Why Does Good-Republican Charlie Dent Want to End Straight Ticket Voting

Apparently Lehigh County Congressman Charlie Dent is sponsoring a bill to end "straight ticket" voting. I must start out by saying I think that's a terrible idea. It's a nice theory that members of Congress are individual actors, and behave independently in Congress, but that is not how it works. It's not really how any legislature in the world works. Parliamentary systems, be they in the United Kingdom, Israel, or Canada, all run on the assumption of strict party loyalty. While Congress affords slightly more freedom in the interest of stability, members vote with their party almost all the time. The only thing I can surmise is that Dent doesn't like the Congressional system:

“One of the greatest frustrations my constituents share with me is the excessive partisan bickering in our political system. There is no easy fix to this problem, but one solution could be to strengthen participation in our voting system by doing away with single-ticket voting.

“Pennsylvania is one of only a small number of states that still gives primacy to the power of political parties over the voters’ right to make candidate by candidate decisions. This manner of voting discourages voters from making an honest evaluation of each candidate on his or her individual merits and encourages an all-or-nothing decision based purely on party affiliation.

"For this reason, I have joined with my Democrat colleague Representative Henry Cuellar (TX-28) to introduce the People Before Party Act, that would end straight-ticket voting in federal elections. Individuals who wish to vote a straight party line may certainly continue to do so, but they should not be offered a short-cut or a one-touch workaround from the need to consider their vote for each individual candidate and for each office. This bill will empower voters to elect thoughtful leaders and reduce the power of the parties.”

I can sort of empathize with Dent. While Washington is filled with wackos and crazies on Capitol Hill, Dent at least talks like some sort of moderate. He wants to be free of the Louie Gohmert's of the House GOP, and I understand that. Dent's theory is that once we get past partisan labels, maybe we'd get more thoughtful members of Congress. It's a nice theory- but that's all it is.

The problem is that Dent is actually the best argument for straight-ticket voting being the only option. Here's a guy who is considered one of the more moderate Republicans in the country, but his voting record in Congress is really not much different than the far-right members. Charlie Dent has a 69% voting record with the Tea Party in the House. In the 112th Congress, Dent had an 86% voting record with his party. Basically, if Dent is the "moderate" in the GOP and can still be counted on to vote with leadership 8.5 times out of ten, Congress essentially runs on a partisan basis.

I get why Dent wants to sponsor something like this. In lieu of being able to break from leadership very often, the best way to distinguish himself from the crazies are pieces of legislation like this. The problem for Dent though is pretty simple- he proves my point. If he's a solid partisan vote, but the moderate, than the most important distinguishing factor about any member of Congress is their party affiliation.