Issue Summary: Public Trust (Basics)DRAFT 9/20/2003
Issue Summaries contain a quick reference to Centrists.Org policy ideas. They will be revised and updated periodically for clarity and usefulness, and as events and policy ideas change. Questions or comments? Please contact us at information@centrists.org .
Basics:
Electoral Reform
Non-Partisan Commissions to Set Boundaries of Legislative Districts
Direct Presidential Elections
Performance-Based Government
Electoral Reform: In recent years, efforts to improve the elections process have focused on campaign financing. The idea was that campaigns had grown so expensive, and large donations from corporations, unions, or ultra-wealthy individuals -- funneled through political parties -- were so essential to electoral victory, that representatives could not be trusted to separate the public interest from the narrow interests of their largest few donors.
Congress passed laws designed to force candidates to raise money in smaller amounts from a larger pool of donors, thus spreading their financial base, and presumably, reducing the chance that a few very large donors would have an improper impact on public policy.
These efforts are important, and there may be other ways to improve the campaign financing system. However, there is a more pressing problem: extreme politization of legislative district boundaries, coupled with winner-take-all representation.
Non-Partisan Commissions to Set Boundaries of Legislative Districts. Except in states where the boundaries of legislative districts are set by non-partisan committees or panels, most Congressional and state legislators serve districts designed in advance for representation by one party or the other.
This "gerrymandering" of legislative districts is not new, but it is now pervasive and continual. Re-districting is no longer a once-in-a-decade process, after the decennial census data are released. Now, state legislatures -- which have traditionally drawn both Congressional and local district boundaries -- attempt to redraw districts whenever one party or the other gets a political advantage.
The threat of continuous redistricting is simple: a majority party tells a minority legislator to either switch or be redistricted into an impossible-to-win area.
The result is extreme political polarization. It started in the House of Representatives, with Congressional Republicans and Democrats each shifting toward the extreme poles of their respective party's ideology. Now, state and local legislatures are headed down this path.
Few centrists or moderates can be elected within this system. The real elections are the primaries, where candidates try to outdo each other on their far-right or far-left agendas.
Direct Presidential Elections. We are not political scientists, and cannot articulate the full set of pros and cons concerning the Electoral College.
However, presidential elections are increasingly fought only in certain states, not nationwide. Some states are not viewed as "battleground" states -- they tend toward one party or the other. Therefore, presidential candidates rarely visit those states, and do not run political advertisements in those areas.
In uncontested states, residents may feel as though their votes don't count. This in analogous to what residents in gerrymandered Congressional districts can feel -- that their voice in the election will not make a difference.
Some manner of direct presidential elections might solve this problem, and force presidential candidates to appeal for votes from all corners of the nation. The Electoral College system could be used as a backup, for example, if the candidate with the most popular votes failed to meet a certain threshold percentage of all the votes cast.
Performance-Based Government: Americans admire the efficiency and innovations created by private business. However, there is a significant amount of distrust in the corporate sector's integrity.
On the other hand, Americans more or less trust the integrity of government programs. Corruption scandals are surprisingly rare, probably because very few government officials are actually corrupt. Virtually all civil servants try to serve the public fairly and appropriately.
However, Americans do not trust government agencies to be efficient, or capable of innovation.
The corporate sector can regain its integrity only when Americans believe businesses have remembered their fundamental duties as publicly chartered economic organizations. First, corporations must conduct operations within the public laws and with respect for the public interest. Second, businesses must make the well-being of shareholders (not executives) their primary financial responsibility.
To re-establish the public's trust in government, federal agencies must continually assess their performance: Is the public interest being served? Would it be more efficient to act in the public's interest locally or regionally, rather than through a federal program? Could a public/private partnership do the job more efficiently? Can a government agency be more efficient and flexible?
Liberals often defend government agencies without questioning whether or not those agencies could work better, or have become inefficient bureaucracies. It would make sense for liberals to continually evaluate public programs, to ensure they will be effective and popular. But they don't.
Conservatives just assume that contracting out government functions to the private sector will automatically improve efficiency. Conservative ideology would seem to imply continuous evaluations of private contractors to ensure that taxpayers are getting proper value. But conservatives rarely support such evaluations.
In reality, inefficient or unimaginative bureaucracies discredit government programs and civil service. On the other hand, private contractors are not always more efficient than government employees, and their dedication to the public mission may be suspect.
Centrists believe in evaluation and accountability. Legislators should not be chained by ideology. Sometime government bureaucracies are more efficient and dedicated than private contractors. Sometime private contractors are more efficient and appropriate. The decision should be made on a case-by-case basis.
Here are some guidelines for performance-based government:
1. Clearly define the public interest
2. Specify and (to the extent possible) measure the outcomes desired
3. Allow experimentation, and compare alternative approaches
4. Compare regional differences, successes and failures
5. Rate alternative approaches, methods, or regions based on outcomes and costs
6. Hold managers of government programs accountable for their ratings
Example: A Performance-Based Approach to Medicare Management. Medicare provides health insurance coverage to the elderly and some disabled workers. The program was created in response to a market failure: retirees were not able to purchase adequate health insurance at reasonable rates.
Medicare set up a system of benefits comparable to those offer by private insurers, and selected private contractors to pay claims. However, over time those contractors grew less and less independent -- benefits and payment rules were decided instead by government employees at Medicare headquarters, and in Congress.
As a result, Medicare stagnated. Its benefits did not evolve what private health plans offered to their working-age enrollees. Its contractors grew indifferent.
First, Congress must put Medicare contractors into competition. Outcomes should be set and measured, and contractors that are less efficient should be replaced. (Congress has taken some steps in this direction in pending legislation.)
Second, Medicare's government managers should be divided into narrower regions and evaluated on their ability to improve beneficiaries' health. They should be empowered to work with local contractors, hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, health plans, disease management programs, and consumer or seniors' groups. Then, each local administrator should be rated on their abilities to use their contacts with those groups and health providers to improve seniors' health within their jurisdictions. The accountability measures should have teeth: managers in regions with low scores should be replaced.
Link:
Progressive Policy Institute An "ABC" Proposal To Modernize Medicare (February 14, 2003)
