The Representation Amendment Gives You the Viable Third Party

The cost to win a seat in the House of Representatives can run into the tens of millions of dollars. Only two political parties can afford to wage such a battle. Third-party candidates simply lack the resources to compete. Running as a third party candidate was rarely a viable strategy. Until now.

700,000 people inhabit the typical House of Representatives district. Advertising is the most efficient communications method given such a large audience. Name recognition is key. Candidates buy television and radio spots, Internet banners, and yard signs for broad advertising. Candidates send fliers in the mail for direct advertising. They rent venues to give speeches to their supporters. They hire staff for their campaign headquarters and pay for consultants to help them say the right words the right way. Those costs add up.

Third party candidates (whether affiliated with a political party or not) run their campaigns on a shoe-string budget. Most people helping on the campaign are volunteers. They cannot afford enough advertising to make the candidate’s name well-known. The hurdles a third party candidate must surmount to win a seat in the House are nearly, well, insurmountable.

The Representation Amendment gives you viable third party candidates.

Shrink the District, Even the Odds

The Representation Amendment evens the odds for third party candidates. The secret is to shrink the size of the House district. In a tiny House district, a candidate’s time and platform become more powerful than the candidate’s money. The Democrat and Republican parties lose their tactical advantages.

6 Ways Tiny House Districts Benefit Individual Candidates

1. Face-to-Face Meetings Personalize Candidates

Most Americans have never met their House representative. Would you recognize your own representative if you passed him or her on the street? Odds are, the answer is no. So, you voted for a person to represent you without actually talking to that person. Ever.

A candidate can meet personally with a high percentage of voters in a tiny House district. When a candidate meets with you, that candidate becomes a “real person” in your mind. That candidate is no longer just a name on a yard sign or picture on a billboard. You and the other people the candidate meets with are more likely to vote for that candidate.

2. Candidates Bypass the Media to Talk Directly With You

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The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties: Poised for Political Revival?

In a tiny House district, candidates introduce themselves to their constituents by just walking from door to door. You will have an opportunity to interview candidates that visit you. How much could you learn about a candidate in a 15 minute conversation? You have an opportunity to get your questions answered, to challenge the candidate’s platform, and suggest your own solutions to issues affecting you. Would you be more inclined to vote for a candidate you talked to? Or a candidate you know only from television commercials? When you talk to the candidate directly, you gain a greater understanding of the issues. Assuming the candidate has a greater understanding of the issues, of course! Perhaps your talk with the candidate convinced you this candidate is the wrong person for the job. That candidate used to be your favorite! If you avoid voting for the wrong person, you also win. Consider one scenario. You saw a commercial accusing a candidate of some terrible transgression. That candidate knocked on your door one night. You asked that candidate for an explanation, the candidate provided an explanation, and you were satisfied with the explanation. So, the advertisement lost all effect on you, because you dismissed the accusation. This is the power of talking directly with each candidate.

3. Less Expensive Campaigns Lower Barriers to Entry

Walking from house to house costs little more than the gasoline it took to get to the neighborhood. And in a really tiny House district, that’s not much gasoline.

Advertising costs for a third-party candidate come down to direct mailers and yard signs. Web page banner ads work, provided that advertisement targets a resident of the district. These costs are manageable.

The Democrat and Republican parties (and everybody else) are free to blanket the tiny House district with television and radio advertisements. The cost to do so will equal the cost of advertising to the House district when it included 700,000 people. The candidate spending money on these advertisements is spending 20 times more per voter by doing so. Is that a good return on investment?

4. Political Advisors Help Very Little

Political parties offer candidates professional campaign advisors whose job it is to get that candidate elected. They advice the candidate how to become what they think the voters want. In a small enough district, a candidate operating on a shoe-string budget can forgo campaign advisors or limit their influence to narrow aspects of the campaign. Platform, personality, and reputation carry the day in an election in a small electorate.

If the candidate has no use for advisors, then the candidate has one less use for a political party.

5. More Representatives, Less Political Power Each

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In the Balance of Power:
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in the United States

The cost to win a seat in the House of Representatives is so astronomically high because a single representative is so astronomically powerful. A mere 435 people control trillions of dollars in government spending. The political parties and campaign donors happily spend hundreds of millions of dollars to get their candidates elected. It’s a bargain!

The Representation Amendment distributes that power to thousands of people. No one individual is powerful enough to deliver the political returns necessary to justify spending millions of dollars in a campaign.

The structure of the House of Representatives scales poorly. Following ratification of the Representation Amendment, members of the House must implement a system for passing legislation that works with thousands of participants. The book proposes a streamlined system for managing the tens of thousands of bills proposed by House members. Read the book. I think you’ll appreciate the simplicity of the House voting process.

6. "Representation House" Members can Work Around Political Parties

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Third-Party Matters:
Politics, Presidents, and
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An independent candidate must caucus with one of the two major political parties in Congress today. You elect an independent candidate who effectively joins one of the two parties immediately upon swearing in! The Representation Amendment changes all that. With thousands of House members, many from small parties or unaffiliated, work becomes more ad hoc. No one party controls the House.

In the “Representation House”, your representative coordinates with a representative to get one piece of legislation passed and combats that same representative on another piece of legislation. This system contrasts with the current system (the “Legacy House”) in which the same two groups of representatives slug it out over very piece of legislation. Your representative is free to make the best deal for you!

The book lays out an innovative use of crowdsourcing as a means to move legislation from the proposal of a single representative to a bill passed on the floor of the House. Check it out!

Conclusion

The advantages afforded the major parties only apply when the House has a small membership that makes getting a seat amazingly expensive. Once the House membership is opened to the general public, the advantage enjoyed by the two major parties evaporates. The Representation Amendment does that.

If you want third parties and independents to have a chance in an election, change the rules of this game. Give independent candidates parity with members of the major parties. Look at Congress differently. See the possibilities.