Testimony on Maryland
House Joint Resolution 9

To establish a "Commission to Study Proportional Representation and Single-Member Legislative Districting for the House of Delegates of the General Assembly."

February 22, 2000
Eric Olson, Deputy Director
The Center for Voting and Democracy

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee.

My name is Eric Olson, I am the deputy director of the non-profit, nonpartisan, Center for Voting and Democracy, based in Takoma Park, Maryland. Some of you also know me as a member of the College Park City Council, but I want to stress that I am not appearing here in that capacity, and in no way should my remarks this afternoon be associated with the City of College Park.

The Center for Voting and Democracy has conducted extensive research on the range of voting systems in use today, and has concluded that systems of proportional representation - of which there are many - are in general preferable to winner-take-all election methods, and their use is particularly important in areas with diverse, pluralistic electorates.

I will not go into the details of the different voting systems that achieve proportionality. Instead I want to discuss the principle behind proportional representation, provide a few examples, and urge your support for a study of its use for electing the House of Delegates.

Proportional representation means that representatives are seated according to their strength of support in the electorate; which means for example, if one 20% political grouping of the electorate supports candidates or a party with their view, they would win 2 out of 10 seats on an elected body. This contrasts with what is known as the "winner-take-all" system where those with up to 49% of the vote receive no representation.

Looking at how convention delegates are allocated in presidential primaries, the Democratic Party uses proportional representation in all states, while the Republicans use different methods in different states, including proportional representation in some, and winner-take-all in others. In New York, for instance, if Bill Bradley wins 51% of the primary vote, and Al Gore wins 49%, then Bradley will receive 51% of the New York delegates, not 100% as the case would be in a winner-take-all contest. The Republican Party National Chair recently suggested, correctly, that giving incentives to states to choose delegates by proportional representation would allow for second-place finishers to stay in the presidential contest longer, which would let more people have a choice in the nominee, rather than just those first primary states.

Forms of proportional voting are used in municipalities and counties throughout the country, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, Peoria, Illinois, and Philadelphia, to areas in Connecticut, North Carolina, Alabama, South Dakota, and over 50 areas in Texas, including Amarillo. There is a strong, bi-partisan effort in Illinois today to restore proportional voting for candidates to the state legislature.

Illinois' experience with a proportional system might be the most pertinent for discussion here in Maryland. Before smaller-government sentiment cut the Illinois legislature by two-thirds its size in 1980, state representatives were elected proportionally in three-seat districts. Today's effort to restore the former voting method is supported by figures as diverse as Republicans like Governor George Ryan, current Congressmen John Porter and Henry Hyde, and former Congressman John Anderson, as well as the state's current Democratic Senate Minority Leader, Emil Jones, and former Congressman and Federal Judge Abner Mikva. Supporters of bringing back the proportional system cite the decline in the quality of representation and the better, more cooperative character of the body in the past. Fairness was the hallmark of the Illinois system, where typically Republican areas would elect at least one Democratic representative per district, the reverse could occur in Democratic districts, and in heavily Democratic Chicago districts, an independent-minded Harold Washington Democrat could win a seat and serve alongside two party loyalists. It made for a fairer, more inclusive government, it made Democrats responsive to downstate, and Republicans responsive to Chicago, and most constituents were represented by at least one person who shared their political view.

A proportional system in a 3-seat district will likely maintain a two-party system - as was the case in Illinois - but it will allow fuller representation of the spectrum of opinion within the two parties. It's an example of how what we think we know about proportional representation is not the complete story - there are different varieties, and they are well worth studying, not only for state elections, but for local elections, also. Proportional representation was a cause for leading civic reformers, including the National Municipal League (now the National Civic League), in much of the early 20th Century.

I realize that Democrats control all three seats in many three-seat districts and hold a substantial majority in the House of Delegates. If an Illinois-type system had been used in 1998, Democrats would still have won that substantial majority, but it would have been more balanced across the state. It is likely that every single legislative district in the state would have had at least one Democratic representative in the House of Delegates - in other words, every Maryland citizen would have had a representative with the majority party. Such representation would keep Maryland more united and make it stronger.

A democracy cannot thrive unless it is continually re-examined. We all know that the newspapers and the nightly news, the polls and the academics tell us how dismal our voter turnout is, and politicians bemoan the lack of citizen participation in government. People of every political stripe know that these, and other declining indicators in our civic index, should give us great pause when we think about the state of our democracy.

This legislation is a tool to seek solutions. I urge that you pass HJ Res. 9, so that we, in Maryland, may seek the fairest, most representative government we can. Thank you.