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Advisory Board Member Tova Wang Questions the Value of the Caucus System

By Aaron Street

Institute for Law and Politics Advisory Board Member Tova Wang - a Fellow at the Century Foundation - recently authored a report arguing against the use of caucuses in the presidential selection process.

Her paper, "Has America Outgrown the Caucus? Some Thoughts on Reshaping the Nomination Contest" (pdf), argues that time-consuming, weeknight caucuses violate the principal that all citizens should have an equal opportunity to participate in the political system.

"Also, the caucuses actually discourage campaigns from trying to attract new voters to the system. Campaign workers know that only the most avid partisans will go through the tribulations of a caucus, and these avid partisans are likely to be people who have voted consistently in the past. Thus as a political calculus it makes no sense for them to reach out to infrequent or potential new voters."

What do you think? Is the caucus system broken? Do the benefits of in-person deliberation with one's neighbors outweigh the limited participation that caucuses historically exhibit? Are there any middle-ground reforms, short of scrapping the system, that might alleviate some of these concerns?

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Full post as published by The Law and Politics Blog on November 09, 2007 (boomark / email).