Majority Rule in Jeopardy
7/9/22
Although I tend to think of myself as generally being optimistic and hopeful, I’m not all that sanguine when it comes to the state of America. We seem to be operating with dysfunctional judicial and political systems where, due to institutional features, the desires of the majority seem to be largely irrelevant. In particular, on two of the most charged social issues — abortion rights and gun control — the will of the extreme right minority is being imposed on the rest of us.
Taking the abortion situation first, the gutting of Rowe v. Wade by the Supreme Court has opened the door for more than twenty states to ban or criminalize abortions for all practical purposes after six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions. NO EXCEPTIONS! Not rape, not incest, not life-threatening complications for the mother, not evidence of severe abnormalities of the fetus … Nothing.
The Court’s disregard of 50 years of precedent is staggering, but the fact that elected officials in the vast majority of red states have shown a willingness to go one better is even more so. More than 60 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases (source: The Pew Research Center), yet legislators in these red states are pressing their agenda with total disregard for the majority’s sensibilities. No room for compromise.
Similarly with gun control legislation, the opinions of the extreme are prevailing. I don’t happen to expect the widely anticipated gun control regulation to be much of a bromide, but raising the minimum age requirement for purchasing a weapon seems like one, tiny, sensible step that offers some prospect of contributing to our collective safety. According to a recent poll by Quinnipiac, that perspective is shared by three-quarters of the respondents who favor lifting the minimum age provision for purchasing any gun.
Haven’t we had sufficient experience with mass shootings to realize that too many people who are still “works in process” have access to weapons of war? This history notwithstanding, upping the age requirement for buying firearms is still a step too far for too many second amendments fanatics and the politicians in their thrall who are unwilling to balance the selfish inclinations of this gun-toting minority with the competing rights of the public at large; but this fringe minority is the population that’s setting the ground rules.
Under our political system, it’s understandable that political parties would want to host a big tent allowing for a coalition to be built whereby some central core of policies would have a greater chance of passage. What’s not understandable, however, at least to me, is how those parties can allow themselves to be hijacked by their most extreme members. My inclination to be even-handed in this discussion is strained by the fact that this ceding of authority to the outliers of the party for these two critical social issues is found virtually exclusively with the Republican party.
The bigger problem, of course, is the disenfranchisement of the majority, more generally; and while a number of rule changes could restore at least some authority to the majority, given the makeup of both Congress and red state legislatures, such structural changes seem likely be little more than pipedreams. The erosion of the principle of majority rule, however, is a serious problem that deserves redress; but that outcome requires ridding Congress of the legislators who have supported these extremist positions. My hope is that these issues remain at top of mind when November rolls around and that the electorate votes in more moderate and reasonable representatives; but unfortunately, that’s nothing we can count on.
