To stop climate change, climate activists must work to remove the anti-environment right-wing bias from our federal elections.
A powerful right-wing bias taints our entire federal election system.
- The winner of the popular vote for president often doesn’t become president.
- The party whose candidates win the most votes for Senate or the House of Representatives often doesn’t control the chamber.
- Even when the vote-winning party wins more seats, the allocation of seats is still usually not proportional to how the American people voted.
- The undemocratic benefit almost always goes to the political right.
Climate activists have been successful in building support among people and politicians, but, because of the biased election system, making the change we need is impossible.
Climate activists have made climate change a potent political issue. A clear majority of Americans support strong government action.
Despite public opinion, progress has been pitifully inadequate to the scope of the crisis.
Aggressive climate policy is blocked by right-wing politicians, and even by the right wing of the Democratic Party, both of which owe their power to our biased election system.
If not for the bias in the election system, Build Back Better would have passed, and in a stronger form than proposed, because the Democrats would have held a 53-47 seat majority, and Manchin and Sinema would have been irrelevant.
Instead, because of the antidemocratic bias, we got a watered-down substitute, bought with sideline payoffs to the fossil fuel industry.
Bad election cycles, such as 2000 or 2016, more than undo any progress.
A bad 2024 or 2028 could be environmentally catastrophic.
Electoral bias can be removed
Although bias is entrenched in the American electoral system, there is a way to remove it. Democratism has proposed model legislation, called the Democracy Decree, that, if adopted, will:
- Eliminate the electoral college.
- Make the voting power of parties in Congress proportional to the votes each party receives.
For the Democracy Decree to be adopted, it must be proposed by local governments around the country and then ratified by a vote of the American people.
Climate activists, who have already proved to be effective drivers of social change, have the organizing and lobbying skills necessary to help pass the Democracy Decree.
Are you a climate activist? Let’s work to bring about the adoption of the Democracy Decree in local legislatures—a prerequisite to enacting strong, sustained action on climate change.