Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 13, 1994                   TAG: 9402150264
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MAKING POLITICS USER-FRIENDLY

But what he's probably thinking to himself is: "Hey, you're saying the system doesn't work? Of course it does. Didn't it get me where I am today?"

Right. That's part of the problem. The political system in Virginia, as elsewhere, works for the people in it. Election laws are mostly configured for the convenience of parties and politicians, not citizens.

What would user-friendly election laws look like?

They would not include initiatives and referendums for every issue under the sun, a la California. A look at that state's experience should suffice to discourage support for this proposal by would-be populist Gov. George Allen.

True reform of Virginia's election laws would:

Require major political parties to hold primaries for statewide offices, so more Virginians would participate.

Let governors run for second terms, so voters wouldn't be prevented arbitrarily from re-electing effective state leaders.

Update registration rules and eliminate unnecessary barriers to balloting, so voter turnout would be encouraged.

Simplify the election calendar and consolidate elections every two years, so political campaigns in Virginia wouldn't be so constant and confusing.

Reform campaign finances to cap individual giving and introduce limited, voluntary public financing, so citizens would stand a chance of being heard amid the clamor of moneyed special interests.

Set up a nonpartisan commission for redistricting every 10 years, so voters wouldn't have to put up with repulsive partisan gerrymandering.

These improvements, editorially recommended by this newspaper over the past week, are no cure-all, certainly not for the political disaffection that clings these days to the public heart and threatens to squeeze life out of democracy.

Nor do they offer a substitute for public maturity among Virginia voters, for a willingness to face and make hard choices, or for a vision of politics as the means to leave an enhanced public sphere to future generations.

They would, however, at least marginally ease and increase voter participation in Virginia, which would be a good thing. Current election-turnout rates are a scandal.

Collectively, the reforms would also reinforce the notion that in our system, political institutions exist to serve the citizenry. They would even improve life for politicians, most of whom don't deserve the contempt in which, as an institution, they are increasingly held.

There is just one trick: For Virginia legislators to change the election laws that governed their own political success, they're going to have to feel pressure from constituents. Fortunately, and this is why mere reforms will do, plenty of ways to exert such pressure remain available.

Keywords:
POLITICS