You Don't Have to Yell originally started as a project to implement campaign finance reform in the United States shortly after the death of John McCain. While not everyone agreed with his politics, McCain was one of the last people to resist the country's trend towards tribalism and divisiveness, and it was my belief ordinary Americans needed to speak up about what they saw wrong with our country.
After digging into the countries that rank highest in terms of electoral satisfaction and transparency, I made three discoveries:
1.) Their campaign finance laws aren't all that different than ours
While America's laws were the most permissive, the differences weren't distinctive enough to account for the heavy influence of outside money in politics. Finland, for example, has the same campaign finance laws as the United States, yet ranks 5th in the
Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index, while the United States comes in 25th - earning the classification of a "flawed democracy".
2.) Their governments have greater freedom to regulate speech
One of the areas that makes the United States unique is the ironclad protection of free speech embedded in the Constitution. Other democracies can label certain speech as "political" more easily than the US, whereas the First Amendment has led to the gutting of every campaign finance law written for the last 50 years.
Effective campaign finance reform couldn't happen without first amending the Constitution to restrict free speech - something the majority of Americans are, and should be, uncomfortable with.
3.) They allocate seats in government in proportion to the popular vote
The countries that rank the highest in terms of democratic institutions and, probably not coincidentally, have most successfully avoided the political turmoil seen in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom in recent years are countries that allocate seats in government proportionately - meaning a party that gets 30% of the popular vote gets 30% of seats in parliament.
Let's contrast that with United States:
In the 2018 midterms, 20% of voters in my home state of Massachusetts cast votes for a Republican - enough to elect at least one Republican member to the House - yet 100% seats went to Democratic Candidates.
On the other side, North Carolina saw 50% of votes cast for Democrats, and saw 75% of seats go to Republicans.
We need one simple reform
The easiest and least controversial way to remove tribalism and money from politics is to return the House of Representatives to its stated purpose - to represent the popular vote of each state.
While there are arguments to be made for keeping disproportionate institutions such as the Electoral College and the Senate, no one would argue your vote shouldn't be counted based on how partisans in power carved a congressional map.
Implementing a proportional system of representation state by state for the House of Representatives means candidates will need to appeal more to their party's base to win election, open up the door for more than two parties, and make a system much more difficult for well funded special interests to buy off.
Through education and organizing, the mission of You Don't Have to Yell's is to bring proportional representation to all 50 states by 2029.
To make 2020 the last decade the two party duopoly is able to write the rules in their favor, click below and subscribe.
