The Solution to the Problems of Democracy is Less Democracy
Fresh off of new polling that Rep. Mark Kirk is leading Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in the race for President Obama’s former Senate seat comes even more devastating news for Illinois Democrats:
Gov. Pat Quinn (D-IL) has now declared that the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, businessman Scott Lee Cohen, should consider withdrawing from the race in the wake of publicity surrounding a 2005 arrest for domestic violence…
The big problem Quinn has here is that while Cohen is technically his “running mate,” in the sense that they will be listed together on the general election ballot in the same way that we vote for president and vice president, Quinn did not pick him. Candidates for governor and lieutenant governor in Illinois are nominated in separate primaries, but then run together as a ticket.
I have to say, the system that Illinois uses to select lieutenant governors is completely insane. It’s one thing to expect people to actually pay attention to a down-ballot race for an office that has little-to-no real power, but if you’re going to insist that the people select the candidates individually in the primary, you should probably let them make the same choice during the general election. These sort of mandated shotgun political weddings are a disaster in governance waiting to happen.
On a broader note, I think this story only emphasizes an element of American democracy that Matt Yglesias is rightly fond of harping on—namely the fact that our electoral system forces voters to select way too many candidates. The fact that Scott Cohen was able to slip through the scrutiny of the media and the voters to earn a spot on the ballot line of a major party to potentially become the Lt. Governor of the nation’s fifth most populace state is absolutely astounding.
It’s not like Illinois voters are particularly inept either. This sort of miscarriage of democracy happens all the time. My favorite example from Minnesotan politics is the 1994 Attorney General’s race when Sharon Anderson, a very crazy self-proclaimed witch and pagan worshipper, managed to win the Republican primary. Republicans ended up having to endorse the Democratic nominee; I’m a pretty partisan Democrat, but I’ll concede that the process was hurt by a lack of real electoral competition for the office.
Voters don’t want to make these types of terrible choices but when they’re forced to choose candidates for upwards of sixteen different offices, they prioritize some races and vote solely on the basis of Scandinavian last names in others. This is a bad way to run a democracy and until we fix it we’re going to keep seeing more Scott Cohens and Sharon Andersons.