From: dmcmillen@igc.apc.org (Dale McMillen)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens
Subject: Re: GREENS & CANDIDATE ACCOUNTABILITY
Date: 2 Jan 93 00:13:00 GMT
Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1678600004:cdp:1678600005:000:4990
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!dmcmillen    Jan  1 16:13:00 1993


> How would you go about recalling a member of congress or a president
 
The Greens in the U.S. have often thought that the German form
representation is more ideal than ours.  In their system, as I
understand it, people vote for parties and their platforms but
not individuals.  And, if a party recieves at least 5% of the
vote, the party can place its proportion of reps in the legislature.
This gives the party much greater control over who represents the
party and its platform in the legislature.  In theory, then, the
party has the control to recall members who do not represent the
party.  However, I also understand that there are problems with
this system in Germany.  (I am no expert in this area.)
 
While some Greens in this country may prefer this system to ours
where individuals pretty much do as they damn well please, there
are still a number of ways to make a candidate or office holder
accountable.  For example, imagine the political troubles that
Clinton would have if the Democratic Party convened and decided
to withdraw his nomination, render a vote of no-confidence, or
similar action.  While this act would not legally force his
resignation (as I understand), it would clearly be his political
death.  Remember what happened to Maggie Thatcher?  And what seems
to be happening with Boris Yeltsin?
 
Now, perhaps it would be better to have a constitutional provision
for recall whereby the citizens would vote, as in a referendum,
whether or not to recall the President.  As I understand it, some
states do provide this option for their members of Congress, as
I believe some in Oregon have considered for Packwood.  Clearly,
on the more local level this is an option in some areas (not my
own in Virginia, unfortunately).  About a year ago, some group
was organizing in Washington D.C. to petition for a vote to recall
their mayor, Sharon Pratt Kelly.  This didn't get very far, but
you better believe that it drew public attention!
 
In California, The Green Party has the option of running a
"Non-of-the-above" (NOTA) candidate in their primaries, which is
their way of excluding candidates who they don't consider appropriate
to represent their platform, among other reasons.  California law
apparently does not allow political parties to exclude potential
candidates from running on their party's ballot line.  However, the
Green Party has the option to "close the race" if they can muster more
votes for their NOTA "candidate" than the candidate they don't want to
support.  This is not strickly a candidate accountability and recall
issue, but does provide a method the party a method to help ensure that
the candidate who runs on their ballot line, will support their platform.
 
Now there is an interesting debate which lies under the surface of
the issue of candidate accountability.  The question is whether the
candidate is only accountable to the party, or to the entire population
in that district.  (Some candidates may claim accountability to God,
the universe, the entire U.S.A., or their favorite S&L crook.)  All the
methods I have mentioned, except the Ca. Green Party's NOTA example,
presume the candidate is accountable to the entire population, not
just the party.
 
Perhaps, this is the best way for the U.S. where we do not have
proportional representation.  Without proportional representation,
an elected official probably thinks that s/he represents everyone.
However, without proportional representation, we have a serious
problem here.  For example, how can Clinton represent the interests
of both the Pro-Lifers and the Pro-Choicers?  Now, assuming that he
only is to represent the interest of the Pro-Choicers, which would
be appropriate since he clearly campaigned on a Pro-Choice platform,
should he then be subject to recall only by Pro-Choicers? And, what
about the Pro-Lifers?  Who is to represent their interests?
 
In a proportional representation system, like Germany's, this is all
taken care of.  If the Pro-Choicers got 70% of the vote, then they
get 70% of the people in Congress, and the Pro-Lifers get 30% of the
people in Congress.  Now, clearly the Pro-Lifers are in a minority in
this system, which would not please them, but at least they get their
30%  In our system of non-proportional representation, the Pro-Lifers
would get NOTHING (assuming the 70/30 split were evenly distributed).
However, with proportional representation, it is clear that the
elected official is only accountable to the party and platform that
s/he ran on.
 
In my opinion, our system of non-proportional representation has
some serious flaws.  It does not let clear minority voices be heard
-- on both the right and left.  In fact, in its endless jockying for
power, it does not seem to let any clear voice be heard.  It propetuates
a winner-take-all mindset of competitiveness, when cooperation might be
more in order.  And it places too much power in the presidency, who is
the symbol of a competitive, winner-take-all victory.
 
Dale
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens