As the quote from Droop at the top of the left sidebar says, most voters in two-party systems are less interested in the “particular points at issue between the two parties” and much more in seeing their country or state “being honestly and wisely governed.”

Reelected in November to his second and final term as California governor, Arnold Schwarzeneger apparently “gets it.” Having run in 2003 above party (bypassing the regular nomination process because the special election concurrent with the recall did not have a primary) and elected by a cross-party electoral coalition, Arnold tried to use his popularity to push through key pieces of the Republican agenda in a special election in 2005. The gambit failed badly, so Arnold reinvented himself again as the “post-partisan” governor. Some of his second-term agenda seems almost Democrat, and some of it even Green, while he maintains broadly popular “conservative” Republican principles on other policies.

In an era when the percentage of independent voters in the state has risen from 9% in 1990 to 19% now, the percentage of independent or third-party members of our state and national legislative bodies has remained barely above zero.

California is not alone in the trend. As noted in the LA Times, a study by Rhodes Cook based on data from 27 US states shows only 75% of voters registered with one of the two mainstream parties (down from82% in 1994). That means a quarter of the electorate in this sample of states–not all states register voters by party–is now independent or other party. Most independents are moderate, non-ideological voters disgusted with the polarization of the main parties on many issues. Many “other” party registrants hold views that are from beyond the mainstream, or even of fringe ideologies, yet–as I noted in the previous two plantings on these topics–even these parties and their voters may have practical solutions for honestly and wisely governing their country or state that would be valuable contributions to the debate.

Now, continuing with the Droop quote:

if this moderate non-partisan section of the electors had their separate representatives in the assembly, they would be able to mediate between the opposing parties and prevent the one party from pushing their advantage too far, and the other from prolonging a factious opposition. With majority voting they can only intervene at general elections, and even then cannot punish one party for excessive partisanship, without giving a lease of uncontrolled power to their rivals.

Of course, this danger of uncontrolled power to the former “outs” under majority voting is precisely the risk faced nationally with a change of power in Congress: will Democrats exceed the mandate they obtained from moderate voters who swung their way? And it is also the risk faced by moderate California voters, as the successor to Arnold Schwarzenegger may be another “party hack” in the mold of Davis or Angelides.

Who speaks for the moderate, non-partisan (and multi-partisan) electorate? Hardly anyone, given the lack of representatives speaking for this section of the electorate, and only episodically does a “post-partisan” executive come along to articulate the frustrations of what elsewhere I have called “the radical middle” that is frustrated with the lack of practical solutions offered by the two big parties.

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