COMMON SENSE;
ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE OF GREATER ST. LOUIS,
“The actions of the few affect the lives of the many.”
Thomas Paine, “Common Sense,” 1776
Over 70% of elected officials in the United States are essentially selected in partisan Primary Elections held in the summer months with generally around 30% voter turnout. This means that 70% of the voters are note engaged in selecting the leaders who hold power in their towns, cities, counties, and states.
Increasingly, primary elections are won by the most extreme candidates who fill offices and reflect the opinions of only those who “show up in primaries. For the vast majority of citizens, November elections don’t matter any longer. When most of us are paying attention, the elections have already been decided by virtue of whichever nominees win the Democrat or Republican primary. This must change.
The mission of “Common Sense STL” is to engage a more robust turnout in the primary elections to ensure that qualified candidates who best reflect the common sense of the community are nominated to positions of political leadership. In this endeavor, we will engage in Democratic and Republican primaries to increase voter participation throughout the Greater St. Louis region. More voters will lead to more common sense leaders and governmental decisions. Our
COMMON SENSE;
ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE OF GREATER ST. LOUIS,
effort will be aggressive and enduring. We believe this is a model to reform local governments over time and will result in more a representative and effective government for all of our people.
Common Sense STL is an educational organization whose mission is to “increase voter participation in elections through education and understanding.”
COMMON SENSE;
ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE OF GREATER ST. LOUIS,
“Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
Thomas Paine, “Common Sense,” 1776
Governments exist in America by the consent and direction of the people they govern. When a tiny percentage of the people participate in elections, our leaders are captive to minorities of activists either from the right or from the left. Over 70% of elected officials across the U.S. are effectively elected to office by winning primary elections where as little as 16% of the electorate participate. One of the goals of “Common Sense St. Louis” is to educate St. Louis regional voters that they have the power and ability to chart the course of their local governments.
Ensuring that local governments in St. Louis City, St. Louis County, St. Charles County and beyond are functioning in their “best states,” our effort will be to educate and inform regional voters about the issues, policies, and governmental actions that are either beneficial or detrimental to the people. Ours is a long-term effort with clear objectives and measurable results.
• Through education, increase voter participation in Primary Elections and General Elections.
• Educate the public about the actions of their governments through an ongoing information campaign utilizing traditional and digital communication methods.
COMMON SENSE;
ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE OF GREATER ST. LOUIS,
• Create an environment that encourages Common Sense candidates to seek public office.
Common Sense lies in the wisdom of the many rather than the few. Governments that must be responsive to the broader interest of the community as a whole inevitably function more rationally in the mainstream of community consensus. Stronger political leadership will produce more efficient and effective government and, over time, identify leaders who can work collaboratively to provide basic services, tackle the growing regional crime problems, create a local environment favorable to economic growth and community contentment.
Join our effort to restore common sense leadership to the St. Louis region. When the people engage in selecting transformative leaders, real transformation will occur.
COMMON SENSE;
ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE OF
GREATER ST. LOUIS,
On the following interesting
SUBJECTS .
Man knows no Master save creating Heaven, Or those whom choice and common good ordain . Thomson. WHAT IS COMMON SENSE
COMMON SENSE
WHAT IS COMMON SENSE
It’s a concept we use to describe our approach to problems. When we are presented with a dilemma or complicated issue, most of us appeal first to reason—to common sense—to find a solution. However, the appeal to common sense is contingent on recognizing a problem in the first place. If we never question the status quo, if we assume things are “just the way they are,” a common sense solution never comes into play.
The American colonists in the late 18th Century were living under an oppressive monarchial system an ocean away. They had no say in how their government worked. They had no ability to oppose arbitrary taxes on tea or the requirement of mandatory stamps. They had no right to deny British soldiers who showed up to their homes, demanding to be fed and housed. The early American colonists were oppressed, taxed, and bullied with zero representation.
Generations of colonists assumed these now obvious injustices were “just the way things are.” A handful of revolutionaries, however, began to question the status quo. They believed things could—and should—change. These men and women began to form a plan.
Into this strained theater stepped a young and fairly nondescript magazine editor in Pennsylvania. He had arrived in Philadelphia from his native England in 1774. Just two years later, in 1776, having observed what was happening in the American Colonies, he authored his pamphlet, “Common Sense.” In it, he made the case for American independence, arguing that America need not be held captive by a corrupt kingdom in a different and imperious world.
“Common Sense” was read by nearly every revolutionary patriot in America, and its arguments became central to encouraging and
inspiring the American Revolution.
What does this have to do with the current state of American politics and, I find myself selecting the “lesser of two evils”? If your answer is the latter, there is hope for the political leadership of the St. Louis region.
THE PROBLEM
By the time most of us show up to vote in November, we have been exposed to millions of dollars of advertising, flooded with political mail, and, more recently, bombarded by incessant spam phone calls and texts. This backdrop tends to create grouchy voters or, even worse, exhausted citizens who don’t participate in elections at all.
What few people realize is that 85 percent of November elections are decided before the first vote is cast. How is this possible? First, the vast majority of our political jurisdictions are so lopsided toward either Democrats or Republicans that November election outcomes are easily predictable, even for the casual observer. Second, the candidates presented to us in November elections are the folks who win low-turnout primary elections—and primary election tend to attract the most extreme candidates from both parties. The appeal to the fringe candidate in primaries is only getting worse.
Jurisdictions dominated by one party and primaries comprised of the most extreme candidates of those parties is the toxic recipe for the “lesser of two evils” dilemma we face in November.
Often, a losing candidate in a primary may have made a better and more effective office holder than the candidate who moves forward. However, because the better candidate fails to appeal to the extreme voters who dominate the primary electorate in both parties today, he or she never gets a fighting chance. Thus, candidates in primary elec-
tions are often forced to take extreme ideological positions in order to appeal to the small slice of the electorate who will be nominating them. Is it any wonder our modern-era politics have become so stridently polarized?
This is not a “Democrat problem” or a “Republican problem.” Rather, it is a systemic problem exacerbated by decreasing turnout in primaries due to voters becoming “turned off” by the state of American politics. Voters are simply walking away.
The St. Louis region is Exhibit A of this trend. Take for example the City of St. Louis. The last Republican mayor, Mayor Aloys P. Kaufmann, left office in April of 1949. In St. Louis County, the last Republican county executive left office in January of 1991. St. Charles County has never elected a Democrat county executive.
Can any of us expect competitive general elections when the minority party has virtually no chance of winning? On rare occasions, minority parties have fielded credible and well-funded candidates. But over the past 35 years, minority parties are batting 0.000.
How can we expect to produce “Common Sense” office holders when thousands and thousands of “Common Sense” voters fail to participate in primary elections?
Lastly, in recent years, the primaries for the majority parties in their respective jurisdictions (Democrats in St. Louis City and St. Louis County and Republicans in St. Charles County) have seen an explosion in the number of candidates filing for various offices. This means that the “winning” candidate in a 4- or 5-way race may win with 25-30 percent of the vote from 25-40 percent of the electorate who show up. The math presents a staggering reality: as little as 6.25 percent of the electorate is selecting our U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, city leaders, and county executive officials. We are governed by the votes of a small percentage of the electorate.
THE SOLUTION
We are certainly not the first to identify this problem currently plaguing American democracy. Over the past two decades, politicos have offered a number of solutions with the goal of changing the basic Party Primary/General Election construct described above. The reforms have offered various alternatives:
• Jungle Primaries: candidates from all parties appear on the primary election ballot and the top two finishers face each other in the general election. (This is somewhat like what the City of St. Louis has recently approved.)
• Open Primaries: do not require voters to register by party but still allows them to vote in either party’s primary.
• Run-off Primaries: occur in a handful of states which require the winner of the primary to receive a 50 percent-plus 1” result in order to be declared the party’s nominee. If no candidate achieves a majority in the primary to select a nominee, a run-off election is held between the top-two vote-getters.
• Ranked Choice Voting: allows voters to opt for more than one candidate and rank their choices. If no candidate receives “50 per cent -plus 1,”voters’ second choices are added to the results, and the votes of the top two finishers are retabulated until one candi date has a majority of the vote. (This is a very complicated system.)
While several of these reforms could make a difference, they are either illegal under Missouri’s statutes and Constitution, or they are unrealistic to enact. Remember, the people who set the election laws are the very people who benefit from our current, broken electoral processes.
What, then, shall we do? The “Common Sense” answer is fairly straight forward. We need more citizens who recognize this funda-
mental problem of modern politics in the St. Louis region, and we need more of them—many more of them—to cast ballots in party primaries. Thomas Paine would encourage us not to “allow the few to affect the lives of the many.” What would happen if turnout in primary elections increased somewhat or dramatically?
• Extreme candidates who express views held by a sliver of the community would have a much more difficult time winning.
• Winning candidates would tend to reflect the values and positions of a much more representative selection of the mainstream electorate. By “mainstream” we do not mean squishy moderates, but rather candidates whose views are in the mainstream opinion of the community.
• Candidates would no longer feel the need to cater to the ideological fringe in order to prevail in primaries. Republican candidates can feel free to run right-of-center conservative campaigns and Democrats can feel free to run left-of-center liberal campaigns.
• In the few political jurisdictions where both parties have a shot at wining in November, the choices for the voter would include thoughtful candidates who still differ greatly on the solutions which will work best in their communities.
Common Sense STL is an educational organization whose mission is to “increase voter participation in elections through education and understanding.” We believe that when frustrated voters understand they are truly empowered to change the political dynamics in the St. Louis region, there is a much stronger likelihood that our leaders will be competent, thoughtful, effective, and perhaps even visionary. Join our cause. Government can be messy, and it can be frustrating. It can also be better. That is our goal.
When Thomas Paine made the case for American independence, he had to persuade people that change could actually happen. He had to convince them that there was a common sense solution to their
problem. And he had to encourage them to take action. In Paine’s time, that solution meant taking up arms and defeating General Charles Cornwallis’s army.
Common Sense STL is an endeavor to persuade the people of the Greater St. Louis region that change CAN occur here. There does, in fact, exist a common sense solution to our current problems. We just need to take action. We just need more of us to vote.
THE MISSION
“ To elect common sense, center-right and center-left candidates to public office in the Greater St. Louis area through voter education, expanded voter participation, candidate recruitment, training, staffing, funding and implementing effective campaign practices through bi-partisan collaboration.”
COMMON SENSE;
ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE OF GREATER ST. LOUIS,
“Our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”
Thomas Paine, “Common Sense,” 1776
The leaders of the American colonies realized that, through great effort and sacrifice, they could improve life in their own country and chart their own destiny. They could create a government that need not inflict pain on the people. It took time, but those patriots knew that things didn’t have to be the way they were.
In a similar sense, contemporary voters often just assume that politics has to be the way we find it today -divisive polarized gridlocked, and ineffective. Imagine what would happen if more voters participated in Party Primary Elections? We believe that nominees for office would look more like a reflection of the whole community rather than a reflection of the 12-18% of the voters who show up.
One of the reasons our political discourse has become increasingly toxic is that primary elections tend to produce the most extreme candidates in each party. And, because most elections are no longer competitive in November, when most of us vote, the voters in the primaries end up selecting our office holders.
Common Sense STL is working to educate voters in the Greater St. Louis area to increase their participation in elections. Like our nation’s founders, we have much ability to direct the future. Produc-
COMMON SENSE;
ADDRESSED TO THE PEOPLE OF GREATER ST. LOUIS,
ing greater civic participation we can produce more civic cooperation.
Common Sense STL is an educational organization whose mission is to “increase voter participation in elections through education and understanding.”