Proportional Representation

As your editorial "Case of Amnesia for the High Court" (July 2) points out, the Supreme Court ruling on redistricting fails to "address how equal opportunities will be accomplished" if some districts are not drawn to favor racial minorities. The real problem is that each single-member district is gerrymandered to favor one group or party to the disadvantage of all others. When a legislator gets elected with 51% of the vote, then 49% of that district's voters are represented geographically by someone they opposed politically.

Re "GOP faces hurdles in changing voting laws," Jan. 27 Republican lawmakers in several swing states want to replace their winner-take-all system of allocating presidential electoral votes with a "proportional" system. Their proposals, however, are not for truly proportional allocation but for winner-take-all divvying by congressional district. As The Times notes, under this system, Mitt Romney would have received nine of Virginia's 13 electors. President Obama, who won 51.2% of the statewide vote, would have had barely 30% of the electors.

As epiphanies go, it wasn't exactly in the "blinding flash of light" category. It was more a slow accumulation of facts pointing to an interesting pattern. Two years before anyone thought a billionaire from Texas would run for President, Matthew Cossolotto was working on a book with a title only Beltway insiders could love: "The Almanac of Transatlantic Politics." It's a reference guide to the political scene in 21 European and North American countries.

Americans have been picking politicians the same way for so long -- winner take all -- that it might seem there is no other way to do it. But the cities of Davis, Calif.; Oakland and Minneapolis, as well as Pierce County, Wash.; have passed ballot measures that will lead to "instant runoff" or "proportional representation" voting in city and county elections. There was no organized opposition to the measures.

Out of 12 longstanding democracies in Europe, at least nine practice elections with some kind of proportional representation in multiseat districts: Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Ireland, and Italy. Editorializing on changes in Italy (April 23), you erroneously claim that a winner-take-all system is "used in the rest of Western Europe." Actually, Britain is alone in Western Europe to use U.S.-style winner-take-all. Germany formally has a mixed system, but it ends up in nationwide proportional representation for parties with more than 5% votes.

French Agriculture Minister Michel Rocard, one of the most popular members of President Francois Mitterrand's struggling Socialist government, resigned. Rocard, 54, indicated that he quit because he opposed the government's decision to change the nation's election law from a majority system to proportional representation. But virtually all observers read the resignation as Rocard's first move to challenge Mitterrand for the presidency in 1988.

There you go again. Your editorial again makes groundless criticisms of the Israeli electoral system. On Dec. 7 you called proportional representation "bizarre," despite its use in the majority of democracies (editorial, "Israel's Straitjacket"). You claimed it causes party proliferation despite evidence to the contrary (e.g. Austria, the Netherlands). You claimed it makes coalitions inevitable, as if coalition government were a bad thing. Now you say it causes "distortions." Proportional representation distorts Israeli politics?

Having fought and won, with ever increasing majorities, 10 parliamentary elections in Britain, may I intrude into the debate in your letters column between Matthew Shugart (Jan. 1) and Tony Oakes (Jan. 9)? Mr. Oakes is evidently a supporter of the fragmented Social Liberal Democrat alliance that the British electorate has rejected every time it has had the opportunity to do so. Your readers should not take too seriously his moans about "pendulum politics" and the "divide between north and south."

"America's Vanishing Majority" (June 30) implies that majority support for one party or the other is the norm. However, I doubt that any electorate in any country or under any system would support merely two parties, given the choice. When people have a meaningful choice, as in a proportional representation system, they vote for lots of different parties. If I were French, for example, I could vote for the Conservatives, the Communists, the Socialists, the National Front Party, or for any one of a myriad of smaller parties, and have my vote count.

Among the most pressing problems confronting Deval Patrick as the new assistant attorney general for civil rights is how to respond to the growing number of federal court decisions casting doubt on the constitutionality of racially delineated legislative districts.

Asked to describe the constitutional issues she had worked on during her legal career, Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers had relatively little to say on the questionnaire she sent to the Senate this week. And what she did say left many constitutional experts shaking their heads. At one point, Miers described her service on the Dallas City Council in 1989.

In "Competition Isn't Everything" (Commentary, Feb. 2), state Sen. Kevin Murray suggests that legislative districts in which 65% of voters are represented are better than "competitive" districts in which only 50% are represented. What about districts in which close to 100% of voters have representation? This is called proportional representation, and it is possible through choice voting in multi-member districts -- among other proportional methods. Even after the boundaries of single-member districts are reshuffled by supposedly neutral judges, we would still have the same old winner-take-all politics we have now. Ranked voting offers a voice for all, and is gaining momentum both locally, for example in Santa Monica, and across the continent.

Re "Pinning the Nasty Little Pols," Commentary, Sept. 3: Three cheers for Jesse Ventura! One of those rare moments in life when the truth is able to get out so it can be heard (or seen) by millions. Listen to Jesse, people, please. The Democrats and Republicans don't want anything other than a two-party system. They are two heads of the same beast, at odds often, but in collusion always. In 1828, the first third party came into being; it was called the Anti-Masonic Party and became a serious bugaboo to the two-party system in the New England states.

Macedonian political reforms suggested in a Western-drafted peace plan would guarantee ethnic Albanians proportional representation in several of the Balkan country's most important institutions, including the police, army, Constitutional Court and local government, state-run television reported Saturday. The plan also calls for the powers of local government to be strengthened, giving ethnic Albanians more self-rule in areas where they form large majorities, the report said.

Re "Child of the '60s Slips," editorial, Feb. 17: The Peace and Freedom Party is alive and organizing. We are engaged in an active campaign to register 20,000 new voters between now and September to maintain our ballot status. Unlike all of the other parties on the ballot, we think the capitalist system is the problem. We stand for the rights of working people to free universal health care, free plentiful public transportation, free education at all levels, decent affordable housing and an end to poverty in the richest nation on Earth.

Re "New Hope for Northern Ireland," editorial, Jan. 14: Why does The Times support a proposal which "would essentially leave Northern Ireland as part of Britain"? Should the Hong Kong Chinese have accepted an "intergovernmental council"? Should India have been satisfied with a foreign government's "stronger direct alliance" to the Indian people? Should the Palestinians lower their expectations and negotiate for "proportional representation"? While most Irish and American Irish do not condone violence of any kind, the heart of Ireland lies divided, and nothing less than full reunification will return to the Irish their national dignity--a cultural and political goal The Times seems to support most anywhere else on the globe.

Asked to describe the constitutional issues she had worked on during her legal career, Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers had relatively little to say on the questionnaire she sent to the Senate this week. And what she did say left many constitutional experts shaking their heads. At one point, Miers described her service on the Dallas City Council in 1989.

Re "New Hope for Northern Ireland," editorial, Jan. 14: Why does The Times support a proposal which "would essentially leave Northern Ireland as part of Britain"? Should the Hong Kong Chinese have accepted an "intergovernmental council"? Should India have been satisfied with a foreign government's "stronger direct alliance" to the Indian people? Should the Palestinians lower their expectations and negotiate for "proportional representation"? While most Irish and American Irish do not condone violence of any kind, the heart of Ireland lies divided, and nothing less than full reunification will return to the Irish their national dignity--a cultural and political goal The Times seems to support most anywhere else on the globe.

After a marathon 18-hour debate, Hong Kong lawmakers approved a new election law today that critics claim is a rollback of democracy under Chinese rule. As the sun rose this morning, the 60-member Provisional Legislature voted to change Hong Kong's electoral system from the "winner take all" method similar to the United States' to proportional representation--a system the government says will prevent one party from dominating the legislature. Elections are scheduled for May.

If Howard Rosenberg finds women underrepresented on television except in comedy roles, think about the lack of representation and negative stereotyping of other groups by the entertainment media ("The Battle of Sexes Isn't Even Close," Sept. 12). Business people usually are portrayed as evil. Religion is ignored or treated as of the realm of bizarre fanatics. Then there is the lifelong hate affair of the entertainment elite for the military. By the way, as for "I Love Lucy" featuring a "ditsy female," Lucy certainly was not ditsy.