The Politics Industry - A Book Review and Recommendation

Yeah, I know - this Blog looks more and more like a series of book reviews. Well, I read a lot. And, as my lovely wife says, every new book is the BEST I have ever read - or words to that effect. I am blessed by having the time to read, and having good sources of new books, and a wonderful local library that finds them for me anywhere in MN. Amazing public service.

This is the book:
The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy  by Katherine Gehy and Michael Porter  2020 

Michael Porter is a well known business analyst from Harvard. He and Ms Gehy collaborated on this, and you can hear them talking about how this came to be in this Podcast - which is where I first learned about it. Please note this originally aired in 2020!

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/americas-hidden-duopoly-ep-356-rebroadcast-2/

Duopoly

A duopoly is a strange beast. If two brands dominate a market, it is to their advantage to keep ALL other competitors out of the game. They will use all fhe means they can to cooperate and share a huge market, not allowing any potential rivals that might take some of their market share. Our two political parties are very much in that model. Their respective leaders do a great deal to keep any third party at bay, using our somewhat antiquated electoral system to their best advantage. The authors go into quite a bit of detail on how that works.

The authors also state that the current parties actually worked hard to create this mess. I think perhaps we just dumbed our way into it. But there is very little incentive in the two parties to make any change. Unless we can get some enlightened elected officials. This is where YOU come in. 

Their recommendations on how to FIX this problem are fairly straightforward, and very doable. We just need a majority of Republicans and Democrats in each state to reach across the aisle, and make TWO changes to our state election systems. Easy enough, huh? 

Reforms

• Final Five voting in an open primary - not by party, top five vote getters go on to the final election.

• Rank Choice Voting in the general election. This sounds complicated - it is not. Already in use: Alaska, Maine, New York City, Cambridge, MA, Minneapolis, MN, San Francisco, CA.

For a brief explantion of these in an animated fashion, watch this 6 minute video: 

https://youtu.be/NE61lMiZV2k

The author's website, and more information: https://gehlporter.com/

The book also discusses other problems that we should address. Most of them were in a bill passed by the House on 03/03/2021. It never got a hearing in the Senate. 
 https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1 

It would have done the following:

• Expand voter registration - automatic, same day.
• Expand voter access - vote by mail, early voting, limits to removing voters.
• Redistricting by independent commission - gerrymandering gone.
• Protect Election integrity with a national strategy.
• Campaign finance reform - no foreign money, full disclosure of fundraising and spending, and alternative funding for some federal offices.
• Ethics: Code of conduct for Supreme Court Justices, Members of congress cannot serve on any board of a for-profit entity, additional ethics rules for federal employees.
• Disclosure: President, Vice President and candidates for those offices must disclose 10 years of tax returns..

Feel free to share this with your elected officials. PLEASE. 

Of course, you are on a first name basis with them, aren't you? Give them a call and invite them for coffee. AND it would not hurt to make a small contribution to their election. Just saying . . . 

Just discovered that you can get what appears to be an 80 page early version of the book at Harvard, by clicking on this LONG URL. Please:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.hbs.edu%2Fcompetitiveness%2FDocuments%2Fwhy-competition-in-the-politics-industry-is-failing-america.pdf