Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point

by Steven Levitsky

Several steps can be taken to ensure that those who win electoral majorities actually govern: 8. Abolish the Electoral College and replace it with a national popular vote. No other presidential democracy permits the loser of the popular vote to win the presidency. Such a constitutional amendment very nearly passed as recently as 1970. 9. Reform the Senate so that the number of senators elected per state is more proportional to the population of each state (as in Germany). California and Texas should elect more senators than Vermont and Wyoming. Because Article V of the U.S. Constitution stipulates that “no state, without its Consent, may be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate” (a form of liberum veto), we understand the barriers to such a reform are enormous. But because the structure of the Senate so subverts basic democratic principles, and with such great consequence, any list of important democratizing reforms must include it. 10. Replace “first-past-the-post” electoral rules and single-member districts for the House of Representatives and state legislatures with a form of proportional representation in which voters elect multiple representatives from larger electoral districts and parties win seats in proportion to the share of the vote they win. This would require repeal of the 1967 Uniform Congressional District Act, which mandates single-member districts for House elections. By ensuring that the distribution of seats in Congress more accurately reflects th...