited in scope to conventional wisdom. Herbert Hoover said
on 25 March 1932, “the absolute necessity of a balanced budget is the most
essential factor to economic recovery (5 May) the imperative and immediate step
(13 May) indispensable (21 May) the first necessity of the Nation (11 August)
the foundation of all public and private financial stability (11 August). The government collected little
revenue and therefore it had little money to dispense. The federal income tax had been in effect a
mere twenty years, and only about 5 percent of Americans paid it. The total federal budget was just $3.3
billion (Gordon 04: 328).
Stage Five: New Deal Democrats 1932-1968
The stock market crash in 1929 and the Great
Depression shattered the allegiances of the fourth party system. The American public blamed the Great
Depression on the Republican president Herbert Hoover and his party. In 1932, Franklin Delano Roosevelt swept into
office with 57 percent of the popular vote, with the electoral college 472 to
59 and stayed in office for five successive terms only two 1936 and 1940 above
60% turnout. For the next thirty years
it would be the Democrats who were dominant.
The voting patterns forged in the 1850s and 1880s were radically
disrupted. The Republicans had
identified themselves with the concept of business led prosperity that turned
to ash. The New Deal coalition
solidified union support for the Democratic Party, African-Americans began to
identify with the Democratic party and poverty was
defined at an annual income of less than $3,000 a year. Roosevelt made the Democratic Party the
indispensable party for an America that would recover economically and honor
the mass of laboring and working people.
Even though Republicans won Congress in 1946, and despite President
Eisenhower’s defeat of Democrat Adlai Stevenson in both 1952 and 1956, these
elections, quite popular, were seen as deviations, Eisenhower’s success was
more a result of a war hero’s popularity than it was an electoral shift to the
GOP. The majority of Americans still
owed allegiance to the Democratic Party, and the issues dividing the electorate
were still the New Deal issues. Kennedy
and Johnson recaptured the 1960s for Democrats and sustained voter turnout in
the 60% range. For more than three decades the political agenda would be
defined by the same question, does the federal government have a responsibility
to serve as the employer of last resort, intervene actively in the economy and
help those unable to help themselves (Maisel &
Buckley ’05: 52).
Popular and Electoral Votes in Presidential Election 1932-1968
Year |
# States |
Candidate |
Party Affiliation |
Electoral |
Popular Votes |
Congress |
Split |
Turnout |
1968 |
50 |
Richard
M. Nixon |
Republican
|
301 |
31,785,480 |
92nd
House |
254
D, 180 R |
46.6% |
|
|
Hubert
H. Humphrey |
Democratic |
191 |
31,275,166 |
92nd
Senate |
54
D, 44 R, 2 I |
(1970) |
|
|
George
C. Wallace |
American
Independent |
46 |
9,906,473 |
91st
House |
243
D, 192 R, 1 I |
60.6% (1968) |
|
|
Henning
A. Blomen |
Socialist
Labor |
|
52,588 |
91st
Senate |
57
D, 43 R |
|
|
|
Dick
Gregory |
|
|
47,133 |
|
|
|
|
|
Fred
Halstead |
Socialist
Workers |
|
41,388 |
|
|
|
|
|
Eldridge
Cleaver |
Peace
and Freedom |
|
36,563 |
|
|
|
|
|
Eugene
J. McCarthy |
|
|
25,552 |
|
|
|
|
|
E.
Harold Munn |
Prohibition |
|
15,123 |
|
|
|
1964 |
50 |
Lyndon
B. Johnson |
Democratic |
486 |
43,129,566 |
90th
House |
247
D, 197 R |
48.4% |
|
|
Barry
M. Goldwater |
Republican |
52 |
27,178,188 |
90th
Senate |
64
D, 36 R |
(1966) |
|
|
Eric
Hass |
Socialist
Labor |
|
45,219 |
89th
House |
295
D, 140 R |
61.7% |
|
|
Clifton
DeBerry |
Socialist
Workers |
|
32,720 |
89th
Senate |
68
D, 32 R |
(1964) |
|
|
E.
Harold Munn |
Prohibition |
|
23,267 |
|
|
|
1960 |
50 |
John
F. Kennedy |
Democratic |
303 |
34,226,731 |
88th
House |
258
D, 177 R |
47.3% |
|
|
Richard
M. Nixon |
Republican |
219 |
34,108,157 |
88th
Senate |
67
D, 33 R |
(1962) |
|
|
Eric
Hass |
Socialist
Labor |
|
44,450 |
87th
House |
263
D, 174 R |
64.0% |
|
|
Rutherford
L. Decker |
Prohibition |
|
46,203 |
87th
Senate |
65
D, 35 R |
(1960) |
|
|
Orval
E. Faubus |
National
States Rights |
|
44,977 |
|
|
|
|
|
Farrell
Dobbs |
Socialist
Workers |
|
40,165 |
|
|
|
|
|
Charles
L. Sullivan |
Constitution |
|
18,162 |
|
|
|
1956 |
48 |
Dwight
D. Eisenhower |
Republican |
457 |
35,590,472 |
86th
House |
283
D, 153 R |
|
|
|
Adlai
E. Stevenson |
Democratic |
73 |
26,022,752 |
86th
Senate |
64
D, 34 R |
|
|
|
T.
Coleman Andrews |
States’
Rights |
|
111,178 |
85th
House |
233
D, 200 R |
60.6% |
|
|
Eric
Hass |
Socialist
Labor |
|
44,450 |
85th
Senate |
49
D, 47 R |
(1956) |
|
|
Enoch
A. Holtwick |
Prohibition |
|
41,987 |
|
|
|
1952 |
48 |
Dwight
D. Eisenhower |
Republican |
442 |
33,936,234 |
84th
House |
232,
D, 203 R |
|
|
|
Adlai
E. Stevenson |
Democratic |
89 |
27,314,992 |
84th
Senate |
48
D, 47 R |
|
|
|
Vincent
Hallinan |
Progressive |
|
140,023 |
83rd
House |
211
D, 221 R. 1 I |
63.3% |
|
|
Stuart
Hamblen |
Prohibition |
|
72,949 |
83rd
Senate |
47
D, 48 R, 1 I |
(1952) |
|
|
Eric
Hass |
Socialist
Labor |
|
30,267 |
|
|
|
|
|
Darlington
Hoops |
Socialist |
|
20,208 |
|
|
|
|
|
Douglas
A. MacArthur |
Constitution |
|
17,205 |
|
|
|
|
|
Farrell
Dobbs |
Socialist
Workers |
|
10,312 |
|
|
|
1948 |
48 |
Harry
S. Truman |
Democratic |
303 |
24,179,345 |
82nd
House |
234
D, 199 R, 1 I |
|
|
|
Thomas
E. Dewey |
Republican
|
189 |
21,991,291 |
82nd
Senate |
49
D, 47 r, 1 I |
|
|
|
Strom
Thurmond |
States’
Rights |
39 |
1,176,125 |
81st
House |
263
D, 171 R, 1 I |
53.0% |
|
|
Henry
Wallace |
Progressive |
|
1,157,326 |
81st
Senate |
54
D, 42 R |
(1948) |
|
|
Norman
Thomas |
Socialist |
|
139,572 |
|
|
|
|
|
Claude
A. Watson |
Prohibition |
|
103,900 |
|
|
|
|
|
Edward
A. Teichert |
Socialist
Labor |
|
29,241 |
|
|
|
|
|
Farrell
Dobbs |
Socialist
Workers |
|
13,614 |
|
|
|
1944 |
48 |
Franklin
D. Roosevelt |
Democratic |
432 |
25,606,585 |
80th
House |
188
D, 245 R, 1 I |
|
|
|
Thomas
E. Dewey |
Republican |
99 |
22,014,745 |
80th
Senate |
45
D, 15 R |
|
|
|
Norman
Thomas |
Socialist
|
|
80,518 |
79th
House |
242
D, 190 R, 2 I |
55.9% |
|
|
Claude
A. Watson |
Prohibition |
|
74,758 |
79th
Senate |
56
D, 38 R |
(1944) |
|
|
Edward
A. Teichert |
Socialist
Labor |
|
45,336 |
|
|
|
1940 |
48 |
Franklin
D. Roosevelt |
Democratic
|
449 |
27,307,819 |
78th
House |
218
D, 208 R, 4 I |
|
|
|
Wendell
L. Willkie |
Republican |
82 |
22,321,018 |
78th
Senate |
58
D, 37 R, 1 I |
|
|
|
Norman
Thomas |
Socialist |
|
80,518 |
77th
House |
268
D, 162 R, 5 I |
62.5% |
|
|
Roger
Q. Babson |
Prohibition |
|
57,812 |
77th
Senate |
66
D, 28 R, 1 I |
(1940) |
|
|
Earl
Browder |
Communist |
|
46,251 |
|
|
|
|
|
John
W. Aiken |
Socialist
Labor |
|
14,892 |
|
|
|
1936 |
48 |
Franklin
D. Roosevelt |
Democratic |
523 |
27,752,869 |
76th
House |
261
D, 164 R, 4 I |
|
|
|
Alfred
M. Landon |
Republican
|
8 |
16,674,665 |
76th
Senate |
69
D, 23 R, 2 I |
|
|
|
William
Lemke |
Union |
|
882,479 |
75th
House |
331
D, 89 R, 13 I |
61.0% |
|
|
Norman
Thomas |
Socialist |
|
187,720 |
75th
Senate |
76
D, 16 R, 4 I |
(1936) |
|
|
Earl
Browder |
Communist |
|
80,159 |
|
|
|
|
|
D.
Leigh Colven |
Prohibition |
|
37,847 |
|
|
|
|
|
John
W. Aiken |
Socialist
Labor |
|
12,777 |
|
|
|
1932 |
48 |
Franklin
D. Roosevelt |
Democratic |
472 |
22,809,638 |
74th
House |
319
D, 103 R, 10 I |
|
|
|
Herbert
C. Hoover |
Republican |
59 |
15,758,901 |
74th
Senate |
69
D, 25 R, 4 I |
|
|
|
Norman
Thomas |
Socialist |
|
881,951 |
73rd
House |
310
D, 117 R, 5 I |
56.9% |
|
|
William
Z. Foster |
Communist |
|
102,785 |
73rd
Senate |
60
D, 35 R, 2 I |
(1932) |
|
|
William
D. Upshaw |
Prohibition |
|
81,869 |
|
|
|
|
|
Verne
L. Reynolds |
Socialist
Labor |
|
33,276 |
|
|
|
|
|
William
H. Harvey |
Liberty |
|
53,425 |
|
|
|
Source: Series Y 79 – 83. Morton, Rogers C.B. Secretary of Commerce; Barabba,
Vincent P. Director of the Bureau of the Census. Historical Statistics of the
United States: Colonial Times to 1970. Bicentennial
Edition pg. 1073-1074; Presidential
Elections, 1789–2008 — Infoplease.com,
Pearson Education Inc. 2007, : Table 1.5 & 1.6 pgs. 18-22 Maisel, L.
Sandy; Buckley, Kara Z. Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral
Process. Fourth Edition. Lanham
Maryland. Roman
& Littlefield Publishers. 2005
Under FDR government accepted a bottom-line
responsibility for employment and by that formal change altered the electoral
equation for the parties. During the
1930s, most federal government expenditures were devoted to stimulating
employment and providing jobs directly.
“Provide work and economic security to the mass of the people” Roosevelt
advised, “in order that they may be free to live and develop their individual
lives and seek happiness and recognition”.
With the war, America employed its entire people and sealed the contract
that Roosevelt had offered. Roosevelt
won in a landslide, and later Truman would use those themes, that philosophy of
government and the issue of employment to turn back the postwar Republican
challenge. But with the war and the Depression behind America, people were
moving on with their lives (Greenberg ;04:
15-16). State Rights Party nominee Strom
Thurmond garnered 39 electoral votes but New Deal politics had one last burst
of electoral success in 1948 when Harry Truman saved the Democrats from defeat
by fanning resentment against a Republican Party still tainted by the Great
Depression and its opposition to the New Deal.
Standing before the Democratic Convention, Truman described the Democrats
as “the people’s party” and the Republicans as a party pursuing a “rich man’s”
agenda of low prices for farmers, cheap wages for labor, and high profits for
big corporations. Truman won against
predictions and polls and the Democrats reclaimed the Congress with big
majorities (Greenberg ’04: 34).
In 1950 North Korean troops caused a storm
when they crossed the thirty-eighth parallel, and in 1951 Truman fired Douglas
MacArthur, creating his own firestorm.
Senator Joe McCarthy waved his list of State Department Communists in
1950, but by 1954 McCarthyism fell suddenly into disrepute and the Senate
censured him. The United States decided
to contain communism and after some debate to build the hydrogen bomb. The presidential ticket of Eisenhower was
quintessentially internationalist.
Dwight Eisenhower, a commanding wartime figure, was vigorously courted
by both parties to become their presidential nominee and accepted the
Republican nomination. Eisenhower was
not elected for his partisanship he was elected to bring down the curtain on
the Korean War and usher in a new play, where Americans got on with their lives
and families were freed from the Depression and War. Republicans put on their buttons, “I like
Ike”. Eisenhower got some help from Adlai
Stevenson, the Democratic nominee for president in both national elections of
the fifties who said, “we Democrats, win or lose, can campaign not as a crusade
to exterminate the opposing party, but as a great opportunity to educate and
elevate a people whose destiny is leadership” (Greenberg ’04: 35). The
Montgomery, Alabama bus boycotts brought Martin Luther King to national
attention, and Governor Orval Faubus’s
resistance to court-ordered desegregation of the Arkansas schools forced
President Eisenhower to send the 101st Airborne to Little Rock. In Eisenhower’s first term the Republican
Congress expanded eligibility for Social Security and later, working with two
Texas Democratic leaders, Sam Rayburn and Lyndon Johnson, Congress added
disability insurance and regularly raised benefits. Leaving out the South, which was in its own
world, the two parties divided the country fairly evenly and the public decided
to trust its leaders. They were busy
raising their baby-boom children. They
watched the Brooklyn dodgers through four consecutive seasons, only to lose the
National League pennant twice in the last inning of the last game and the World
Series twice to the New York Yankees (Greenberg ’04: 37)
The retirement of the war time president
brought the first real national election of this new era. John F. Kennedy won enough Electoral College
votes, 303 to 219, to settle the election, by this popular margin was a scant
118,574 votes, must less than All Gore’s margin in 2000. There were recounts in Illinois and New
Jersey. Then the dust settled, 1960 had
brought a historic high turnout of 64.5% (Greenberg ’04: 37). Kennedy ran under the banner of change. The core principles of John Kennedy and
Lyndon Johnson were abundance and inclusiveness, to make sure all can “share in
the benefits of our abundance and natural resources”. All the world they
hoped would look to America, not just because of its military superiority. In his first term Kennedy managed the nuclear
crisis and achieved an agreement to end nuclear testing setting the stage for
détente. The most enduring principle was
the theme that America’s prosperity should be inclusive and not leave anyone
behind. In his final speech of the
campaign Kennedy asked the citizenry to vote for “someone who cares deeply
about the people he represents”. At his
inauguration he said, “For man holds in his hands the power to abolish all
forms of human poverty and all forms of human life” but his call was to man’s
better nature, “to struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny,
poverty, disease and war itself”.
Kennedy believed in the right of the black Americans to enjoy equal
rights with white Americans and in 1963, shortly before he was assassinated he
said the right to vote must not be denied to any citizen on the grounds of his
race or color, for this nation will not be fully free until all its citizens
are free. The Democrats won a landslide
majority in 1964 against conservative Republican nominee Barry Goldwater (Greenberg
’04: 47).
Johnson had by 1965 pushed through legislation
on civil rights, Medicare, aid to education and the Great Society. When battling to win passage of the Voting
Rights Act Johnson went on camera and said “We shall overcome” identifying his
Presidency with the struggle for civil rights.
For America, Johnson declared, the goal of opportunity must become a
commitment to racial equality, with almost no tolerance for falling short, “we
seek not just legal equity, but human equality” and most of his social programs
focused on the poor, particularly poor blacks.
Many people felt de-segregation went too far. The Republicans made major gains just two
years in the 1966 congressional elections.
Governor of Alabama George Wallace ran on the American Independent
ticket and won 46 Electoral College votes, more than 9 million votes. While Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey
nearly passed Nixon on Election Day, Humphrey took less than 43% of the
vote. The majority of Americans voted
for candidates who opposed the Great Society: 43% for Nixon and 14% for
Wallace. Wallace obviously ran strong in
the South, carrying five Deep South states and took his campaign to the working
class, carrying 13 percent of those without college degrees and 15 percent of
manual workers. Among white union
households, Nixon took 42 percent of the vote and Wallace won 15 percent. African Americans new the polarization was
about them and 90% voted Democratic (Greenberg ’04: 17 & 50).
Stage Six: Split Ticket Voting 1968-present
A sixth party system arose after the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 protected the voting
rights of blacks by outlawing literacy tests and other methods of keeping
blacks from voting. These events
accelerated a redefinition of voting allegiances among Southern voters. Black voters registered and turned out to
vote in numbers never before seen. White
voters began to look for conservative Republican alternatives. The Democratic
Party was further split by the war in Vietnam in general the upper class and
academics opposed the war while the working class supported it. By 1996 the Republican party was flourishing
in the South, after the 1996 election eight of the eleven Southern governors
were Republican, eight of the ten senators up for reelection from the South in
that year were also Republicans, and all were reelected, and of the 125
Southerners elected to the House in that election, 71 were Republicans. Republican strength in state legislatures
throughout the South reached new highs.
The sixth party system is different from the new Deal in the rise of
candidate centered and candidate run elections.
Since the mid-1960s members of congress began winning their reelection
races by larger margins from 1 to 2 percent before 1964, to 5 percent after
1964 and by the mid-1970s by 8 to 9 percent.
Today, incumbents maintain an electoral advantage as much as 96 to 98
percent over their challengers (Maisel & Buckley
’05: 53,54 & 55).
Over the last 50 years no party has succeeded in dominating at the polls
or commanding the realm of ideas. This
parity and lack of a dominant party has invited a series of bold efforts by the
Democrats and Republicans to become the leading party of the era, but each fell
short (Greenberg ’04: 16-17).
A primary characteristic of the modern
electoral era is split ticket voting and divided government, as opposed to
unified party control of the government, when one party dominates the Senate,
the House and the White House. Since the
1950s more and more voters split their tickets voting Democratic for Congress
and Republican for president, or vice versa.
Although only four elections from the turn of the century to the
election of Eisenhower resulted in the two major parties sharing control of
government institutions, divided government has dominated the second half of
the twentieth century, its normalcy ushering in a new paradigm for
understanding American government. From
1900-1952 only four elections resulted in split party control of the
government, but since 1952 sixteen elections have brought divided government to
power, and only nine have resulted in unified control. In the 50 years between 1952 and 2003, the
same party has controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress for only
eighteen years (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 426 &
429). One explanation for divided
government is that it is not a random pattern but a willful one in which
citizens choose not to have all branches of the government under the control of
just one party preferring a system where the parties check and balance each
other (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 57). The weakening of the party has led to the
rise of a divided system since 1964 with the majority party in Congress being a
different party than the President. The
Committee on Political Parties of the American Political Science Association
prescribed stronger parties in its influential report “Toward a More
Responsible Two Party System” that complained American parties were too weak to
form a link between the electorate and the elected. Parties did not stand firmly on issues and
candidates did not feel bound to implement party programs once in office. Essentially the norm espoused in the report
was a parliamentary system (Maisel & Buckley ’05:
423).
Electoral and Popular Vote Cast for President by Party 1972
– 2008
Year |
# States |
Presidential Candidate |
Political Party |
Electoral |
Popular Vote |
Congress |
Split |
Voting Age Population Turnout |
2008 |
50 |
Barack
Obama |
Democratic |
365 |
66,882,230 |
|
|
|
|
|
John
McCain |
Republican |
173 |
58,343,671 |
|
|
|
|
|
Ralph
Nader |
Independent |
|
739,000 |
111th
House |
258
D, 178 R |
56.8% |
|
|
Bob
Barr |
Libertarian |
|
515,000 |
111th
Senate |
58
D, 40 R, 2 I |
(2008) |
2004 |
50 |
George
W. Bush |
Republican |
286 |
62,028,285 |
110th
House |
234
D, 201 R |
37.1% |
|
|
John
F. Kerry |
Democratic |
251 |
59,028,109 |
110th
Senate |
49
D, 49 R, 2 I |
(2006) |
|
|
Ralph
Nader |
Independent |
|
156,000 |
109th
House |
202
D, 232 R, 1 I |
55.3% |
|
|
Michael
Badnarik |
Libertarian |
|
369,000 |
109th
Senate |
44
D, 55 R, 1 I |
(2004) |
2000 |
50 |
George
W. Bush |
Republican |
271 |
50,456,002 |
108th
House |
205
D, 229 R, 1 I |
37.0% |
|
|
Al
Gore |
Democratic |
266 |
50,999,897 |
108th
Senate |
48
D, 51 R, 1 I |
(2002) |
|
|
Ralph
Nader |
Green |
|
2,882,955 |
107th
House |
212
D, 221 R, 2 1 |
51.3% |
|
|
Pat
Buchanan |
Reform |
|
324,000 |
107th
Senate |
50
D, 50 R |
(2000) |
1996 |
50 |
William
J. Clinton |
Democratic |
379 |
47,402,357 |
106th
House |
211
D, 223 R, 1 S |
38.8% |
|
|
Robert
J. Dole |
Republican |
159 |
39,198,755 |
106th
Senate |
45
D, 55 R |
(1998) |
|
|
H.
Ross Perot |
Reform |
|
7,137,000 |
105th
House |
207
D, 221 R, 1 S |
49.1% |
|
|
Ralph
Nader |
Green |
|
527,000 |
105th
Senate |
45
D, 55 R |
(1996) |
1992 |
50 |
William
J. Clinton |
Democratic |
370 |
44,909,889 |
104th
House |
204
D, 230 R, 1 I |
38.8% |
|
|
George
H. Bush |
Republican |
168 |
39,104,545 |
104th
Senate |
47
D, 53 R |
(1994) |
|
|
H.
Ross Perot |
Independent |
|
19,742,267 |
103rd
House |
258
D, 176 R, 1 I |
55.1% |
|
|
Andre
Marrou |
Libertarian |
|
281,000 |
103rd
Senate |
57
D, 43 R |
(1992) |
1988 |
50 |
George
H. Bush |
Republican |
426 |
48,886,097 |
102nd
House |
267
D, 167 R, 1 I |
36.5% |
|
|
Michael
Dukakis |
Democratic |
111 |
41,809,074 |
102nd
Senate |
56
D, 44 R |
(1990) |
|
|
Ron
Paul |
Libertarian |
|
410,000 |
101st
House |
259
D, 174 R |
50.1% |
|
|
Lenora
B. Fulani |
New
Alliance |
|
129,000 |
101st
Senate |
55
D, 45 R |
(1988) |
1984 |
50 |
Ronald
Reagan |
Republican |
525 |
54,455,075 |
100th
House |
258
D, 157 R |
36.4% |
|
|
Walter
F. Mondale |
Democratic |
13 |
37,577,185 |
100th
Senate |
55
D, 45 R |
(1986) |
|
|
David
Bergland |
Libertarian
|
|
227,000 |
99th
House |
252
D, 182 R |
53.1% |
|
|
Lyndon
H. LaRouche |
Independent |
|
79,000 |
99th
Senate |
47
D, 53 R |
(1984) |
1980 |
50 |
Ronald
Reagan |
Republican |
489 |
43,899,248 |
98th
House |
267
D, 168 R |
39.8% |
|
|
Jimmy
Carter |
Democratic |
49 |
36,481,435 |
98th
Senate |
45
D, 55 R |
(1982) |
|
|
John
B. Anderson |
Independent |
|
5,719,437 |
97th
House |
243
D, 192 R |
52.6% |
|
|
Ed
Clark |
Libertarian |
|
920,000 |
97th
Senate |
46
D, 53 R, 1 I |
(1980) |
1976 |
50 |
Jimmy
Carter |
Democratic |
297 |
40,830,763 |
96th
House |
273
D, 159 R |
37.2% |
|
|
Gerald
R. Ford |
Republican |
240 |
39,147,973 |
96th
Senate |
58
D, 41 R, 1 I |
(1978) |
|
|
Eugene
J. McCarthy |
Independent |
|
756,631 |
95th
House |
292
D, 143 R |
53.6% |
|
|
Roger
McBride |
Libertarian |
|
172,000 |
95th
Senate |
61
D, 38 R, 1 I |
(1976) |
1972 |
50 |
Richard
M. Nixon |
Republican |
520 |
47,169,911 |
94th
House |
291
D, 144 R |
38.2% |
|
|
George
McGovern |
Democratic |
17 |
290,170,383 |
94th
Senate |
60
D, 37 R, 2 I |
(1974) |
|
|
John
G. Schmitz |
American |
|
1,099,482 |
93rd
House |
239
D, 192 R |
55.2% |
|
|
Benjamin
Spock |
People’s |
|
9,000 |
93rd
Senate |
56
D, 42 R, 2 I |
(1972) |
Source:
Series Y 79 – 83. Morton, Rogers C.B. Secretary of
Commerce; Barabba, Vincent P. Director of the Bureau
of the Census. Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to
1970. Bicentennial Edition pg. 1073-1074; Presidential Elections, 1789–2008 — Infoplease.com, Pearson Education Inc. 2007, Table 1.5 and 1.6 pgs. 18-21 Maisel, L.
Sandy; Buckley, Kara Z. Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral
Process. Fourth Edition. Lanham
Maryland. Roman
& Littlefield Publishers. 2005; 109-111th
Congresses by Damerow, Darold.
Senior Professor of Government and History. Congress. Cranford, New Jersey. Union
County College. August 2009, U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Clerk. Statistics of the Presidential and
Congressional Election 10 July 2009
With
a lot of help from the Democratic Congress, Nixon presided over perhaps the
greatest era of regulation since the early New Deal, clean air and water,
consumer and workplace safety, and women’s rights. Based on his frank comments to his inner
circle of advisers and supporters, Nixon was surely a racist and an
anti-Semite, but those hardly qualify him as a conservative. It was Ronald Reagan who led the conservative
revolution giving Republicans the vision to aspire to something grander this
era. Voters were worried Reagan would
lead to War; nonetheless Reagan won with 50.7% of the popular vote. In 1982 his popularity headed down with the
recession and along with it Republican congressional fortunes, as 26 seats
swung from Republican to Democratic in the House. Drawing upon conservative thinking Reagan’s
starting point was to honor the individual and the entrepreneur to advance the
nation and well-being of the citizens with tax cuts and faith that supply side
economics would “trickle down” while massively building up the
military-industrial complex. The
spectacular economic recovery of 1983 to 1985 gave reality to Reagan’s economic
vision, 12.3% economic growth, a decline in unemployment from 10% in 1983 to
below 7% in 1986. The platform of 1980
staked out cultural ground for the Republicans and Southern Baptist ministers
who had supported the Democrats over the Republicans by 41 to 29 percent in
1980 shifted loyalties four years later, choosing Republicans by 66 to 26
percent. Reagan took 59% of the vote and
won all but the District of Columbia and Mondale’s home state of Minnesota,
except for Roosevelt in 1936, the biggest Electoral College landslide ever, but
with the lowest turnout since 1924 (Greenberg ’04: 49-53, 55 & 60).
Elections in the 1990s repudiated
Reaganomics. To be sure, median income
rose between 1983 and 1988, but the decade brought unprecedented rises in
inequality followed by anger producing recession, the wealthiest incomes
increased 69% but the middle class stagnated up just 2.8% between 1980 and
1989. Bush pledged to continue the
Reagan revolution saying, “Read my lips, no new taxes”. As Chairman of the Democratic Leadership
Council in 1990 Clinton articulated, “our burden is to give people a new
choice, rooted in old values, a new choice that is simple, offers opportunity,
demands responsibility, gives citizens more say, provides them with responsive
government, all because we recognize that we are a community. Republican governance is misguided to glorify
the pursuit of greed and self-interest (Greenberg ’04:69). The crash of 1992 swept away Republican
standing with the working and middle classes.
In 1992, almost a fifth of voters wished to have no party of the established
political parties. Ross Perot’s third
party performance garnered 19% of the popular vote, many from disgruntled
Republicans, and Clinton won with only 49% of the popular vote. The Democrats made a serious effort to
dominate this era. While the Democrats
did not elect a majority president, Clinton won with 53% of the vote in 1996,
the least popular election since 1924.
Clinton sustained economic growth over the decade, higher incomes and
less poverty by making balancing the federal budget his priority. Support for Democrats rose amongst the
educated but decreased amongst the uneducated and there was a Republican
majority in Congress every term after his first 103rd Congress. The
Democrats were denied an outright majority 2000 by Nader’s challenge. Had there been no third-party candidates,
Clinton would have likely won with 52% of the vote in 1992 rising to 53.4% in
1996. Al Gore would have moved into the
White House with 50.1% of the vote and carried both New Hampshire and Florida
in 2000 (Greenberg ’04:62-69, 75).
The presidential election of 2000 is one of
the most unusual political battles in American history. The nation was beginning a new century with
the realization that it would also be getting a new president. Clinton’s legacy was unusual; the nation was
at peace, the budget was balanced and its economy was strong, yet many voters
were apprehensive about Clinton and happy that his tenure was coming to an
end. People believed that the policies
of the Clinton administration had been good for the nation and were thankful to
Clinton for them, but they did not like Clinton personally, as the result of a
series of sex scandals. Gore wanted to
embrace Clinton’s politics but not Clinton himself. With Clinton, who had led the Democratic
Party for eight years, resting, the opposition Republicans believed they had an
excellent chance to return to the White House they had last occupied when
George Bush was president. Their hope
rested with Bush’s son, George W. Bush, who was governor of Texas. The nation underwent an intense campaign that
did not produce a clear leader even as Election Day approached. Gore was ahead in some of the final polls,
Bush in others, but neither led by more than two percentage points and the
margin of error was four percent (Dover ’03: & 11). The general election campaign began in
mid-August with the conclusion of the national conventions. Each now had a running mate. The Federal Election Campaign Act granted the
nominees of the major parties $67.5 million each. Since Reform Party nominee Ross Perot had
garnered 7.8 percent of the vote in 1996, this party’s 2000 candidate Pat
Buchanan, received $12.4 million. Ralph
Nader received no federal funding but made it clear that his major goal in this
election was to attain 5 percent of the vote so his Green Party would qualify
for federal funding in 2004. Many voters
thought Nader drew votes from Gore’s camp while Buchanan’s appeal was limited
(Dover ’03: 10).
Presidential Vote by State, 2000 Election
State |
Popular Vote |
% Popular Vote Bush |
% Popular Vote Gore |
Electoral Vote Bush |
Electoral Vote Gore |
Alabama |
1,666,272 |
56.5 |
41.6 |
9 |
|
Alaska |
285,560 |
58.6 |
27.7 |
3 |
|
Arizona |
1,532,016 |
51.0 |
44.7 |
8 |
|
Arkansas |
921,781 |
51.3 |
45.9 |
6 |
|
California |
10,965,856 |
41.7 |
53.4 |
|
54 |
Colorado |
1,741,368 |
50.8 |
42.4 |
8 |
|
Connecticut |
1,459,525 |
38.4 |
55.9 |
|
8 |
Delaware |
327,622 |
41.9 |
55.0 |
|
3 |
District of Columbia |
201,894 |
9.0 |
85.2 |
|
2 |
Florida |
5,963,110 |
48.8 |
48.8 |
25 |
|
Georgia |
2,596,645 |
54.7 |
43.0 |
13 |
|
Hawaii |
367,951 |
37.5 |
55.8 |
|
4 |
Idaho |
501,621 |
67.2 |
27.6 |
4 |
|
Illinois |
4,742,123 |
42.6 |
54.6 |
|
22 |
Indiana |
2,199,302 |
56.6 |
41.0 |
12 |
|
Iowa |
1,315,563 |
48.2 |
48.5 |
|
7 |
Kansas |
1,072,218 |
58.0 |
37.2 |
6 |
|
Kentucky |
1,544,187 |
56.5 |
41.4 |
8 |
|
Louisiana |
1,765,656 |
52.6 |
44.9 |
9 |
|
Maine |
651,817 |
44.0 |
49.1 |
|
4 |
Maryland |
2,020,480 |
40.3 |
56.5 |
|
10 |
Massachusetts |
2,702,984 |
32.5 |
59.8 |
|
12 |
Michigan |
4,232,711 |
46.1 |
51.3 |
|
18 |
Minnesota |
2,438,685 |
45.5 |
47.9 |
|
10 |
Missouri |
2,359,892 |
50.4 |
47.1 |
11 |
|
Montana |
410,997 |
58.4 |
33.4 |
3 |
|
Nebraska |
697,019 |
62.2 |
33.3 |
5 |
|
Nevada |
608,970 |
49.5 |
46.0 |
4 |
|
New Hampshire |
569,081 |
48.1 |
46.8 |
4 |
|
New Jersey |
3,187,226 |
40.3 |
56.1 |
|
15 |
New Mexico |
598,605 |
47.8 |
47.9 |
|
5 |
New York |
6,821,999 |
35.2 |
60.2 |
|
33 |
North Carolina |
2,911,262 |
56.0 |
43.2 |
14 |
|
North Dakota |
288,256 |
60.7 |
33.1 |
3 |
|
Ohio |
4,701,998 |
50.0 |
46.4 |
21 |
|
Oklahoma |
1,234,229 |
60.3 |
38.4 |
8 |
|
Oregon |
1,533,968 |
46.5 |
47.0 |
|
7 |
Pennsylvania |
4,913,119 |
46.4 |
50.6 |
|
23 |
Rhode Island |
409,047 |
31.9 |
61.0 |
|
4 |
South Carolina |
1,382,717 |
56.8 |
40.9 |
8 |
|
South Dakota |
316,269 |
60.3 |
37.6 |
3 |
|
Tennessee |
2,076,181 |
51.1 |
47.3 |
11 |
|
Texas |
6,407,637 |
59.3 |
38.0 |
32 |
|
Utah |
770,754 |
66.8 |
26.3 |
5 |
|
Vermont |
294,308 |
40.7 |
50.6 |
|
3 |
Virginia |
2,739,447 |
52.5 |
44.4 |
13 |
|
Washington |
2,487,433 |
44.6 |
50.2 |
|
11 |
West Virginia |
648,124 |
51.9 |
45.6 |
5 |
|
Wisconsin |
2,598,607 |
47.6 |
47.8 |
|
11 |
Wyoming |
218,351 |
67.8 |
27.7 |
3 |
|
United States |
105,396,627 |
47.9 |
48.4 |
271 |
266 |
Source: Table G-1
Dover, Edwin. The Disputed Presidential Election of 2000.
Greenwood Press. West Port Connecticut. 2003 pg. 150; Scammon, Richard M.; McGillivrey, Alice V.; Cook, Rhodes. America Votes 24: A Handbook of Contemporary
American Election Statistics 2000. Washington D.C.
Congressional Quarterly Press. 2001
The campaign began January 3, 1999 and ended
December 18, 2000 when the Supreme Court ruled certain procedures to recount
ballots and unreliable machines violated the equal protection clause. The Electoral College vote was 271 for Bush
and 266 for Gore. A candidate must win a
majority of the nation’s 538 electoral votes, 270, to be President. The election was unusually close in both
popular and electoral votes. Gore won
the popular vote by a narrow margin of 48.4 to 47.9 percent, thus making this
the fourth closest presidential election in American history. Gore received 50,992,335 votes, while Bush
garnered 50,455,156. Nader finished in
third place with 2,882,738 (2.7 percent), while Buchanan trailed with 449,077
(0.4 percent). The electoral vote was
even close and unusual in that the second place finisher in the popular vote
ran strongest. Bush finished first with
271 votes (including 25 from Florida), while Gore came in second with 267. The last time the winner of the electoral
vote lost the popular vote was in 1888 (Dover ’03: 10 & 14). 57 percent of
voters with annual incomes below $15,000 supported Gore, while 59 percent of
those with incomes above $100,000 backed Bush.
In addition, 71 percent of voters who resided in cities with populations
above 500,000 voted for Gore, while 59 percent of those in rural areas
supported Bush. Religion also influenced
choices, 79 percent of Jewish people backed Gore, while 63 percent of
Protestants were for Bush. Gore won the
votes of 90 percent of blacks, while Bush garnered the votes of 54 percent of
whites. 58 percent of married men voted
for Bush, 63 percent of unmarried women voted for Gore, while married women and
unmarried men were evenly divided (Dover ’03: 2& 15).
Florida was one of the first states to
conclude its voting on Election Day because it closed most of its polling
places at 7 pm. Voter News Service moved
Florida from Gore to Bush and then as Gore reduced Bush’s lead to less than
2,000 votes there were reports of voting irregularities that would lead to a
mandatory recount of the entire statewide vote.
The network removed Florida from Bush’s victory column, thus reducing
the Texas governor’s electoral count to only 246, while Gore stood at 267. Neither candidate had enough votes to win but
either candidate would win with a victory in Florida (Dover ’03: 17-18). The Count whittled down Bush’s lead from the
initial count of 1,764 votes of a total of more than 6 million votes cast. After the certification of Republican
Secretary of State Kathleen Harris, Bush’s lead dropped to 300. Absentee ballots from military installations
located outside the nation brought Bush’s lead to 930 votes. The deadline for recounts was November 26,
only one of three counties submitted its recount, one had abandoned its recount
and simply submitted the vote count as of Election Day and the third county
still had a recount in progress. Harris
certified the results as official and proclaimed Bush the winner of Florida’s
twenty-five electoral votes, ahead by only 537 votes. The Gore team filed a lawsuit contesting
Harris’ count in the district court of Judge N. Sander Sauls
on December 2. The trial lasted for only
two days, with Sauls ruling against Gore on December
4. Gore appealed to the Florida Supreme
Court immediately. The Florida Supreme
Court added 383 votes to Gore’s total to reflect manually counted ballots from
the completed recounts in Miami-Date and Palm Beach Counties that Harris had
rejected. Bush’s lead was reduced to
only 154 votes. The Bush campaign appealed
this ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court in what soon became the case of Bush v. Gore (Dover ’03: 46). The first
case to reach the high court was Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board
that was overruled to accede to Bush’s request to stop the statewide recounts
on December 9. The final decision was
rendered on December 12, 2000. The 5 to
4 decision led to the immediate conclusion of the recounts and of the election
itself, giving Bush a victory by 537 votes in Florida and a national total of
271 electoral votes. The final electoral
vote was Bush, 271 and Gore, 266, with one abstention (Dover ’03: 20).
Presidential Vote by Florida Counties, 2000 Elections
County |
Popular Vote |
% Popular Vote Bush |
% Popular Vote Gore |
Alachua |
85,729 |
39.8 |
55.2 |
Baker |
8,154 |
68.8 |
29.3 |
Bay |
58,805 |
65.7 |
32.1 |
Bradford |
8,673 |
62.4 |
35.5 |
Brevard |
218,395 |
52.7 |
44.6 |
Broward |
575,143 |
30.9 |
67.4 |
Calhoun |
5,174 |
55.5 |
41.7 |
Charlotte |
66,896 |
53.0 |
44.3 |
Citrus |
57,204 |
52.0 |
44.6 |
Clay |
57,353 |
72.8 |
25.5 |
Collier |
92,163 |
65.6 |
32.5 |
Columbia |
18,508 |
59.2 |
38.1 |
Dade |
625,449 |
46.3 |
52.6 |
Desoto |
7,811 |
54.5 |
42.5 |
Dixie |
4,666 |
57.8 |
39.1 |
Duval |
264,636 |
57.5 |
40.8 |
Escambia |
116,648 |
62.6 |
35.1 |
Flagler |
27,111 |
46.5 |
51.3 |
Franklin |
4,644 |
52.8 |
44.1 |
Gadsden |
14,727 |
32.4 |
66.1 |
Gilchrist |
5,395 |
61.2 |
35.4 |
Glades |
3,365 |
54.7 |
42.9 |
Gulf |
6,144 |
57.8 |
39.0 |
Hamilton |
3,964 |
54.1 |
43.4 |
Hardee |
6,233 |
60.4 |
37.5 |
Hendry |
8,139 |
58.3 |
39.8 |
Hernando |
65,219 |
47.0 |
50.1 |
Highlands |
35,149 |
57.5 |
40.3 |
Hillsborough |
360,395 |
50.2 |
47.1 |
Holmes |
7,395 |
67.8 |
29.4 |
Indian River |
49,622 |
57.7 |
39.8 |
Jackson |
16,300 |
56.1 |
42.1 |
Jefferson |
5,643 |
43.9 |
53.9 |
Lafayette |
2,505 |
66.7 |
31.5 |
Lake |
88,611 |
56.4 |
41.3 |
Lee |
184,377 |
57.6 |
39.9 |
Leon |
103,124 |
37.9 |
59.6 |
Levy |
12,724 |
53.9 |
42.4 |
Liberty |
2,410 |
54.6 |
42.2 |
Madison |
6,162 |
49.3 |
48.9 |
Manatee |
110,221 |
52.6 |
44.6 |
Marion |
102,956 |
53.6 |
43.4 |
Martin |
62,013 |
54.8 |
42.9 |
Monroe |
33,887 |
47.4 |
48.6 |
Nassau |
23,780 |
69.0 |
29.2 |
Okalossa |
70,680 |
73.7 |
24.0 |
Okeechobee |
9,853 |
51.3 |
46.6 |
Orange |
280,125 |
48.0 |
50.1 |
Osceola |
55,658 |
47.1 |
50.6 |
Palm Beach |
433,186 |
35.3 |
62.3 |
Pasco |
142,731 |
48.0 |
48.7 |
Pinellas |
398,472 |
46.4 |
50.3 |
Polk |
168,607 |
53.6 |
44.6 |
Putnam |
26,222 |
51.3 |
46.2 |
St. Johns |
60,746 |
65.1 |
32.1 |
St. Lucia |
77,989 |
44.5 |
53.3 |
Santa Rosa |
50,319 |
72.1 |
25.4 |
Sarasota |
160,942 |
51.6 |
45.3 |
Seminole |
137,634 |
55.0 |
43.0 |
Sumter |
22,261 |
54.5 |
43.3 |
Suwannee |
12,457 |
64.3 |
32.7 |
Taylor |
6,808 |
59.6 |
38.9 |
Union |
3,826 |
61.0 |
36.8 |
Volusia |
183,653 |
44.8 |
53.0 |
Wakulla |
8,587 |
52.5 |
44.7 |
Walton |
18,318 |
66.5 |
30.8 |
Washington |
8,025 |
62.2 |
33.6 |
Federal Absentees |
2,490 |
63.3 |
33.6 |
State Total |
5,963,110 |
48.8 |
48.8 |
Source: Table G-2
Dover, Edwin. The Disputed Presidential Election of 2000.
Greenwood Press. West Port Connecticut. 2003 pg. 151; Scammon, Richard M.; McGillivrey, Alice V.; Cook, Rhodes. America Votes 24: A Handbook of Contemporary
American Election Statistics 2000. Washington D.C.
Congressional Quarterly Press. 2001
Voters were blinded by talk of ballots with
chads only partially removed. Chads
might be hanging on to the ballot by one, two, or even four corners. A “hanging” chad was attached to the ballot
by two or fewer corners, and a “pregnant” or “dimpled” chad was attached by all
four corners but had indications that it had been punched in some way with a
stylus (Dover ’03: 20). In Seminole
County the Republican county clerk allowed officials of his party to correct
mistakes on applications for absentee ballots and thereby helped Bush attain
several thousand votes that might have been lost otherwise. One voter might be required to cast a ballot
in her county on a punch car and then
face a 2.6 percent chance of casting an unreadable ballot while another person
in a different county would cast a vote through an optical scan approach and
face only a 0.2 percent chance of not being counted (Dover ’03: 72). The refusal to review approximately 9,000
additional Miami-Dade Ballots, which the counting machine registered as
non-vote and which have never been manually reviewed, stands out as being critical
for the election. On November 9, 2000
the Miami-Dade County Democratic Party made a timely request under section
102.166 for a manual recount. After
first deciding against a manual recount, they began and on November 26, 2000
the Court ordered them to stop and voted to use the election returns previously
compiled. Earlier that day, the panel
had decided to limit its recount to the 10,750 “under-votes” that is, ballots
on which no vote was registered by counting machines. At the time that the Board suspended the
recount, approximately 9,000 of the 10,750 had not yet been reviewed. In the two days that the Board had counted
the ballots, the Board identified 436 additional legal votes, from 20 percent
of the precincts; representing 15 percent of the votes cast, which the machine
failed to register, resulting in a net vote of 168 votes for Gore. Nonetheless, in addition to suspending
further recounting, the Board also determined that it would not include the
additional 436 votes that had already been tabulated in its partially completed
recount (Dover ’03: 133-134).
With a Republican majority in the House of
Representatives, Gore conceded defeat to Bush.
The decision was popular amongst Republicans but not with
Democrats. Justice Steven’s dissent
assured, “Time will one day heal the wounds to that confidence that will be
inflicted by today’s decision. One
thing, however, is certain. Although we
may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this
year’s President Election, the identity of the lost is perfectly clear. It is the Nation’s confidence in the judge as
an impartial guardian of the rule of law” (Dover ’03: 49). America lost to Jeb Bush, only the third
Republican governor in Florida since the end of Reconstruction in the 1870s
(Dover ’03: 71), the intervention by the Supreme Court that executed more Bush
prisoners than any other governors, and the ascension to the presidency of a
candidate who lost the popular vote. The
election of 2000 was unusually close, it had the fifth-closest popular vote and
third closest electoral vote margins in American history. Unless the nation has several more disputed
elections in the immediate future the Electoral College will probably remain in
existence (Dover ’03: 77). The Supreme
Court may not fare so well, the criticism of Bush v. Gore has been particularly strong from two groups of people
who have been among the Court’s most important supporters: Democrats and other
political liberals on the one hand and constitutional law scholars on the
other. These two groups believe that the
five member court majority voted as Republicans rather than as jurists in
deciding the issues (Dover ’03: 77).
Vice President Al Gore claims that the trial court erred in the
following three ways: (1) the trial court held that an election contest
proceeding was essentially an appellate proceeding whereas the County
Canvassing Board’s decision must be reviewed with an “abuse of discretion”
rather than “de novo” standard of review; (2) the court held that in a contest
proceeding in a statewide election a court must review all the ballots cast
throughout the state, not just the contested ballots; and (3) the court failed
to apply the legal standard for relief expressly set forth in section
102.168(3), that states, “Receipt of a
number of illegal votes or rejection of a number of legal votes sufficient to
change or place in doubt the result of the election” (Dover ’03: 128-129). A legal vote is one in which there is a
“clear indication of the intent of the voter” (Dover ’03: 132- 133).
After losing in 2004 the Democrats moved cautiously,
they took a majority in the House in 2006, but the economy began to suffer. The Democrats couldn’t assume they could
coast to victory over the Republican nominee simply because millions of
Americans were disgusted with the domestic policies of Bush and the disaster of
the Iraq War. That wasn’t enough to
ensure victory for Barack Obama. The
issues of race, his inexperience, and widespread doubts about his foreign
policy fitness were tormenting problems that had to be overcome. Obama however had a first rate organization,
record amounts of cash and a slew of grassroots organizations like Move On that
could mobilize millions of young voters.
He had black and Latino voting blocs locked up and Bush’s policies to
poke fun at. Obama had one more thing
that proved decisive, he had a burning desire to be the first black man to win
the White House (Hutchinson ’08: 90). Obama won by a landslide, 365 Electoral College
votes to 173 for McCain and a wide margin in the popular vote. Obama’s victory was however strangely troubled
by the Democratic majority in Congress and his poor choice in running
mates. In this modern age of split
ticket voting it is desirable for the presidential party affiliation to be
different than the majority party whereas a system of checks and balances is
needed between the Executive and Legislative branches in the absence of
multi-party parliamentary democracy. The
tyranny of the Democratic-Republican bipartisan system is evident in the
extraordinarily high budget deficits and the people have learned to stay away
in fear for their health. Everyone seems
to agree it would be nice for a Republican majority to sweep Nancy Pelosi from
power so the Congressional majority could freely oppose the tyranny of the
executive and vice versa. This split
ticket voting is the fundamental principle of the pre-multi-party modern era. It is good to know this method of electing a
President from a different party than the majority to keep the party machinery
functioning at its optimum.
Part Four: Evolution of the Federal Corrupt Practices Campaign Act
Circa 2010 a billion dollars of campaign
finance is raised for congressional elections and another billion in
presidential elections. The costs of all
elections have grown thirtyfold since 1952 while the number of votes cast has
only risen 25 percent. In 1974, the mean
expenditure for all candidates for the House of Representatives was over $53,000, in 1990 it was close to $325,000, in 2000 it reached
approximately $595,000. The gap between
incumbents and challengers widened as well.
The mean expenditure for incumbents rose from approximately $57,0000 to $422,000 to $774,000, for the same years, and for
challengers from $40,000 to $134,000 to $295,000. For open seats, the mean expenditure rose
from about $90,000 to $543,000 to $1.1 million.
In the Senate, the mean expenditure for all candidates went from
approximately $437,000, in 1974, to $2.6 million, in 1990, to $5.3 million in
2000. For incumbents the mean
expenditure was $4.3 million, for challengers a daunting $2.5 million, and open
seat races $16.5 million. John Corzine campaign in New Jersey cost $60
million. (Maisel &
Buckley ’05: 155 & 171). It is
estimated that $265 million was spent on state elections and $200 million on
local elections in 1980, by 1996 that amount had risen to $650 million on state
elections and $425 million on local elections.
Between 1982 and 1992 spending on elections grew by 66 percent in the
Kansas House, 225 percent in the Oregon House, and in the Maine Senate by 292 percent
(Maisel & Buckley ’05:174). Since 1976 public financing has been an
important part of presidential campaigns.
During the pre-nomination phase of the presidential election, after reaching
a qualifying plateau, candidates for the two parties’ nominations receive
matching funds for all contributions of $250 or less received from
individuals. The total cost to the
public of the running the 2000 presidential election exceeded $230 million (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 191 &192). The American Federation of State, County and
Municipal Employees is the number 1 independent
spender in the 2010 election. AFSCME is spending $87.5 million. The union's
money comes from dues paid by its 1.6 million members. More than 90 percent of
the chamber's campaign spending is going to help Republicans (Lawrence ’10). In 2010 the educated appear to be voting for
a Republican majority to split the ticket with the Democrat in the White House,
or vice versa, until a multi-party parliament would want to again align itself
with the Commander in Chief.
Federal Election Campaign Finance 2008 and 2010
|
|
Congressional Receipts 2010 |
Congressional Disbursements 2010 |
Congressional Receipts 2008 |
Congressional Disbursements 2008 |
Presidential Contributors 2008 |
Contributions $ Amount 2008 |
Size of Donations 2008 |
$ Amount by Size 2008 |
House |
All |
$978,875,156 |
$849,913,358 |
$988,561,070 |
$947,750,192 |
Individual |
$1,335,581,364 |
$200 and Under |
$428,170,699 |
|
Republican |
$518,231,097 |
$435,130,006 |
$542,161,508 |
$500,444,188 |
PAC |
$5,286,507 |
$200.01 - $499 |
$140,770,423 |
|
Democrat |
$457,955,332 |
$412,529,593 |
$442,329,292 |
$443,552,045 |
Party |
-$124,151 |
$500 - $999 |
$134,683,637 |
|
Other |
$2,688,727 |
$2,253,759 |
$4,070,270 |
$3,753,959 |
Candidate |
$56,788,136 |
$1000 - $1999 |
$206,611,622 |
Senate |
All |
$699,917,292 |
$626,361,219 |
$434,162,271 |
$442,608,494 |
Federal Funds |
$103,934,663 |
$2000 and Over |
$419,369,983 |
|
Republican |
$389,200,689 |
$325,772,586 |
$237,358,019 |
$229,904,183 |
Transfers-In |
$155,359,661 |
|
|
|
Democrat |
$296,349,026 |
$286,981,376 |
$196,118,086 |
$212,048,519 |
Disbursements |
$1,627,355,619 |
|
|
|
Other |
$14,367,577 |
$13,607,257 |
$686,166 |
$655,792 |
Cash On Hand |
$29,125,097 |
|
|
Source: Federal
Election Commission
The financing of federal elections was
governed by a series of outmoded and largely ignored laws, the 1907 Tillman
Act, which prohibited corporate contributions, the 1925 Corrupt Practices
Campaign Act, which set limits on expenditures in the House ($2,500 to $5,000)
and Senate ($10,000 to $25,000) but not on presidential campaigns, the 1939
Hatch Acts, which put limits on contributions and involvement of federal
employees, and the 1944 Smith-Connally and 1947 Taft-Hartley
Acts, which prohibited labor unions from contributing directly to campaigns (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 140). In 1907 Roosevelt signed the Tillman Act,
banning campaign contributions from corporations and banks to those running in
federal elections. The law was intended
to cut the ties between special interest and politics by curbing the influence
of corporate money on the outcome of federal elections, but was
ineffective. The first actual
restrictions on spending were imposed under the aptly named Federal Corrupt
Practices Campaign Act of 1925 that remained the principal means for regulating
campaign financing for almost fifty years.
The 1925 Act called for the disclosure of receipts and expenditures by
candidates for the House and Senate but was silent in regards to the
presidential campaign. The Hatch Act of
1940 was the first to limit the amount an individual could donate to a
candidate and prohibited political activities by certain federal employees. No one was prosecuted under the Federal
Corrupt Practices Campaign Act until the 1960s, with the rise of candidate
centered elections and costly media-dependent campaigns, when President Kennedy
appointed a bipartisan Commission on Campaign Costs to examine ways to reduce
campaign costs (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 157 & 158).
Candidates set up multiple committees to avoid
the campaign spending limits.
Corporations were notorious for giving election year bonuses, which were
then passed on by obedient executives to deserving candidates. Labor unions set up committees on political
education that were used to solicit voluntary contributions from union
members. The reality of campaign
financing indicated significantly increasing expenditures, corporate influence,
and union activity. The Federal Election
Campaign Act (FECA) of 1971 marked the first step in reforming these
practices. The major provisions of this
act put a limit on media expenditures, called for disclosing the source of
campaign contributions, identifying them by occupation and business as well as
by name and address and limiting the amount a candidate could spend on
themselves. The 1972 election was the
first to be regulated under the new FECA provisions. The 1974 amendments to the FECA, passed over
President Nixon’s veto, have led to tremendous change in the role played by
organized interest groups. The 1974
amendments limited individual contributions to $1,000 per campaign but
permitted the establishment of political action committees, which could
contribute up to $5,000 in each campaign.
In a 1975 case involving Sun Oil Company the Federal Election Commission
ruled that corporations could use general Treasury funds to establish political
action committees. Organized labor
unions formed PACs shortly after they were legalized, peaking at 394 in 1984 (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 140-141).
In Buckley
v. Valeo 424 U.S. 1 (1976) the Supreme Court
agreed with petitioners that that the limitation on expenditures was an
abridgement of the freedom of speech.
Limits on independent campaign expenditures restrained the interchange
of ideas needed to catalyze social change and were therefore
unconstitutional. The spending limits
were unconstitutional unless the presidential candidates accepted public
funding. In 1976 FEC was amended to
reconstitute the Federal Election Commission, put caps on contributions,
require the public disclosure of all donations above $200, partially finance
the presidential primaries and complete public financing for presidential
elections for candidates who voluntarily accepted campaign spending limits.
Non-connected PACs were first registered with FEC in 1978, today there are more
than fourteen hundred. PACs have no
members. Individuals are contributors;
they can fail to contribute again. But
talented fund-raisers will tell you that there is no dearth of small
contributors. A salient goal of campaign
reform has always been to increase the number of small contributors. In 1979 Congress amended the act to permit
state and local parties to solicit unlimited contributions for party building
activities. In addition, state and local
party committees were allowed to contribute volunteer time to individual
campaigns so that the traditional role of local party organizations in federal
elections was not lost. Soft money grew exponentially in the 1980s (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 143, 161 & 162).
The McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign
Finance Reform Act (BCFRA) of 2002 took seven years to pass. Under the old system, in place since the
post-Watergate reform era, two types of money have funded campaigns in the
United States. The first, hard money is
money raised by candidates and spent on their own campaigns. Regulated by the Federal election committee,
hard money contributions are capped and all candidates must disclose their
donor lists. The second type of money,
soft money, is money not regulated by the FEC.
It is collected by the parties from corporations, labor unions, and
wealthy individuals who write checks of $100,000 or more for party building
activities such as public education and vote mobilization. The leaders of the campaign finance reform
movement in the Senate focused their attack on soft money. Between 1994 and 2000 the amount of soft
money raised by the two major parties had risen fivefold from $102 million to
$495 million. The Court took particular
umbrage at the “attack ads”. The Supreme
Court ruling provided that as long as the magic words “elect, defeat, vote for,
or vote against” did not appear in the commercial, the ad was not within the
reach of FEC. 155 The BCFRA banned soft
money in national parties, set a $10,000 per year cap on soft money for state
parties. The hard money limit
contribution to a candidate was raised from $1,000 to $2,000, to a national
party from $20,000 to $25,000 and an individual aggregate limit is $95,000. The PAC limits were $5,000 a candidate,
$15,000 the party, and no limit on total PAC giving. Advertisements can only be paid for by hard
money from PACs (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 169).
Growth of Political Action Committees 1974-2002
Year |
Corporate |
Labor |
Trade/ Health |
Non connected |
Coop erative |
Corpor Ation
w/o stock |
Total |
Contri Bution
to Congress Millions of $ |
1974 |
89 |
201 |
318 |
|
|
|
608 |
12.5 |
1976 |
433 |
224 |
489 |
|
|
|
1,146 |
22.6 |
1978 |
785 |
217 |
453 |
162 |
12 |
24 |
1,653 |
34.1 |
1980 |
1,206 |
297 |
576 |
374 |
42 |
56 |
2,551 |
60.2 |
1982 |
1,469 |
380 |
649 |
723 |
47 |
103 |
3,371 |
87.6 |
1984 |
1,682 |
394 |
698 |
1,053 |
52 |
130 |
4,009 |
113.0 |
1986 |
1,744 |
384 |
745 |
1,077 |
56 |
151 |
4,157 |
139.8 |
1988 |
1,816 |
354 |
786 |
1,115 |
59 |
138 |
4,268 |
159.2 |
1990 |
1,795 |
346 |
774 |
1,062 |
59 |
136 |
4,172 |
159.1 |
1992 |
1,735 |
347 |
770 |
1,145 |
56 |
142 |
4,195 |
188.9 |
1994 |
1,660 |
333 |
792 |
980 |
53 |
136 |
3,954 |
189.6 |
1996 |
1,642 |
332 |
838 |
1,103 |
41 |
123 |
4,079 |
217.8 |
1998 |
1,567 |
321 |
821 |
935 |
39 |
115 |
3,798 |
219.9 |
2000 |
1,545 |
317 |
860 |
1,026 |
41 |
118 |
3,907 |
259.8 |
2002 |
1,528 |
320 |
975 |
1,055 |
39 |
110 |
4,027 |
282.0 |
Source: Table 4.2
pg. 130 Maisel & Buckley ‘05; Federal Election
Commission
A striking feature of American politics is the
extent to which political parties are supplemented by private associations
formed to influence public policy. These
organizations, commonly called pressure groups or interest groups, promote
their interests by attempting to influence government rather than by nominating
candidates and seeking responsibility for the management of government. Such groups, while they may call themselves
non-political, are engaged in the politics of policy. If these groups decide to
lobby Congress for legislation, they must register as a lobbying
organization. If they decide to support
candidates for office, they must form a separate political action
committee. This is not an easy decision
for a number of reasons, for instance, organizations that have been granted
tax-exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service may well lost that
status. Over 12,500 individuals were
listed in a recent directory of Washington lobbyists. Over sixteen hundred political action
committees contributed to candidates in the 1978 congressional elections, more
than 4,000 had registered with the Federal Election Commission by the end of
1988 (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 135 & 129). A preponderance of interest groups active
today exist in order to defend their members economic interest, ie. Unions and trade associations. The number of economic interest groups
increases in response to the intrusion of federal regulation in economic
affairs. Noneconomic groups, sometimes
called public interest groups, pursue goals that their members view as good for
the entire society. The individual most
closely associated with the formation of public interest groups is Ralph Nader. He first made his reputation by crusading
against General Motors for producing unsafe automobiles. He was instrumental in forming a cadre of
public interest groups concerned with consumer issues, government reform,
health care, and other issues (Buckley & Maisel
’05: 131). Most interest groups attempt to maintain some degree of
bipartisanship because they do not want to alienate public officials who favor
their policy preferences. Interest
groups have taken to rating every representative and senator with their basic
information and voting record. Interest
groups use these ratings to determine whom to help financially in upcoming
campaigns (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 134 &
139).
To get voter turnout to increase the patronage
system needs to be reinstated. While it
might be acceptable to spend money on a Republican majority in the 112th
Congress PACs should donate at least half of their funds to independent
candidates and parties and continue to donate more. This is so important that it should be required
by law. The Democratic and Republican
(DR) Parties also need to donate up to 25% to third parties. The bipartisan is a public health
hazard. No citizen can tolerate such monopolization
of the political process, or such an extortionate health care system and expect
to survive physically, let alone as a bill of law. The voters are staying away from the polls in
droves. It is unlikely anyone will forget
the double dose of poison they voted for in the 2008 General Elections and U.S.
citizens are going to continue not to participate in the political process to
avoid being exposed to corrupt campaign financing until elections are
sufficiently peaceful and interesting. To
tempt voters in 2010, third parties have sidled up to the ballot using a Fusion
Voting System that allows candidates to declare multiple party affiliations and
there is an explosion of viable Congressional and Senatorial third party candidates
but no soft spoken Governors. The
Democratic-Republican (DR) Party has overstayed its welcome, noone is more painfully aware of this than the apologetic
Democratic and Republican incumbents themselves. Campaign financing needs to
be redistributed from the major parties to the minor parties. In the 2010 parliamentary election only $2.7
million of campaign financing, 0.3% of $979 million went to minor party
candidates, Democrats took in $458 million and Republicans a whopping $518
million. Democrats and Republicans alike
need to be members and patrons of the third parties. A law needs to be passed to redistribute 10-25%
of Democratic and Republican revenues to third parties. Third party candidates need equal advertising
time with their major party competitors.
Candidates also need money to pay promising scholars, diplomats and poor
people. Challengers need to redirect attention
from the incumbent to the people who benefit from the social welfare campaign
of the third party candidate. In sum the
Federal Election Commission needs to take command of not more than 25% of the
assets of the Democratic and Republican (DR) Parties and redistribute them fairly
to third party candidates. Third party
political organizations should also enjoy a tax exempt status that the Democratic
and Republican parties do not under 26USCI(F)(VI)§527.
Part Five: Vote for Me: An Aspiring Young Multi-Party Democracy at 222
What is the role of “third parties” in our 222
year old Democratic-Republican (DR) Party System? In 2005 ninety-nine of the one hundred U.S.
senators are either republicans or Democrats, 434 of the 435 representatives in
the House of Representatives are affiliated with one of the two major parties,
all fifty of the state governors and more than 7,350 of the approximately 7,400
state legislators elected in partisan elections ran under major party labels (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 267). Surprisingly more than twenty different
parties ran at least one candidate for federal office in the 2002 general
election. Third party candidates have the potential to force the major party
candidates to take a stand on issues that are most important to their
followers. But they also have the
potential to divide the vote in such a way that the candidate they least favor
wins. To date, they have rarely had the
opportunity to win an election (Maisel & Buckley
’05: 270). In 2010, many States,
disillusioned with the Democratic-Republican (DR) Party have enacted laws such
as Oregon Fusion Voting to allow candidates multi-party recognition to foster
multi-party democracy. Without the base
of political party support a non-major party candidate has a difficult task
demonstrating viability. To be viable,
the candidate must remain visible throughout the campaign. The candidate must not fall too far behind in
the polls. Television must keep the
candidates name before the public, on a footing as nearly equal to those of the
major-party candidates. The financial
burden is a heavy one. Perot’s 1992
campaign stands as the most successful challenge to major-party dominance of
presidential politics since former president Theodore Roosevelt ran on the Bull
Moose Party ticket in 1912. Perot gained access to the ballot in every state (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 379). It is hoped a large number of minor party
candidates will win the 2010 midterm election and incumbents will defect from the
major parties in droves. A third party
majority is needed for an independent candidate to win the Presidency in a
parliamentary Democracy. Citizens are
deathly sick of the Democratic-Republican (DR) Party, wherefore Congress must
tolerate minor parties or the people just won’t vote.
Third Parties on the 2002 Congressional Election Ballot
Alaskan Independence |
Independence |
One Earth |
America First |
Independent |
Politicians are Crooks |
American Constitution |
Independent American |
Pro Life Conservative |
American Independent |
Independent Citizens Movement |
Progressive |
Concerned Citizens |
Liberal |
Reform |
Concerns of People |
Libertarian |
Republican Moderate |
Conservative |
Liberty Union |
Restore Justice Freedom |
Constitution |
Lower Tax Independent |
Right to Life |
Free Energy |
Make Marijuana Legal |
Socialist |
Grassroots |
Marijuana Reform |
Socialist Workers |
Green |
Nebraska |
United Citizens |
Honesty, Humanity, Duty |
New Jersey Conservative |
U.S. Taxpayers |
Homeland Protection |
Natural Law |
Vermont Grassroots |
Human Rights |
No New Taxes |
Working Families |
Independence |
Non-Partisan |
Wisconsin Greens |
Source: Table 7.1
pg. 266 Maisel an Buckley
‘05
Before 2006 Bernie Sanders (S-Vt) was the only independent in the House of
Representatives 1990-2006 when he was elected to the Senate where he was joined
by Joe Lieberman won as an Independent although he was not nominated by the
Democratic Party, in the 111th Congress there are none. Congressman Sanders, the former mayor of
Burlington, has had a long and colorful career in Vermont politics. At one point he was the only avowed socialist
mayor of any American city, his loyal band of followers was locally known as
the Sandersistas, after the Nicaraguan socialist
revolutionaries. When he ran for
Congress, he drew support mostly from liberal Democrats, in the House he has
caucused with Democratic members, who don’t run against him and treat him as
one of their own in awarding committee assignments. In fact, the Democrats have not run a
candidate against Sanders, who has been reelected with relative ease since
first winning his seat in 1990 (Maisel & Buckley
’05: 267). The 1980 campaign of John
Anderson provide examples of third party efforts. In 1980, the Federal Election Commission
(FEC) had to rule on whether John Anderson’s “party” in the 1980 presidential
election constituted a party. The FEC
ruled that it did, thus making Anderson eligible for federal campaign financing
in 1984. Anderson had done well among a
certain segment of Republicans in the primaries, but he could never capture the
heart of the Republican Party because he was viewed as too liberal on social
issues. The FEC ruled similarly on Ross
Perot’s “party” in the 1992 presidential election, even though the party under
whose label he ran in 1996, the Reform party, did not exist in 1992 (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 15). August King, who served two terms as the
Independent governor of Maine (1995-2003) entered politics as a Democrat,
serving on the staff of Wiliam Hathaway, who
represented Maine in the House from 1965 until 1973 and in the Senate from 1973
until 1979. Leaving politics and
government service, King followed two careers simultaneously, as a very
successful owner of a small business and as the host of a statewide television
program examining Maine politics on the state’s public television network. In 1994 he decided to run for governor. Jesse “The Body” Ventura surprised everyone
by winning Minnesota’s gubernatorial election as the Reform Party candidate in
1998 (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 267-268)
H. Ross Perot was the ultimate outsider,
stressing the change theme as no one had before. Perot wanted to get under the hood and fix
things. He wanted a whole different
approach to government, his practical down home approach that had been so
successful in business. There was
nothing about Ross Perot, as a man, as a candidate, as a catalyst for new ideas
that did not say “change”. He clearly
struck a responsive chord with the American people. Before he dropped out of the campaign on the
eve of the Democratic convention in 1996, his high poll showings suggested the
extent to which his appeal was being heard.
When he withdrew, those who had listened to his message turned toward
Bill Clinton (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 363). Perot wanted to get the nation out of
debt. Perot planned to balance the
budget although Bush had increased spending without reneging on his “no new
taxes” pledge and the deficit was at record highs. Money didn’t trickle down, the rich were
getting richer and it would take the poor 12 generation instead of 1.6
generations in 1947-73 to double their standard of living. Close the loopholes and tax the rich. Before we can hope to eliminate our deficit,
we have to overhaul the political system that created it. It’s not just a matter of bringing in new people. It’s not just a matter of replacing a
Republican President with a Democrat, or a Democratic Congress with a
Republican one. The British aristocracy
we drove out in our Revolution has been replaced with our own version,
political nobility that is immune to the people’s will. Being an elected, appointed or career public
servant is a noble calling. Only the
people, the owners of this democracy, can make America strong again. The Founders believed in the people. Only the people can remake our country (Perot
’92).
A century ago citizens did not know much about
candidates for office. But they did know
about political parties. And candidates
were candidates of political parties.
Today, campaigns are candidate centered.
Sixty years ago, newspapers dominated the mass media that affected
American politics. Citizens learned the
new of the day through their daily papers, in major cities, often more than one
newspaper competed for the public’s attention.
Newspapers lost their primacy with the emergence of television. By the late 1950s television sets had
saturated the American landscape. Over
90 percent of American homes had televisions, many had more than one. Twenty years ago, three major networks, ABC,
CBS, and NBC, dominated television broadcasting. According to Nielsen Media Research ratings,
nearly three out of every five homes watched one of the major networks during
prime viewing hours in 1979. In 1998 the
three major networks captured only about one quarter of the market. Even if the newer networks such as Fox are
added in, the number does not reach a third.
It’s not that the total amount of television viewing has decreased but
rather that citizens are turning to cable or satellite outlets (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 391). The media context for politics as we enter
the twenty-first century is an extremely complex one. Politicians try to structure the way in which
they appear on free media outlets, they continue to use paid media in ways to
present their message as they define it in a way most likely to impact the
intended audience. In the early days of
the republic, free media referred to pamphlets and early newspapers, the
so-called penny press, that printed news for all to read (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 393). Howard Dean’s
unsuccessful bid for the Democratic presidential nomination was the first to
demonstrate the power of fundraising on the Internet. Dean was able to raise most of his funds
through contributions to his web page at little cost to his campaign (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 467). Television watching has declined dramatically
with the draconian enforcement of HDTV in 2009, fewer
people are watching regular broadcasts as most have switched to myriad of cable
companies.
The role that the media should play in our
political system is to permit those who choose our elected officials to do so
in an informed way. The press plays an
important role in narrowing multicandidate fields. This role, also known as field winnower, has
long been recognized in presidential primaries and is just as apparent in
statewide and other highly visible primaries.
When the media stops mentioning a candidate, when the image associated
with a candidate is an unflattering one, when a candidate does not meet
expectations, or when the agenda discussed in the media excludes issues raised
by a candidate or his or her role in a campaign, a signal goes out that that
candidacy has lost viability. The media has assume the role of critic, judging
the performance of those seeking office, and documenter of elections for the
public (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 395, 401 &
403). Polling and media advertising are
however expensive. Therefore candidates
must raise money in advance in order to start effective campaigning. It also dissuades the competition. One important technique for raising money is
direct mail, to raise money from small donors.
Before a candidate arrives at a political event, someone has to be sure
that the event will run efficiently. The
key role is the press secretary. In any
campaign the campaign manager and the candidate will determine what effective
role political party organization will play.
However, even in those areas in which political party organization is
not strong, someone in a campaign must have the responsibility of coordinating
campaign efforts with those of the party leadership (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 250-252). Virtually
every politician in Washington has a press secretary whose job is to guarantee
that the politician is seen frequently in the media, particularly in the media
that serves the elected official’s constituents. Every campaign has a press secretary who is
charged with the care and feeding of journalists covering the campaign. Candidates treat the press well so that
journalists are inclined to treat them favorably. Mass media, free and paid, are the only
effective means of communicating large numbers of citizens. Candidates, if they want to win, have an
obligation to work with professional media consultants who can produce
effective ads. There is nothing evil in any of this (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 416).
Call on the local precinct. Say, “I would like to be active in party
affairs” and see what happens. Precinct
work involves knocking on doors, stuffing envelopes, attending gatherings and
conventions and even giving talks to groups.
Real power may attend acceptance of a precinct post, for in case a
candidate falls ill or dies the county precinct people may legally meet and
nominate or select a replacement, without having to ask the electorate at
all. State party platforms do not emerge
out of thin air, they are likely to be written and or revised by delegates from
county committees. Avoid extremes of
partisanship during your lifetime of party activity. There is no excuse for one’s friends having
to be members of your party as the price of friendship. Nor is it essential for children to join the
parties of parents, for the decision is a personal demonstration of
citizenship, not of family loyalty. The
channels of communication have to open between relatives and friends alike,
disregarding party ties. Party
membership gives the right to vote one’s choice among party candidates in the
primaries. It is an opportunity through
work in precincts, cities, counties, and States to change the way life is lived
in one’s locality (Bornet ’04: 12-13). Tip O’Neill
(D-Mass., 1953-1987, Speaker of the House 1977-1987) has been quoted as saying,
“In the final analysis, all politics is local”.
Politicians still believe Tip, decades after his retirement, years after
his death. Many started out as local
politicians, and they know the effectiveness of one-on-one campaigns. Their goal, accordingly, is to make national
or statewide politics local. They do so
by defining smaller groups into which voters fall and by then seeking to appeal
to these groups. Many techniques are
available for these appeals, mass media directed at certain audiences, targeted
mailings, the Internet, speeches to certain groups. But in the end, the political strategy is the
same, make an appeal, in any way possible, to the largest number of people so
that it will seem personal to each voter (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 120).
The role that political parties have
traditionally played has been to structure the contest for office so that
elections can perform their role most effectively. It is important to distinguish among the
party in the electorate, party organization and party in government. There is a sociological distinction between
cadre parties and mass membership parties.
A cadre party’s primary goal is to obtain electoral success and who are
subordinated to leaders in government and are inactive between elections. Mass membership societies are ideological and
educational organizations. Their goal is
to convince the working class and change the system radically (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 11 & 13). The rise of parties
affects elections by eliminating the idea of electors making free choices from
among a variety of presidential candidates.
Parties started by using congressional caucuses, meetings where all
congressional members of the party would convene, to designate their nominees. The
party platforms are statements of the direction in which the two parties want
our country to go. The significance of party
platforms in frequently disputed. The
Democrats use the platform writing process as a means to reach out to
grassroots activists around the country.
The Republican platform committee, on the other hand, normally only
meets in the convention city on the weekend before the convention itself. Platforms serve different purposes for
different individuals. For activists and
ideologues they are often a means to gain a foothold into party dogma. For interest groups, they represent one way
to gain support for particular views. For candidates, the platform process has
served as a way to weed out those in the party who do not support them (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 323 & 324). A politician needs to know what voters to
appeal to, what is the partisan distribution of voters within the district, what
is the normal voting strength for candidates of the party, conversely what the
strengths of the opposition, what kind of techniques will work to appeal to the
voters whose support is needed? Based on
analysis of the district candidates decide if they think they can win the
election. The first job is to identify
likely supporters. The second is to
ascertain what other voters are possible converts. Having identified these two groups the
candidate must set a strategy reaching out to both of these groups in a way to
solidify their support and increase the chance they will turn out to vote. The most important resource that any
candidate has is personal time. Some
voters will vote for a candidate because of party affiliation. But political party is not a resource that is
equally available to all candidates. Is
the organization efficient? (Maisel & Buckley
’05: 237 & 239).
The incumbent has a distinct advantage. In only six elections since World War II have
fewer than 90 percent of those seeking reelection been reelected. Over 90 percent of House incumbents seeking
to return are successful in election after election. The average reelection rate for incumbents
seeking reelection in the last three elections was over 97 percent. Senators too are rarely defeated (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 471).
State legislators seeking reelection also win
virtually all of the time (Maisel & Buckley ’05:
258). Incumbent presidents do not have
to prove that they are capable of handling the office or that they have the
requisite background and experience, they have held the job for four years. What is better experience for being president
than having been president? Incumbent
presidents have a political organization in place (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 369). Nearly 90
percent of respondents report having had some contact with their congressional
leaders, almost a quarter had personally met their representatives, and almost
three quarters had received mail from their representative in Washington. Challengers are not known at all, voters do
not choose between two candidates on equal footing but between one who is well
known and positively viewed and another who has to fight to be viewed at all (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 80 & 89). Incumbents are winning because challengers are
poor campaigners. When challengers run
good campaigns, incumbents can lost. But
good challengers appear too infrequently for too many important offices. The lack of good challengers and good
campaigns insulate incumbents in congressional races, the same factors insulate
those incumbents seeking reelection to less visible and less attractive offices
as well (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 260).
The most prevalent rules call for candidates
to run in their party’s primary if they meet certain fairly simple
criteria. First, the prospective
candidate must be a registered member of the political party whose nomination
he or she seeks. Second, candidates must
meet some sort of test to gain access to the ballot. Often this test involves gathering a certain
number of signatures on a petition. The
number of signatures necessary and who is eligible to sign are important
factors. In Tennessee, only 25
signatures are required for most offices.
In Maine a percentage of those voting in the last election are needed,
only registered party members may sign petitions, and they must sign a petition
that contains only the names of party members from their home town (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 208). Despite the lip service given to the basic
principle of majority rule, majority rule is an exception in American
politics. Most elections in America, and certainly most primaries are determined by
plurality rule. That is, the person with
the most votes, not necessarily 50 percent plus at least one, in the primary
wins the nomination (Maisel & Buckley ’05:
217). Politicians generally like to
avoid hotly contested primaries.
However, under certain circumstances, such as when a candidate is not
well known and/or a candidates organization has not tested, a little primary can
be a good thing (Maisel & Buckley ’05: 230).
Credential disputes are the most easily understood. In party rules and in the call to the
convention, each party establishes the procedures through which delegates are
to be chose. In most cases no one challenges
the delegates presenting themselves as representing a certain state. Each party appoints a Credentials Committee
that hears challenges to proposed delegations and rules on the disputes. The report of the Credentials Committee is
the first order of official business before the nominating convention. Credentials, and rules disputes which can
determine who wins and who loses, are seen as critical matters. The whips
inform the delegates and the delegates fall into line (Maisel
& Buckley ’05: 321 &324).
Short of enfranchising felons and children the
most likely way for the federal government to improve their voting age population
turnout is to overthrow the Democratic-Republican (DR) aristocracy that has been
making everyone sick since 1800 and create a multi-party democracy whose peaceful
social welfare campaigns foster party loyalty and universal prosperity amongst all
citizens. The election of racial
minority Barack Obama in 2008 sent home the message that minority parties are
the way of the future. Fifty-eight
percent of Americans believe a third major political party is needed because
the Republican and Democratic Parties do a poor job of representing the American
people. It is
however nearly impossible for an unknown third party candidate to unseat an
incumbent in the modern age of paid television ads, even major party
challengers fail to defeat an incumbent 97% of the time for the past three
elections. Dissatisfaction with Congress
is however so high most pollsters predict the Republicans shall take back the House
and Senate and there are an unusually high number of viable third party
candidates for both the House and Senate.
Usually the votes of Americans who have not totally forsaken politics are
usually stolen from third party candidates because third party candidates don’t
generally win and the voters want to vote for a winning candidate. While a vote for a Republican congressman
might be marginally better than a vote for a Democratic congressman in the 2010
interim election, a vote for either the Democratic or Republican (DR) party is
not a vote for change, it is even more wasted than not voting at all. A least non-voters do
not legitimize the tyranny. The United
States, has not garnered a 66% quorum for democracy since 1900, and really
needs to improve their political party system.
The most logical thing to do is to dissolve the monolithic Democratic-Republican
Party into a multi-party Democracy. To achieve
this common interest public and private laws need to be made to redistribute
campaign financing from major to minor parties.
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