The Nirvana of Election Reform

Election reform continues to make both progress and news.

In the California legislature, two important bills have survived hurdles and advanced further. The New America-inspired AB 30, which would lower the voter registration age to 16, passed the Assembly floor and now makes its way to the Senate. AB 1121, a bill that would establish a statewide Instant Runoff Voting pilot program, was approved by the Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee and now goes to the floor of the Assembly.

Momentum continues to build for a Constitutional Convention, and New America’s calls for proportional representation are getting attention-even in the unlikeliest of places. In a post-election editorial, the LA Times jumped on the Constitutional Convention bandwagon and claimed that the Bay Area Council has put proportional representation at the top of their wish list. While one would hope that that is true, what is more likely is that the Times is projecting New America’s support for proportional representation onto the Bay Area Council. The confusion is somewhat understandable since both organizations have been involved in public discussions about the need for political reform; both sponsored the Summit to explore the idea of a Constitutional Convention back in February, and representatives from both organizations appeared together at a post-election press conference. Hopefully, though, the Bay Area Council will embrace New America’s call for proportional representation as a much more democratic way of electing our representatives.

It is quite likely that the Times picked up the proportional representation idea from the press release New America issued after the election or from the bold proposal New America has offered for redesigning California’s dysfunctional legislature. The latter has been the subject of much interest lately, ranging from a cover story in the current San Francisco Bay Guardian to a Seattle-based blog from noted author and Fairvote board member Krist Novoselic. (Noveselic also played bass in the short-lived and influential band Nirvana). The authors of the New America proposal, Mark Paul and Micah Weinberg, will deliver the keynote address tomorrow at the annual meeting of Californians for Electoral Reform.