Articles Posted by Steven Hill

Steven Hill is a writer, columnist and political professional based in the Bay area who is a frequent speaker at academic, government, NGO and business events, speaking on a wide range of topics related to political economy, political reform, climate change, global complexity, geo-strategy and trends. Mr. Hill is the author of several books including "Europe's Promise: Why the European Way Is the Best Hope for an Insecure Age (www.EuropesPromise.org)" and "10 Steps to Repair American Democracy, 2012 Election Edition" (www.10Steps.net). His articles and interviews have appeared in media around the world, including the New York Times, Washington Post, the BBC, National Public Radio, Fox News, C-Span, Democracy Now, International Herald Tribune, Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, The Nation, Washington Monthly, Salon, Slate, Politico, HuffingtonPost, American Prospect, Die Zeit, International Politik (Germany), Project Syndicate, Le Monde Diplomatique, Hürriyet Daily News (Turkey), Courrier Japon, Taiwan News, Korea Herald, Montreal Review, India Times, Burma Digest, Egypt Daily News, Ms., Sierra and many others. His website is www.Steven-Hill.com.

  • Is Proportional Representation and Other Reforms Key to Democratizing US Electoral System?

    After well over a year campaigning and an estimated $6 billion spent (including by SuperPacs), we ended up with the same president and roughly the same Democratic-controlled Senate and GOP-controlled House. The status-quo prevailed, ultimately, so it looks like we can look forward to two more years of stalemate.

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    The D5 Progressive “Coalition” Meltdown

    A lot of people are wondering what happened in District 5. The story is pretty straightforward. The supporters of the three progressive candidates failed to support each other, and so the progressive vote split allowing London Breed to win.

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    Update on Ranked Choice Voting in San Francisco

    I am happy to report that we were able to beat back the attacks on Ranked Choice Voting in both San Francisco and Oakland. These were very serious and well-coordinated attacks by conservative forces.

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    Europeans Reject Austerity-Centric Fiscal Policies, Favor Growth; Social Capitalism

    This new consensus seeks to elevate growth and job creation to equal status with fiscal consolidation/austerity, and so in that sense truly represents a new wind of change blowing across Europe.

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    RCV is Electing Winners with Stronger Mandates than December Runoffs

    The ultimate irony is that Sean Elsbernd himself is the poster child for what’s wrong with the old December runoffs and what’s right with RCV. Look at the results above for District 7: Supervisor Elsbernd won in 2004 in an “instant” runoff race with nearly 50% more votes than his predecessor Tony Hall had in 2000 in a delayed December runoff, 13,834 votes versus 9333 (in comparable turnout years). And Elsbernd had 43.7% of the “whole contest” vote total compared to 30.9% for Hall. No matter how you want to count it, more District 7 voters were able to have a say in who their supervisor is because Sup. Elsbernd was elected with ranked choice voting in a much higher turnout November election.

  • Understanding D10 RCV Election Results

    To understand the effectiveness of RCV, it is helpful to compare how this extraordinary race in District 10 would have unfolded using other electoral systems, specifically a plurality (“highest vote-getter wins”) system or San Francisco’s previous two round (November-December) runoff cycle.

  • Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age

    By Steven Hill Editor’s note: The following article has been excerpted from Mr. Hill’s forthcoming book: Europe’s Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age (University of California Press), which…