Red, White, and Green?

Who controls our government? Whom does Congress represent? “The people!” we reflexively exclaim, for of course, our government is of, by, and for the people. But which people? Increasingly since the 1970s, a new answer has emerged: anyone but the centrists. Today, moderates can barely find any true representation in Congress. As the polarizing ideological gulf has widened, Congress has lost sight of its traditional virtues of regular order, deliberation, and compromise, shunning them in favor of adherence to party-line discipline and ideological extremism. According to polarization scholar Keith Poole, paralyzing partisan gridlock has gripped our highest legislative body to a degree not seen since the turn of the nineteenth century. And why?

Many point to money. Corporate lobbyists, interest groups, and electioneering, the common wisdom goes, inject massive amounts of cash into the American political system, leading to misrepresentation and polarization. Some also predict that the 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which reversed a ban on corporate-funded campaign aids, will amplify this effect in the 2012 elections. There is some truth to this explanation: money does contribute to Congressional polarization, but not as much as we tend to think.

Campaign costs have skyrocketed over the past few decades, as media saturation has increased the difficulty of getting the average voter’s attention, creating the new, sophisticated “permanent campaign.” Indeed, our “24-hour media conflictinator” (vocabulary courtesy of Jon Stewart) artificially extends the election season into a protracted campaign battle. As a result, total federal election spending rose from $3.1 billion in 2000 to $5.3 billion in 2008, even after average campaign costs for a House election had tripled between 1972 and 2000  (statistics courtesy of The Economist and MIT). The high price of spreading one’s campaign message has greatly raised the barriers of entry into the political world for the young idealist, who must either have significant personal wealth (à la Meg Whitman or Mitt Romney) or will almost certainly need to rely on wealthy activists or party donors for monetary support. And for that, the young idealist will need to adjust his or her ideology to better fit the polarized party line.

Additionally, ideological extremists are exploiting their superior fundraising ability to attain party leadership positions. As Heberling, Hetherington, and Larson argue in “The Price of Leadership”, extremists are far better fundraisers than moderates due to their ability to mobilize a passionate activist base. Our representatives “increasingly…appear willing to elect extremist leaders over centrist ones if doing so puts better fundraisers at the helm.” Therefore, ideological leaders like John Kyl and Eric Cantor have an advantage over moderates like Olympia Snowe and Jim Webb. And ideologically extreme leaders concoct equally ideologically extreme strategies, from Gingrich’s 1995-6 government shutdown to July’s debt ceiling debacle. “There’s no centering force in politics,” contends former Representative and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA). “The money has moved to the extremes. Everything has moved to the extremes.”

Expensive elections, wealthy activist donors, and growing polarization mixed with a few billion dollars in lobbying and uncapped corporate political contributions thanks to Citizens United v. FEC (2010): it all seems to add up. Money, therefore, translates to power and polarization. Right?

Well…

Money matters, perhaps more so today than ever before. But U.S. political polarization is driven by far more than the cash that fuels campaigns; it is a complex phenomenon that draws from many sources, including our own electoral institutions (specifically, the closed primary system, which funnels activist-driven ideologues into general elections), party realignment (the massive Southern shift from blue to red during the 1960s), internal party factors (the Republican revival among neoconservative intellectuals and the political mobilization of Evangelical Christians in the 1960s and 70s), new tactics (the party-bloc voting that emerged with Gingrich’s 1994 Republican Revolution), and the rise of “inflammatory media” (e.g. Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity) in talk radio and cable television. If anything, money’s polarizing effects are amplified by these other factors. Either way, most scholars agree that polarization is rooted in historical and institutional foundations. Understanding and accounting for these causes is the first step in shifting Congress back toward the middle.

Is it possible, however, to depolarize our government? Is Congressional polarization something that can be fixed by legislation, or is it unavoidable? After all, extremists and ideologues are simply more politically active than the rest of us because they are willing to fight harder than the average moderate. Get Out the Vote can only do so much.

But something must be done. There is no quick fix to solving our partisan problems, but a mixture of legislative and judicial reforms can help to get us back on the right track.

The first step is campaign finance reform. Although money is not the ultimate arbiter of political success, it is a powerful tool when in the hands of skilled partisan redistributors and party infrastructure. Creating public campaign assistance funds and encouraging local media providers to reduce the cost of candidate advertising would free candidates from the need to pander to extreme ideological minorities for funds, allowing them to pursue more centrist policies. Also, the courts should reconsider the precedent laid down in Citizens United v. FEC, which, combined with a lack of disclosure laws, gives some credence to the populist cries of the Wall Street “Occupiers.”

The aforementioned reforms, however, will have little effect if not combined with primary election and Congressional rules reform. As David Brady, Hahrie Han, and Jeremy Pope explain in “Primary Elections and Candidate Ideology: Out of Step with the Primary Electorate,” closed primaries are critical political checkpoints where extreme, uncompromising party activists exert a disproportionate influence on the political process, funneling candidates into the general election through an ideological screen. In competitive, centrist districts, instituting blanket primaries that allow independents to vote in either party’s primary elections can significantly balance the effect of extremists in Congress.

Although some polarization may be a natural product of our homegrown democracy, today’s uncompromising politicians are not the leaders that our Framers had envisioned when they launched their Grand Experiment. Compromise and thoughtful consideration were considered to be integral parts of a successful republic, and remain so today. We are far overdue for a Centrist Revolution to revitalize the vision of our Founding Fathers. Yet while it may be convenient to blame corporate greed and rich executive donors for our polarized legislature, concerned citizens interested in real solutions must recognize the complex nature of the problem at hand. The moderates helped elect our most recent President; now they must drive reforms to create a competent Congress.