A Reform Agenda
Six institutional changes to secure democracy
If democracy survives the 2024 election, and if Democrats maintain their hold on the White House and Senate and reclaim the House, there will be a brief moment when dramatic political reform will be possible.
We should not squander that moment.
And we should start planning for it now.
On Monday, I wrote about how Republicans in their MAGA and pre-MAGA iterations took advantage of institutional arrangements designed to protect minority voices and turned them into a platform for minority rule. If granted a governing majority next year, Democrats must use the opportunity to level a playing field that has become so distorted as to allow a political party to hold positions far outside the mainstream and still have a reasonable chance to claim power.
Democrats will not have the political strength to make constitutional changes. The nature of the amendment process precludes it. So we cannot abolish the Senate, or make it more representative, or get rid of the Electoral College.
But should Democrats emerge from 2024 with a governing trifecta, they will be able to make dramatic changes requiring only legislative and executive action. A collection of carefully targeted reforms could secure democracy just as effectively as changes requiring constitutional amendments.
In the aftermath of the trauma we are experiencing, political space will open to support reforms which have met with insurmountable resistance in the past, including recommendations that were attempted unsuccessfully during the last congress. My first three suggestions fall into this category. My fourth recommendation has been floated but never seriously considered. The last two will sound like political science fiction, but they should not be summarily dismissed. Now is the time to think big.
These recommendations could be attacked as partisan and an attempt to lock in a Democratic majority. Half of this is true. As Democrats are—unfortunately—the only party fully invested in democracy at this moment, we would expect these reforms to be advanced by Democrats and accrue to their short-term political advantage.
But they will also accrue to the advantage of small-d democrats everywhere.
My objective in offering them is not to secure permanent Democratic rule but to incentivize Republicans to become competitive in a changing America. Democratic party hegemony is no healthier for democracy than Republican efforts to tear it down. One beneficial consequence of these proposals would be to hasten the reckoning that must occur within Republican ranks to lay waste to Trumpism then rebuild the party from its ashes.
American democracy needs two functioning parties. This agenda is offered in that spirit.
