By Tom Ganser
Correspondent
With just a few hours until the potential for a partial government shutdown that did in fact occur, the timing couldn’t have been for Susan Johnson’s Fairhaven lecture on Sep. 30, “How Did Dysfunctional Become The Way Our Government Functions?”
Speaking to a group of about 50 in the fourth lecture of the 2013 Fairhaven Lecture Series, Johnson answered the question posed in her talk’s title by reviewing the growing prominence over the past three decades of political polarization in congress and in voting patterns, the proliferation of cable stations and websites, and the dramatic increase in campaign financing.
Johnson is an associate professor of political science at UW-Whitewater and was appointed in August 2013 to serve as Assistant Dean for Student Success in the College of Letters and Sciences.
According to Johnson, the widest ideological gap between the Democratic and Republican parties in 100 years corresponds to the increasing tendency for engaged voters to see the world through very different political lenses.
Whereas 30 years ago three major TV networks and local newspapers were the dominant source of news for most people, the media landscape today includes over 600 cable stations and over 250 million websites and a decline in TV and newspaper news department budgets.
Johnson provided information showing that the total spending on US congressional and presidential elections has more than tripled from about $1.6 billion in 1998 to over $6 billion in 2012.
Her recommendations for improving government functions included reforming the party system by expanding the voting pool, diversifying candidates’ constituencies through redistricting reform and open primaries and campaign finance reform. Johnson also advocates a more informed and engaged electorate and a balanced media that reasserts its watchdog function.
All lectures are free and open to the public and are held on every Monday through Dec. 2 at 3 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of Fairhaven Retirement Community, 435 West Starin Road, Whitewater. Street parking is adjacent to the building.
Links to videos of lectures, including those from prior series, can be found at http://www.uww.edu/contedu/fairhaven.
