Opinion | A funny thing happened on the road of democracy

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Every year on the Fourth of July many start the day with the full-page reprint of the Declaration of Independence published by the New York Times.

This year, Jefferson had a lot of competition. You could read that children were being slaughtered by Putin’s bombs in Kyiv, or that the socialist winner of the mayoral primary may be the wave of the future. Many read no further.

The country is captured and fractured by loonies.

Most people, those who you see in the street or don’t see because they’re at work or with their families, are just fine. What we used to call normal before the political system was not. The people of this country are not the problem, but those who claim or seek to represent them are beyond parody or belief. Did they arrive by spaceship?

No, the real problem is so simple that it’s ignored.

It’s like a house burning down because one wire was defective. The broken wire is our political system — the rules by which some candidates are able to be the only names on the ballot. When every choice is bad, voting seems pointless.

People just give up.

But if we can only see the basic problem we can fix it. Our political misery stems largely from the way we now choose who runs for office. That task was once performed by party insiders, often at conventions. Lincoln won nomination at the Republican convention on the third ballot.

That may have been the high point, but in every case the nominee had to run against the candidate of a rival party, chosen in much the same way. And what way was that? It didn’t always smell right, but the one ingredient in every stew was always the need to win the general election. You couldn’t promote your platform or your nephews unless you got elected. So compromise was needed. In choosing the candidate you had to consider the voters. Most movement, therefore, tended toward the center.

This system worked for a very long time. It never worked even close to perfectly. Sometimes fools and knaves were on the ballot, and sometimes they won. There were places where access to the ballot was shamelessly denied. But faith in progress, the nation’s and one’s own, was somehow widespread among the populace that was allowed to vote.

And then, about 50 years ago, under the false flag of reform, the old way of picking candidates was cast aside by those incautious in their love of change. Smoke-filled rooms were replaced by smoke and mirrors. New rules were passed by those who wanted to be the new rulers. Caucuses and conventions, now burdened by interminable regulations, shriveled like punctured balloons. The air escaping was the general public. All that remained was intensity and boredom, and iron rules labeled guidelines.

Desperately, the former party leaders turned to primary elections as a saner way to pick candidates. There had always been primaries in some places, correctives to endorsements clearly lacking public support. But now primaries weren’t just a safety valve — they were the whole deal. If you wanted your name on the ballot as your party’s candidate, you had to run in a primary.

The cure killed the patient. The switch throughout America to candidate selection by primaries turned out to be the major cause of today’s political dysfunction. Instead of party bosses or factional squabbles there is now no screening committee at all. Just a lot of unfamiliar names on a ballot and the stern injunction, “Vote for one.”

The voter was up the creek with neither paddle nor compass. Who to vote for in this sea of names? Of course, previous celebrity was helpful. Wrestlers and weathermen had an edge.

And, significantly, anyone running in a primary was free to campaign. But “free” is a misnomer. Whether for Congress, president or dogcatcher, campaigning costs money. Leaflets, bumper stickers, mailings and, if you really want make a difference, the tube. The growth of television vastly raised the money threshold for winning a primary. And then there was the Citizens United decision, which blew the top off Krakatoa. Though voters could vote by party, money was always important in politics, particularly in general elections. But in primaries, even where each party had its own ballot, there were now so many names to choose from. Commercials could make all the difference.

Choosing the candidate who spends the most is not what Madison had in mind.

Nor is it the only problem. Even worse than too much spending is too few voters. Far more people vote in the general election, in November. The earlier primary gets less attention and may occur on a balmy sunny day that has its own appeal.

So who on Primary Tuesday does prefer the polls to the pool? The highly organized, alas. Special interests, and those of intensely held views. Not a cross section of the public.

It gets worse. Dependence on low-turnout primaries is bad enough. But then something happened that made the dependency much, much worse. Virtually every congressional district in America has been deliberately redistricted so that the incumbent party can never lose. This isn’t traditional gerrymandering, which favors one party over another — it’s aimed at helping both parties avoid ever losing a congressional race. And it’s really happened!

A member of Congress of either party can serve for life — but only if they obey. A single vote of conscience and they’re out. The party can never lose a primary, but it can choose another candidate if the incumbent doesn’t follow orders. The combination of primaries controlled by small factions and congressional seats safe for the incumbent party has turned the House of Representatives into a coven of cowards.

That’s why 147 members of Congress voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election results. That’s why both parties are in lockstep obedience to the power brokers of the neutered primary elections.

This violates our Constitution. Article I, Section 2 says that the House “shall be chosen every second year by the people of the several states.”

This cannot mean election in a party primary in which only a small part of the general population votes, and no member of the non-incumbent party. We know this because there were no political parties when the Constitution was written, nor were there primaries. “Chosen” must mean in a general election. The debates of the Constitutional Convention reveal a clear intent that, unlike the ponderous Senate, the House members had short terms, and not staggered, so that the winds of change in public opinion might swiftly be felt. Winds of change! We’ve created a House where members who take orders can serve for life — a life stripped of meaning.

Some will scoff at the prospect of the Supreme Court declaring our political blockage unconstitutional. But unleashing majority rule is quite consistent with the values evoked by a majority of the justices now serving.

If such a decision is handed down, it will herald a new July 4th, restoring the link between the people and those who then truly can represent them. No other ruling, no other alternative, can remove as quickly and well the impasse and loss of hope so widely felt by Americans of all political persuasions.

David Lebedoff is a Minneapolis attorney and author of several books, including “The Uncivil War.”