想结束党派政治吗？ 以下是行不通的方法和行之有效的方法
https://www.aei.org/articles/want-to-end-partisan-politics-heres-what-wont-work-and-what-will/
作者：诺曼·J·奥恩斯坦 托马斯·E·曼 (Thomas E. Mann) 华盛顿邮报 2012 年 5 月 17 日
政治功能失调。 党派之争达到创纪录水平。 攻击政治猖獗。 公众对国会的认可度也下降了个位数（参议员约翰·麦凯恩喜欢说这取决于血亲和受薪员工）。
我们都听过这样的哀叹——其中一些是我们自己发出的——华盛顿已经崩溃，我们的政治制度无法解决国家的重大长期问题。 那么对此可以做什么呢？ 不幸的是，被抛弃的治疗方法常常被误导，有时甚至比疾病本身更糟糕。 以下是我们应该避免的五种广受好评的解决方案，接下来是四种有机会产生有意义的变化的解决方案。
1 第三方救援
啊，如果我们有第三种力量，一个独立的运动，可以向公众说出简单的真相，并点燃沉默的中间派多数人围绕常识性解决方案。
听起来有点熟？ 近几十年来，罗斯·佩罗、约翰·安德森和乔治·华莱士都在认真地走第三方路线，尽管只有华莱士赢得了选举人票。 但这并没有阻止《纽约时报》的汤姆·弗里德曼和《华盛顿邮报》的马特·米勒等知名专栏作家，以及共和党克里斯蒂娜·托德·惠特曼、民主党人大卫·博伦等前民选官员唱这首海妖之歌。 。 大肆宣传的美国选举团——旨在利用互联网的民主精神为 2012 年竞选寻找中间派第三方总统候选人——就是这种方法的一个典型例子。
问题之一是：尽管美国人厌恶我们的政治，但我们中大约 90% 的人认同——或者至少倾向于——两大政党之一。 在自称独立的美国人中，三分之二的人倾向于某一政党，并且在投票中的表现就像游击队一样。 因此，第三方的核心受众可能是选民的 10%。 所谓的独立人士是典型的公投选民。 当形势不好时，他们想把流浪汉赶出去，而不是仔细地归咎责任或分析替代方案。
第三方的幻想是一位勇敢的政治领导人能够说服美国人支持开明的碳税政策； 改革权利； 对教育、能源和基础设施进行重要投资； 消除税收漏洞以筹集所需的收入。 但根本没有证据表明选民会涌向一位直言不讳、独立、中间派的第三方候选人，他拥护大多数第三方爱好者所青睐的想法。 围绕这些问题达成共识并不容易，价值观和利益的差异也不会在无党派、中间派的阴霾中简单消失。
问问美国选举人就知道，尽管花费了 3500 万美元，但仍无法团结在一个候选人周围。
2 任期限制将拯救我们
这是治愈美国民主的典型溴化物。 这个例子似乎是不言而喻的：坐在安全席位上的职业政客与选民失去了联系，变得对华盛顿建制派负有责任，并不再为公共利益行事。 我们被告知，任期限制将让公民立法者取代他们，他们不太关心连任，而更关心代表同胞行事，从而使国会恢复其作为协商民主堡垒的预期角色。
有效吗？ 自 1990 年以来，已有 21 个州实施了某种形式的任期限制（其中 6 个州最终推翻了限制），这些经验给了学者们时间和机会来评估这些限制。 但任期限制并没有将野心引向正确的、公共利益的方向，反而会产生相反的效果：新立法者立即开始计划如何达到下一个级别，或者在任期受限时寻找利润丰厚的游说工作。 他们没有动力做长期的事情，也没有考虑维持自己的机构。 随着高级立法者专业知识的丧失，权力转移到长期工作人员和游说者手中。
“选民应该寻找与常规秩序有利害关系、了解妥协必要性、愿意在重要政策领域积累专业知识以及愿意倾听选民意见的候选人。”
如果有的话，选民应该关注那些与常规秩序有利害关系、了解妥协必要性、愿意在重要政策领域积累专业知识以及愿意倾听选民意见的候选人——所有这些特征在政客中更有可能出现 拥有更长远的视野。
3 平衡预算修正案可以修复经济
另一个顽固的观点是，要求平衡预算的宪法修正案将结束华盛顿的贪婪习惯，并迫使政客们
做出艰难的财政决策。 毕竟49个州的宪法都有这样的修正案，为什么华盛顿没有呢？
事实上，各州的平衡预算是避免联邦一级预算的最佳理由。 当经济衰退发生时，基本经济理论告诉我们，我们需要“反周期”政策，为疲惫的经济注入肾上腺素——这意味着更多的政府支出和/或更低的税收。 各州则相反：经济衰退意味着收入减少，失业居民的需求增加，因此他们削减支出并提高税收以保持预算平衡。 在最近的大衰退中，各州的财政拖累高达 8000 亿美元，奥巴马政府的刺激计划几乎无法抵消这一影响。 联邦平衡预算修正案只会加剧经济衰退——这在经济上相当于给贫血病人放血。
众议院共和党最新提出的平衡预算修正案将把支出限制在国内生产总值(GDP)的19.9%，并且任何增税都取决于国会两院的三分之二多数票。 由于联邦收入目前仅占 GDP 的 15% 以上，支出占 GDP 的 24%，因此在这种情况下平衡预算将基本上消除除社会保障和医疗保险等大型福利计划之外的所有政府，或者需要削减预算 这些计划严重。
保持财政灵活性对于美国政治体系至关重要，尤其是在我们的命运越来越不受我们控制的全球化经济中。 20 世纪 90 年代的经验表明，白宫和国会可以共同采取必要措施，根据现有规则平衡预算。
4 公共资助选举将抑制特殊利益
当然，在后公民联合世界中，政治运动的融资是一场噩梦——秘密大笔资金的狂野西部和特殊利益集团兜售影响力的新镀金时代。
但为竞选活动提供全面的公共资助并不是答案。 我们理解这一上诉，但如果没有不太可能的宪法修正案或重组的最高法院对政治竞选活动中的私人资金进行限制，公共资金根本无法为候选人提供足够的资源来克服超级政治行动委员会针对他们的昂贵的“独立”竞选活动。 即便如此，美国步枪协会、美国退休人员协会、商会和美国劳工联合会-产业工会联合会等组织的影响力并不仅仅取决于他们在竞选活动上花费的资金。 他们还动员强大的一心一意的成员和追随者向立法者施加压力； 他们聘请前议员或国会工作人员来获得权力并提高关键问题上的政策专业知识。 竞选捐款只占他们为影响政府而投入的资源中相对较小的一部分。
无论竞选资金是否是关键，限制私人资金在政治中的流动已被证明是极其困难的，而罗伯茨最高法院和不负责任的联邦选举委员会的行动使这几乎成为不可能。
5 保持冷静——事情最终会恢复正常
最后，有些分析人士认为我们的时代并不特别特殊，在经济压力下，先进的民主国家正在努力解决功能障碍问题，随着生活平静下来，我们的政治也会平静下来。 他们还指出，第 111 届国会（最后一届）非常富有成效，通过了医疗改革、金融监管和经济刺激计划。
耶鲁大学政治学家戴维·R·梅休 (David R. Mayhew) 是这一观点的杰出拥护者，也是《我们治理的分歧》和《党派平衡》等书的作者。 他认为，我们这个时代的大多数政治失衡“并不是重大的、永久性的系统性问题”。 “更准确地说，至少在最近几代人中，许多所谓的问题已被证明是不存在的、短期的、有限的、可以容忍的或可以纠正的。”
毫无疑问，尖刻和僵局是我们政治制度的固有特征，我们确实经历过几个充满压力和两极分化的时代，包括内战前夕和20世纪之交的时期。
然而，将现在发生的事情与内战前几年进行比较并不完全令人欣慰。 对奥巴马总统任期的审视表明，我们所经历的政治既不是一如往常，也不是一个奇怪的现象。 我们正在目睹前所未有的、不平衡的两党两极分化，共和党人像议会少数党一样反对民主党提出的几乎所有建议； 国会的正常秩序几近消失； 滥用阻挠议事作为阻挠而非异议的武器； 以及无情地剥夺总统的合法性和颁布法律的政策。
鉴于参议员理查德·G·卢格（Richard G. Lugar）（印第安纳州共和党人）等问题解决者的失败以及
对于理查德·莫多克（Richard Mourdock）这样的无囚犯党派来说，没有理由认为这个体系会很快自我纠正。
那么，如果这些解决方案不起作用，什么可以呢？ 有一个更明智、更有希望的改革议程，更侧重于修复政党制度并解决政治党派之争的根源和武器。
1 现实的竞选财务改革
那么，如果这些解决方案不起作用，什么可以呢？ 有一个更明智、更有希望的改革议程，更侧重于修复政党制度并解决政治党派之争的根源和武器。
如果没有一个不同的最高法院，政治中金钱的严重问题将会持续下去。 但除了选举的公共资助之外，还有富有成效的改革可能性。 也就是说，恢复法院在公民联合案中确认的两项法律条款的有效性：披露信息以及将独立支出团体（例如超级政治行动委员会）与其支持的候选人和竞选活动分开。
通过直接披露立法，要求及时识别独立竞选广告的所有重要捐助者（例如，5,000 美元或更多）将是一大进步。 结合国税局的实际努力，简单地对非营利 501(c)4 实体执行自己的法规，以防止虚假组织利用法律隐藏政治捐助者，我们将走上真正披露的道路。
国会还可以通过一项措施，大幅收紧反协调条款，要求无限捐款完全独立于候选人及其竞选活动。 即使没有这样的立法，司法部也可以在无耻行为最明显的情况下起诉那些违反协调禁令的人。 （福斯特·弗里斯为支持里克·桑托勒姆总统竞选的“独立”努力提供资金，在他的竞选飞机上坐在桑托勒姆旁边，并在竞选集会上站在他身后，这表明这种做法已经变得多么滑稽。）正义不需要 等待联邦选举委员会采取行动——这将等待很长时间。
2 将选票转换为席位
随着国会选区界线的党派重新划分扭曲了美国政治，我们支持重新划分选区的进程——就像几个州所做的那样——利用独立委员会在尊重社区边界和真正政治竞争力的基础上划定界线。 它不是万灵药（这些解决方案都不是），但这样的努力可以遏制并可能减少我们不断升级的党派之争。
另一种有助于让选票更准确地反映选民真实感受的选择是即时决选投票，选民可以对他们的候选人偏好进行排名。 这样的制度产生了多数获胜者，消除了搅局者的作用，并减少了小党候选人的“浪费选票”计算，使他们能够更充分地参与选举过程。 以这种方式建立更多合法多数可以扩大主要政党的选举范围，从而减少两极分化。
3 恢复参议院多数统治
恢复阻挠议事的传统作用，即允许少数派暂时阻止在具有重大国家意义的问题上采取行动，并不再将其用作阻碍的常规武器，这应该是当务之急。 参议院规则应该只允许对任何法案进行一项阻挠（现在可以有两项或更多）。 目前，多数派有责任提供 60 票来打破阻挠议事； 相反，少数党应该通过辩论来发言并举行会议，并提供维持阻挠议事所需的 41 票。
参议院的规则应保证对相关委员会报告的行政和司法提名进行赞成或反对投票，并规定保留提名的时间限制。
为了让真正的多数派最终获胜，找到一种方法让少数派对大多数法案提出相当数量的相关修正案，这是一个合理的权衡。
4 扩大选民范围
考虑一下澳大利亚强制参加投票的制度，不出席投票将被处以 15 美元左右的罚款。 自 1925 年改革以来，这种适度的处罚激励了 90% 以上的人参与。 澳大利亚政客可以指望他们的支持者会投票，因此他们把重点放在有说服力的中间选民身上。 他们不是围绕边缘问题进行竞选活动，而是谈论经济、就业、教育——并且他们寻求吸引全体公民中的大多数。
在美国，这种近乎全民投票可能会消除政党减少对手支持者投票率和动员极端意识形态的动机。 提高总体投票率将有助于使平衡回到大多数美国人实际所处的位置：更接近中间派。
扩大选民范围的其他有希望的途径包括自动化登记
流程（这样选民可以在线注册，并在从一个州搬到另一个州时随身携带文件），并向所有选民开放初选，就像加州所做的那样。 随着时间的推移，公开初选可能会产生更加温和的民选官员。
最后，如果我们不能以罚款威胁说服更多美国人投票，那么承诺数不清的财富又如何呢？ 数百万人排队等待三月份的超级百万彩票，有时甚至浪费整个晚上。 另一种彩票怎么样，你的选票存根就是一张彩票，奖品是从那些没有投票的人身上收取的罚款？ 中大奖的几率约为 1.76 亿分之一——我们愿意相信，修复美国政治的机会比这要好一些。
托马斯·E·曼 (Thomas E. Mann) 是布鲁金斯学会的高级研究员。 诺曼·J·奥恩斯坦 (Norman J. Ornstein) 是美国企业研究所的常驻学者。 本文改编自他们的书《它比看起来更糟糕：美国宪法制度如何与极端主义新政治发生冲突》。
Want to End Partisan Politics? Here's What Won’t Work — and What Will
https://www.aei.org/articles/want-to-end-partisan-politics-heres-what-wont-work-and-what-will/
By Norman J. Ornstein | Thomas E. Mann The Washington Post May 17, 2012
We’ve all heard the laments — we’ve made some of them ourselves — that Washington is broken, that our political system can’t grapple with the nation’s big, long-term problems. So what can be done about it? Unfortunately, the cures that get tossed around are often misguided, sometimes even worse than the disease. Here are five much-praised solutions we should avoid, followed by four that have a chance to make a meaningful difference.
1 A third party to the rescue
Ah, if only we had a third force, an independent movement that could speak plain truths to the public and ignite the silent, centrist majority around common-sense solutions.
Sound familiar? In recent decades, Ross Perot, John Anderson and George Wallace have pursued a serious third-party route, although only Wallace managed to win any electoral votes. But that hasn’t stopped high-profile columnists such as Tom Friedman of the New York Times and Matt Miller of The Washington Post from singing this siren song, along with former elected officials such as Republican Christine Todd Whitman, Democrat David Boren and many others. The much-hyped Americans Elect group — which was to harness the democratic spirit of the Internet to find a centrist third-party presidential candidate for the 2012 race — is a prime example of this approach.
One problem: Despite Americans’ disgust with our politics, about 90 percent of us identify with — or at least lean toward — one of the two major parties. Among Americans who call themselves independent, two-thirds lean to one of the parties, and behave at the polls just like the partisans. So the core audience for a third party is perhaps 10 percent of the electorate. So-called independents are classic referendum voters; when times are bad, they want to throw the bums out rather than carefully attribute responsibility or parse alternatives.
The third-party fantasy is of a courageous political leader who could persuade Americans to support enlightened policies to tax carbon; reform entitlements; make critical investments in education, energy and infrastructure; and eliminate tax loopholes to raise needed revenue. But there is simply no evidence that voters would flock to a straight-talking, independent, centrist third-party candidate espousing the ideas favored by most third-party enthusiasts. Consensus is not easily built around such issues, and differences in values and interests would not simply disappear in a nonpartisan, centrist haze.
Just ask Americans Elect, was unable to coalesce around a single candidate, despite spending $35 million.
2 Term limits will save us
This is the quintessential bromide for curing American democracy. The case seems self-evident: Career politicians in safe seats lose touch with their constituents, become beholden to the Washington establishment and stop acting in the public interest. Term limits, we’re told, would replace them with citizen-lawmakers who cared less about reelection and more about acting on behalf of their fellow citizens — thus restoring Congress to its intended role as the citadel of deliberative democracy.
Does it work? Term limits of some sort have been implemented in 21 states since 1990 (in six of them, the limits were ultimately overturned), and the experience has given scholars time and opportunity to evaluate them. But instead of channeling ambition in the right, public-interest direction, term limits have the opposite effect: New lawmakers immediately begin planning for ways to reach the next level, or to find lucrative lobbying jobs when they are term-limited out. They have no incentive to do things for the long-term and no regard for maintaining their own institutions. With the loss of expertise among senior lawmakers, power devolves to permanent staff members and to lobbyists.
“Voters should look to candidates with a stake in the regular order, an understanding of the need to compromise, a willingness to build expertise in important policy areas, and an incentive to listen to constituents.”
If anything, voters should look to candidates with a stake in the regular order, an understanding of the need to compromise, a willingness to build expertise in important policy areas, and an incentive to listen to constituents — all features that are more likely among politicians with longer horizons.
3 A balanced-budget amendment can fix the economy
Another hardy perennial is the notion that a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget would end Washington’s rapacious habits and force politicians to make tough fiscal decisions. After all, 49 states have such an amendment in their constitutions, so why not Washington?
In fact, the states’ balanced budgets are the best reason to avoid one at the federal level. When a downturn occurs, basic economic theory tells us that we need “counter-cyclical” policies to inject adrenaline into a fatigued economy — meaning more government spending and/or lower taxes. States do the opposite: A downturn means less revenue and more demands from unemployed residents, so they cut spending and raise taxes to preserve their balanced budgets. The fiscal drag from states in the recent Great Recession amounted to $800 billion, which the Obama administration’s stimulus plan barely offset. A federal balanced-budget amendment would only have aggravated the downturn — the economic equivalent of bleeding an anemic patient.
The latest House Republican proposals for a balanced-budget amendment would limit spending to 19.9 percent of gross domestic product and make any tax increases contingent on a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers of Congress. Because federal revenue is now at barely more than 15 percent of GDP and spending is at 24 percent, balancing the budget under these conditions would essentially eliminate all of the government other than the big entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare — or would require cutting those programs severely.
Maintaining fiscal flexibility is critical in the American political system, particularly in a globalized economy where less and less of our destiny is under our control. And the experience of the 1990s demonstrates that the White House and Congress together can take the steps needed to balance the budget under existing rules.
4 Public financing of elections will restrain special interests
Certainly, post-Citizens United world, the financing of political campaigns is a nightmare — a Wild West of secret big money and a new Gilded Age of influence peddling by special interests.
But full public financing of campaigns is not the answer. We understand the appeal, but short of an unlikely constitutional amendment or a reconstituted Supreme Court placing limits on private money in political campaigns, public funding simply cannot provide candidates enough resources to overcome hugely expensive “independent” campaigns against them by super PACs. Even then, the influence of organizations such as the National Rifle Association, AARP, the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO is not defined simply by the money they spend on campaigns. They also mobilize powerful collections of single-minded members and followers to pressure lawmakers; and they hire former lawmakers or congressional staff members to gain access to power and boost policy expertise on key issues. Campaign donations are a relatively small part of the resources they invest in influencing government.
Whether or not campaign money is the key, restricting the flow of private money in politics has proven devilishly difficult, and the actions of the Roberts Supreme Court and the feckless Federal Election Commission have made it virtually impossible.
5 Stay calm — things will get back to normal eventually
Finally, there are some analysts who do not think that our times are particularly exceptional, that under economic stress, advanced democracies grapple with dysfunction, and that as life calms down, so will our politics. They also point out that the 111th Congress (the last one) was extremely productive, passing health-care reform, financial regulation and an economic stimulus package.
David R. Mayhew, a political scientist at Yale and the author of books such as “Divided We Govern” and “Partisan Balance,” is a prominent adherent of this view. Most of the political imbalances of our era “have not been major, permanent systemic problems,” he argues. “More precisely, at least during recent generations, many alleged problems have proven to be nonexistent, short term, limited, tolerable, or correctable.”
No doubt, acrimony and gridlock are built-in features of our political system, and it is true that we have had several eras of intense stress and polarization, including the period right before the Civil War and around the turn of the 20th century.
Yet, it is not exactly comforting to compare what’s going on now to the years leading up to the Civil War. And an examination of the Obama presidency suggests that we are experiencing neither politics as usual nor an odd blip. We are witnessing unprecedented and unbalanced polarization of the parties, with Republicans acting like a parliamentary minority party opposing almost everything put forward by the Democrats; the near-disappearance of the regular order in Congress; the misuse of the filibuster as a weapon not of dissent but of obstruction; and the relentless delegitimization of the president and policies enacted into law.
Given the defeat of problem-solvers such as Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and the emergence of take-no-prisoners partisans such as Richard Mourdock, there is no reason to think the system will correct itself anytime soon.
So, if these solutions won’t work, what will? There is a more sensible and promising reform agenda, one more focused on fixing the party system and addressing the roots and the weapons of political partisanship.
1 Realistic campaign finance reform
So, if these solutions won’t work, what will? There is a more sensible and promising reform agenda, one more focused on fixing the party system and addressing the roots and the weapons of political partisanship.
Without a different Supreme Court, serious problems with money in politics will endure. But there are fruitful reform possibilities outside the public financing of elections; namely, restoring the effectiveness of two provisions of the law the court affirmed in Citizens United: disclosure and the separation of independent spending groups (such as super PACs) from the candidates and campaigns they support.
Passage of straightforward disclosure legislation requiring the timely identification of all significant donors to independent campaign ads (say, of $5,000 or more) would be a big step. Combine that with real efforts by the Internal Revenue Service to simply enforce its own regulations on nonprofit 501(c)4 entities to keep sham organizations from exploiting the law to hide political donors, and we would be on a path to real disclosure.
Congress could also pass a measure to sharply tighten the anti-coordination provisions that require unlimited donations to be totally independent of candidates and their campaigns. Even absent such legislation, the Justice Department could prosecute those who violate the coordination bans in cases where the brazen behavior has been most evident. (The fact that Foster Friess, who bankrolled the “independent” effort to back Rick Santorum’s presidential candidacy, sat next to Santorum on his campaign plane and stood behind him at campaign rallies shows how farcical the practice has become.) Justice does not need to wait for the Federal Election Commission to act — it would be waiting a long time.
2 Converting votes into seats
With the partisan redrawing of congressional district lines skewing American politics, we support a redistricting process that — like several states have done — uses independent commissions to draw the lines based on respect for communities’ boundaries and for real political competitiveness. It is no cure-all (none of these solutions is), but such an effort could contain and possibly reduce our escalating partisanship.
Another option that would help make votes more accurately reflect the electorate’s real feelings is instant runoff voting, where voters can rank their candidate preferences. Such a system produces majority winners, eliminates the spoiler role and reduces the “wasted vote” calculation for minor-party candidates, allowing them to participate more fully in the election process. Building more legitimate majorities in this fashion could extend the electoral reach of the major parties and thereby reduce their polarization.
3 Restoring majority rule in the Senate
Restoring the filibuster to its traditional role of allowing an intense minority to temporarily hold up action on issues of great national import — and away from its new use as a regular weapon for obstruction — should be a top priority. Senate rules should allow only one filibuster on any bill (now there can be two or more). Currently, the burden is on the majority to provide the 60 votes to break a filibuster; instead, the minority party should have to take the floor and hold it via debate, and provide the 41 votes needed to maintain the filibuster.
Senate rules should guarantee an up-or-down vote on executive and judicial nominations reported out of the relevant committees, with a time limit for holds on the nominations.
In return for allowing true majorities to ultimately prevail, finding a way to allow a minority to offer a respectable number of relevant amendments on most bills is a reasonable trade-off.
4 Expanding the electorate
Consider the Australian system of mandatory attendance at the polls, where not showing up results in a fine of $15 or so. This modest penalty has spurred participation of more than 90 percent since the 1925 reform. Australian politicians can count on their bases turning out, so they focus on persuadable voters in the middle. Instead of campaigning on marginal wedge issues, they talk about the economy, jobs, education — and they seek to attract a majority from the entire citizenry.
In the United States, such near-universal voting could eliminate the parties’ incentive to diminish the turnout of their opponents’ supporters and to mobilize the ideological extremes. Boosting overall turnout would help tilt the balance back toward where most Americans actually are: closer to the middle.
Other promising avenues to expand the electorate include automating the registration process (so voters can register online and carry their documentation with them when they move from one state to another) and to open up the primaries, as California has done, to all voters. Over time, open primaries could produce more moderate elected officials.
Finally, if we can’t persuade more Americans to vote with the threat of a fine, how about the promise of untold riches? Millions lined up — sometimes wasting all night — for a shot at the Mega Millions lottery in March. How about another lottery, where your vote stub is a ticket, and where the prize is the money collected from the fines of those who didn’t vote? The odds of the mega-jackpot were about 1 in 176 million — we’d like to believe that the chances of fixing American politics are a bit better than that.
Thomas E. Mann is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. This essay is adapted from their book “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism.”
