Near the conclusion of the linked article former congressman David Jolly [R-FL13, 2014-2016]declares that our partisanship problem is more about the structural forces driving hyper-partisan decision-making. The big three for me are gerrymandering, closed primaries, and big money. All of this puts so much pressure on people to conform or compromise.
He continues with “If we unrigged the system, if we had competitive districts with open primaries and public financing, you’d see people behaving very differently because there would be a completely different reward structure. Right now the only way to get reelected is to act like a hyper-partisan. As long as that’s the case, we won’t get value-driven decision-making.”
Without closed primaries the effectiveness of gerrymandering and big money in politics would be reduced.
At www.vox.com
