I’m Monica De La Cruz: This is why I want Texas’ vote in the midterm election to be a referendum on the party system—and why I think that the future of our country depends on breaking it.
At my desk at work, I’ve written a brief of over 20 pages that is meant to make the case that Texas needs a new representative in the U.S. House to break the system that has allowed the GOP to win power for nearly 40 years and keep the state in the hands of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, but is now in danger of losing its voice.
The current system—that allows two parties to dominate politics in a state—has been the basis for much of the dysfunction and dysfunctionality we see in Washington.
The system is based on a few simple rules. Parties compete against each other in primaries, and voters choose which one they will support. There are also some races where candidates from both parties run in the primary with one party’s candidate being the “favorite.” In other races, the two-party system is used to give the advantage to whoever has a party’s best candidate in office.
The primary elections, with the winner receiving party lines, is also at the heart of the primary system. A party’s voters select the nominee; the nominee’s voters select the delegates to the convention; and the delegates then elect delegates. Because the delegates are independent and not bound to any one party line, they are free to vote for the candidate of their choice, even if that candidate is not the candidate of that party. Because they are free to vote for whomever they want to elect, the primary election does not need to be tied to the winning candidate for Congress.
This means that the delegates at the convention in August can vote against the candidate of a party in an election, and that the party can nominate and elect candidates who support the agenda of the party.
In the general election, the winner has to find a way to get a majority of the delegates from both parties, the same way they already have to get a majority of the voters. This means they will have to agree on a candidate—and on the candidate they must agree on, the majority of other candidates that don’t get the most support has to be opposed. Unless there is some big breakthrough that the parties can agree on, there are basically two options: The winner gets the majority of delegates from each party (the same as primary voters got from primary
