seat to washington, anytime, anywhere. >> since 1979, in partnership with the cable industry, c-span has provided complete coverage of the halls of congress, from the house and senate floors to congressional hearings, party briefings, and committee meetings. c-span gives you a front-row seat to how issues are debated and decided with no commentary, no interruptions, and completely unfiltered. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ashington journal" c. host: a conversation on political parties with lee dr utman and the author of a most recent and a paper about

democracy reform. why do we have political parties in the first place and considering the state of politics right now, might it do better to do away with parties? guest: i understand people are frustrated with the performance of our two parties. but mass representative democracy cannot be done without political parties. they are inevitable and essential as institutions of representative democracy. it needs organized politics. if it is not political parties, and it will just be charismatic autocrats. lyrical parties, structure, elections tilde majorities in the legislature and engage in mobile structures and

coalitions. the parties do the work of moderate -- modern demonstrative month -- representative democracy. without it we would have a free-for-all or a chaotic mess. host: to the beginning of putting the parties and the rules and how they have changed in politics. guest: the framers didn't like political parties when they were writing the. political parties will cause vision and we need to find a way to organize the legislature without political parties. it turns out when they got into congress, very quickly they realized political parties were essential to organizing legislatures and organizing campaigns. madison, jefferson, hamilton all

formed political parties. when you're out of government it is easy to say we should approach every issue independently. when you get into government, assembly election pass bills and they need to start organizing a team and those teams become political parties. you want to run for elections and coordinate among multiple candidates to share branding and other resources and mobilize supporters but you need a political party to do that. very quickly the framers formed political parties and after madison is in government, political parties are kind of good and important for a democracy. there is this period in the u.s. from what was specifically called the first party system from the first election, 1788 -- or 1790 and onward up through

the 1820's. and we know it is hamilton versus jefferson, democratic republicans of jefferson and madison and federalists hamilton and john adams. it was an even contest for a while. it is mostly an elite affair. but fighting over real issues, the role of a central bank, whether the u.s. is aligned with france are not. the election of 1800 is one of the most contested and nasty elections in political history. a lot of mudslinging. and jefferson and animals later became friends. corresponded with each other until the end. at about 1820, the u.s. has basically collapsed into a one

party system, the unique period in the u.s. with one party election. what happens when you have one party politics is you have a faction and when you get -- 1860 and 1820 are one party elections and by 1824 you have the four candidate election andrew jackson wins the most votes but he doesn't win presidency because he doesn't win a majority in the electoral college. by 1828, jackson and martin van buren are organizing the democratic party which is the first massive party in the u.s. and there is opposition organized and that eventually becomes the whig party and they had clashes over slavery and the republican party replaces the whig party by 1860 for the last

160 years you have the democrats and republicans as the major parties. host: a gallup poll on party identification in this country, 30% respondents say they identify as republicans. 27% say they identify as democrats. 41% they identified independent. do you believe those numbers are accurate and what does that say about us? guest: ask people how they identify, a lot of people identify as independence and don't -- independents in don't like to call themselves republican consort democrats. they have been in the 40's for two decades now. they are staying in the mid to low 40's. what doesn't -- does it mean when someone says they are independent? asian means don't want to

associate with either of those two parties but if i vote i will vote for one of the two parties because i think one of the two is worse. for a few people it means they are outside of the political system but most claim to be independent or what they would call closet partisans. some of that is that they actually would want another party but given the two parties they clearly prefer one or the other. what has changed and is really significant is there are pulls out last year that showed 27% of americans disapprove of both parties now a lot of people who say they are independent dislike both parties affirmatively and

that is what is unique. host: you say it creates opportunity but not just for a third party but fourth, fifth, sixth political party. why are you calling for not just more political parties but many? guest: i think it is important to understand why we have just parties. not just that americans are evenly divided into political teams or that americans want to parties but we have a system of single winner elections for third parties and they are we student vote at best and spoilers at worst. you are causing it to go to your least favorite candidate or just testing a pointless protest vote. as a result, most of the energy

is focused on major parties and third parties become place for fringe parties. a single winner election is a system we have used in the u.s. but it is not in the constitution and not the default. most democracies in the world today use multi winner elections with proportional allocations and that allows for multiple parties. there is not a party that would represent all the independents. they overlap between moderates and a lot of people who are independents have all sorts of different beliefs but they are not on party. if they would -- were, they would form the party. some are moderate, some are

conservative, some are far. there is not one party that would organize that. if we had five or six political parties, most would feel represented and most would get to vote for a party and candidate who represents them and then coalitions would form after the election. host: expand how a proportional system works and what would have to change to create the system that would allow within two parties to flourish. guest: single winner elections means you can only have two viable candidates. 90% of districts, that means really only one viable

candidate. instead of having a single-member district, you had a five member district. you take the districts and combine them into one. now that district elects five and you get one vote and the vote for a candidate is aggregated to that candidate's party and then the votes add up and seats are allocated in proportion. if you have a five number district and democrats get 40% of the vote, republican can candidates get 60% and democrats get to seats and republicans get four seats. instead of having 50% plus one in order to win the seat, you can get 20% of the vote as a

party. you can have multiple parties, each getting 20% of the vote. that is the norm. the u.s. is a strange country compared to most. most countries in the world have some form of multimember districts with proportional allocation of seats and multiple parties. as a result, voter turnout is consistently higher and citizens feel better representative -- represented. parties have to bargain with each other after the election and almost always you wind up with a coalition that involves the political center. host: our guest from numerical, senior fellow in the political reform program and his book is "breaking the two-party -." phone numbers (202) 748-8001

down doubts. -- for democrats. (202) 748-8000 four republicans. that for republicans. (202) 748-8002 for independents. here is what was talked about in 2020 for. -- 2024. [video clip] >> there is a shift work most saying they are independent, not on the independent party or most americans want better, more choices to choose and not just the resigned with the two choices they had in 2020. i am a democrat and i am working with republic and independents.

right now, in the states where we are getting ballot access, there are five so far, we've had a tremendous response from people in those states who signed petitions to have a ballot access and have no labels. we are not ready to declare a candidate or nominate a candidate, as i said, after super tuesday, we are not running a protest campaign. if we decide to run somebody for president or vice president then you become a protest and we don't want to become a protest candidate. host: that was sunday on the program. your thoughts.

guest: i confess to being perplexed by the no label efforts. i understand the demand. that is clear. most people want more choices. however, a presidential level, third parties are always going to be spoilers. if you want to give people more choices you have to build from the bottom up, you have to build more parties in state legislatures and in congress and then you work your way up starting at that level that is the worst way to create a third party and create more choices. it just causes chaos. i just really don't understand why they are doing this and why they are raising all this money

for something that is not going to be building anything beyond the 2024 election. it is a one-shot thing and a lot of money wasted for something that is almost certainly going to fail. i think there are much more productive ways to channel that impulse. if you want to have third parties play a viable role in single winner elections like presidential elections, there is a tradition in the u.s. throughout the 19th century, something called fusion voting in which multiple parties nominate the same candidate and people can choose the party line. that is still legal in york and connecticut and there is a litigation ever in new jersey to bring it back.

imagine if there was a moderate common sense party on the ballot and app party chose whether to endorse joe biden or donald trump. now people say i don't like the democrats or republicans but i want my voice to be heard but not undermine and spoil the election, voting on the common sense minor party gives people power. it builds something. it is not a one-off candidate based approach to a single election. it is we are building a party for the long-term. host: when the votes are counted, how does the common sense party line say, we brought it in? guest: my 3% vote on the common sense party line, then we -- if 20% vote on the common sense party line, then we get some

votes and seats and we build identity. you have a single candid and see, it doesn't -- candidacy, it doesn't build and it is a one-shot deal. it is not giving someone identity. political parties are identities and that is valuable and it is important to have institutions and organizations that people can belong to and participate in and say if we treat every voter as an independent actor, it is incredibly isolating. we have a crisis of loneliness and what we are saying is you shouldn't belong to anything and shouldn't engage in the work of

doing politics. the longing to an organization and institution like a political party is a way to feel connected at a moment in which there is a crisis of people feeling disconnected and disengaged and isolated, we should be building institutions that connect people and give them voice and opportunity to be with other people and to negotiate and share their values with other people. host: bring in callers. this is carrie in minnesota, republican. caller: i think a third party would be great but i don't think it's possible. money, bureaucrats and the fact that the press is so biased that people don't believe what they are being told. people think that money, how would you set up a major party

to compete without taking billions or trillions of dollars to set something up. the press has advocated for one party or the other and i think that is clear to see because the american public doesn't know who to trust and when we talk about bringing people together, look at the show we are watching, call in on the democrats line, republicans line or independence. we are divided by press and iraq receipt that has decided. the fbi and doj have decided they are going to influence elections. no matter what you think about trump or anything else, they got caught trying to influence an election. guest: so you are making an important point we are divided,

particularly there is a real division in media environment, the press, publicans have very little overlap in the information they consume and what stories they prioritize and issues they are concerned about. that is a tremendous problem. this is a dangerous downstream effect of our polarized two-party system. i think it is really hard problem to solve. my view is that if you change the rules to allow for parties to form, suddenly you have more options which might sound like more fracture but what it means is people are willing to consider a much broader variety of information. right now in an us versus them

world which we are in, it leads to very simplistic thinking. it just makes us dumb because we only are engaging in one set of facts and anything that threatens that threatens our entire worldview and existence. imagine a world in which there are five parties and they might each have media associated with them but you might consider a bunch of different perspectives forces us to do more thinking to engage in different perspectives . it adds more complexity to our political environment and so doing it leads us to actually think more. right now we don't do a lot of thinking when it comes to politics. we do a lot of reacting. host: timothy in vermont, line four democrats.

-- line for democrats. caller: i'm going from east berkshire vermont. my first election i voted in in 1980 was in burlington. at one time there was a gentleman named bertie -- bernie sanders running for mayor and he won by six votes. back then, i voted for ronald reagan. let's go back 50 years, then i am watching what is going on with ralph nader and jeb bush and catherine's parents and all of them.

i did vote democrat back then. host: bring me to the question. caller: the question is, my point is that in 2000, because we had a third party candidate, i year over meter -- ralph nader , we are on the trajectory that we are on today that actually culminated in the january 6 debacle. host: let me take that up. guest: 2000 forward, what --

from 2000 forward, what should be see today? guest: the polarization we are expressing in this moment is a culmination of many trends that have been playing out really for 60 years and particularly accelerated over the last three decades. that is the sorting of our political parties. timothy is from vermont and this is a trivia question, but the state of vermont was the state in which there was eight senate seat held by republicans for the longest continuous period of any party in the u.s., from 1856 through the time when jim jeffords switch from republican to independent i think was in 2001. cap as the seat longest held by

republicans. in 1936, vermont was 1 -- that was the longest seat held by republicans. ron had a long liberal to moderate republican party. also there was a moderate to conservative democratic party. now what you have is, you have a collapse of the party system. now you just have liberal democrats and conservative republicans. you have urban, cosmopolitan places represented by democrats and traditional rural places represented did by republicans. alongside that you had the

nationalization of our politics. cap a few thousand votes here or there, gore would have been president instead of george w. bush. when you combine the sorting of the politics and the nationalization you have a recipe for hyper-partisan winner take all polarization both parties are trying and it never actually seems to sustain itself. rather than if zero-sum winner

take all us versus them fight that is destroying this country and splitting us in half, we try something different in which we have multiple parties and no one party is trying to dominate and gain total control. instead what we are working towards is a system in which there are compromises and coalitions and very few permanent entities. that is how our country used to work when we had a multisystem party. host: this russian from tom in erie, pennsylvania. if we had more political parties, how that play out with the electoral college component of our elections? guest: went we think about our elections we tend to think only about the presidency, even though there are congressional and set it as an senate because

of the winner take all nature of a single office and the electoral college means we will probably still orient towards two major parties and what that would mean they multi-party congress is a major presidential parties would try to build would try to build coalitions back to 1960, jfk basically not a lot of difference between them. for a long time, democrats included prominent publicans in their cabinet and republicans include some prominent democrats in their cabinets. they had a bipartisan overlap and i think that is what you would have if you had multiple parties in congress because the broad coalitions, you break that

doom loop whether it is either at my side or your side and you expand. nobody ever says the lesser of three or four or five people's. host: to martin in las cruces. caller: as a 30 year green, we have had major party status in the state of new mexico. i have found from the two-party system there is no representation. there are more than two positions on any policy. my political vote is not represented. when they say 40% is unrepresented and independent, that means they are not represented by a political

party. the third party gives people a voice. the question is, do we have a presented tip democracy? when people are not represented and marginalized, went political parties use their power to block other forms of representation, what you have is a top-down system that predicates the rules, regulations, requirements to get on the ballot. whether you are running for governor, dogcatcher or president, same boombox will block other political parties. i have seen it in new mexico back in 2002. we had a republican party are for $250,000 in order for the green party to run strong

candidate in the special election. host: i will let you comment on that. guest: the green party has been a third party basically a small third party that is mostly running protest candidates but that is what third parties are relegated to in a system of winner take all elections. martin, i get your point. like a lot of americans feel that you are unrepresented in our two-party system. a lot of americans feel that way. this is why i think we should be supporting proportional representation for the u.s. house of representatives to create an opportunity for more political parties to form so that we can organize political parties that represent.

this is a really big country. it is a diverse country in so many ways and the idea that every thing can be aggregated up to these two parties just doesn't make much sense in this contemporary moment. and trying to put everything into these two parties which makes it difficult for the parties to really maintain those coalitions, that creates this problem where the only way the democratic and republic of parties can hold the coalition together is bite saying the other party would be such a threat to this country that you have to vote for us whether or not you like it. again, there is way too much focus on third parties at the presidential level and we should really be focused on getting third parties into congress where they can actually play a productive role in an election that is inherently winner take

all in which they will just play the role of spoiler. host: martin, martin in louisville, kentucky, democrat. caller: i want to make an observation. in my opinion we have always had a three party system in america. before the civil war he had the republican party and southern democrats. the southern democrats controlled american politics. after the civil war, the democratic party was controlled by the northern democrats. it wasn't until 19 76 when jimmy carter became president of the united states as a southerner, he made it clear racism is no longer welcome in the democratic party. that is when the white people who were democrats went to the republican party.