The Economist

Since the presidential election brings out the most voters, now is a good time to consider citizen preferences on statewide referenda and initiatives.  The initiative catching my attention this election cycle proposes rank choice voting in open primaries. This initiative, if it makes it to the ballot and passes, may radically change our two-party political process. Since Colorado is a leading state with citizen initiatives and is also a bellwether state defining future national trends like marijuana legalization, the prospects for national political change would also be impacted. Rank choice voting would better ensure centrists are elected to state and national office.  This in turn will disrupt the strong tendencies for our State Legislature and Congress to vote along party lines rather than legislating pragmatically and collaboratively with more open minds. While considering more extreme arguments shows respect, governing from the middle is generally a good place to be.

From an economic perspective a two-party system appears the natural outcome in our democracy. Political dynamics operate a lot like free markets.  Competitors offer brands and product features while making promises which may or may not come to fruition.  Like most markets, over time there is a tendency for competition to be absorbed or eliminated while the surviving competitors try to best position themselves for growth and survival all the while creating barriers to market entry for new start-up competitors. The dominance of the Republican and Democratic parties looks very similar to duopoly behavior in markets where equilibrium occurs between the two parties as they protect their positions.

Duopoly is one step from monopoly.  Monopolies translated into politics takes us to cronyism and self-dealing at best and authoritarianism at worst. In fact, at this level economic and political power become very intertwined.  Some argue this has already happened and the two parties ferociously compete to control legislatures while cooperating to minimize additional competition from small parties and independents. Regardless of which party controls the legislative majority, the two parties practice brinksmanship and attempt to create narratives highlighting the corruption of their sole competitor in attempt to gain market share/votes. The parties only come to terms with creating barriers to entry by other candidates and in crisis situations. This results in a highly reactive form of representative government.

To make matters worse, rules around caucuses and primaries can favor single issue constituents within the party, especially when voting districts are increasingly gerrymandered not only to give voting strength to one of the major parties, but also to retain power by sub-groups within the party.    I once attempted to get involved in a caucus process only to realize that only a very narrow belief system would be tolerated by those who had packed the caucus meeting.

Under the proposed Initiative 310, candidates of both parties, along with candidates who are unbranded as Democrat or Republican, run against each other in a single primary election. Getting on the ballot is not overly cumbersome or costly, although there may be an advantage to wealthier candidates with more advertising in primaries. The top four vote-getters from the primary advance to a ranked choice general election where voters mark their preferred candidates in order of 1 through 4. If no candidate in the general election gets the majority of the votes, then the candidate with the least votes is eliminated and that candidate’s votes are reallocated based upon the voters’ second choice. The process continues until a candidate gets the majority of votes. By definition candidates must appeal more broadly to middle moderates.

This approach to achieving political moderation with greater representation of all groups in the process was articulated by one of the world’s top competitive strategists, Michael Porter, and Katherine Gehl, a family business owner and founder of the Institute of Political Innovation. Their 2020 article in The Harvard Business Review points out that the fundamental problem is systemic where the “political-industrial complex” wins, and the public interest loses. Like industrial markets, the system, often inadvertently, creates incentives and behaviors that shape industries’ competitive landscapes.  Porter and Gehl do a great job outlining the wide reach of the political-industrial complex. They also note that thanks to gerrymandering, only the primary elections matter in 80% of congressional districts nationally which fosters extremism.

These innovations are emerging across the nation, primarily at the municipal level where non-partisan election ballots have existed for over a century. Thus far only Maine and Alaska have widely adopted the new election process, while approximately a third of state legislatures have considered it and five banned it. Colorado’s Legislature could have put a similar referendum on the ballot, but instead they have chosen to require 125,000 valid signatures and then many Democrat and Republican legislators have fought the process along the way including an 11^th hour amendment to a voter bill that passed.  The bill requires years of slow implementation and study should Initiative 310 pass in November.  This gives the duopoly plenty of time to kill the reform.

I hope Coloradans will be persistent and have the opportunity to help usher in a more sober era of political pragmatism.

s