>> John Haskell: Welcome to the fifth in the Pillars of Democracy series sponsored by the Library of Congress in partnership with the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution. I'm John Haskell, director of the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. We live in a challenging time. Polls show that the major institutions in American life, in government, and in civic life, are less trusted and less respected than at any time in recent memory. In an effort to grapple with the question of how their decline can be counteracted, we are bringing together historians, political scientists, legal scholars, authors, and practitioners from across the political spectrum. The idea is to create a fuller picture of the challenges facing institutions in America, as well as institutions' potential promise. Last month, we looked at the administrative state. Today, we consider an institution similarly not to be found in the constitution, political parties. Indeed, although many American, early American leaders, thought them dangerous to the new government, party politics became a central part of our political system. Let me use our panels today. Henry Olsen, a Washington Post columnist and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center joins us. Henry's career included a stint as a political consultant and three years working for the California Republican Caucus in the General Assembly. After graduating from the University of Chicago Law School, he clerked for the honorable Danny J. Boggs on the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. He then began working an analyst and so that several think tanks, including the Manhattan Institute and the American Enterprise Institute. He's the author of The Working Class Republican Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue Collar Conservatism. His biannual election predictions have been widely praised for their uncanny accuracy, and he's a frequent guest on television and radio. We also have Tasha Philpot,a professor the University of Texas at Austin's Department of Government where she's also affiliated with the center for African and African American studies. The institute for urban policy research and analysis in the Center for Women's and Gender studies. Research focuses on the conditions that enable marginalized groups in American society to function in a democratic system. Her work has been supported by the national science foundation and published in political sciences top peer reviewed journals. She is has also authored three books, the most recent of which is Conservative but Not Republican. The Paradox of Party Identification and Ideology Among African Americans. Next, we have Sophia Jordan Wallace, and associate professor of political science at the University of Washington. Her PhD is from Cornell University. She specializes in the Latino politics, representation, and immigration politics and policy. Her research has been funded by the Ford Foundation, the Social Sciences Research Council, the Dirksen Congressional Center, and most recently, the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress where she held a chair. Her coauthored book, Wall, Cages, and Family Separation, Race and Immigration Policy in the Trump Era was published last year. Last on our panel, we have Lee Drutman, who's a senior fellow at the New Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation. Recently, Lee published Breaking The Two-Party Doom Loop. The Case For Multiparty Democracy in America, and he was the winner of the 2016 American Political Science Association's Robert Dahl Award given for "Scholarship of the highest quality on the subject of democracy." He's the cohost of the podcast Politics in Question, and he writes for the New York Times and FifeThirtyEight. He has a PhD in political science from the university of California Berkeley. Please note that we're leaving time for questions at the end of the conversation. Please submit your questions through the chat function on Zoom, and thank you for tuning in. Let's turn to the discussion. When we think of institutions that are in trouble, not trusted by the American people, we automatically think of Congress, the media, and so forth. With political parties, however, the complaint is usually by partisans on one side or the other about people on the other side. Democrats and Republicans seem like cats and dogs. But political parties are essential institutions of democracy. Indeed, no modern democracy has existed without them. Today, we look at parties not as a debate between Democrats and Republicans. Instead, we look at the party system as an institution, asking the question, is this institution serving its intended purpose? To get at this, it's useful, though, to get back to basics. What is the definition of a political party? This sounds like an easy question, but it is anything but so in the United States. In recent years, political science has offered this descriptive definition of parties in the US. Parties are formal organizations of intense policy demanders who coordinate with other groups to win control of office so as to pursue their policy goals. These policy demanders control politics in the US by nominating candidates with whom they agree. Let's think about that definition. I'll start with Sophia. What would you add or subtract in a descriptive sense to that definition to help us understand better what parties are? >> Sophia Jordan Wallace: Thanks so much, John, and thank you for having me as a panelist. I'm really excited for this conversation. I think that, you know, this is a good working definition in some ways. I mean, sort of tweaks that I might offer include that parties are really critical in providing information to the public. They definitely cue different positions to the public, whether we agree with parties in what they're tell the public in those positions. They certainly play this role, and I do think that people whether they are voters or not, I think they do absorb messages from the party. That's definitely a role that they play, and that shapes our public discourse on what issues are important and what things people care about that I in now way mean to undermine that the public doesn't also articulate things to parties. They absolutely do. So, it goes both ways. The parties do play an important role in signaling to the public. So, I would definitely add that. >> John Haskell: Henry, what would you add or subtract to that definition? How do you think about the parties, Henry, also? >> Henry Olsen: American parties are, I think, one of the things I like about the definition is the idea of an informal coalition, because that gets to one way that American parties are different is that American parties are have a top-down system. Even a leader like President Biden has to negotiate, as we have been seeing painfully in open view for months, with people who owe him nothing other than some degree of nominal allegiance. It's much more of an early feudal system and that person in that respect than the more tightly monarchical party systems of most other countries. So, the biggest thing that I would say is that the idea of party as a separate entity from the dispute or the discussion between leading members of what the definition calls policy demanders. The idea of it as a separate institution is really a myth. I think there once was such a thing as a separate party that people would come together in private and then come out more unified, but that's not what American parties are now. So, yes, party members signal things or color the brand of the party, but there's not a party, per se, where people sit down in a way, I think many people, colloquially, I use the term outside of political sphere. >> John Haskell: Yeah, and I think what you're saying is in sync with that definition, which I think you suggested, but it's about this informal network of so-called policy demanders, interest groups, or something like that. Tasha, what would you add or subtract to the definition or what Henry Olsen or Sophia Jordan Wallace have to say? >> Tasha Philpot: I think both of them brought up really important parts on both sides. I think parties are valuable in terms of signaling to voters, at least, you know, in a shorthand way, what a candidate can stand for, right? The way of being able to make decisions in a low-information decision-making environment, but as Henry pointed out, I mean, there's a lot of missteps that can be taken if you solely rely on party, because they're not disciplined, and you do have people who, you know, can go completely rogue from the party. So, in that sense, you have this pull and push where, on the one hand, citizens can benefit from parties and being able to have some minimum level of information regarding where they stand, while at the same time, while undermined in the American system where we don't have a cohesive -- either party is 100% cohesive in terms of where they stand and everybody buying into that. >> John Haskell: Lee, what would you add to that? >> Lee Drutman: A lot of great stuff here. You know, I think it's important to understand that parties are coalitions, and it's important to understand, as Henry was saying, the really strange and unusual nature of American political parties, which are uniquely porous than anybody can run as a Democrat or a Republican in a primary election, and if they win that election they become the candidate. So, we often think, whoa, Republicans should do this. Democrats should do this. But who's the they? There's no single person who gets to decide that. It's kind of a tug of war between the politicians, between the policy demanders, and between the voters who play an important role in shaping what the parties stand for. One thing that we haven't talked about, thus far, is the extent to which parties are also identities for a lot of people. People thing of themselves very much as Democrats or Republicans, and those identities really shape how people engage and view politics and how people feel about winning and losing elections. People feel very personal when their side loses, and you know, there's ways in which that is a good thing, because it gets people engaged in politics, but also, ways in which it's an eliminating thing, particularly given the nature of a person conflict. I mean, the other things that when we think about parties in the US, not only are they uniquely porous, but the other thing is very unique about the US is that we only have two parties, and those parties have to be these very, very broad coalitions in order to, you know, encompass, roughly, half the country, and that also makes it very hard for their to be a kind of core of what is the party, because it's very hard to run a top-down organization when you're trying to encompass so much diversity. And I think although the parties are very top down in some ways, you know, there is that top downness only is possible because so many of the divisions within the party are being suppressed and marginalized, and I think that also comes at a tremendous cost to our presentation. >> John Haskell:, And we've always had this broad umbrella, because if you went back 60 years, the democratic party had the most conservative people and most liberal people in Congress, and that's certainly not the case anymore. One point I wanted to make is that, you know, Henry. Well, all of you at some level. Henry said it straight out. You know, it's not hierarchical. There's nobody at the top that says, hey, here's what goes, and I remember 30 years ago, the Democrats had Linden LaRouche supporters winning nominations for statewide offices in Illinois around the same time that Republicans had David Duke winning statewide nominations in Louisiana. And there was a sense, maybe I've got this wrong, and maybe one of you can comment on this. But there was a sense at the time, that there were people who could say, including President Bush, the first President Bush who could say, that's not us. And maybe that's harder to do now. I mean, Democrats disassociated themselves from these LaRouche people. Republicans disassociated themselves from Duke as a nominee, and can that kind of thing happen anymore? >> Henry Olsen: I think people can do that. Let's just remember, though, that these things have, in one sense, more of an elite effect than a mass effect. You know, the LaRouche people still receive over -- I'm not sure if there's over 1 or 2 million votes, but you know, a substantial number of people just voted for the Democrat and didn't know or didn't care, and David Duke still receive the lion share of people who were willing to vote Republican, even though the president of the United States, a Republican, disavowed him. So, you know, it's kind of a sense that, yes, it could happen today, but even when it did happen, it didn't actually have a large effect on a whole lot of voters. That people tend to devote to the party line anyway for whatever reason. Or a party line meaning that they voted whoever was the nominee for whatever reason. So, I think we can overstate the degree in which voters take cues from the top, which is different from a French political system that when the father of Marine le Pen became, unexpectedly, the person who is facing Jack Chirac in a presidential election. Every other party endorsed Chirac, even though they were far to the left of him, and their voters followed suit, and there was virtually no leakage to le Pen, that they actually listened to their leaders. That's not something that American people have done for quite some time, and if anything, it would be less today. But I don't think it was ever anywhere near as strong. Witness Franklin Roosevelt's effort to encourage dissident Democrats in 1938 and how that fell flat on its face. >> John Haskell: It certainly did, yeah. The -- any other thoughts on just defining parties before we move to a more normative approach? >> Lee Drutman: Well, I mean, the current system of course is a multiparty system, and there's not that binary conflict as there is in the US. So, it's easier for people to kind of support a different party. The party identities are caught up in this zero-to-some partisanship that we have now. The other thing about, you know, about David Duke in 1988, he actually, ran with the Democratic primary, and I think you're referring to 92, when he ran in the Republican primary. In 1988, you know, you have David Duke -- >> John Haskell: Bless you, Henry. >> Lee Drutman: -- Jackson running in the same primary, which is kind of remarkable. And what that tells you is, and you were referring to this earlier, is the Democratic Party used to have liberals and conservatives. Republicans is to have liberals and conservatives, and there were a lot more persuadable voters that might go either way. So, the parties could, in fact, had a strong incentive, to distance themselves from the most extreme folks claiming to be on their side, because doing so would alienate the kind of large number of moderate swing voters. One of the most significant trends in nearest politics is the extent to which those swing voters have largely vanished. And so, there are very few floating swing voters now. And so, the parties have shifted to a much more base mobilization strategy. In a base mobilization strategy, it's much harder for parties to distance themselves from their most extreme elements. So, here, this is why Republicans are having a hard time distancing themselves from the Paul Gosars and Marjorie Taylor Greenes is because they represent some motivated base, and you know, on the other side, they say that Democrats are not trying to distance themselves from The Squad all that much, because that's also a dedicated base of voters. >> John Haskell: So, with pivot to what parties should do. So, Tasha Philpot, should parties, for example, channel the impulses and ambitions of candidates and elected officials in constructive ways, and what would that mean in practice? >> Tasha Philpot: I mean, it should imply that there are a set of rules for parties, which, as we were discussing a little bit earlier, they're not in the Constitution. There isn't a subscribed way that parties should behave, but if we go back to the definition that we started with at the beginning of this discussion, if their goal is to facilitate the electoral process, right? Get people who are part of their coalition into public office to achieve some policy outcome, then it would be their benefit to facilitate the entry way of like-minded individuals into the electoral process. You know, whether that be in terms of information circulation or even filtering resources into them. >> John Haskell: Sophia, what is your thought on that question of whether parties have a role or should have a role in channeling ambition? >> Sophia Jordan Wallace: Yeah, I mean, I agree with Tasha. I mean, I think that both parties should be deeply invested in supporting and really kind of recruiting a really diverse set of candidates, and here I don't mean just racially and ethnically. I mean gender, class, all kinds of things, because, you know, parties do play a really critical role in supporting candidates, and this can really just be boiled down to brass tacks money support really. And it can be hard. We have a lot of different pathways into politics now that didn't, you know, doesn't kind of map on to our traditional story we tell about what needed to be the background. And, you know, that may be a good thing. Maybe that has opened up some types of candidates that have emerged that are more representative. I mean, I always make this argument to my students that if you look at who is in Congress along a lot of different dimensions, even if we just use college education, right? The vast amount of people in the United States do not have a college degree, but yet, nearly all members of Congress have a college degree, and it most have an advanced degree. You know, so I think there's lots of ways in which parties, really, it's incumbent upon them to recruit and support a really broad-based, diverse set of candidates, that will excite the public, because I think it is a scary moment that there was a lot of apathy towards both political parties. And you want people to be excited about the people who are running, and you want them to feel positive, and least about their own party, and that's not always true in the data that we have. So, there's lots of concerns about how people feel towards the other party but even towards their own party. We're not necessarily saying really strong feelings, and that's partially reflected by what many of the panelists have said about when you have a two-party system and they have to be this broad, there's going to be a lot of different contingents within that party. So, they're not going to love every part of what the party is doing, and maybe the party label does really make sense to them. So, part of this, I think, is having a set of candidates that do appeal to people, and that might be different based on geography for sure. >> John Haskell: You know, Henry, I know you've written on this, exactly the topic that Sophia raised. So, what is it in parties? I mean, so, we're saying, Hey, there's no top-down hierarchy. Instead it's an interest group policy demanders who are making things happen, and candidates can be self-generating. You know, if you have enough money you can run, but a lot of people need a little bit a push. So, who's doing that, Henry, in order for whether it's the Republicans or the Democrats to have a more diverse and more representative candidate base. >> Yeah, I mean the thing about, because the American party system is so fluid and because we have our nominees chosen by direct voter primaries, which is unique in the developed world, there's only so much that party entity can do. You know, in all levels of government party caucuses come together. They're not the formal party. You know, but they are Republican members or the Democratic members of, say, the House of Representatives, and they try and find candidates capable of running an effective campaign, and of course, to the extent that they are looking for things. They would prefer to have a diverse set of candidate from across a variety of perspectives, although virtually none are trying to find people who are not college-educated. That is one thing that despite what we know, it still almost a requirement, not a formal requirement. Governor Scott Walker did not have a college degree, in Wisconsin for example, but it's almost a requirement that you have at least a four-year degree from a low admissions standard college somewhere to be considered. But they're not the only ones. You know, you've got interest groups. You know, like the Democratic Socialists for America or our Revolution for the Justice Democrats on the Democratic side or various Christian groups or [inaudible] the Republican side who are putting their people forward,as well. So, you often will have a contest in the primaries between these different party or party-aligned entities who have it out with the voters to try and say we want to shift the part brand in this direction or in that direction or in that direction. And so, it's because of our open primary system, it's very difficult for party to do that because there's so many actors who are trying to own the party brand, even if they are not part of the party hierarchy. >> John Haskell: Do the parties have any ability now. I'll turn this to Lee. Do the parties have any ability to channel the behavior in constructive ways of Democrats and Republicans once they're in office? >> Lee Drutman: Well, who are the parties? Does Chuck Schumer have power over Democrats in the Senate? Does Nancy Pelosi have power over the Democrats in the Senate. Will Kevin McCarthy have power over Republicans if he's the speaker? I mean, they have some powers. They can strip people of committee assignments and give them plumb committee assignments, to the extent that they care about that. They can help direct money to their re-elections. They can fund raise for them. So, I mean, these are some powers that they have. I mean, the biggest power the party leaders have is controlling the agenda and deciding what gets a vote and what is left, you know, on the margins. And also, I mean, as Henry was saying, you know, they are also actively involved in recruiting candidates, you know, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are trying to find candidates who can win, but they're only interested in those candidates in those swing districts. So, if it's not a swing district or a swing state, then it's basically whoever wants to run, and that's a very candidate-centric model. So, who can run? Well, you know, people who have the self-confidence to think that they deserve to be a member of Congress. People who have access to fundraising networks to help them finance the cost of campaigns, which is here when there's a real bias towards people not only with college degrees but also with law degrees and other advanced degrees who have access to those networks. You know, Nick Kearns [assumed spelling] at Duke has done some tremendous work on looking at the bias towards, you know, upper income candidates and how that affects representation. Yeah, I think that is a tremendous bias. Now if we had a party list system as some European democracies do, parties are very self-consciously trying to figure out well, how do we come up with a representative list? The candidates don't have to run and nominate and fundraise for themselves. You know, they're good members of the party. Or, I can say, well, we want to make sure that we have a candidate list. That is, you know, including spots with women, diverse representation, you know, diverse backgrounds. And what you see in party [inaudible] systems is much more diverse representation. I mean, one reason that the US has such a poor record in terms of female representation because in a candidate-centered electoral system, men are much more likely to raise their hand and say, yeah, yeah, I could be the representative. I mean, women do just as well when they run, but men tend to be overconfident for these kind of positions. So, I'll shut up now. Not that I know what I'm talking about here. >> John Haskell: Tasha Philpot, I was curious whether you had a view about whether, again, in the normative sense, should parties to the extent there's an organizational component, however informal. Should they be trying to identify broadly acceptable candidates or is it really about policy intensity? What's happening out there? >> Tasha Philpot: I think, you know, from a strategic standpoint, they should be recruiting candidates they think can win. So, if we're in a time where you have moderates anyone appeal to more moderate base, then it will make sense to try to recruit candidates that can appeal to a broad base. But if you have a situation where the parties are more polarized, then you want to be able get someone, as Sophia said, that voters are going to be energetic and excited about. So, I think just depends on the nature of the political climate at the time, and you know, strategically wanting to make a calculated effort to get the person who's going to ultimately get the electoral success. >> John Haskell: But Sophia Jordan Wallace, isn't there this tension between a lot of the activists and policy demanders, you know, who may not be attunable to broadly acceptable or even electable as more pragmatic people? Is that a tension in the party system now? >> Sophia Jordan Wallace: I mean, I don't know if it's a tension in the way that you stated it but I think there's a lot of evidence now that because the primary system we have, there are party activists, right, that are controlling that level of, you know, who's emerging and who's being mobilized. And so, I think the line between who's an activist and who's the party is a little blurred there, because we're largely talking about party activists at that level that are pushing candidates forward, and at least there's a lot of research that indicates that's actually part of how we've gotten into this really polarized situation. And on the other hand, people would say, yeah, but I want activists to play key role, regardless of the party, because you're representing the voices of the people and elevating what people care about. Now others might suggest, yeah, that those voices may represent a very small number of people who are just very loud in their voices and may not actually be representative of a large number of people. And others could say yeah, well, maybe they're giving a lot of voice to people who have been excluded. So I don't think there's one right answer about that, but I think it's definitely the case that as you've had more individuals kind of with a hand playing a role in emerges as a candidate, it is much harder for parties to control, and it's very clear after the 2016 presidential election, you know, the party did not decide, right? And that was one of the big takeaways. And so, even though we had largely said of the party is the one that determines who is going to be the candidate, that is what happened, and that's not who became the president. And so, I think we have to take a step back and ask, well, going back to our original question, who is the party and what, exactly, does the party control? Who is the party? Who are we referencing, and is that really a singular entity, or are there, as Lee, suggests, in specific contexts, ways in which specific elites has specific powers, but there isn't really this one big party that is kind of the master puppermaker kind of thing? >> John Haskell: So Henry, if the primary system, well, there's presidential level, but there's, you know, hundreds and hundreds of elections at the state and local level, whether federal or otherwise. The primary system bends in the direction of rewarding ideological intensity and maybe plurality winners of there's a lot of candidates, hich doesn't mean your broadly popular at all necessarily. What can be done? >> Henry Olsen: Lee Drutman: Yeah, I think one of the things that we did not have presidential nominees selected almost exclusively through presidential primaries until after 1972. That even in 1968 or 1972 where primaries were important. The bulk of delegates in both, you know, the Republican convention in 1968 and the Democratic convention in both years were still selected by party elites at conventions or, you know, with respect to simply governors or party chairman deciding. If we are concerned that the current system or awards, activists, or in the case of Trump, basically encourages the hostile takeover vote of the party by an outside element, then the only solution is to go back to the old system which is some form of non-primary selection That has its own issues. You know, it's not clear the elites in the Republican Party in 2016 would've chosen somebody who was electable, because they were clearly out of touch with their own voters, much less the swing voters. Same thing I think is true in the Democratic Party, but if our concern is that the primary electorate system has diffused the ability of parties to mean anything or establish some form of party discipline and also enables less-reputable characters to slip through. You know, demagogues to use the ancient term. Then the only solution is to move to the sort of closed party system that dominates the rest of the world. Which would then naturally give rise to more third parties that if there are a large number of people who can't penetrate an existing party that formed their own. >> John Haskell: And then it would be if the formal party has kind of -- I mean the, there are people in formal party positions all across the country and at the national level, but they don't have as much power as they used to. If you could turn back the clock, you'd be giving power to people who don't have it. I mean, Democrats tried for years to have superdelegates makes a difference. That is, party leaders make a difference at their conventions, and it really never amount to much as far as could tell. >> Henry Olsen: Yeah, well, eventually, with the Democrats, when they had the opportunity to do so, like in the race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, they punted. They basically said, yes, we are all superdelegates. It's our decision, and we're going to with the will of the people, and that, essentially, eliminated the entire rationale for why they were there. >> John Haskell: Parties, you know, we had a discussion about this before. Parties, well, let's put it this way, a democratic political system is meant to facilitate a polity's ability to grapple with public problems. And since our politics and our government is organized around parties, are parties functioning to support addressing public problems? >> Lee Drutman: I mean, yes and no. I mean, they're certainly defining what the public problems are in ways that help them win elections. The problem is we have a somewhat dysfunctional and gridlock system of actual governing, and it's precisely because we have political institutions that are set up to encourage broad compromise and broad coalition building and we have a majoritarian electoral system that's evenly divided that is pushing us into this incredibly divisive, noncompromise oriented politics. So, at heart, we have an electoral system that's at odds with our governing system. Now I happen to, you know, there's some flaws in our governing system, but I think the general idea that you should build broad majority support in government for policies is probably a good idea. So, then, the question is how can we align our electoral system so that it works better with our governing institutions. You know, and this why I've become such a strong supporter of electoral reform, and want to open up the party system and have more parties, because what you see in countries with more parties is that parties have to work together. They have to build coalitions. You can build that into the system. You know, if you talk to somebody who, you know, does politics in Germany, they'll say, you'll know, of course we're going to work together and build a coalition, because that's just how we do things, and we're not going to have these wild swings back and forth, as one party gets a 51% majority and takes over entire executive branch of the Congress of the other party. What we have now is, you know, mostly gridlock punctuated by major swings, and, you know, no wonder people are dissatisfied and turning against our political parties and our political institutions because they're not working. You know, I mean, you can argue, you know, if you have pure Westminster system, as the British do, you could argue that maybe they are, you know, having responsible, two-party system makes some sense. Obviously some problems in British politics, but we don't have a Westminster system. We have a system that requires a lot of power sharing and is designed to diffuse power and force broad coalition building. So, we ought to have an electoral and party system that works with that, and we don't have that now. >> John Haskell: Tasha, I'm eager to hear your take on the same question. Are our parties functioning to support addressing the public problems? >> Tasha Philpot: I don't think so. I've been, I suppose part of it is because I live in Texas and have been watching what's happening on the state level, but oftentimes, I see more, solutions looking for problems, as opposed to problems that are inspiring solutions. So, I think there are a myriad of things that should be the focus of policy makers and yet, over the last few years, particularly with the polarization that we get off the things that are going to affect most people to the ones that are going to accumulate the most votes. So, there are issues that will accumulate the most votes. So, in that respect, I think the parties have been doing voters a disservice by not generally looking at what the needs at this moment, as opposed to thinking ahead as to how can I stay in office. How can I maintain power? You know, to what extent is that okay? I mean, political parties aren't meant to be altruistic organizations. They're meant to, you know, get policy agendas forward through the electoral process, but nevertheless, you do see issues of people falling through the cracks of not having a truly representative government on any of the levels, but particularly, you know, at the federal level. So, I suppose, in the question, I mean, yes, they should be doing this, but the answer that I would give is no they're not. >> John Haskell: You know, and I was going to pose to you, Sophia, sort of building a what Tasha said and what Lee said is that of course, politicians are always ambitious. They're always going to, you know, accentuate issues that help them get elected and parties are going to do that. So, that the special sauce is to marry political incentives with solving problems. So that if you address immigration in a good way. It's better to do that for your political purposes than it is just to let the issue fester, right? Because that's what's happening here. And you know, I picked immigration because you're a specialist on that, for issues like immigration or many others. It's just -- it's probably better for us politically, whichever party, not to address it because we mobilize our base by not doing so. >> Sophia Jordan Wallace: Yeah, so, I agree with Lee and Tasha that there is this disconnect between the electoral system and the governing institutions. And what that really does create, and you know, Lee didn't mention her by I will go ahead and give a shout out to Francis Lee I mean, she really hits the nail on the head, right, that this part switching and this belief that always the next election you are going to get control, creates this perverse incentive to not work together and to make yourself seem very dissimilar. What that means is there's fundamental dysfunction in terms of actually getting anything done. And in other systems in the world, you now, you would not be rewarded for not moving forward on policy, right? That you are held accountable for actually moving forward, and there are so many important public policy issues, as Tasha said, that really do affect a large number of people. We may disagree on the exact solutions but we agree on the problems, and that's fundamentally how we used to talk about parties. They disagreed on the right, approach, right? And the size of government in facilitating those approaches. That's not really how we talk about the differences now, and now we even really disagree even about what the problems are and the nature of problems. But I also want to offer in the question when you asked me about immigration. You know, a lot of people think about immigration in this contemporary moment. And they don't Zoom out and think about what immigration politics was like in say the 60s, 70s, 80s, even in the early 90s. And what I want to suggest to you is that there was actually a lot of agreement then and a lot of working together, and in fact, the last really giant piece of immigration reform was under Reagan, and it was bipartisan. And people forget that, right? They don't remember that. And if you look at some of the sort of GOP positions on immigration in the 80s, you would actually think that they sound like moderate democrats today, and I mean that seriously. If you go back and look at kind of primary presidential elections, that's what it sounds like. And I I think, even in today, our really polarizing environment, there is actually a lot of evidence that both in the public and amongst elites, there was more agreement on some elements of immigration. I'm going to suggest to you in any way, and I have a long record of publications to suggest there's very big differences between the parties. But there are areas of agreement. But what happens is we get very trapped in wanting to fix everything about an issue in one bill. And so, when I was much younger, I used to really, really want everything to be like a one giant bill that fixes everything. The more more I have studied Congress, the more I realize that has actually, it our polarized situation, led to now progress on a lot of really important issues. And so, thinking about immigration, there are a lot things people do agree on. Now whether they would electorally think it's going to be harmful to come to agreement with one another on those specific pieces, either because they either gave into the Democrats or Democrats are criticized by progressive that are farther left that are going to say that was a bill that didn't do enough. You should've never done that and then punished them for that, it is this tension between piecemeal legislation and comprehensive legislation layered on top of the polarization that makes it even more complicated to address policy issues, but it really is incredibly dysfunction and we really need to think, as Leah suggested, about ways to reform the electoral system to incentivize compromise in working together. >> John Haskell: And, Sophia, Republicans have shifted on immigration, sticking with that issue, which is important and interesting issue, and Democrats have, too, just in the last 20, a lot of Democrats have, as well. It's an interesting issue, in that sense. So, Henry, do you have a feel for what was different about the parties, the party system in the 80s, where something like what was at the Simpson -- >> Henry Olsen: Mazolli. >> John Haskell: Yeah, the Simpson-Mazzoli Act that, you know, whether it was good or bad thing. The point is it was a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform that was supported by leadership of both sides. What was different about the party system where you can address immigration in a bipartisan way then, as opposed to now, where it really does seem like it's almost impossible? >> Henry Olsen: Well, there's a number of things that are different. You know, first of all, the American party system, as it existed in the 1980s, was shifting from the century-long model where it was based on largely on ethnic and positional experiences at a very discrete time, but you still had people who were Republicans because their grandfather had fought for the union, even though they voted and were raised 100% liberal. And you still had people who were in the deep South, Democrats, even though they were voting conservatives, because there was a heritage from the Confederacy. That was breaking down, but it was still present, and what that meant was you had that ideological diversity that allowed for some degree of cross-pollination. You also had the fact that Republicans, even though Reagan was president, hadn't run Congress for 30 years. The idea that the Republicans could actually wield power remains something that was considered to be a fantasy. Gingrich rose to power because he said, hey, we can actually when. And the idea of one party sensing that they're perpetually running up hill helped foster compromise, because they didn't think they could make their priorities top. And then I'd say the other thing is that the primary system existed but the ability of outside groups to exploit it was in its infancy. That you go to what a primary that would've cost -- you know, when I ran in my contested primary in California in 1986. I spent I can't be around her around $250,000 to represent that had 300,000 people. It would not be unusual for somebody in that situation today to spend over $2 million, precisely because people now now that he primaries are where the game is at. So, what you've had is because of that, a massive movement in the primaries, so that people in safe districts are is responsive to leaders. They have to worry about being challenged in a way that they didn't have to worry about in 1986. So, I'd say, it's those three things that have all broken down. Some of which were natural. You know, it's only so long, the legacy of the civil war and the Great Depression. We're going to keep on that follows in one political party, and some of which, the rules of the primary encourage outside groups to dominate, and that's something that the part of the partisan system would need to look at very carefully is how much do we want to have mass voter primaries run by the state, which is our system, but which is unusual which is accompanied by virtually no one else in the world. The more we have that, the more we're going to have people looking over their shoulder at who can get on Fox News, and who's going to oppose them in the primary and less willing to listen to a leader who can lead them to a better place, in terms of a bipartisan compromise. >> John Haskell: So, before we move to questions from the audience, I wanted to pose the $64,000 question to each of you. I'll start with you, Lee. If you had a magic wand that only worked for feasible solutions. That's the trick here. What would you implement to address the party systems shortcomings? If your reform is ambitious, how can it be put into action? >> Lee Drutman: And by feasible, even constitutional? >> John Haskell: I mean practical, that it might actually happen. That it's not just a pipe dream. >> Lee Drutman: I mean, you know, what's possible and feasible is what we've collectively defined as feasible. I mean, we have seen our Democracy change considerably over the course of our history. And if you, you know, had gone to somebody in 1902 and said in 20 years women will have the right to vote. That there will be direct election of Senators. There will be the direct primary and states will have a ballot and initiative. Somebody would've told you, you're crazy, man. That's not feasible. In 1952, if you had said, massive voter rights legislation within 15 years. That'll never happen. Jim Crow is just endemic to the South. So, I mean, I think we have to be careful about, you know, saying what's feasible and what's not feasible. >> John Haskell: All right, then go for it, Lee. Tell us -- >> Lee Drutman: All of which is a preface. So, you know -- >> John Haskell: Tell us a one paragraph what we want to do. >> Lee Drutman: I would like us to move to a system of proportional representation with larger house districts, multi-member districts, with larger house, more representative house. You know, I would take Henry's suggestion of eliminating primaries. I don't think you need them proportional system with multiple parties. You know, we've got to do something about Senate elections. I think some version of rank choice voting, like would work okay for Senate elections. And you know, while we're at it, let's eliminate the electoral college and moved to a two-round national popular vote system. >> John Haskell: All right, Tasha, what do you think? What needs to change? >> Tasha Philpot: The question. Good grief? [ Laughing ] >> John Haskell: That's a big question. So, what reforms of the party system do you think would make a difference that would be constructive? >> Tasha Philpot: Oh, I can't remember who said it earlier, but to somehow incentivize cooperation as opposed to the current system that supports more polarization. So that there isn't -- oh, it was Sophia. About trying to dominate the policy agenda so much in fear of losing power in the next go around, but really thinking about doing the most good for the most people, as opposed to singularly ramming through legislation to kind of prove that you one, so to speak. >> John Haskell: Okay, Henry, are you ready to go? [inaudible] >> Henry Olsen: On a governing basis, I would say one thing that could be done is abolish or severely curtail the partisan use of the filibuster. The filibuster has existed for a long time, but it had not until the 1990s, and really, and to the 2000's, become a tool of party leaders to frustrate anything they didn't like and the majority party, and that's what's really led to the gridlock is because when you have a bipartisan system, and you have a partisan use of the filibuster, you basically require unanimous consent for anything to go through, and James Madison warns us of the Federalist Papers about the problems of requiring unanimous consent in a democracy. So, curtailing or abolishing the partisan use of the filibuster, requiring that at least some substantial numbers of people caucusing with another political party have to participate, would remove the ability of a minority to obstruct virtually everything. You would see more legislation go through. It may not be bipartisan legislation, but you would not have a situation where you have to get 60 votes in the Senate to do it. >> John Haskell: Sophia, what are some of your answers? >> Sophia Jordan Wallace: Well, there isn't a whole lot left after the others have gone through. >> John Haskell: Here you're going last. >> Sophia Jordan Wallace: No-no, it's fine, I still have one point that no one said yet, but I strongly agree with Henry regarding the filibuster, and I really do agree with all of the things that would fundamentally alter, again, this imbalance that's he's identified between the electoral system and governing institutions, and Tasha's correct. We have to work for ways to incentivize people, and I think that will happen through structural reform. I also want to put out there that, you know, there's been a lot of critiques of the Senate as a not particularly representative body, in terms of, you know, who the Senate represents and how a very small number of people, as Henry has articulated, can stop something, and some of those people don't even represent that many people, right? And so, they can stop anything from going forward. So, it's just another data point to think about it, but the new other point that I would add to this is I think that one of the most serious issues facing the world today is misinformation. And the dominance of misinformation in many different spheres, whether that's through formal media channels. Whether that's social media. And the reason why I raise that issue is so important is because what we do really know from the political psychology literature is that when that information becomes so widespread, it's incredibly difficult to correct it, whether that's by party ledgers. Whether that's by your friends and family. But people really do change their political attitudes and behavior, and it does contribute to polarization, and so, what I would say we need to figure out how to tackle misinformation and the spread of misinformation so widely to really alter and negatively impact the public and discourse and going back to, you know, one of the questions you raised earlier, our capacity to solve public policy problems that face a lot of people, but also for people to feel positive about parties, I'm convinced that misinformation is a really -- and disinformation are key components of that of really figuring out how to solve that. >> John Haskell: And that gets really right at the question of the role of parties, because before social media, and certainly, you know, before some other technological advances. The parties did serve as a bigger as mediating institutions, because people couldn't talk to each other and organize like they can on Facebook. I mean, that's a quantum leap, isn't it? The change that you can -- you know, Twitter's different that Facebook. You can organize on Facebook. You just blast away on Twitter, it's a little different, but that has more of an impact. So, one thing that was brought up, I think, by Lee, that has come from our audience, and any of you can address this if you'd like. What lessons might we learn from rank-choice voting experiments in recent years. Perhaps especially, in rank-choice systems with open primaries, like Alaska. What role would remain for parties? What your thoughts no the rank choice voting that has taken a hold, you know, in main, in particular, in some other places. I mean, it's used in New York City. >> Lee Drutman: Well, this will be great chance for me to plug a new report that colleague [inaudible] and I put out at the New America Political Reform website that -- what we've learned about rank choice voting, and that really covers. There's been emerging literature on what we've learned from, you know, from the experiments in Maine, you know, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, St. Paul, Minneapolis, and you know, I think the lesson is that ranked-choice voting has some, you know, modest benefits. I think particularly in primary elections in which there's a crowded field that can help parties kind of, you know, find the most broadly acceptable candidate. I think it does encourage a little bit more diversity in terms of candidate who enter and the idea, you know, encourages some new voices into politics. You know, but within the single member district context in which it's been used in the US, you know, the effects have largely been muted because you're still going to basically wind up with two parties in, you know, top two. It's going to sort of orient towards two candidates, as long as you have, you know, single-voter districts. I'm extremely skeptical of open primaries. I put out another report earlier this year, you know, what we know about congressional primaries, again, looking at all the literature on congressional primaries in various states who have done various things, including California's top-two open primary which is, you know, largely been a very map reform that hasn't changed all that much and it's something that lots of people have looked at. There is not evidence that states with open primaries elect more moderate compromise-oriented candidates than states with closed primaries. In some cases, they may elect less compromise-oriented candidates, because if anything, independents are are more antisystem. [coughing] Donald Trump did much better in states with open primaries that allow independents to vote. You know, if I'm interested in what happens in the Alaska top four open primaries in which Murkowski is running, and a lot of it is going to come down to the peculiarities of that race, and ultimately, whether Murkowski wins is not going to have a whole lot to do with the, you know, primary system or the ranked-choice voting system. It's going to just have to do with the fact of whether Democrats to basically stand down and not really run a candidate, as they did in 2010. It's an interesting experiment. I'd like to see it in more states. I don't think it's going to make it a ton of difference in who wins, but I like the creative ferment of experimenting with things, but you know, I would just get rid of the primary altogether and gives parties back the opportunity to choose their candidates and there be more parties that are offering candidates. If one party nominates an extremist, then, you know, people have more options to choose from. >> John Haskell: Henry, you're Californian, and Lee's talked a little bit about the open primary. Do you have views on that or ranked-choice voting? >> Henry Olsen: Yeah, you know, the open primary was counted as something that would bring moderates to the floor, and in fact, it hasn't done anything of the sort, because there aren't enough people in either party who are willing to leave their party behind to support somebody who is more moderate. You may have moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats, but it's still basically the contesting within their own partisans. There's not a Democrat that will cross over to vote for a moderate Republican in the top-two all party primary or vice-versa. So, it's been, you know, the reform that was promised much and has accomplished nothing. I'd be perfectly happy with doing away with open voter primaries and giving parties the old control that they had, precisely because it then forces conflict out into the open. It may very well be that these outsider groups are stronger than the incumbent parties. But then, they should have their own infrastructure that provides clarity and information to voters. You know, right now, like right now, within the Democratic party, is the Democratic Party the party of the socialists? Or is the party of moderate reformers, and the answer is yes, because of it contains all of those people. You know, there are eight to 10 people who are autocratic socialists, and there are many more people who are moderates, and they all have the same label, abolishing the open primary would create more parties, and then, rank choice voting can be an interesting reform. Once you have multiple series parties. Then you could have them contest one another, and the voters of the losers have to decide. You know, like if a Republican lost, would they rather have, you know, a vote for the candidate of America First, or would they rather vote for the candidate of the Democrats? I mean, what if it's, you know, the Progressives instead? It allows people to make a majority choice, but it also allows for a lot more competition, and that's something I think would be beneficial in the long run to the American party system. >> John Haskell: Tasha, where are you on the bit ranked-choice voting and electoral reform perspective? >> Tasha Philpot: I was thinking, as Henry was talking, it's interesting what a dynamic it would create in the short run. So, area, correct me if I'm wrong, but one of the things you're saying as that the parties would pick their own, and then people who kind of at the fringe, which is kind of pop and create maybe their own party, that -- >> Henry Olsen: Right, I mean, a party would either have to choose to include. You know, right now, a party cannot choose who owns its label. So, you know, you got Cori Bush winning a primary against Clay, yeah, Lacy Clay. You know, if a party chooses to establishing more coherent brand that will necessarily push people outside of that brand, outside the party. And then, they have to either surrender or fight, and fighting means a new party. So, if you have moderates in charge of the Democratic party, they would make sure that Democratic Socialists can't tarnish that brand, you know, or progressives, or, you know, depending how wide they want to exclude. And the same thing is true of Republicans. You know, that you've got lots of Republicans who would just love it if they defined the party in a way so that Trump-friendly Republicans couldn't claim the label. But then those people get to fight by having their own label, and that gives competition and breaks down the two-party system, at least in the short term, into a multi-party system. >> Tasha Philpot: Yeah, so, my fear is that even if we think about a cohesive party in selecting candidates to run, you're going to go with what you know. So, I think that, ultimately, you'll get a lot of women and racial ethnic minorities excluded, for one thing, because they're less likely to have the resources to get on the radar and to be, you know, part of the inner circle to run. But I also think, you know, for the reasons that we don't have a third-party system right now is that, you know, when it comes down to it, this is what we're used to. We're going to stick with the status quo, and we're going to be afraid to throw away our vote on third-party candidate that probably won't win. >> John Haskell: Yeah, Lee has the answer to that, right? Sophia, what's you view on ranked choice and other electoral system reforms? >> Sophia Jordan Wallace: I mean, I think for me it's less about whether -- you know, I agree with Tasha there will be voters to decide this. So, this is too risky and they're not really sure about whether this is going to yield the benefit that they want, going back of what's the function of parties? They'll be very unsure about what this other party thing is going to be, and I'm not sure that we'll do it, but I do think the thing that I like about these ideas is whether they actually were in and of themselves. I do like what Lee suggested, that at least there's creativity, thinking about what are new ways that we can reform these processes in ways that might yield a better result, that might be something that's more representative? This particular reforms may not have achieved that objective, but at least we're trying some things. I don't think this is the end of it, and I do really think that we should continue to try to innovate on this but I think that is one of the important lessons is sometimes people say we shouldn't innovate and try things, because you never can, and it'll be too complicated to do it. But with these things, actually, they have been implemented in elections and whatever was their effect, we can quibble about whether it was, it achieved its stated objective, but they were able to be implemented, and sometimes, I do think people kind of prejudge and say this can never actually happen. This can never be implemented much in the way we started, and you know, the prior question, and use that as a basis for not to implement a reform. And I think that we've clearly shown that that's not true, and different geographies and different levels of government, it has been possible. >> John Haskell: We have someone in the audience, Henry, who is very interested, and I'm sure there's a lot of people very interested. If you can flesh out the filibuster reform ideas you've have, and I know other people -- Sophia mentioned she was interested in that. How would that work? What are you saying with more specificity? >> Henry Olsen: Yeah, what I'm saying with more specificity is that you should either limit the instances in which a party can filibuster on a clearly partisan basis or require a low but real number of members of the other party to support the filibuster or both. Example, right now, all you need is 40 Republicans to filibuster, or when the Republicans controlled, all you need is 40 Democrats to filibuster, and that's been something that has been favored. You know, it's not our history, but it's been our history for the last 20 years. Require at least three members of the other party to back it. So, to get 40 you need to have 37 members of one party and three from the other. That's a low threshold, but it's a real threshold. It means that one party can't block the other party . They have to convince somebody from the other party in order to stop these things. The other thing you can do if you don't want to go that far, and this is harder -- I've always tried to figure out how to do it so it couldn't be gamed, but say, you know, like Mitch McConnell or Chuck Schumer. When you're in the minority, you only get seven types -- seven bills that you can filibuster in a year. So, that you can't hold up everything. So, if Democrats want to throw 10 different ideas, and this is where you have to define it in a way, so that the Democrats could put up a -- all the Republicans couldn't put a shell bill, and that takes up one of the seven, and then, ah-ha! The same idea comes in in another piece of legislation. But, you know, the idea is, you know, pick your priorities and fight on those, but let us govern on the rest of them. One or both of those ideas would reduce the times that the partisan filibuster was used, and that would increase the ability of a majority to actually govern. The most radical idea would be to simply abolish the partisan filibuster at all. You know, have a very high threshold or regional threshold. Something that requires it to be other than the will of one party blocking another party. That's the basic idea, and those are a few examples of how you can implement it. >> John Haskell: Yeah, that one you where you would need three people of the other party in order the filibuster, the majority party. You know, you says that's low threshold. It's actually a high threshold these days, right? >> Henry Olsen: Well, my low threshold, you mean like, I mean, you can imagine, it's a low threshold because it's obtainable. I mean, you can imagine theoretically getting three. It's hard to imagine getting 15. >> John Haskell: Impossible. >> Henry Olsen: Yeah, but we're so polarized that the idea that you can get three Democrats to crossover in support with you is really radical. But, you know, it's the sort of thing people respond to incentives. You know, throughout this year is that yes, Sinema and Manchin taking the public heat, but my guess is there's actually a lot of moderate Democrats who are pretty happy to let them take the public heat and working privately. But if they had to, you know, come out, you might find a Mark Warner or a Jon Tester be willing to join a filibuster on something that they really care about, because they are not in the lock-step with the left of their party. So, you put something like then, you might actually -- in the same thing and the other situation is that gives power, you know, to people like Murkowski and Collins or Ben Sasse or Mitt Romney. It makes them put their money where their mouth is. >> John Haskell: It's very interesting. Any responses to that from the other panelists? I hadn't heard that specifically before. It's very interesting. >> Lee Drutman: I love it. I hope you'll be writing a column about it or a -- you have already? >> Henry Olsen: I've written a column on the partisan filibuster, but I have been planning to write one about this specific idea. I haven't found the right hook, but maybe I should just throw it out there. >> Sophia Jordan Wallace: You absolutely should, 100%. As you were talking, I was like, wow, he should write a column on this. You really should. No, I mean it. No, political scientists are often, you know, unwilling -- they're willing to identify this is the problem and this lease to change, not often willing to identify the solutions. Lee is exceptionally good at doing that amongst political scientists, but usually, we're afraid to do that. I feel like this critical. It really made me think. Like ha! I've never thought about that as an idea. I'm very firm in my belief that I think that filibuster needs reform, how to actually do it is something I have spent less time thinking about, because I really focus my energy on, well, how is it -- how are we ever, any party ever going to have a super majority, especially given everything we said about how competitive elections are and how slim the margins are? So we know that that's the problem is the way the filibuster operates. And so, I think this is a very interesting, novel idea. >> Lee Drutman: Yeah, it does change the incentive. It's all about incentives in these situations. It does change the incentives lot. >> Henry Olsen: Which is why, like I said, which I why I phrased it as low rather than high. You can quibble between three year five or seven or whatever number. Once you changed the incentives and you give people the power that they don't have, you encourage them to exercise that power. >> John Haskell: Yeah, and it changes how like Schumer and McConnell responds, because the rules have changed. >> Henry Olsen: Exactly. And the thing is, you know, what I would say in the column, which you both encouraged me to write and which I suppose I will is, you know, ideally, not that this would necessarily happen, is you do it at a date in the future. You agree on a bipartisan basis that starting, you know, we will agree that we will amend the, you know, that we will amend this in 2024 or 2026. So that it's not, oh, if we do it today, we're going to give Schumer this power. If we do it tomorrow -- do it at a time when you don't know who's going to run the Senate. Agree that we're going to prospectively put it in there, and it becomes part of the rules that you will automatically ratify, and it becomes effective on January 1, 2025 or January 1, 2027. >> John Haskell: The tough thing about it is Congress often puts things in law that will end later, and then they change their mind. >> Henry Olsen: Right, but then, that becomes a public issue. If you did this, and you know, if they read my column and they said, gosh! That's a brilliant idea. Finally, a political scientist or columnist who says something sensible, and think about and they play Kumbaya and they pass it. Then going back on it becomes a political issue. And so, which is why they probably wouldn't do it, but by putting it off, you'd say, okay, we'll do this. We'll solve the problem. We'll do it in a way that we don't know who's going to win. >> John Haskell: So, this is a really interesting question is come from the audience and that any of you can jump in on. What can we do to better align the reform community with the academic community? This person's discouraged by what seems to be a grave disconnect between those two, with activists pushing comparatively untested and likely ill-advised reform. So, what can we do to better align those two communities. >> Henry Olsen: As the non-academic, I'm going to exempt myself from this question. >> John Haskell: Let's look those PhD-types talk. Any thoughts, Tasha? >> Tasha Philpot: Yeah, sorry, this cough is getting the best of me right now. I think part of it is we're in an environment where we're kind of antiscience. And so, going to, you know, consulting people who have scientific evidence on a lot of these issues just isn't in fashion right now. But I think, when we start realizing that social scientists are, in fact, scientists and that we can bring to bear some data and evidence that would support, you know, one way or the other, a policy initiative. And we'd be able to emerge and have a more balanced conversation. >> John Haskell: What do you think? Lee, Sophia? >> Lee Drutman: Well, I mean, it's something that I've, obviously, thought a ton about. You know, and I think, one thing that certainly tried to do at New America is trying to organize academics to do research that is answering questions that reformers have. And, you know, trying to bridge these two communities. I mean, we've had some conferences at New America. We've started something called the Electoral Reform Research that is answering questions that reformers have, and, you know, trying to break these two communities. I mean, we've had some conferences in New America. We've started something called the Electoral Reform Research Group which supported a lot of research around ranked choice voting, and you know, we brought together practitioners and researchers who had, you know, really never been in the same room together, and actually, you know, people who were researchers and wanted to understand my choice, but they talked to people who were advocating and implementing it, and they got a better understand of how those folks get, and the folks who are advocating and implementing it, talk to academics who study it, and, you know, understand what works and what doesn't work. So, you know, I think a lot of it involves, you know, bridging those gaps. So, you know, I think a lot of it involves, you know, bridging those gaps. You know, I think, often the reform community doesn't want to hear from academics when they say this is something that's kind of marginal and not likely to have much of an effect, which is understandable if you devote your, you know, if you've spent years working for open primaries, you don't want to hear the research that says, oh, actually, these open primaries don't do anything. So, you know, that is a challenge. You know, but I think just having more opportunities for advocates, reformers, you know, to engage with academics, and for academics to take the -- what people on the ground are saying a little bit more seriously and actually talk to people. I mean, one of my criticisms with academic political science is that so much of it is based on survey data and analysis of survey data and sort of institutional data. And so few academics spend time in communities and talking to people, understanding their actual lived experiences, and, you know, it's nice to identify some, you know, clever regression discontinuity. But it's also interesting to talk to people who are engaged in the actual process of politics. You know what I mean? I read a lot of studies on how the open primary does not produce more moderate candidates. I have not read any qualitative studies in which people have talked to candidates and operatives in California and said, you know, how does this effect who runs? I mean, there's some good work. Daniel Thompson has done some tremendous survey work on looking at why people run or don't run. There's a wonderful book on primaries. I'm trying to put -- it's Anderson Harborage and somebody else. It's called Rejecting Compromise, in which they did some qualitative interviews and talked to people, but -- >> Sophia Jordan Wallace: Dan Butler. >> Lee Drutman: Sorry? >> Tasha Philpot: Dan Butler. >> Lee Drutman: Yeah, Butler is the third author. You know, so, that is -- you know, I wish academics would do more of that work in just talking to people and engaging with reform community. There is such a divide and a kind of joint, you know -- I think there's a lot of academics who feel like they're better than the reformers, and you know, well, all reform is, you know, is bad and, you know, we should change things. Or they don't want to get their hands dirty somehow and like get to know their independent variables. And, you know, reformers, as I said, are sometimes skeptical of academics, because they just feel like academics are, you know, in this sort of world that's totally like removed from the reality. And I remember working in Congress as an absent congressional fellow, and you know, they said, oh, oh, you're one of those political scientists. But everything that you learned is totally wrong, and we'll teach you how politics really works. >> John Haskell: So, one thing that hasn't come up, and this is the last topic I want to raise, because whenever I do panels of any kind about problems in the American political system. There's always somebody who says, well, it's all about gerrymandering. You know, I'm reading about Maryland is going to shut out Republicans, and Texas and North Carolina are making moves to change the situation for some democratic members in Illinois is the same way on the Democratic side. You know, putting Kinzinger in with LaHood. Is gerrymandering an important factor in this? Is the districting process an important factor in the problems parties face, the party system faces or not? >> Lee Drutman: I have lots to say on this but I just spoke. So, if there's somebody else who wants to. >> Henry Olsen: Yeah, this is something where I got my start as a professional is doing redistricting. So, I got to watch my plan thrown off the ballot by a Democratic-controlled court, by a partisan, 6 to 1 vote, 40 years ago. It exacerbates the problem, because it makes more safe seats and reduces the ability of voters in the middle who still do swing the elections if there are fewer than there used to be, from being able to exert their power. So, you know, you take a look at Texas, and there's really, based on current courses we saw in the last decade voter coalitions can change in unexpected ways but they rarely do, and based on current voter coalitions, there's only one competitive seat in a state with 38 seats. So, that just increases the importance of open primaries, which increases the importance of ideological non-party actors, which reduces the willingness to engage in some sort of substantive policy debate and increases the zero-sum mentality. It's not decisive. Those trends would still exist. There's no way you can create single-member districts where you don't have a super majority of safe districts between the two parties. I don't mean super majority one side. You know, every other country in the world that single-member districts has fair, non-gerrymandered districts, and they still have 2/3 of the seats or more that are safe the major parties in their area, because that's just the way demographics is, but it certainly exacerbates it, and it just adds to one other problem, which is one of the ways in which partisans look at what the other party is doing and say, see, they're against Democracy itself. And that, combined with the never-ending interminable lie-filled voter wars is just eroding the confidence that people have that elections matter, and that elections, you know, reflect their will, and that is really, really bad for a democracy. >> John Haskell: Sophia, do you have any thoughts on that, sort of the last word? >> Sophia Jordan Wallace: Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, we talk a lot about gerrymandering now, but gerrymandering is really old. I mean, partisan gerrymandering has been forever. In fact, the origin of term really dates back quite a long time ago, if we're talking about it. You know, and so, I think that there are moments words become worse. I think in competitive elections, I think it focuses attention on every single structural aspect that could be used to potentially advantage and discuss these things, and of course, the changing demographics in the US, redistricting and, you know, as we have another census, right? It is incumbent, then, upon localities, they must incorporate this data and consider it, and that, of course, brings up other controversies, especially given, you know, what is the current state of the voting rights act, in terms of post-Shelby and really, there's no active formula. And so, I think that there's all kinds of ways in which this is clearly an issue but I think there's also ways in which people focus on this as a one unitary thing that is the key problem with everything, and I would agree, it's an important thing. I don't think it's the only problem that we need to focus on. And I do think Henry is correct that a really big problem is when we have voters and members of the public who are losing confidence in elections and losing confidence that the will of the peoples can be expressed through elections and that elections, the results, will be accepted and that people will have trust and faith in our electoral and governing institutions. I think that's a really serious problem. >> John Haskell: Well that's 00 we're going to wrap with that comment, and I want to say, on behalf of the Library of Congress and the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution that we thank you Tasha Philpot, Lee Drutman, Henry Olsen, Sophia Jordan Wallace for participating. This was a truly edifying conversation, and it will also be posted on YouTube in about two weeks. Let me encourage the audience and we appreciate your participation in the excellent questions we received, to fill out the survey that is made available to you, so that we can get your feedback. Thank you again, and have a good evening.