On Thursday, Common Ground hosted a political conversation in the College Chapel on the question of whether or not the U.S. should have a multi-party system. The panel featured speakers Kerry Healey and Senator Doug Jones, while Mimi Geerges moderated the event. Jones was the first Democrat in 25 years to be elected as Senator in the state of Alabama and now serves as an attorney for ArentFox Schiff, is a commentator at CNN and a distinguished senior fellow with the Center for American Progress. Healey is Executive Chair for the newly formed Forward Party and previously served as Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts and President of Babson College. Geerges has ample experience in leading conversations similar to the discussions Common Ground hosts; she is a guest host of C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” and hosts “The Mimi Geerges Show” on PBS.
As the Forward Party is relatively new and still gaining traction, Geerges began the conversation by asking Healey for a description of the beliefs and goals of the Forward Party. The Forward Party, according to Healey, “emerged out of concern for democracy that rose after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016” and has attempted to create a solution for the statistic that “51% of all registered voters in America said they were independent” when surveyed. Healey argued that this data reflects the new position of the two current parties, Democrat and Republican, as a minority within the system of politics, which Healey explains can be amended by the Forward Party as they focus on principles instead of a platform. These principles revolve around other issues that Forward Party leaders deem as important to address and that have the potential to unite the general public rather than divide. Healey shared that the Forward Party feels that there “isn’t respect for the Constitution anymore or rule of law, or basic democratic principles, and that there is an impulse against collaboration.”
After the clarification on the Forward Party’s ideals, Geerges pivoted the conversation and asked if the two speakers believed that the current two-party system is providing the best candidates for office. Jones replied to this question with a general acknowledgement of effective leaders in American politics in the past as well as credit towards independents. In Jonesʼ opinion, “independent candidates are the ones that drive ideas. They’re the ones that can pull the parties a little bit together.” Therefore, Jones shares his “worry that if so many of the independent voters become affiliated with a party, then youʼre not independent anymore, and that is going to be a problem.” Geerges then asked Healey what her ideal political system would look like. To answer this point, Healey illustrated the problem that currently persists, in which “70% of all of the offices in America, and there are over 500,000 elected offices in America, 70% of those are uncontested.” When combined with other factors like unfilled positions, Healey claims “that only 20% of American democracy is working the way we imagine it to in our heads.” Healey attributes this issue largely to single-party states that have led many to feel as though “you don’t have to go vote, you know which candidate is going to win in the final election before you go there.”
To tie these previous discussion points together, Geerges geared the conversation more towards the functionality of the two-party system in relation to the parties themselves by asking if it was the system or the parties that were faulty. Healey shared that due to the consequences of a two-party system, “I think it’s probably a little bit of both, but certainly since parties have begun to use wedge issues to divide and polarize the American public as much as possible, it’s meant that there really isn’t that sort of respectful dialogue” where people can participate freely in politics. She connected this to the next question regarding the systems of governance in other Western states, in particular Great Britain, where coalitions have more easily been able to form between opposite ends of the political spectrum. Jones, on the other hand, gave examples where the American government acted successfully as a coalition such as the Panama Canal Treaty, NATO and the passage of the Voter Rights Acts. Jones argues that a complete transformation into a multi-party system is not what is needed, but rather “a new sense of patriotism.”
In reference to the minor parties running candidates running for Presidential office this year, Green and Libertarian, Healey re-emphasized the gap in political parties as she shares her belief that neither of these parties is “addressing the needs of those disenfranchised voters who simply are opting out of the system.” Jones also expanded upon the idea that the present minor parties face limitations due to their policy approaches by sharing his experience with the No Labels Movement. This group attempted to “find a group of people in Congress on both sides of the aisle” and later devolved into the Problem Solvers Caucus, which is when Jones believes this group made their biggest mistake.
In contrast to Healey’s belief that third parties should appear on the ballot as potential candidates, Jones stated that “when [the Problem Solvers Caucus] decided to run candidates against major parties when they lost their credibility.” He then turned the discussion towards his main problem with third parties in that they take away votes from Democratic and Republican candidates. However, Healey countered this point with her thinking that “we will be the second party in a majority of states, but I don’t know that we’ll always be the second party to the same other state,” meaning that the Forward Party could potentially emerge as an equal to the two major parties and replace, rather than take, these office positions.
Despite differences in beliefs, some common ground was shared between Jones and Healey. One uniting cause was the closed nature of elections, which both speakers agreed blocked far too many candidates from running for office. Both panelists also acknowledged that “we have had a problem with percentage of voting for a long time,” according to Jones.
The panelists both agreed, however, that America’s politics hold a brighter future with civic engagement due to “the times that the people who are in college right now have lived through to get to think of the optimism involved with becoming politically engaged,” which has made younger generations more inclined to vote and voice their opinions, as explained by Jones in some of his final statements.
