Opinion Editorial | |
| Wednesday, July 28, 1999 | |
Third Parties Can't Win In A Two-party System |
Last weekend's Reform Party convention brought together activists from across the ideological spectrum yearning for an alternative to the total dominance of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. According to a recent poll, 57 percent of Americans now agree that it would be a good idea to have a viable third party in this country.
Unfortunately, those supporting the Reform Party and other third party efforts are wasting their time if their goal actually is to elect a president. That fact is basically guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. In particular, article 2, section 3 demands that the president receive an absolute majority in the Electoral College in order to take office. In the event that no candidate achieves a majority, the election is decided in the House of Representatives. Since at present there is just one member belonging neither to the Republican Party or Democratic Party in the House, the chances for a third party would be even worse in the event that a candidate from such a party denied victory to the major parties in the Electoral College.
The need to get an absolute majority of electoral votes makes third parties largely superfluous in our system of government. It virtually ensures that there can never be more than two major parties. Says political scientist Judith Best, "The electoral-count system is not neutral; it has a built-in bias in favor of the two-party system, since it discriminates against both sectional and national third parties."
In the event that a significant third party does arise, it can never achieve power itself, but can only be a spoiler; in most cases denying victory to the major party closest to itself politically. Thus the only effect Ross Perot has had, running as a fiscal conservative in 1992 and 1996, was to aid the victory of liberal Democrat Clinton by draining votes away from his Republican challengers.
The result of having a political system that makes it virtually impossible for a third party to achieve the presidency has tended to thwart third party efforts all the way down the political chain. Although the occasional independent or third party member can sometimes be elected to the school board or city council, these have all been isolated cases that had no long-term political effect.
The two-party necessity also tends to force all politicians toward the middle, since only by running as centrists can candidates for president carry enough states to get the electoral majority they require. The price for this centrism necessarily is frustration on the part of those with strong ideologies or absolutist agendas. As the legal scholar Alexander Bickel put it, "The choice in the general election between two candidates either of whom can satisfy most people, or at least radically dissatisfy very few, always leaves some of us with no choice at all."
Although those pursuing the third party option may rue the fact, there is no doubt whatsoever that for the foreseeable future all presidents are necessarily going to be either Republicans or Democrats. They would do better to work within those parties to achieve their goals.
Source: Bruce Bartlett, senior fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis, July 28, 1999.
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