A supermajority of Americans wants more climate action.1 And yes, there’s been progress, especially here in Cascadia. Yet laws in the United States are still not aligned with public sentiment on climate and many other issues.
That’s because our democracy isn’t functioning as it should.
One could blame individual elected leaders for their foibles. But perceiving everyone to be at fault—“fire everyone and start fresh,” as one recent US survey respondent summarized—is more productively interpreted as a nudge to explore the structures that incentivize politicians to act the way they do.
With that framing, it’s clear that candidates that get elected into office aren’t always the most responsive to the will of the people. Limited voter participation means that politicians tend to primarily attend to the desires of people who actually vote, who aren’t representative of the overall public (especially in lower-turnout elections like those in odd-numbered years and primaries). Some primary elections intentionally exclude voters, creating candidates who are accountable only to a narrow partisan base. When more than two people run, there’s a good chance that one of them will be elected without majority support, and candidates find easy ways to game the system to gain political power. (Sightline has a whole book covering these systemic flaws—and solutions to fix them.)
Stymied climate policy action is what got Sightline into democracy and elections issues in the first place. Since then, Sightline has extensively researched election topics from money in politics to voter registration to proportional representation.
So how might some of these electoral reforms help us make bigger, faster progress on reducing emissions and adapting to a changing climate?
This article will focus on ranked choice voting, one electoral upgrade that’s been gaining attention and traction nationwide—but anything we do to build a more representative and functional democracy will likely offer similar benefits to climate policy as those listed here. And while assessing the causes of policy change is notoriously difficult, there are plenty of reasons why ranked choice voting could help climate policy take off.
How ranked choice voting can accelerate climate action
1) Majority-supported leaders put majority views first
Most Americans want more progress on climate action, so anything that makes our democracy more representative will likely help expedite policy action on the issue.
Ranked choice voting better aligns politicians with their constituents because the victor of a (single-winner) ranked choice voting election has to earn more than 50 percent of the votes. So leaders elected under ranked choice voting are much more likely to represent the views of the people in their community than those elected under plurality pick-one voting, who might have very little support (especially if they were elected in a primary).
If elected leaders have better incentives to listen to their constituents’ concerns about climate change, for example, they might be more likely to punish toxic spills, update building codes, and advance clean energy.
2) Third parties such as the Green Party can showcase their support
Ranked choice voting reduces entry barriers for third-party candidates, including those focused on specific issues. A Green Party candidate, for example, can run without fear of taking votes away from a similarly positioned major-party candidate, because voters who choose the Green Party candidate first can have their second choice count if their first choice doesn’t get enough initial votes.
In a ranked choice voting election, environmentally focused candidates can also bolster their platform by demonstrating their level of support to the candidate who does win. Say there are three candidates running—a Democrat, a Republican, and a Green Party candidate. If the Green Party candidate wins 20 percent of the vote share and the other two candidates each receive 40 percent, the election goes to another round of tallying and the Green Party candidate is eliminated. If most of the Green Party supporters selected the Democrat as their second choice, the Democrat would be elected, knowing that they have an important base of environmentally minded constituents and that they should prioritize related policies.
3) More women and people of color, who tend to care more about climate policy than average, are elected
Studies show that more women and more people of color run and win in elections that use ranked choice voting.2 Further research has found that when women are in leadership positions, climate action increases, and that both women and people of color are more likely than other demographics to be concerned about climate change. It follows, then, that ranked choice voting might open the door to more diverse political leaders who will both act on climate change and do so with their communities’ needs in mind.
Ranked choice voting decreases political gatekeeping for women and people of color because the method neutralizes the threat of spoilers, encouraging candidates who might otherwise be viewed as an “alternative” to run for office without worrying about impressions of electability or pressure from established candidates to stay out. Decreased negative campaigning in ranked choice voting elections may also encourage more women to run.
Real-world examples demonstrate how this theory has played out. Multiple cities in Minnesota have elected more underrepresented leaders under ranked choice voting: St. Paul just welcomed its first all-women (and majority women of color) city council, where prior to ranked choice voting the council had only one person of color and one woman; Minnetonka also elected its first all-women city council; and 9 of 13 council members in Minneapolis are people of color. People of color won a majority of seats in Salt Lake City’s first ranked choice voting election in 2021. A California study similarly found that cities that adopted ranked choice voting have a higher percentage of candidates from racial or ethnic minority groups compared to control cities (although the study did not find a higher percentage of candidates who were women).
Elected leaders who identify as women or people of color (or both) are by no means guaranteed to be good climate ambassadors. But on average, women in Congress have better environmental policy voting records, and people of color are disproportionately impacted by climate change and are spearheading efforts to reduce emissions, fight environmental toxins, and strengthen community resilience. More diverse leadership is essential to ensure that climate policies don’t repeat the inequitable frameworks of past environmental regulation. Progress that is truly sustainable will center frontline communities and drive toward climate justice.
4) Less extremism and less vitriol better support collaborative long-term governance
Particularly when combined with a unified open primary, ranked choice voting can dampen extremism and encourage collaboration because voters are no longer forced to choose only between two political opposites. Candidates can offer nuanced issue positions rather than relying on toeing the party line to get elected by a narrow base. They are also more likely to reach out to supporters beyond their base and ally with similar candidates. Evidence suggests that this collaborative campaigning spirit transfers into capitol buildings and council chambers as well.
More moderation and collaboration in governance is good for climate action because effective policy needs to be maintained long-term. At a national level in the United States, the swinging distribution of power from one opposing major party to the other offers little consistency for commitments as significant as international treaties such as the Paris Agreement. Even in Washington State, which sports a climate-forward governor and action-oriented legislature, climate supporters will be defending the state’s Climate Commitment Act at the ballot this fall because of consistent conservative opposition. Ranked choice voting would create an opening for climate-supporting Republicans, allowing more constructive cross-partisan collaboration on the issue.
Ranked choice voting won’t change all the combative governance dynamics in politics today, but it does incentivize lawmakers to compromise, work across the aisle, and form longer-term, more stable governing coalitions rather than just automatically opposing whatever the other side wants.
5) Proportional representation leads to more climate action
The multi-winner form of ranked choice voting could achieve proportional representation for city councils, state legislators, and even the US House. This method is currently used in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as a few smaller jurisdictions in California and Minnesota, and will be used in Portland, Oregon, starting this fall.
Multi-member proportional districts would encourage legislators to attend to broader constituent needs, including promoting public transportation and addressing air pollution. On this point, the studies are explicit: countries with proportional representation set stricter environmental regulations than those with winner-take-all elections. When elected in a proportional system, leaders are incentivized to consider the welfare of the entire electorate, rather than just the narrow subset needed to eke out a majority vote. New parties can also more easily gain seats and advocate for issue-focused policies within a coalition government.
A more sustainable path
Ranked choice voting is burgeoning across the United States. The voting method’s most obvious benefits are that it punishes negative campaigning, encourages more diverse candidates to run, and eliminates the fear of spoilers.
Emanating from those outcomes are secondary advantages. Adoption of this voting method will likely have implications for issues beyond elections—not only climate action but also any issue with popular support, from paid leave to stricter gun laws.
After all, governance in line with the views of the people is what improving democracy is all about.
