Getting to a more responsive system

One of the most frequent questions I get while talking policy is the toughest.

“How can you get the legislature to pass [insert plan here]?”

It’s the most important question a voter can ask. A politician can promise anything. There’s no cost to saying that if you vote for me, I’ll make housing affordable, or the trains more reliable, or even to bring down property taxes. It’s another thing entirely to actually do that.

What’s difficult in Massachusetts is that one of the key factors in going from promise to progress is missing.

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How a bill (really) becomes a law

In the classic Schoolhouse Rock song, a bill in committee sits and waits “while a few key Congressmen discuss and debate.”

This is out of date, not only in the gender of all the Members of Congress, but also in how the lawmaking process works. There are some bills that move like that, but many elements of governances are now passed as part of big bills, either in the form of reconciliation and the National Defense Authorization Act in Congress, or annual budgets at the state level.

However, the specific process is less important, in the broader scheme of democracy, than the underlying mechanisms.

A bill passes when our elected officials decide to pass it. To get there, they have to be convinced that it is the right decision to make, either because they believe that it is in the best interests of the state/country or in their own political best interests for their career.

The entire point of calling your representative, of advocating, of organizing, of mobilizing, is to push this intellectual process through.

In Massachusetts, we have many dedicated public servants in office who are motivated by doing the right thing and can be convinced by compelling arguments and evidence.

But democracy is not simply about electing people and hoping you can convince them on an issue. It is about being able to replace them if you can’t convince them but you can convince the voters.

Here, Massachusetts has a problem.

In 2024, we ranked dead last in the competitiveness in our legislative elections. When trying to make the case that a particular bill should be passed, we are working in an environment where, more than any other state, our elected representatives are not facing a tough re-election campaign. Or maybe any re-election campaign.

On an individual level this might not seem to matter much. But at the level of the institution and the culture of the state, it means that there isn’t the urgency you need when you or your party is worried about losing power in the next election.

Unlocking debates

There is a ballot question before the voters this November on whether to switch from the current system to an All-Party Primary / Top 2 format.

In my election now, I’m competing against two other Democrats in a heavily Democratic district. Whoever wins the Democratic primary on September 1 will be the eventual winner.

Under an All-Party Primary format, everyone would run in a single primary - Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, and Independents. The top two would move onto the general election in November.

That would mean that in my race, two Democrats would face each other in November, with more time to campaign and get to know the voters.

Even more important - to me, at least - is that in this proposal, candidates can include who has endorsed them on the ballot, something which is not a part of the California Top 2 system,.

As John Griffin from Partners in Democracy writes (and the example ballot below is from his newsletter).

That is why the Massachusetts All-Party Primaries initiative gives voters a more informed choice by adding aggregate fusion voting. Under fusion, any political organization with 50 registered voters can make ballot-visible endorsements—and the candidate can show all those endorsements on the ballot. For voters, that means walking into the booth and seeing at a glance which candidates have support from trusted groups.

How this helps legislation move

To get back to the original question, how can I get other legislators to vote for a particular piece of legislation.

The first route, and my preferred one, is simply to persuade them that it’s the best policy.

The second route is to assemble a coalition inside and outside the building to pressure them into thinking it’s the right political decision as well as the best policy. That’s how all legislatures act.

The second route becomes a lot easier if every legislator is concerned about a re-election that could happen in a higher turnout environment and, potentially, against a member of their own party.

In fact, the presence of endorsements could change the race from a typical party battle into a new type of alignment, with the main divide between the candidates shifting every election based on what issues are the highest salience. A voter would no longer be looking just at one Democrat against another in a primary, but to have a choice - right there on the ballot paper - between the Democratic Socialist candidate, the YIMBY candidate, the Labor candidate, or whatever else signifies something about their platform.

By creating this kind of quasi-multi-party system, with more clarity in the gradations between candidates running within the same party, we create more uncertainty in the legislature about what will matter at the next election and more openness to new ideas.

There is no one solution to make politics more productive, but this ballot question is a good step in that direction, and I hope you’ll vote for it.