Can the Bay State be a beacon for liberal democracy?

We are not one but a new study shows that we could be.

Aug 06, 2025

Yesterday was the beginning of another beautiful August week in Boston where the National Conference of State Legislatures is being hosted this year. Relaxing by the harbor in this diverse city on mild, sunny days like this can be awe inspiring. Even the most politically attuned can forget for a few moments the discord coming out of the Trump White House. If you are looking for some moments of relaxation and peace, this is perfect. If you are looking for a respite from disappointing politics and government outcomes, keep searching…

Massachusetts has its share of stubbornly persistent challenges, ranging from housing costs, healthcare costs, educational outcomes, economic mobility, energy prices, carbon emissions, transportation – fill in the blank. And this is despite having the highest GDP per capita of any state.1

In this age of challenges to core concepts and institutions of democracy, it is more critical than ever that states perceived as stalwarts for self-government demonstrate high-functioning and high citizen satisfaction. Instead, lack of political competition and fair representation are undermining the will and capacity for government to deliver on the public good in wealthy states like Massachusetts, California, and New York. As a result, these supposed paragons of liberalism are riven with inequality and dysfunction. This is providing incredible ammunition for authoritarians to make their case to throw out centuries of hard-won freedoms constituted in our democratic republic.

Problems of representation

Massachusetts is widely regarded as a bastion of liberalism—indeed, even of progressive political thought. So it may seem surprising that despite this, the share of legislators in the statehouse for people of color is roughly half of these groups’ share of the state’s population – 32%2 of the population versus about 18% of the legislature in 20233. This is worse than Alabama, Tennessee, and Texas, to name but a few.

Massachusetts is considered a defender of democratic norms. So given the fact that the state has often had Republican governors in recent history, and that in races for President or U.S. Senate, the GOP consistently garners at least 35% of the vote, it is surprising that Republicans constitute only 10% of the State Senate and about 16% of the State House, respectively – less than half what one might expect from a fair arrangement.

And even when there has been a will to address disparities in representation through the means available, the results after the latest redistricting cycle have shown these problems to have a stubborn persistence.

Corruption and dysfunction

This situation is both deeply troubling and puzzling – both for fair representation and for political competition and accountability. Numerous other studies, including the comprehensive 2020 MassForward Report4, have looked at this. But the change that is occurring is still in the wrong direction. The 2024 regular legislative session ended in disgrace5, with Massachusetts remaining at the bottom of productivity for legislatures6, on top of being dead last in electoral competitiveness7, and among the four worst of fifty states for transparency8.

The Massachusetts Legislature has a reputation for corrupt rule, with a history of House Speakers going to prison, perhaps an occupational hazard of being the de facto rulers of the Commonwealth, enthroned by a series of ever-expanding anti-democratic internal institutional and procedural arrangements9. Many of Massachusetts' busy and affluent voters have a history of choosing blissful ignorance to the workings of the statehouse as long as the income tax rate stays low. However, the lack of accountability is catching up with the legislature, which is now polling higher disapproval than approval ratings10.

Opponents of the methods of the State House are beginning to organize effectively, with the State Auditor championing a successful citizen’s initiative that should allow her to audit the workings of the Legislature – which passed with 72% support11. This level of dysfunction and legalized corruption would be much harder to maintain with robust multi-party electoral competition, where voters would at least have the opportunity to elect another party with similar professed ideology and greater integrity and commitment to democracy.

A path to a true Commonwealth?

Just looking at the data, you might mistake Massachusetts for a deeply authoritarian state intent on suppressing both ethnic and political minorities. This raises some deep questions:

How is it that this is so at odds with the values perceived and expressed in the Bay State?

Is this imbalance so inevitable that it cannot be corrected, even when a strong democratic will exists?

This new report “Comparing Electoral Systems for the Massachusetts Legislature”12 from the MGGG Redistricting Lab, led by Dr. Moon Duchin offers evidence addressing both questions. What this paper shows is that the problem in Massachusetts can, with great certainty, be attributed to the rules that govern our electoral arrangements.

Put simply: the state’s use of winner-take-all, single-member districts systematically fails to produce fair representation13 for ideological or racial/ethnic minorities, leading to both the party and racial domination of state politics. A diverse district simply cannot elect one person who genuinely embodies a range of disparate viewpoints or lived experiences. The solution for this used in most advanced democracies is called “Proportional Representation”14, which typically involves electing multiple representatives from the same geographic area – in other words, a diverse handful of people to represent a diverse population. “Proportionality” is an awkward and scarcely used word in American English, but it refers to mathematical principles that are deeply wired into our common-sense conception of fairness.

Massachusetts’ people and politics are likely not to blame for this injustice, except to the extent that they support the flawed current election system. The paper’s greatest value is its contribution to the second question – Can these imbalances be corrected?

MGGG uses rigorous mathematical models, featuring some of the most important recent advances in data science. The study looks at outcomes for conventional proportional election methods using multi-member districts, leveraging actual voter and voting data for the state. Results are produced for different scenarios while flexing assumptions across multiple dimensions that impact elections:

voter turnout of different groups,
voting group cohesion,
candidate pool composition,
district line configurations,
district magnitudes, and
voter ballot completion behavior.

What emerges from this is quite clear. While the exact result will vary depending on which assumptions are closest to reality in a given election, using proportional representation in multi-member districts, either with ranked ballots or with party lists, is almost certain to deliver results that are much more fair than the current voting system – delivering reflective representation for minorities, whether they be people of color or Republicans. These are exactly the results that were achieved in Portland in the city’s first election after changing its charter to use proportional ranked choice voting15.

The tonic of competition

From the standpoint of competition and accountability, the multi-member, proportional electoral systems reviewed by the paper are also guaranteed, confirmed by a long history of political science, to produce both more intra-party and inter-party competition than Massachusetts’ current electoral systems.16

Massachusetts current pick-one, plurality system locks the state into a two-party system through the “spoiler effect”17. This is highly unfavorable for independents and additional parties – penalizing the voters that want more choices. The alternative systems reviewed by this paper have been demonstrated in action globally over more than a century to support robust multi-party competition.

In the Commonwealth’s current elections intra-party competition is limited because it’s political suicide to challenge a same-party incumbent in the primary, unless you are backed by a very powerful rival faction. In both the alternative systems evaluated, open list proportional and single transferable vote, parties will be running multiple candidates in multimember districts. They will be competing on behalf of their party against other parties' candidates and also with each other (albeit more softly). A positive upshot of this arrangement is that a new candidate can run in a situation where they may unseat a weak but entrenched incumbent from their own party, but their stated justification for running is based on expanding their party’s number of seats, not challenging their fellow party member — internal competition and healthy replacement, with potentially less rancor.

Redeeming democracy

This report should give Massachusetts voters a sense of both relief and of urgency. Relief, in that it is our electoral system, and not some deeply malignant hypocrisy, that is producing a legislature so far removed from our values. Urgency, in that it is a tremendous problem with major implications for government functioning, and we now know how to fix it – and should do so as quickly as possible.

This study gives us the confidence and direction to start moving forward to creating a better and stronger Massachusetts, and some guideposts to inform further studies and design of the new electoral arrangements we seek to put in place. The once strong Federal Voting Rights Act was responsible for compelling local jurisdictions to maintain or implement election systems that performed to at least minimal level of fairness. As the Federal Voting Rights Act continues to be weakened by actions of the Supreme Court and Federal legislative inaction, many states are stepping up with their own strong, enforceable state voting rights acts. Currently, these only apply to local elections, but clearly the moment calls for something more. Massachusetts lacks any state voting rights act, and it is clear the time has come, not just at the local level but at the state level. Massachusetts needs a voting rights act that in addition to ensuring just local elections, holds state legislative elections to the same standard.

Maybe Massachusetts can rise from failure to become a leader in setting a new standard for state elections?18 Combining multi-member districts with a proportional voting method like ranked choice voting can produce just outcomes for representation, incredible options for voter choice, and the level of competition and responsiveness that Americans enjoy from markets and expect from our democracy. What are we waiting for? The reputation and future of liberal democracy depends on our success.