A book like this one that diagnoses a problem in democratic governance usually concludes with a chapter that looks forward by making suggestions for procedural change. Consistent with our habit of sticking closely to the data, when we have considered such issues in the past we have never availed ourselves of the opportunity to propose reforms that might ameliorate the circumstances that we have gone to such lengths to analyze. In a break from our prior reticence, in this chapter we consider some of the political, educational, and social changes that might overcome partially the inequalities of political voice that previous chapters have documented in such detail.

Our more reform-minded readers will probably not find our exploration to be fully satisfactory. In the space of a single chapter, we cannot give thorough consideration to the various procedural changes—many of which, like campaign finance reform and voter registration, have been the subjects of multiple volumes and extensive scholarly writing—that might address political inequalities among citizens. Rather than propose a laundry list of reforms, we hope to provide some analytical hooks to facilitate systematic thinking about the various strategies that might reduce inequalities of political voice. Moreover, as signaled by the title of the chapter, we have not abandoned entirely our previous prudence. As we proceed, we shall emphasize repeatedly why political change is so difficult to realize and why it is so often a disappointment when it is achieved. Hence this chapter makes no pretense of being the final word on what is to be done.

Shauna Shames is coauthor of this chapter.

(p.535) We should make clear that our purview in this chapter is not the entire landscape of political reform. There are many proposed changes to American political procedure—for example, term limits for members of Congress, a defined period of campaigning for federal elections, or a greater role for elected officials at party conventions—that might or might not be desirable but that are not germane to our central concern. In fact, we are not even concerned with the full range of reforms that might bear on citizen political participation. The agenda of procedural reforms contains items, of which voting by mail is an example, that seem to have the effect of raising the level of activity without decreasing inequalities of political voice.¹ In fact, because most people are not especially active in politics, and thus the channels that transmit messages from citizens to public officials run at far below full capacity, it is possible simultaneously to increase both the amount of activity and the extent to which it is unrepresentative.

Our focus is on changes that would have the result of making the participatory input from individuals and organizations more representative of the American public in terms of a variety of politically relevant attributes—not only such demographic characteristics as social class, race, gender, or age but also preferences and needs for government policy. As we have maintained throughout, our concern with equality of political voice does not prescribe any particular inflection point along the continuum of elite autonomy or populist control in policy making, only that the expressions of political voice—through which citizens inform public officials about their circumstances and opinions and persuade them to listen—represent all equally.

The Uphill Road to Reform

As political scientists, we have reason to be leery of wholehearted endorsement of political reform. Not only are there multiple barriers to effecting political change but political history is littered with examples of procedural reforms that did not deliver on their initial promise. As we discussed in Chapter 10, one of the axioms of political analysis is the strong gravitational pull exerted by the political status quo in America. As every textbook points out, our political system was constructed from the outset to diminish the possibilities for hasty change. The checks and balances intrinsic to separation (p.536) of powers and federalism have been reinforced by institutional mechanisms that disperse power—for example, the committee system in Congress and a traditionally weak bureaucracy—with the result that inaction is more likely than policy innovation. Not only do institutional arrangements present an impediment to policy change but it is also the case that “policy makes politics.” That is, existing policies usually create stakeholders with an interest in maintaining those policies. Their support for existing policies is an additional factor militating against policy change.

Moreover, federalism implies that many of the political arrangements with implications for inequalities of political voice—ranging from the laws mandating the disenfranchisement of felons to the regulation of corporate giving in state elections—are governed by state, not national, law. Some states have a track record of innovation when it comes to political arrangements. State-level experiments can yield important evidence to guide procedural reform on a more widespread basis regarding such matters as ballot access and campaign finance. However, the very unevenness that is the essence of federal arrangements implies that sometimes these procedural arrangements—for example, poll taxes in the South or restrictive local regulations governing protests—act as barriers to equal voice instead of facilitating it.

Bringing about changes on a national basis involves changing up to fifty sets of laws—and perhaps myriad local ones—which is much more challenging than altering a single federal statute. One way to overcome the impact of federalism and bring about change on a national basis is by constitutional amendment. Historically, the cause of greater equality of political voice has been furthered by constitutional amendments enfranchising former slaves in 1870 and women in 1920, outlawing the poll tax in 1964, and enfranchising young adults in 1971. However, the number of failed constitutional amendments—including, most recently, the attempt to establish equality under the law irrespective of gender through the Equal Rights Amendment—demonstrates how high a hurdle is imposed by the requirement for congressional super-majorities and passage in three-fourths of the states.

An additional barrier to certain kinds of political changes is the nature of the American political tradition. Distrust of government and a liberal celebration of the individual apart from inherited statuses mean that certain political arrangements that are common across democracies to overcome political inequalities—for instance, registration of voters by the government or reservation of seats in the legislature for underrepresented groups such as women—would be less likely in the American context.

(p.537) Anatole France wrote famously: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” Still another political obstacle to procedural reform is contained in the observation that, even when fairly applied, the rules of politics are rarely neutral in their political effects, and thus a quarrel about the rules of American politics often masks a dispute over substance. Most observers of American democracy do care deeply about the frequently conflicting values at stake in disputes about procedure. Nevertheless, there is often a remarkable coincidence between political self-interest and the competing democratic norms to which contestants appeal in debates about political arrangements. For example, laws aimed at combating vote fraud that require voters to present a photo ID at the polls are thought by many to pose a more substantial deterrent to turnout by voters of limited education or English language skills. Under the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Democrats are less likely than Republicans to consider vote fraud to be a serious problem and less enthusiastic about voter ID laws as a possible remedy. Of the 2,018 legislators across nine states that considered voter ID bills between 2005 and 2007, 95.3 percent of the Republicans and 2.2 percent of the Democrats voted in favor.²

Political Reform: Results or Consequences?

When it comes to political reform, it is a truism that “you want results and you get consequences.” For a variety of reasons, political innovations frequently do not work out as expected. As commonly noted about public policies, and many other matters, “The devil is in the details.” Assessments of the consequences of procedural reforms often contain the caveat that they have their intended impact “if correctly designed,” thus attesting to the central role played by details of program design in determining their effectiveness. It is often possible to find loopholes that can be exploited to subvert the best intentions for political change—a circumstance that seems to be the rule, not the exception, when it comes to campaign finance law. For example, the impact of limitations on the sums that individuals can donate to campaigns is weakened when smaller checks are “bundled” together.³

(p.538) Furthermore, it is one thing to legislate and another to implement. In many cases, the implementation of political reforms has been spotty. For example, on the principle that low-income and disabled voters would be less likely to have cars or driver’s licenses, the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) contained provisions directing states to provide for voter registration not only at motor vehicle bureaus but also at public assistance agencies. According to a report issued by Project Vote and Dēmos, nongovernmental organizations concerned with voter participation, compliance with the mandate for voter registration at public assistance agencies declined precipitously in the decade after the NVRA was passed and first implemented. Comparing two presidential election cycles (1995–1996 and 2003–2004) shows a decrease of 60 percent in the number of registrations at public assistance agencies over the eight-year period.⁴

In addition, procedural changes often bequeath unintended consequences. For example, in seeking to establish the direct party primary early in the twentieth century, Robert La Follette reasoned that, if parties were no longer controlled by bosses driven by desire for patronage, they would be more likely to be united behind policy programs. However, if anything, the introduction of direct primaries left the parties less disciplined and cohesive. Similarly, in seeking to make the Democratic presidential nominating process less removed from the rank and file, the McGovern-Fraser Commission (1969–1972) did not intend to spur the widespread introduction of state presidential primaries. Nonetheless, that was surely one consequence of its guidelines.⁵

(p.539) Still another example of a government initiative that worked out in unanticipated ways—one that touches our concerns very directly—was the controversial mandate for “maximum feasible participation” of the poor in the community action programs of the federal poverty program of the 1960s. According to one analysis of this casually legislated attempt to address “political poverty”—that is, the political powerlessness and quiescence of the poor—the pushback against community participation by urban blacks came from a somewhat surprising source. It came “not from businessmen antagonistic to changes in class relationships nor from white groups resisting racial equality” but instead from “Democratic politicians who had often relied on black electoral support and encouraged specific black advances within their cities” and who resisted threats to established patterns of authority and to their own political power.⁶

Not only do reforms sometimes produce unexpected results but a procedural reform in the name of one democratic value may, in fact, jeopardize others. For instance, opponents of same-day voter registration, a procedural reform that increases turnout, argue that it increases vote fraud. Surely the integrity of the electoral process, which requires restricting access to the ballot to eligible voters, is also an important democratic principle. As we shall see, among the most notable examples of the way that political reforms may involve trade-offs among cherished democratic values is campaign finance regulation.

Our discussion so far leads us to be circumspect about the possibilities for reducing political inequalities through procedural reform both because there are political barriers to the realization of such reforms and because they so often go awry if adopted. There is a final reason that we are dubious about what can be achieved by procedural reform. Our analysis of the roots of political inequalities makes clear how deeply embedded they are in social, educational, and economic inequalities. If this volume has any theme, it is the power and durability of the impact of stratification by socio-economic status (SES) on individual and collective political participation. Addressing (p.540) such inequalities of income and education is not a matter of mere institutional tinkering but would constitute a political and social revolution requiring a level of patience and a commitment of resources that have not been characteristic of American policy and that would seem out of step with the current political climate. It is difficult to overestimate what would be required to cut through the web of interconnected political, social, economic, and educational circumstances that reinforce inequality in contemporary America. Not only would the radically egalitarian policies designed to level the SES playing field be politically unlikely but it is doubtful that they could be fine-tuned in such a way as to bring about the desired outcomes without other disastrous consequences.

Strategies for Ameliorating Inequalities of Political Voice

Thus chastened, we shall spend the remainder of the chapter discussing a series of changes that might have the effect of reducing inequalities of political voice. Once again, our survey of reforms is not intended to be a comprehensive treatment of possible democratic reforms. It is not even a survey of possible reforms that have some bearing on political voice. Instead we focus much more narrowly on those that, if implemented, have a chance of reducing inequalities of political voice. The qualifiers if implemented and chance reflect our understanding of the barriers to enacting and implementing reforms and the frequent surprises in how they actually work out.

Table 17.1 presents a series of six strategies for reducing inequalities in political voice and, for each, gives examples of the kinds of political arrangements or public policies that are in place in the United States and in some other developed democracy. Those strategies are as follows:

• • Ensuring votes of equal weight

• • Mandating a participatory ceiling

• • Establishing a participatory floor

• • Lowering barriers to activity

• • Recruiting activity

• • Developing civic capacity

We developed these rubrics as a tool in organizing a complex discussion of the multiple policies that contain the possibility of ameliorating inequalities

(p.541)

(p.542) of political voice, but we do not wish to reify these categories. It would be easy to slice and dice the relevant proposals in other ways. There are surely alternatives with respect to the rubrics under which relevant policies could be grouped.

Ensuring Votes of Equal Weight

An obvious source of political inequality is any set of electoral arrangements in which votes do not count equally. Until a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s declared the practice an unconstitutional violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, legislative districts often differed substantially in population, with the result that those living in districts with fewer people, usually rural districts, enjoyed greater representation.⁷ The effect of these Court decisions was to end such mathematical malapportionment for state and local legislatures, and eventually for the U.S. House.

However, the U.S. Senate remains as a clear example of unequal representation of individual citizens, with, at this writing, the most populous state, California, having the same number of senators—and more than seventy times the number of inhabitants—as the least populous, Wyoming. At times in the past, the equal representation of states in the Senate has had the political effect of protecting particular minority interests, such as the interests of slaveholders. At present, altering the composition of the U.S. Senate—which, because Article V of the U.S. Constitution requires that “no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate”—is extremely politically remote.⁸

Support for altering the other visible manifestation of unequal votes, the Electoral College, arises from time to time—usually in response to an election in which the peculiar operation of the Electoral College threatens to produce deadlock or to elect as president a candidate who did not win a plurality of the popular vote rather than in response to an abstract concern about the way that popular votes may weigh unequally.⁹

(p.543) In discussions of the Electoral College, voters in three different sets of states are deemed to be advantaged by the way that the Electoral College works in presidential elections:

• • Small states, because the apportionment of electoral votes as the total of a state’s delegation to the U.S. House and Senate implies that each electoral vote represents fewer popular votes

• • Large states, because the unit rule in the casting of electoral votes to the plurality winner in the state makes winning a large state much more valuable in the Electoral College tally

• • Competitive states, because candidates do not pay much attention to states that they know they will definitely lose—or win¹⁰

In addition, the common wisdom has traditionally been that the biases in the operation of the Electoral College accrue to the advantage of urban interests, especially blacks.¹¹ However, there is reason to question this conclusion. The states in which African Americans are an especially large share of the voter-eligible population tend to be in the South and to be medium sized. They do not fall into any of the categories—the small, the large, or the competitive—said to be privileged in presidential elections. Thus, contrary to the received opinion, African Americans do not seem to be placed at a political advantage by the Electoral College.

It can be argued that the most substantial affront to votes of equal weight is the system of single-member legislative districts with winner-take-all elections. (p.544) Under these arrangements, which have long been critiqued by reform-minded scholars, politicians, and activists, the votes of those who cast ballots for any candidate other than the one gaining a plurality of the vote have essentially no weight at all. In contrast, in systems using proportional representation, parties attracting votes beyond a specified threshold, even if not a plurality, gain legislative representation, and therefore voters supporting minority viewpoints are not shut out. According to Robert Dahl, “Because the governing coalitions [in proportional systems] will generally include representatives from minority parties, governing majorities are likely to be more inclusive than in a majoritarian system. Thus, a proportional system comes closer than a majoritarian system to providing equal representation—an equal say—for all.”¹² That said, the political obstacles to bringing about a change in the procedures for presidential elections are, to say the least, formidable.

Mandating a Participatory Ceiling

Restrictions on Voting

Establishing a Participatory Floor

The opposite strategy for reducing inequalities of political voice is to give a boost to the silent by placing a floor under the activity of those who participate least. Such participatory floors are quite unusual, but not unknown, in American political arrangements. One policy that can be construed as creating such a floor emerged from the 1963 Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright establishing the right of an indigent defendant in a felony trial to be represented by counsel, a decision that can be thought of as creating a floor that equalizes voice in a setting in which matters involving individual offenders are resolved.

A short-lived and less well-known example in a domain in which policy is made, intervenor funding, derives from the world of administrative agencies. Under these arrangements, which were in place in a number of agencies from the mid-1970s, citizen groups that did not command the resources or the expertise needed to participate in protracted and complex rule-making hearings were subsidized to take part. In the process, perspectives that might (p.558) otherwise not have come to the attention to public officials were given voice.⁴⁴ Although most of the intervenor funding programs were killed early in the Reagan administration, some government agencies—for example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—continue to solicit public participation in the making of policy.⁴⁵

Another proposal that would have the effect of placing a floor under political participation is for a publicly funded campaign voucher program that would issue to every citizen a voucher for a set amount—proposals range from $10 to $100—that could be assigned to any (registered) political party, other campaign funding organization, or candidate.⁴⁶ Citizens would be permitted (p.559) to divide the total and assign varying amounts to different groups or candidates. Earlier proposals varied in terms of whether candidates would be permitted to accept private money in addition or would be limited to voucher receipts, an alternative that, most likely, would not now pass constitutional muster with the Supreme Court.⁴⁷ Proposals for campaign vouchers have not been met with universal enthusiasm.⁴⁸ Among the obvious limitations are that they would be expensive. Even at a mere $10 per citizen, the vouchers would come to $2.2 billion if every eligible voter took advantage of the opportunity to use the full value of the voucher. The measure would require defining and registering eligible groups and candidates and would require a bureaucracy to administer and audit the program. Nevertheless, such a program would allow everyone, regardless of resources, to get into the political contributions game and, within limits, to register the intensity of their feelings by apportioning the total to different groups or candidates. Campaign vouchers would presumably result in an increase in citizen interest and knowledge. However, their most important consequence from the perspective of our concerns would be their impact in reducing inequality of political voice.⁴⁹

A different kind of policy that equalizes political voice by placing a floor under participation involves making political activity mandatory rather than voluntary. To require attendance at meetings or rallies or contributions to a party is more the hallmark of an authoritarian than of a democratic system. However, in about thirty other nations, including eleven of the OECD countries, citizens are required to go to the polls at election time and may be fined if they do not.⁵⁰ Although there is evidence that countries that have introduced compulsory voting have seen reductions in inequalities in turnout (p.560) among social groups, mandating turnout as a means of equalizing political voice is controversial among political scientists.⁵¹ Besides, a proposal for policy making such a demand on citizens might be a tough sell in a nation uneasy with public mandates.

With regard to whether individualistic Americans would countenance being required to vote, we should note that there is a form of required civic involvement that is not usually included in discussions of political activity, jury service. A recent major study shows that, contrary to popular assumption, even though jury service is usually mandatory, those who serve on juries generally feel quite positive about the experience. Jury service seems to have an impact on political activity—increasing rates of turnout, especially for infrequent voters, and often other forms of involvement.⁵²

Lowering Barriers to Activity

Another strategy for ameliorating inequalities of political voice involves lowering the barriers to participation. We have already discussed the extent to which the Internet has made it easier to take part, but there are also public policies—most commonly focused on voting—that facilitate activity. American electoral practices are notable for several reasons. Compared with that of other developed democracies, U.S. voter turnout is low, and voter participation is especially likely to be structured by education and income.⁵³ Furthermore, (p.561) like so many of the procedural arrangements discussed in this chapter, policies and practices around elections—such matters as registration, absentee voting, the management of voter rolls, the staffing of polling places, and balloting devices—vary widely across the U.S. states and localities. These local variations have implications for class-based inequalities in turnout. Poor communities are less likely to have well-trained poll workers, up-to-date equipment, and enough voting machines, with the result that lines are likely to be longer and the entire process is less likely to run smoothly.⁵⁴

In considering the many proposals designed to lower barriers to turnout and make it easier to vote, we must not assume that they have the intended consequence of boosting turnout. Furthermore, we need to distinguish between the amount and the bias of activity. Even when procedural changes are successful in raising the level of electoral participation, they may not have the effect of equalizing political voice through voting.

In particular, the American system of leaving to the individual the responsibility for registering to vote is often cited as a factor that dampens turnout and increases the SES bias among voters. The requirement for registration is seen as posing a particular hurdle to the young, to the residentially mobile, and to those who have low levels of income and education and fewer skills or community ties.⁵⁵ Reforms designed to ease the registration process, such as (p.562) the provisions of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993—known as “Motor Voter”—have a mixed record of success. While mail-in registration seems to have no independent effect, permitting people to register to vote when they apply for a driver’s license or vehicle registration seems to increase turnout somewhat, particularly among the young and residentially mobile.⁵⁶ In addition, postponing the closing date for registration or permitting election-day registration is also associated with higher rates of voting among the young and residentially mobile and may somewhat increase turnout rates among lower-income voters.⁵⁷ Michigan has a system that links the state’s electronic databases. Registered voters who file a change of address within the state at the Department of Motor Vehicles are automatically reregistered to vote at their new residence.⁵⁸

Reformers have offered various other proposals for increasing voter turnout by lowering the costs of voting, such as holding elections on weekends rather than on work days or making Election Day a national holiday, as it is in many other countries. Already in place in many states are arrangements that make it more convenient to vote: eased restrictions on absentee voting, often without a requirement for stating a reason; provisions for early voting at polling places; and, in Oregon, voting by mail. Empirical assessments of (p.563) reforms designed to lower the barriers to voting are not especially encouraging. Voting by mail seems to have the greatest success in actually increasing turnout in such invariably low-turnout elections as local elections and those on ballot propositions. Evidence for a positive impact on turnout in elections of greater visibility is more mixed.⁵⁹ Moreover, to the extent that these studies pay explicit attention to the matter at all, they do not find that greater turnout has the consequence of equalizing voter participation.⁶⁰

At the same time that efforts have been made in the past two decades to ease access to the ballot, a concern about vote fraud has led to the enactment of other measures that have the possibility for the opposite effect. Especially controversial among these measures are mandates for frequent purging of nonvoters from the voting rolls and requirements that voters show photo ID at the polling place. With respect to the latter, political scientists are in agreement in finding very few cases of the particular form of vote fraud that voter ID laws seek to address: voter impersonation at the polls. Indiana, which has a strict voter ID law that was blessed by the Supreme Court in a 2007 case, has never had a single prosecution for that form of vote fraud. An extensive initiative to uncover and document vote fraud in Texas found only thirteen indictments for vote fraud, none of which would have been prevented by a requirement to show photo ID at the polls.⁶¹ There is less agreement as to whether voter ID laws depress turnout.⁶² Such measures designed to combat (p.564) vote fraud—when taken together with the fact that, even when they increase turnout, attempts to lower barriers to voting so often have disappointing results with respect to reducing political inequalities—may imply that we have entered one of the periodic eras of contradictory trends with respect to equality of access to the franchise or perhaps even one of contraction rather than expansion.

Recruiting Activity

In Chapter 15 we demonstrated that one time-honored weapon in the arsenal of those who seek to expand participation, recruitment, does indeed catalyze activity. Political scientists emphasize the role of strategic elites in generating political participation.⁶³ In addition, Alan Gerber and Donald Green have conducted field experiments specifying what kinds of mobilization efforts yield results. For example, while telephone calls with a nonpartisan message have no impact, knocking on doors and delivering the same message personally can increase voter turnout substantially.⁶⁴ While our analysis in Chapter 15 makes clear that a great deal of political activity takes place in response to a request, it also demonstrates why it is critical to differentiate the level from the equality of participation. Taken together, efforts to recruit others to take part do produce more political activity, but processes of rational prospecting—in (p.565) which those who seek to generate participation not only search for recruits who are likely to be active but also do so effectively by, for example, compelling letters or big checks—actually exacerbate inequalities of political voice.

Efforts to mobilize political activity traditionally rely not on tinkering with procedural arrangements but on the strength and effectiveness of the institutions that mediate between citizens and government—most importantly, political parties, organized interests, and social movements but also local newspapers.⁶⁵ Organizations on the left—socialist parties and unions—mobilize working-class citizens to levels above what they would have achieved based on their individual resources and motivation. Such organizations are weaker in the United States than elsewhere.⁶⁶

Political scientists sometimes wax nostalgic about the era of strong urban party organizations at the end of the nineteenth century and argue that not only have contemporary political parties declined in strength but they have also abandoned any efforts to mobilize the poor.⁶⁷ There is no doubt that the political parties of the late nineteenth century were more successful in organizing working-class voters and bringing them to the polls—with the result that turnout of the eligible electorate was much less class stratified than it is today. Clearly, campaigns are run by candidates and their hired professionals rather than by parties, and for many reasons the urban machine is a thing of the past.

(p.566) Nevertheless, the strong political parties that produced such high rates of turnout mobilized an eligible electorate that was white and male and were not notably anxious to enfranchise two large groups, African Americans and women.⁶⁸ Besides, over the past quarter century, the parties have become stronger not just in the legislatures but on the ground as well: more likely to have a local organization that engages in such electoral activities as canvassing and—as we saw in Chapter 15—more likely in recent years to contact voters to urge them to vote.⁶⁹ The national parties have devoted substantial resources to digitizing information about voters and to GOTV—get-out-the-vote—campaigns.⁷⁰ Furthermore, the Obama campaign drew on Obama’s experience as a community organizer to build a massive ground organization.⁷¹ Still, consistent with the principle that higher levels of participation do not necessarily reduce unequal political voice, our analysis has shown that both parties—including the Democrats, who are more reliant on the votes of those who are lower on the SES ladder—target their recruitment efforts at the affluent and well educated.

Moreover, although some organizations—for example, grassroots organizations with a strong local focus or religious institutions—can bring the politically quiescent into politics,⁷² what we have learned about the overall (p.567) shape of the organized interest system suggests that mobilization efforts by organized interests would reinforce rather than transform the existing socio-economic bias in political activity. In particular, labor unions—which, across developed democracies, have traditionally been a force for mobilizing have-nots on the basis of their shared economic concerns—have become weaker as both a political and an economic force. Moreover, unions currently enroll a declining share of the private-sector workforce, and the unionized workforce has become, in relative terms, less blue collar and better educated as it has become more concentrated among public-sector workers. Without stronger unions and many more local grassroots groups, mobilization efforts in the current political configuration may increase the level but not the equality of political participation.

Developing Civic Capacity

We cannot conclude a discussion of the strategies for ameliorating inequalities of political voice without considering the need to develop individual civic capacity. In this chapter we have repeatedly made the point that the barriers on the path to participation loom larger for those of limited means and education. Sometimes we are able to specify concrete circumstances to explain why the hurdles seem differentially high. Producing proof of residency is more difficult for the homeless or those who, through poverty, are forced to move frequently. Getting to town hall to register is more difficult for someone who has no car and is working two jobs. Writing a check in support of a candidate is more difficult when there is not enough cash for the electricity bill. Squeezing in time to vote is more difficult for someone who is rushing from work to retrieve the baby from day care and confronts long lines at the polling place. In contrast, participation is easier when there are strong mobilizing institutions, parties, and organized interests to communicate information about political issues, to encourage and guide political involvement, and to offer services to facilitate activity.

Such circumstances go only so far in explaining the extent to which political voice is structured by SES, however. While the configuration of political institutions and arrangements has an impact on political inequalities, individuals bring to their political activity different bundles of attributes—skills (p.568) and resources and such psychological orientations as political interest, knowledge, and efficacy—that lead them to want and to be able to take part. Without recognizing the extent to which inequalities of political voice are shaped by disparities in individual resources and motivations, no amount of procedural tinkering can fully confront their sources.

Addressing such individual differences would require a major public commitment—demanding both resources and patience and having no guarantee of positive outcome—for which Americans have shown little taste. As we made clear at the outset, the context for our inquiry into inequalities of political voice includes both the extent to which American ideological egalitarianism stops short of an embrace of economic redistribution and the growth of economic inequality over the past three decades. Improving educational outcomes, job prospects, housing alternatives, and health care for those at the very bottom are, to us, worthy goals in themselves quite apart from their impact on political inequalities, but such social engineering is difficult. In the era in which this book is being written, there seems to be little political will and no political constituency for making serious policy commitments to raise the educational and economic profile of those who have least.

In the absence of such a major social transformation, one much more limited strategy for developing the civic capacity of individuals focuses on civic instruction in the schools. Assessments of traditional civics classes find them to be widespread but not especially effective, even at imparting knowledge: despite the fact that three-quarters of all high school graduates in the mid-1990s had an American government course in grades 9–12. A 1998 study found that 35 percent of high school seniors were below even the most basic level of civics performance.⁷³ However, advocates for programs focusing on civic education and service-based learning emphasize the possibility that they can give a participatory lift to young people who might otherwise be inactive.⁷⁴

(p.569) An extensive body of evaluative research indicates that, under certain conditions, civic education and service learning programs have the potential to reduce political inequality by endowing young people whose parents are not well educated and affluent with the skills, knowledge, and other resources they need to engage with politics.⁷⁵ The conditions that make such programs effective, however, are numerous and not easily met; both the design of the courses and the quality of the instruction matter for their success.⁷⁶

If civic education is to have the desired impact on inequality, students must bring to civic education a basic level of cognitive ability and the learning tools and skills necessary to process and apply the civic information they learn. Children and teenagers from families that are the least active, who most need civic training to boost their participation, are the least likely to command the abilities needed to make it a useful and engaging learning experience. Moreover, such students are unlikely to attend resource-rich schools with the kinds of programs that studies suggest are the most effective.

Because resources are more readily available to those who need them least and least easily available to those who need them most, civic education and service learning pose a somewhat more complex version of the dilemma discussed with regard to several of the procedural changes we have reviewed. Under the right circumstances, these educational programs can operate to create civic capacity and to raise political engagement and participation, thus (p.570) ameliorating one form of inequality of political voice, the skew on the basis of age, by bringing the young into politics. However, these optimum educational circumstances are less likely to be available to students from disadvantaged backgrounds. If those whose parents are well educated and affluent have differential access to well-designed programs of civic education—just as they have differential access to so many participatory resources—the result would be analogous to what we saw for online political participation: to raise the overall level of civic commitment and political activity of the young but not to reduce SES inequalities of political voice within the younger generation. In short, neither civic education nor service learning provides a silver bullet to solve the problem of political inequality.

Another approach is to foster the civic skills of adults. For example, the goal of the Right Question Project (RQP) is to help “people in low and moderate-income communities learn to advocate for themselves, participate in decisions that affect them and partner with service-providers and public officials” in such settings as “educational, health care, social service, community-based organizations and public agencies.”⁷⁷ Although RQP indicates that its methods produce promising results, these kinds of efforts have been tried in very limited circumstances.

Political innovations on the local level also have a positive impact on political activity. For example, in Chicago neighborhood councils with local control over policing and public schools seem to have engaged and benefitted inner-city African American residents, although they seem not to have had the same positive effects for Spanish-speaking Latino immigrants.⁷⁸ Another study finds that city-supported neighborhood associations tend to “increase confidence in government and sense of community” and reports finding no evidence that the increased participation introduces racial or economic biases into the system.⁷⁹ Still, even this kind of intensive, local, city-supported participation did not seem to bring about fundamental change in the class bias of who participates.⁸⁰

(p.571) Yet another possibility arises less commonly in discussions about how to foster civic capacity: the possibility created by the impact of the design and implementation of government policies in facilitating participation by different segments of the American citizenry. Recent studies suggest that the policy design of government benefit programs can have consequences for the propensity of beneficiaries to take part politically.⁸¹ Policies that are universal rather than means tested and bureaucratic agencies that treat citizen-clients with respect and prompt service rather than with delays, negative assumptions, and invasions of privacy promote greater participation in politics.⁸²

Conclusion

This review of policy innovations that might have the effect of ameliorating inequalities of political voice has drawn both on what is broadly known in political science about the process of making public policy and on our own analysis of the roots of political activity and the shape of the pressure system. Our discussion, which has been sobering, underlines why we have been reluctant in the past to rush headlong into recommendations for reform. Beyond the inertial effect of the policy status quo in a system that was crafted more than two centuries ago to place roadblocks in the path of policy change, the political obstacles to procedural reform are formidable—especially when the reform in question is expensive, requires action on the part of each of the states, threatens significant interests with stakes in current policies, or involves trade-offs with other cherished democratic values. Moreover, accomplishing the desired outcome is often difficult. Implementation may be lackadaisical. Determined stakeholders may find ways to exploit loopholes that subvert the original purpose. Even when implementation is vigorous and no one seeks to use details to undermine the achievement of the intended purposes, the results may not be as originally predicted. In short, procedural reforms often disappoint.

(p.572) Nevertheless, our response to the question that animates this chapter, “What, if anything, should be done?” is “As long as we do not expect a full-scale transformation—a number if things.” Short of a massive change in the configuration of the mediating institutions—parties and organized interests—that link ordinary citizens to public officials or a wholesale transformation of the American system of social stratification, we can subscribe to a number of much more limited reforms that hold the promise of having an impact in the desired direction on inequalities of political voice.

For example, it seems reasonable to make more serious efforts to ease registration requirements, for example, by linking various state-level electronic databases so that a change of residence noted by the agencies that collect taxes or register motor vehicles automatically updates a voter registration or by implementing more consistently the provisions of the National Voter Registration Act that mandate voter registration at public assistance agencies. Similarly, it should be possible for states to improve the administration of elections so that the voting experience—the length of the lines, the skill and training of the election workers, the quality and accuracy of the balloting devices—would be more positive and would not depend on the budget constraints of differing municipal budgets. We would also suggest a rethinking of the rules that constrain the lobbying by 501(c)3s—nonprofits to which contributions are privileged with tax deductibility.

With respect to campaign finance, the tide seems to be running in an inegalitarian direction. Still, we would urge consideration of citizen vouchers to allow all to make limited campaign donations and close scrutiny of the consequences of public funding schemes in the states that have enacted them. A properly structured system of public funding of campaigns seems to hold potential for reducing the inequalities of political voice. We would also suggest ongoing monitoring of the programs for civic education for youth and adults and service learning in the schools to ascertain what makes them work and efforts to make sure that such programs are available to the students who need them most.

In each case, there is reason to be cautious. Each of the proposed reforms runs into at least one of various daunting political realities: it would be expensive; it would require either changes in each of the states or a national policy that would raise questions about federalism; it would offend either a powerful stakeholder or another important democratic value. Overall, for each of the reforms we have discussed, there is a trade-off between political feasibility and consequences for inequalities of political voice: the changes that (p.573) would have the greatest impact are the least likely to happen. A group of incremental changes, each one relatively contained, might have an impact on inequalities of political voice. After all, American history, which has been punctuated by periodic bursts of procedural reform, has probably not witnessed its last.