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Defending partisanship

In May, a friend of mine mentioned that he registered as a Democrat so that he could vote in the primary and the next day he switched back to register as an Independent. As I tried to convince him that there was a benefit to registering with a party and being able to vote in primaries, he made the same insistence that so many very serious people make at election time, that he votes for the person, not the party.

I say that is a lot of hogwash.

People are always trying to elevate politics to rest upon a pedestal, and so see voting along party lines as some sort of vile act that is beneath them. I imagine that there is a fear of seeming to be beholden to a party and not wanting to come across as incapable of thinking for yourself. That is reasonable, but I would like to make a defense of partisanship.

For as much as people complain about the Democratic and Republican parties becoming too similar in their shortcomings, the truth is that they are still very different. A Republican majority would have pushed very different legislation than the current Democratic majorities in Congress, for better or for worse. When you are voting for a candidate, you are also voting for the party that candidate belongs to and saying, in essence, that their party should have another seat towards a majority.

To many, this is a negative, but why? It is a perfectly reasonable rationale to vote. A lot of pro-choice liberals were uncomfortable with Bob Casey’s bid for Senate in 2006, but a vote for Casey was also a vote toward a Democratic majority in the Senate, which meant a very different policy on reproductive rights than a Republican majority would have pushed. Likewise, in 2004, many conservative Republicans were uncomfortable with Arlen Specter’s moderate positions on issues like abortion and the economy, but, at the time, a vote for Specter meant a vote toward a Republican majority.

The same is true on the state level. State lawmakers are often more approachable because they have smaller districts than members of Congress, but members of the legislature still vote more often with their party than against it. If they were voting against their party a majority of the time, it would make sense to just switch to the other party, wouldn’t it?

However, voters often are very willing to vote for a candidate from a different party than their own under the rationale that the legislator is moderate or is responsive to the needs of the district or some other admirable trait. Again, these are good reasons to vote for a candidate, but one shouldn’t be ashamed of also including political party as part of their voting criteria. Sure, your state representative may sound moderate, but I would be willing to bet that they vote over 90 percent with their party and if that party isn’t the one you subscribe to, that means they are quite often voting the opposite of what you would want.

Even candidates themselves try to play the faux anti-partisan game. Every election, candidates say things like they are an “independent voice,” which is, on its face, utterly ridiculous. Now, I am sure that every politician does do their best to vote for the interests of their district first. New York representatives voiced concerns over financial regulatory reform and senators in the Midwest voted for farm legislation for their states instead of just along party lines.

However, every candidate who campaigns on being an “independent voice” is still going to overwhelmingly vote with their party, and that’s OK. In fact, it gives us another reason to vote for or against them in the next election. I would contend that if candidates proudly ran with their party instead of running from it every election, they would help put their party in a more favorable light and possibly not just help their own campaign, but help other candidates of their party up and down the ballot.

So let’s eschew the veil of independence and embrace the virtue of voting along partisan lines. Remember that when you are voting for Congress, you’re not only voting for that candidate, you’re indirectly voting for either Nancy Pelosi or John Boehner, and you’re voting for a very different set of values, agendas, and policy goals. Some criticize Joe Sestak for comparing Pat Toomey to Rand Paul and Sharron Angle, but, to be fair, if all three of those candidates were to win in November, Toomey would, in fact, vote with both of those two Senators far more often than he would vote against them.

But I’m sure Pat Toomey would disagree with that analysis. He would want you to think he would be an independent voice. Unless the letter next to him is an “I,” voters should know better.

August 18, 2010 at 2:22 pm

--Tony Heyl

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