McKinney's gambit: will proportional representation bring down the House?

What we have tried to do is to take some lemons that were handed to us by the Supreme Court and make some lemonade" Thus spoke Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (Democrat-Georgia) at a late October 1995 press conference announcing her introduction of House Bill 2545. HR 2545 would lift the 1967 federal law that mandates one seat per congressional district, allowing states the option of electing their congressional delegation by multiseat proportional representation.

McKinney's own district was thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court this past June. In its ruling Miller v. Johnson, the Supreme Court rolled back 30 years of Voting Rights Act litigation and activism when it ruled that race-conscious districting is unconstitutional. In its continuing knee-jerk rollback of affirmative action, the High Court found McKinney's black majority district in violation of the U.S. Constitution, although it has not done so for other bizarrely shaped, supermajority white districts (such as Texas' sixth congressional district, which is 91 percent white and has been compared by some pundits to the shape of "splattered spaghetti sauce").

Besides attempting to make lemonade out of Miller v. Johnson, the McKinney bill has been drawing attention because of what it offers to other constituencies besides the traditional Voting Rights Act beneficiaries. Conspicuously present at the news conference supporting HR 2545 was Jody Newman, executive director of the National Women's Political Caucus; Paul Jacob, executive director of U.S. Term Limits; Congressman James Clyburn, Democrat from South Carolina and member of the Congressional Black Caucus; civil rights leaders from the United Church of Christ; and Rob Richie, director of the Center for Voting and Democracy. Newman stated that "research has suggested that systems of proportional representation result in greater numbers of elected women, and that greater numbers of women are elected in multimember [rather] than single member districts."

What she was referring to is recent research showing that the number one predictor of women's success in national legislative elections, when tested with other political and socioeconomic variables, is the presence of proportional represensation (PR) voting systems. For instance, Australia uses both proportional representation and U.S. style single seat winner take all districts for electing different legislative bodies. Germany's mixed member system uses both PR and winner take all to elect representatives to the same legislative body, the Bundestag. The results in the PR balloting compared to winner take all are revealing: three times more women legislators were elected in Australia and Germany by PR in the years 1987 to 1993. Furthermore, countries which use PR exclusively elect many times more women to their legislatures compared to countries which use wiener take all exclusively, with countries like Sweden (41 percent), Finland (39 percent), Norway (36 percent), Denmark (33 percent), the Netherlands (29 percent), and South Africa (25 percent) leading the way. Despite the so called Year of the Woman, the United States currently elects women legislators at the paltry rate of 11 percent for the House of Representatives and 8 percent for the U.S. Senate. It ranks twenty-fourth of 54 Western democracies in terms of women's representation in national legislatures.

The three types of proportional representation allowed by the McKinney bill--preference voting, cumulative voting, and limited voting--also offer something for proponents of third parties and independent politics. At her press conference, McKinney criticized what she called "the inherent flaws in our winner take,all electoral assumption, which gives 100 percent of the power to the candidate who can secure 50 percent of the vote plus one.... As a Democrat, I firmly believe that the 30 percent of Republicans living in a 70 percent Democratic district should at least have some representation." This elegy to electoral fairness and representation echoed similar words last year from law professor and rejected Clinton Justice Department nominee Lani Guinier in a New York Times interview.

There is no question that third party efforts like those being mounted by the New Party, Green Party, Ross Perot's Independence/Reform Party, Labor Party Advocates, and others would find the going much easier in a proportional, representation system using multiseat districts where 10 percent of the popular vote wins 10 percent of the seats. The success of the German Green Party, currently the third-largest party in the Bundestag, demonstrates the potential for third parties under PR. Most third party efforts in the United States have already endorsed the idea, as have Jesse Jackson and the National Rainbow Coalition. So have former presidential candidate and Republican Congressman John Anderson, conserve fives Kevin Phillips and Michael Lind, and the editors of USA Today. Even Justice Clarence Thomas, more known for his glowering role in dismantling affirmative action, has written favorably in his legal opinions of PR systems as a race neutral method of giving representation to racial minorities without having to resort to race conscious gerrymandering. Indeed, there is a startling convergence of thought on the subject taking place from right to left, slowly gathering momentum since race conscious districts first came under attack in 1993.

"Proportional systems are the next logical step in reform," says Rob Richie, director of the Center for Voting and Democracy. The center advised McKinney in drafting her bill and has advised plaintiffs, defendants, and judges in many of the most explosive voting rights cases of the past two years. Richie continues:

To give voters the real choices and new voices they seek,

you cannot get around the "great wall" of single-seat

districts that shield far too many legislators from competition

and restrict electoral opportunities for racial and

political minorities. You cannot ignore proportional systems

that increase voter turnout, substantive campaigns,

and women's and racial representation while realizing the

democratic ideal: majority rule, minority representation.

McKinney says there is "a lot of enthusiasm" for HR 2545 among other legislators from majority black districts. But she needs the support of the Republican leadership if the bill is going to have a chance. The Republicans' recent conversion to "color blindness" and "fairness for all colors" has provided them with just the rationale they need to dismantle affirmative action and racial set-asides--even the Voting Rights Act itself. McKinney's gambit turns Republican efforts on their head. Clearly, without the tool of race conscious districting in a majoritarian winner take all system, proportional representation offers racial minorities the only chance they have left for representation. McKinney's bill will give Newt Gingrich and company a chance to demonstrate that they really are for fairness and that their call for a "color blind society" is not just another example of cynical political rhetoric.

But not many are holding their breath. The effect of HR 2545 will also be to open up Congress to third parties, allowing them to compete on a nearly even playing field with the two major parties. As a result of the McKinney bill, both the Democrats and the Republicans will be forced to choose between protecting their two-party duopoly or doing what's right to allow electoral opportunity for Americans of color and women candidates. And as both parties have demonstrated on so many occasions, fairness is all well and good--as long as it works to their advantage. Steven Hill is a freelance journalist and the West Coast coordinator of the Center for Voting and Democracy. His articles and commentaries have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Dollars and Sense, the Seattle Times, the Oakland Tribune, Z Magazine, the New Internationalist, The Humanist, and others.