Fixing the House with Proportional Representation with Lee Drutman

Rules of the Game – discussing democratic institutions

With Lee Drutman I discuss how proportional representation can break the two-party doom-loop that is spiraling in the U.S. Lee co-founded the organization “Fix Our House” with Charlotte Hill and Eli Zupnick, that specifically campaigns for proportional representation for the U.S. House of Representatives. We spend less time talking about the problems of the outdated first-past-the-post system, yet more time on possible solutions. Lee’s favored electoral system is open-list proportional representation, that is also used in Switzerland, for instance. He explains why he changed his mind on ranked choice voting, that he previously vouched for. We agree that the most important message for the electoral reform movement right now is advocating for multi-seat districts and proportional representation, instead of being bogged down by arguing over the best version of PR.

Lee Drutman is a Senior Fellow in the Political Reform program at New America. He is the author of the books “Breaking the Two-Party Doom-Loop: The Case for Multi-Party Democracy in America”, and “The Business of America is Lobbying “. He is the winner of the 2016 American Political Science Association's Robert A. Dahl Award, given for "scholarship of the highest quality on the subject of democracy." He co-hosts the podcast Politics in Question, and he is a lecturer at The Johns Hopkins University Center for Advanced Governmental Studies, and he writes regularly for FiveThirtyEight. He has published numerous pieces in the New York Times, Washington Post, Vox, NBC Think, and Foreign Policy, among many other outlets. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. from Brown University.

Find a full transcript and links to all material discussed in the show notes.

Schedule: 00:00 Introduction / 04:17 Personal questions / 05:15 Main discussion / 42:23 Recommendations by Lee Drutman.

Lee Drutman at New America.

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Many thanks to Ana Margarida Santos who edited the episode.

Please enjoy this wide ranging conversation with Lee Drutman.

Music credits: To Be A Ball Of Light by Late Night Feeler and Fantasy Classical Themes by TheoTe.