The Report on PR STV and the continuing debate

Posted on July 29, 2010 at 12:19 PM

The Joint Committee on the Constitution launched its report last week and one of its finding was:

"Based on its analysis and evaluation of the evidence presented to it, including its evaluation of the performance of alternative electoral systems, the Committee concludes that there is not a sufficiently compelling case for reforming the current electoral system at its most fundamental level".

I would have put it a lot stronger than that and in fact one of the committee members, Dr. Jimmy Devins T.D., does today in his letter to the Irish Times when he writes:

"Careful analysis of the full report will show that in relation to electoral reform, the committee was very definitive in its recommendation that there is no need to change the present system of election used in this country, namely the PR-STV system. This was the unanimous opinion of the committee and in that, there is absolutely no fudge".

 In his letter Deputy Devins is responding to an article by Noel Whelan that accused the committee of kicking to touch on the issue of electoral reform.  As does Jason O'Mahony, former election candidate himself, in his blog www.jasonomahony.ie  and his post 'Noel Dempsey:Why good people don't go into politics'. (Excuse me!  What is Noel saying about himself and his colleagues then? Or is it that Noel is good the others bad?)

I, being of like mind with Deputy Devins, commented on Jason's blog and this is my latest comment below, which I am posting here and linking to in the comments section of Jason's blog because my latest comment, is a bit long, I admit, a blog post in itself:

"Jason,

STV is the most democratic ystem. It gives the voters the most say. Lists, closed or open, take power, some or all of it, currently in the hands of voters and give it over to party elites. Even with an open list system we would be restricted to voting for the chosen few of the party leaders either way. The fact that the public have the power under PR STV has an impact on who is currently selected at conventions and the criteria is usually that you should be a local grafter amongst other things. In my view I would choose as a parliamentarian a local grafter over someone whose main strength was their ability to be chosen by a Party leader to be on a list, any day. Why if not elected by voters in a constituency would the resulting TDs be a better class of TD? That is not borne out by some elected in lists in other countries. Think Berlesconi or the time when Sarkosy wanted Rahida Dati out of his cabinet and she was put top of a list to the European Parliament. I believe constituency by constituency represented in a lower house of parliament is exactly how it should be and PR STV and multi seat constituencies without question produce the most proportionate result in keeping with the wishes of the voters. I deal with the issue of why TDs doing constituency work is a good feature of our parliamentary democracy below.

You gave the example of the U.K in your blog post. The ideal electoral system for those that want reform in the U.K. is PRSTV. AV is a compromise, it was not the Liberal Democrats first choice. If AV is brought in it won't change the fact that David Milliband in his own words takes up "literally thousands of individual cases each year ranging from school admissions to broken paving stones". He will still represent a constituency just as he does South Sheilds at present.

(http://www.davidmiliband.info/Newsletter_pdf/Community%20Newsletter%202009d.pdf)

I don't agree with a mixed system such as what you suggest. I think it is a good feature of our electoral system that we are all elected to the Dail on an equal basis. No placing of Ministers or high profilers top of lists and it works against the trend of parachuting celebrities in to constituencies. Despite what you seem to believe or what Noel Dempsey would have you believe there are many good TDs elected accross the political spectrum and some of the best are the hardest of workers in their constituencies.. It is political ideology that has dictated the wrong choices by our TDs in Government over the past 13 years, not PR STV.

There is a another problem with a mixed system such as you suggest and that is that the voters would view the TDs elected from constituencies as having more of a mandate that those elected from lists. In Wales the public was surveyed on their mixed electoral system under which the members of the Welsh Assembly are elected. The public were were found to look down on those elected on lists as being lessor members of the Welsh Assembly. As far as the voters were concerned in that survey, carried out for an electoral commisison, the members of the assembly that mattered and had a genuine mandate to represent them, were those they elected in constituencies. They saw the lists seats as consolation prizes for those that couldn't be elected on lists.

In the Lenihan committee report on electoral reform which reported in 2002 it was argued that the big party would win the seats in single seat constituencies and the smaller parties would be confined to winning seats on lists, and thereby have less contact with the voters, thereby diminishing their electibility even further.

Lists mean candidates that play to the internal party gallery as opposed to the consituency gallery. In countries such as in Germany where there are members of regional parliaments elected on lists, in addition to members elected from constituencies, I have been reliably informed that because the list candidates are selected by the broader party membership, those candidates, are just as focussed on constituency work as their counterparts elected from constituencies are. The members that select them still have this idea that the candidates should be local grafters. This is borne out by a survey that found that regional MPs in Germany spend almost as much time on constituency work as TDs do. This was an appendix to a survey of the work of TDs that is an appendix to the report you refer to in your blog post.

You really should read the report in full because people like myself, that made submissions to the committee, demolish this notion of TDs obsessed with local constituency work. We are spending more and more time in Leinster House, in recent years, spending a huge amount on various committees. I spend the bulk of my time when the Dail is sitting and I am no different to other TDs in that regard. We have staff that do most of the following up of queries and in any case the bulk of my constituents that contact me, whether it be at clinics, on the street, or by email or telephone, do so about national issues. Yes, they do let me know how those national issues are impacting on them as individuals. But how is that a bad thing? I am a better legislator because of my constituents contacting me about their concerns and about how national government decisions effect them. That they contact me also about local issues reflect that there is no neat division between local and national issues because many issues, such as the need for local schools involve both national and local government. What I learn from my constituents and my empathy with my constituents and their varied personal experiences, I bring to my work on legislation, which is the way it should be. All politics is local because that is where people live out their lives. It was not an Irish Politician who coined that phrase "all politics is local" but rather an Irish American politician because the phenomenon you have concerns about is a univeral phenomenon and in my view is actually a good feature of democratic politics. As a former candidate surely you appreciate the value of one to one contact and how it can make you a better politician to be in contact with the people on the ground. Why else did Obama bring his proposals regarding Health Care to local people attending town hall meetings?

Finally, since all of this talk about the need for electoral and political reform is a reaction to our financial downturn I would make this point - it was not the man or woman going to a TDs clinic that caused the economic crisis in the country. It was not the man or woman going to a clinic that lobbied for tax breaks or for big tracts of land to be rezoned for developers. And yet it is the man or woman going to a TDs clinic that is wrongly found to be the culprit for our situation. Change the electoral system and the rich and powerful will find a way to influence those in cabinet. And our democracy will be diminished.

In countries that have looked at electoral reform PR STV has been looked upon as a favourable alternative. In British Columbia where a Citizens Assembly looked at the issue they recommended a move to PR STV. Likewise the electoral commission in Wales in 2004. In Northern Ireland it was brought in for local and Assembly elections and so too recently for local elections in Scotland. In otherwords, as with the Liberal Democrats, its PR STV that is seen as the progressive electoral system.

There is a good review of our electoral system in the report and the arguments for and against changing it are contained within it, and I would urge you to read the report in full. In my view if the report itself is flawed, it is flawed in not being more adamant that we should stick with PR STV as the electoral system that empowers the voter the most.

I attach link to the report here:

http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/Committees30thDail/J-Constitution/Report_2008/20100722.pdf"

Permanent link | Comments (0) |