Your Arlington, your views

Rep. Will Brownsberger, Democrat of Belmont, also representing Arlington, wrote the following opinion column. It is posted her with his permission.

The House voted today [July 23] on a pair of gender-related bills that generated a debate full of passion, confusion and irony. I was in the majority on all three of major votes, but split from some of my friends on two of them.

One of the bills, which passed, will require gender-blended pricing of annuity contracts. In a simple annuity contract, a person (usually a retiree), pays a substantial lump sum to an insurance company. The company, in return, pays them back with an income for life. Since women live longer than men, insurance companies charge them more than men for the same annuity. The bill will require companies to blend pricing for men and women, so that both pay the same prices. Although results will vary for individuals, on average, men will subsidize women, lowering rates for women.

The other bill, which also passed, would also lower rates for women, by relieving the Massachusetts Savings Bank Life Insurance company of an unique statutory requirement for them to use gender-blended rates for term life insurance. Since women live longer than men, other life insurance companies charge them less than men — this will allow SBLI to do the same, lowering their rates for women. Women will stop subsidizing men.

For some, the debate was about equality for women and they spoke in passionate historical terms about the progress of civil rights. Members who saw the issues primarily through this lens voted for the annuity bill and against the life insurance bill, even though both bills lower rates for women.

As passionate as I am about the principle of equality, I felt the equality principle was misused in the debate. To me, equality means charging men and women based on the same actuarial principles. Actuarial pricing favors women buying life insurance and favors men buying annuities. There is nothing unequal or unfair about that — both genders are receiving the same treatment, even though the resulting prices are different.

I chose to support the annuities bill because we generally do not differentiate based on gender or other immutable personal characteristics, in our bedrock financial systems — compensation, pensions, social security, health insurance, auto insurance. We keep things simple and view ourselves as all in the same system together.

Noone would suggest that women should receive lower social security payments than men with the same contribution history, even though they are likely to live longer and so take more out of the system. Nor would anyone suggest that we make different social security payments based on race or religion, even though smart actuaries might be able to compute survival differences based on these criteria. We keep things simple and avoid divisive hairsplitting and by doing so, we increase social coherence.

Annuities are a class of financial instrument that may play an increasing role for retirees as more and more people work for companies that lack a defined benefit pension plan. At 65, hard working people may have a good financial nest egg in a 401(k) or other savings vehicle and they may choose to convert that nest-egg into an annual income resembling a pension by purchasing an annuity.

So, I felt comfortable voting for the gender-neutral annuity bill on the keep-things-simple-we-are-all-in-it-together principle. Yet, I voted against an amendment to the life insurance bill which would have extended gender-neutrality to term life insurance contracts. Arguably term life insurance is a bedrock financial product that should be gender neutral and I might vote for this concept in the future, but I felt that was out of order in the current debate.

A complete restructuring of the life insurance market deserves some hearing and discussion. Insurance rates would go up for women and down for men. Is that what we want? What would the consequences be for Massachusetts companies competing nationally? We would be the only the state other than Montana to adopt this approach. It is probably the right approach, but deserves a political process where all voices are heard before we move on it.

I also voted for the bill which would relieve the Massachusetts SBLI from the requirement of gender-blended rates for life insurance. Until after due deliberation, we are prepared to subject all Massachusetts companies to these rules, their seems to be no good reason to subject only this company to the rule.

So, it was a difficult day, but one that I felt prepared for after considerable input and reflection. Thank you to those among you who communicated with me on these issues.

As always, I appreciate feedback. My e-mail is willbrownsberger@gmail.com. My cell phone is 617-771-8274. My website — where past posts can be viewed is www.willbrownsberger.com.

Rep. Will Brownsberger, Democrat of Belmont and Arlington, explains why he voted to oppose the National Popular Vote (NPV). His comments are published with his permission.

I write to explain my recent vote today [July 9] against the proposal for an NPV.

I voted in the losing minority in a lopsided 116 to 37 vote. The NPV had the support of Common Cause, the Speaker, many other leading Democrats and all of the constituents who wrote to me about the issue. In fact, at one point, it had my support: I signed on as a co-sponsor to the proposal.

I developed doubts after hearing the first day of debate about it last week. During a one week postponement of the vote, I consulted experts in favor of the proposal. My consultations clarified the issues, but did not relieve my doubts.

In the end, I concluded that, whatever its merits in principle, the proposal creates unacceptable down-side risks for our country, risks that are not outweighed by its alleged benefits.

What is the NPV proposal? The proposal would change the way we select the President of the United States — a technical issue, but one of great importance.

In November, we will each cast a vote for president of the United States. The votes will be counted in each state. In each state, a winner will be identified and the state will send electors to the electoral college to vote for that winner. In order to be elected president, a candidate must achieve a majority of votes in the electoral college (270 of 538).

Each state gets a number of electors equal to the number of senators that it has (two) plus the number of representatives in Congress (proportional to population). In effect, this formula places the small-state to large-state balance of power in choosing a President mathematically mid-way between the balance in the House and the balance in the Senate.

The requirement of winning with an absolute majority in the electoral college forces presidential candidates to assure themselves a geographically broad victory.

If no candidate achieves an absolute majority, the election is decided in the House of Representatives in a special vote in which each state delegation gets one vote. This one-vote rule further advantages smaller states. An absolute majority must be achieved. Only the top three vote getters in the Electoral College may be considered.

Under the NPV proposal, states would enter an interstate compact to the effect that they would instruct their electors in the electoral college to vote for whomever gets the most popular votes nationwide. This does not require a constitutional amendment because the constitution does not control how the states choose electors.

If states controlling a majority of the electors in the electoral college enter the compact, then the compact would take effect. The members of the compact would in the next election instruct their electors to vote for the candidate who won the national popular vote, regardless of whether that candidate won a majority among those states. Since the members are a majority of the electoral college votes, the national popular vote winner would receive the constitutionally required majority in the electoral college.

By its terms, states could withdraw from the compact at any time except during the six months preceding the inauguration date for the president — between July 20 and January 20 every four years.

The NPV increases two kinds of serious risk.

I am frightened by the possibility of a deviant regional candidate – a George Wallace – under the NPV. The NPV lacks the requirement of geographic distribution that the electoral college enforces. In a three way race, a George Wallace, could, for example, win 35% of the vote by winning huge majorities in one region. If the major party candidates split the balance of the vote in other regions, the George Wallace would win. Whereas in the electoral college system, the George Wallace would win only the electoral votes from that region and lack sufficient votes to become president.

The NPV lacks even a runoff mechanism, a requirement that if no candidate wins an absolute majority the top two candidates compete in a runoff election. Few major democracies that elect a President nationally do so without a runoff mechanism. But a runoff is not part of the NPV compact. The compact is designed to be implemented without the necessity of a constitutional amendment and a creating runoff election would require a constitutional amendment.

Which brings me to my second concern: An interstate compact just is not a robust way to build a system as important as the presidential election system. If a state didn’t like the way the NPV system seemed to be headed, they could withdraw even in June of the election year. That’s awfully late in our long cycle and could throw the whole race into confusion. Moreover, if a state decided to withdraw even closer to the election or after the election, the election would end up in the courts. It is not a settled question how and whether the Supreme Court would enforce an interstate compact of this nature, although interstate compacts have been enforced for more mundane issues.

Once I understood these risks, I reexamined the arguments in favor of the NPV. There are three common arguments made in favor of the National Popular Vote.

First, some are offended by the possibility that a candidate who did not actually obtain a majority of the national popular vote could win the presidency in the Electoral College. George Bush did this in 2000 and John Kerry, if he had won Ohio, would have done it in 2004.

In closely divided elections this is a possibility in our system for two reasons: It could sometimes happen that by winning smaller states who carry a slightly disproportionate number of delegates a candidate could gain an advantage in the electoral college. More importantly, lop-side majorities in some states swell the national popular vote of a candidate, but a razor thin margin is enough to win all of a state’s delegates. So, a candidate who won many states by razor thin margins but lost a few states very big could win a majority in the electoral college while losing the popular vote.

These possibilities follow from our identity as a union of states. It is the states that elect the president. Generally, this basic idea checks the power of the federal government and helps to protect local liberty and freedom to experiment. A president who claimed to be elected by the people, as opposed to the states, might be more likely (even than our current overreaching President) to expand presidential power.

Second, because many states are predictable in how they vote, candidates pay much of their attention to “swing states.” Some have gone so far as to suggest that this is the cause for apathy and low voter turnout across the country. However, if low turnout were caused by the electoral college system, then in true blue Massachusetts, the presidential election would be a relatively low turnout election. But the opposite is true, people turnout in droves to cast their vote for the presidency even if the outcome in Massachusetts is a foregone conclusion – it is the local elections that have the lowest turnout.

Third, some suggest that the electoral college system creates incentives for fraud and abuse in the swing states – alleged cases in point, Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004. This is true, but arguably, in a national popular vote, we could see fraud (or allegations of fraud) anywhere. Political scientists feel that fraud is less likely in larger jurisdictions – the sheer size of the margins makes it harder to successfully commit fraud. However, that still leaves the possibility in an NPV system of greater confusion about a close election’s outcome as allegations and real incidents occur in multiple states.

I gave careful consideration to voting for the NPV just to keep the conversation alive about reform of the electoral college, but all-in-all I really feel that — lacking a runoff mechanism — the NPV proposal is not sound enough to make a positive statement for change.

Nor, honestly, am I clear in my mind that the electoral college – which embodies our national history as a union of states – is the root of political evil. Certainly the concept of sending electors to a college is anachronistic, but the formula for the college embodies a balance of power between large and small states.

I am less interested in changing the mechanics and more interested in developing and supporting national candidates who combine truthful vision with the skills to engage to a broad range of people across the nation.

As always, I appreciate feedback. My e-mail is willbrownsberger@gmail.com and my cell phone is 617-771-8274. My website is www.willbrownsberger.com.

Will Brownsberger
State Representative, (617) 771-8274 (cell)
Visit www.willbrownsberger.com for news.