Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Reform Ideas: The Electoral College

Reforming the Electoral College.

The Electoral College does have its supporters.


Defenders of the system argue that it reduces the chances of daunting nationwide recounts in close races, a scenario that Gary L. Gregg II, an Electoral College expert at the University of Louisville, said would be a “national nightmare.”

But that is not why it was created. 

A variety of factors informed the creation of the Electoral College, which apportions a fixed number of votes to different states based on the size of their populations. The founding fathers sought to ensure that residents in states with smaller populations were not ignored. And in an era that predated mass media and even political parties, they were concerned that average Americans would lack enough information about the candidates to make intelligent choices. So informed “electors” would stand in for them.

Above all, some historians point to the critical role that slavery played in the formation of the system. Southern delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, most prominently James Madison of Virginia, were concerned that their constituents would be outnumbered by Northerners. The Three-Fifths Compromise, however, allowed states to count each slave as three-fifths of a person — enough, at the time, to ensure a Southern majority in presidential races.

For critics, the continuity is troubling.

On social media Wednesday, some drew connections between that history and what they perceived as an imbalance in the Electoral College that favors Republicans.

“Electoral college will forever tip balance to rural/conservative/“white”/older voters — a concession to slave-holders originally,” the author Joyce Carol Oates wrote on Twitter.

To its critics, the Electoral College is a relic that violates the democratic principle of one person, one vote, and distorts the presidential campaign by encouraging candidates to campaign only in the relatively small number of contested states.

“I think it is intolerable for democracy,” said George C. Edwards III, a political-science professor at Texas A&M University and the author of a book on the Electoral College. “I can’t think of any justification for it, and any justification that is offered doesn’t bear scrutiny.”

But it seems nearly impossible to change. "But calls to change the system, which would require a constitutional amendment, are likely to fall on deaf ears with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress."

There are efforts to change this.

Some states have discussed a possibility that would not necessarily require amending the Constitution: jettisoning the winner-takes-all system, in which a single candidate is awarded all of a state’s electoral votes — regardless of the popular vote — and instead apportioning them to reflect the breakdown of each state’s popular vote. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, already do this. But even that approach could face a constitutional challenge from opponents, said Laurence H. Tribe, a professor at Harvard Law School.

For reformers, the best hope may lie in the so-called National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement among states to award all of their respective electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote in a given election. So far, 10 states and the District of Columbia have joined the agreement. But it will only go into effect when enough states have signed on to guarantee that the winner of the popular vote will win the election.

Of course, this is an effort by Democrats for whom the Electoral College creates a disadvantage. If the shoe were on the other foot, Republicans would probably be complaining about it instead (with just as much sincerity). 

But here is a reform proposal from a Republican.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2016/1110/An-easy-way-to-reform-the-Electoral-College

But the evolution of reliably red and blue states has meant thatpresidential campaigns focus their efforts on just a handful of “battleground” states where electoral votes are up for grabs.

In 2012, for example, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spent a combined $837 million on advertising, with $451 million going to Florida, Ohio, and Virginia alone, according to the nonpartisan nonprofitFairVote.
“We ignore 40 states in the presidential election,” says Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party. “That’s just not good for public policy, and it’s not good for the political system in the United States.”

Mr. Anuzis now advocates for a national popular vote system. Under this plan, jurisdictions possessing at least 270 of the 538 available electoral votes would change their rules to force electors to support the candidate who wins the national popular vote.

One advantage of the system is that it doesn’t scrap the Electoral College (which would require a constitutional amendment). Anuzis also believes it would force presidential candidates to make their case to voters around the country.

“They would have to run in every state because they would depend on winning the national popular vote,” he says.

But only Democratic states have voiced support for the new system “and there are not enough Democrat-controlled states for that to go into effect.”

As in 2000, when George W. Bush lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College, Republicans are unlikely to support any changes to the Electoral College process, he adds, “because it will be seen as an attempt to delegitimize Donald Trump.”

“It’s a very unique system, it’s certainly less democratic than other systems, but it’s also unique and it grows out of our history,” he continues. “The question is: Do we have the ability to change it? And the answer is probably not.”

Ultimately, the reality is that neither political party is directly interested in what is good for the country overall -- they are primarily interested in getting themselves into power, and assume that their own rule is indirectly good for everybody else.

Only the odd, noble character like Mr. Anuzis gets the big picture.

From the perspective of the Democratic Party, there is the option of the long game. This would be to strategically promote high-density urban growth in battleground states like Florida, Virginia and Ohio, and to accelerate the disappearance of rural, small-town life in those places. (For example, the federal government pays farmers to not plant crops that are over-planted; it might be even better to pay small farmers to plant trees and then simply move into town.) 

But the intent of Mr. Anuzis is right on. The challenge is to break the domination in presidential elections of the battleground states, so that politicians will listen to everyone across the nation. 

The danger, however, is that abolishing the Electoral College might mean that politicians would only listen to the votes of the cities and suburbs.

The irony is that this is what the political establishment in both political parties has been doing for some time -- ignoring the impoverished small-town, white working class. That is how President Trump managed (despite himself) to decimate both political parties.

More ironically, in this sense, in the 2016 election, the Electoral College actually worked properly by grabbing the attention of the nation regarding the plight of rural America and the working classes. Ignore them at your peril.
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Reform Ideas: The US Senate

1. On reforming the US Senate in terms of proportional representation:

There was a time, specifically, during the writing of the US Constitution, that political exigency required that the US create a dual legislative system (modeled somewhat on the bicameral British parliament). In one chamber, the US House, had proportional representation, with each Representative serving a constituency that was equal in population size with other constituencies. The other chamber, the US Senate, granted equal representation by state -- namely, two senators per state -- regardless of the size of the population of the state.

The founding fathers probably did not foresee the current situation, where a state like California has a population approaching 40 million people, and another state like Wyoming has a population of half a million. 

Yes, it is a nice thing that small states get equal representation with large states in the US Senate. 

But because states, unlike human beings, are artificial and inanimate entities, this arrangement has no justifiable grounding in any political philosophy. It is an accident of history that warps public decision making in favor of relatively rural states.

Historically, a similar situation was found in the so-called "Three-fifths compromise" between the northern and southern states at the time of the writing of the Constitution. In order to reach some form of compromise between the North and South, it was agreed  that the political power of the southeast would be increased by counting each slave as three-fifths of a regular voter in terms of awarding representation in the US House. This problematic arrangement was eliminated by the Northern victory in the US Civil War.

No such solution seems to be in the offing for promoting proportional representation in the Senate.

What would a gradualist approach look like?

The House might provide one model. Proportional representation in the US House is based on voting within districts of roughly equal population. 

Another model comes from legislative bodies in Europe. In most democracies, proportional representation is based on a parliamentary system in which the society at large votes for competing political parties, not for candidates, and the parties decide who the members of parliament (and their leader, a prime minister) is to be.

What might a hybrid system fusing these two approaches look like?

First, imagine three new "regional" seats were created in the US Senate.

Each of these three "regional" senators would represent a "district" with a population of 100 million citizens. This district would consist of contiguous land area and be somewhat unified in that sense and reflect the concerns of constituents, but the borders of this district would constantly change, so that regional differences and identity would not be reinforced too much. (E.g., one can envision the borders of the three regions constantly shifting in a clockwise direction. Or, alternatively states could vote on which region they wanted to belong to.) The candidates for the regional seats would be chosen by political parties or by the US Senate itself and voted on by voters in those temporary "regions" every six years.

Second, imagine also that two new "at large" seats were created in the Senate, the constituency of which was the entire United States. Candidates would be nominated by their parties or by the US Senate, and voted on by the entire country every six years.  

There might not be that much resistance to such a scheme. In contrast, there is a movement to create six new states out of California; politically, this would be unacceptable to the Senate because California's two senators would be replaced by 12 new senators, each competing with the rest of the rest of the Senate for national resources. 


In contrast, at-large or regional senators would represent all districts in the US, and would not be perceived as competing so starkly against the rest of the Senate.

This proposal would be a small, incremental, gradualist approach to tilting the US Senate toward a more proportional representation. 

Hey, at least it's a start. And the marginal influence that these five senators would have might make all the difference in close votes where parochialism might have otherwise prevailed.
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Monday, November 14, 2016

Reform Ideas: Prison Reform

Prison reform

Some humor on voting for politicians who are narcissistic sociopaths. As far as politicians go, Donald Trump is not that bad a person.


In 1979, the historian Christopher Lasch published the book "The Culture of Narcissism", which was praised by both disillusioned liberals and conservatives. 


The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations is a 1979 book by the cultural historian Christopher Lasch, in which he explores the roots and ramifications of the normalizing of pathological narcissism in 20th century American culture using psychological, cultural, artistic and historical synthesis.[1] For the mass market edition published in September of the same year,[1] Lasch won the 1980 U.S. National Book Award in the category Current Interest(paperback).

 Lasch proposes that since World War II, post-war America has produced a personality-type consistent with clinical definitions of "pathological narcissism." This pathology is not akin to everyday narcissism, a hedonistic egoism, but with clinical diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. For Lasch, "pathology represents a heightened version of normality."[3] He locates symptoms of this personality disorder in the radical political movements of the 1960s (such as the Weather Underground), as well as in the spiritual cults and movements of the 1970s, from est to Rolfing.

Both Donald Trump and the Clintons represent this narcissistic post-WW2 generation.

Unlike their parents, who suffered through the Great Depression and WW2, Baby Boomers were raised in unprecedented affluence. According to this article, this gave them a sense of over-confidence and superiority coupled with moral self-righteousness when they looked at their deferential, conformist parents. Yet, in retrospect, Baby Boomers have accomplished virtually nothing, and are incredibly self-indulgent. (To some extent, the movie "Saving Private Ryan" and other movies that followed were a self-critical reflective moment by aging Baby Boomers like Spielberg.)


(In the PBS Frontline documentary on the Whitewater scandal, Susan McDougal claims that Bill Clinton was not involved in any financial malfeasance, but that Hillary Clinton was screaming at the McDougals "My daughter is going to an elite university, and this is going to pay for it!" In HRC, one finds the perfect fusion of selfishness and intense self-righteousness that characterizes her generation.)  

With the self-absorption and exhibitionism of social media, this tendency toward narcissism in American life has grown more pronounced. But it is nevertheless not the same thing as full-blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder. (The Clintons are Baby Boomers, but they are not mentally ill.)


*Highly competitive in virtually all aspects of his life, believing he (or she) possesses special qualities and abilities that others lack; portrays himself as a winner and all others as losers.
*Displays a grandiose sense of self, violating social norms, throwing tantrums, even breaking laws with minimal consequences; generally behaves as if entitled to do whatever he wants regardless of how it affects others.
*Shames or humiliates those who disagree with him, and goes on the attack when hurt or frustrated, often exploding with rage.
*Arrogant, vain and haughty and exaggerates his accomplishments; bullies others to get his own way.
*Lies or distorts the truth for personal gain, blames others or makes excuses for his mistakes, ignores or rewrites facts that challenge his self-image, and won’t listen to arguments based on truth.

[M]any “grandiose narcissists are drawn to politics, professional sports, and the entertainment industry because success in these fields allows them ample opportunity to demonstrate their winner status and to elicit admiration from others, confirming their defensive self-image as a superior being.”
As a diagnosable personality disorder, narcissism occurs more often in males than females, often developing in the teenage years or early adulthood and becoming more extreme with age. It occurs in an estimated 0.5 percent of the general population, and 6 percent of people who have encounters with the law who have mental or emotional disorders. One study from Italy found that narcissistic personality traits were present in as many as 17 percent of first-year medical students.

Fascinating. Narcissism is rare among ordinary folks, more common among criminals and even more common among medical students. 

The journalist Malcolm Gladwell argues that American business culture has a "star system" that is always on the lookout for the next corporate super-genius. Unfortunately, such a system tends to overlook actual performance, and often elevates self-promoting narcissists. 


In a July 2002 article in The New Yorker Gladwell introduced the concept of "The Talent Myth" that companies and organizations, supposedly, incorrectly follow.[19] This work examines different managerial and administrative techniques that companies, both winners and losers, have used. He states that the misconception seems to be that management and executives are all too ready to classify employees without ample performance records and thus make hasty decisions. Many companies believe in disproportionately rewarding "stars" over other employees with bonuses and promotions. However with the quick rise of inexperienced workers with little in-depth performance review, promotions are often incorrectly made, putting employees into positions they should not have and keeping other more experienced employees from rising. He also points out that under this system, narcissistic personality types are more likely to climb the ladder, since they are more likely to take more credit for achievements and take less blame for failure.[19] 

He states both that narcissists make the worst managers and that the system of rewarding "stars" eventually worsens a company's position. Gladwell states that the most successful long-term companies are those who reward experience above all else and require greater time for promotions.

From the Wall Street Journal, on how narcissists and sociopaths initially rise very quickly through the corporate structure, eventually become very disruptive, then flame out.


Every office full of ambitious people has them. And we have all worked with at least one—the co-worker with an inexplicable ability to rise in the ranks.

"How do they do it?" we may ask ourselves or whisper to friends at work. They don't have more experience.

They don't seem that brilliant.

But such co-workers may possess a dose of one of the personality traits that psychologists call the "dark triad": manipulativeness, a tendency to influence others for selfish gain; narcissism, a profound self-centeredness; or an antisocial personality, lacking in empathy or concern for others. These traits are well-known for the bad behavior that they can cause when dominant in people's personalities. At milder levels, however, they can actually foster skills that can help people rise through the ranks.

Narcissism and sociopathy are not identical, but one thing they have in common is bullying behavior.

The percentage of Americans who are sociopaths is variously given between 1% and 6% (with males three times more prevalent than females); it's a figure that is impossible to know with certainty. Among prisoners (who can be studied), it is estimated to be 25%. Among workers in financial services, it is perhaps 10%. 

Professions that attract the most sociopaths.


1. CEO
2. Lawyer
3. Media (TV/radio)
4. Salesperson
5. Surgeon
6. Journalist
7. Police officer
8. Clergy
9. Chef 
10. Civil servant

Note that these are male-dominated professions often in hierarchal organizations (e.g., civil service) that often require excellent self-presentation skills (e.g., clergy, television journalists, etc.) and coolheaded analysis, without much need for empathy. 

In contrast, here are those professions that are least likely to attract sociopaths.

1. Care aid.
2. Nurse.
3. Therapist
4. Craftsman
5. Beautician/stylist
6. Charity worker
7. Teacher
8. Creative artist
9. Doctor
10. Accountant

Creative artists are often egotistical weirdos, but they do have an ability to empathize with the emotions of others. (In the 2015 movie "Steve Jobs", Jobs is portrayed as a slick salesman and manipulative corporate executive, but his main "flaw" is that he is a visionary creative perfectionist artistic unable to deal with the messiness of real life; in the end, he comes through a moral person.)

Here is a brain scan of a sociopath. 


It is actually the scan of the brain of neuroscientist James Fallon, who took PET scans of his family.


He then compared them to those of dozens of psychopaths in prison.


He found that his own scan was similar to that of psychopaths.

The point of all of this is that narcissists and sociopaths disproportionately fill our prisons, but they also disproportionately run and rule our society.

We have many of the wrong people in prison, and many of the wrong people in power.

Let's look at prison reform.

Conservative politicians take a hard-nosed approach to crime, yet it is disproportionately Republican politicians who wind up in prison. When they get sent to prison, they are shocked by the system and the wasted lives it produces, and they turn toward prison reform.

In this article, prison reformers (many of them conservative politicians) argue that prison should only be for violent offenders. There is supposedly no proof that prison deters most crime or rehabilitates offenders, and so forth. 


Senator Corey Booker responds by asking what they mean by 'violent crime'. Much of the violent crime results from the drug trade, as traffickers fight to expand or defend their turf; this is rational business behavior. These traffickers are, moreover, disproportionately poor minorities. Americans learned by watching HBO's "The Wire" that some drug traffickers easily fit the description of "bad people" -- that is, narcissistic sociopaths (e.g., Marlo Stanfield) -- but most of them are just ordinary people. 

It might not be the type of crime that is important, but the nature of the crime in terms of motive. There are crimes of passion and crimes of profit, and they do need to be prosecuted and punished. But judging from the bullying behavior of narcissistic sociopaths, it is especially important to incarcerate those guilty of crimes of cold-blooded malice. 

It was said in Quentin Tarantino's 2015 "The Hateful Eight", "You only need to hang mean bastards, but mean bastards you need to hang." In the context of prison reform, only crimes of cold-blooded malice should be dealt with in an uncompromising fashion, but they really, really need to throw the book at this type of criminal.

Unfortunately, this type of personality is more likely to dominate our society, so it is mostly ordinary poor people who wind up in prison, instead.

 The Netherlands and Norway

What might prison reform look like?

The Netherlands has become a paradigmatic case of prison and sentencing reform.

In the past three years, 19 prisons in the Netherlands have been closed, and more are scheduled for closing.

How do the Dutch do it?

"In the Dutch service we look at the individual," says Van der Spoel.

"If somebody has a drug problem we treat their addiction, if they are aggressive we provide anger management, if they have got money problems we give them debt counselling. So we try to remove whatever it was that caused the crime. The inmate himself or herself must be willing to change but our method has been very effective. Over the last 10 years, our work has improved more and more."

Repeat offenders are given specialized treatment.

He adds that some persistent offenders - known in the trade as "revolving-door criminals" - are eventually given two-year sentences and tailor-made rehabilitation programmes. Fewer than 10% then return to prison after their release. In England and Wales, and in the United States, roughly half of those serving short sentences reoffend within two years, and the figure is often higher for young adults.

There is a pragmatic focus on creating an environment that reduces stress and prepares the prisoner for his or her eventual life in civilians society.

Norgerhaven, along with Esserheem - another almost identical prison in the same village, Veenhuizen - have plenty of open space. Exercise yards the size of four football pitches feature oak trees, picnic tables and volleyball nets. Van der Spoel says the fresh air reduces stress levels for both inmates and staff. Detainees are allowed to walk unaccompanied to the library, to the clinic or to the canteen and this autonomy helps them to adapt to normal life after their sentence. 

The reduced prison population is something recent in the Netherlands, which not so long ago had one of the highest incarceration rates. In particular, the rise of terrorism has forced the Dutch to re-think their priorities.

A decade ago the Netherlands had one of the highest incarceration rates in Europe, but it now claims one of the lowest - 57 people per 100,000 of the population, compared with 148 in England and Wales.

But better rehabilitation is not the only reason for the sharp decline in the Dutch prison population - from 14,468 in 2005 to 8,245 last year - a drop of 43%.

The peak in 2005 was partly due to improved screening at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport, which resulted in an explosion in the numbers of drug mules caught carrying cocaine.

Today the police have new priorities, according to Pauline Schuyt, a criminal law professor from the southern city of Leiden. "They have shifted their focus away from drugs and now concentrate on fighting human trafficking and terrorism," she says.

In addition, Dutch judges often use alternatives to prison such as community service orders, fines and electronic tagging of offenders.

Punishment is still pursued in the criminal justice system, but through other means rather than prisons.

 The primary function of prisons is therefor focused on two very different tasks:

 1) To isolate prisoners who are extremely dangerous to society, and
2) To protect those prisoners who are most vulnerable to a hostile world.

Angeline van Dijk, director of the prison service in the Netherlands, says jail is increasingly used for those who are too dangerous to release, or for vulnerable offenders who need the help available inside.

"Sometimes it is better for people to stay in their jobs, stay with their families and do the punishment in another way," she says from her brightly lit office at the top of a tower block in The Hague.   

The prison closures might have less to do with a rationalization of policy than with budget cutbacks to policing.

But while recorded crime has shrunk by 25% over the past eight years, some argue that this results from the closure of police stations, as a result of budget cuts, which makes crime harder to report.

Other critics, such as Madeleine Van Toorenburg - a former prison governor and now the opposition Christian Democratic Appeal party's spokeswoman on criminal justice - blame the shortage of prisoners on low detection rates.

Prisons in neighboring Norway can seem more luxurious than even Dutch prisons to American eyes.

 But appearances can be deceiving. Prison sentences in Norway begin in maximum security prisons, and conclude in half-way houses that resemble modern homes for the sake of re-habituating the prisoner into society. But the most dangerous criminals are locked up for good.

Only 94 people in Norway, Breivik being one, are sentenced to "preventative detention" in an extra-high-security prison. This means they can be kept beyond the longest sentence permitted by law - 21 years - if they continue to be considered a risk to society.

Norway's prison system does have its critics at home, some of whom think it is too soft. Yet it is hard to argue that it does not work.

When criminals in Norway leave prison, they tend to stay out. Norway's recidivism rate of 20% is one of the lowest in the world. By contrast in the UK it's about 45%, while in the US more than 76% of prisoners are re-arrested within five years.

Defenders of the Norwegian system are also keen to point out how much money is being saved on successful rehabilitation and reintegration.

"Authorities in the US and the UK might want to ask themselves whether all the billions of dollars and pounds they have been spending on locking people up behind tall fences and barbed wire has had any effect at all over the past 150 years," says Tom Eberhardt at the Bastoey prison.

Scandinavians do not see themselves as socialists or liberals or progressives. They see themselves as highly educated, supremely intelligent pragmatists. This is something that Americans, of either the left or the right, cannot seem to understand.
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