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Ilya Somin

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Ilya Somin is a professor of law at George Mason University School of Law, where Bob Zadek describes him as focusing on constitutional law and property law issues. He is the author of Democracy and Political Ignorance, subtitled Why Smaller Government is Smarter, and of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom. He appeared on The Bob Zadek Show to discuss voter ignorance, court packing, and foot voting. Is America Doomed by Voter Ignorance? (2013)

Voter ignorance and the founders

Introducing Somin, Zadek described the founders as having had little enthusiasm for democracy, noting that after ratification in 1788 the only direct voter participation was the election of members of the House of Representatives; senators were elected by the state houses, judges were not elected, and voters elected electors who elected the president. Somin agreed that most of the founders were worried about voter ignorance and that this was one reason they limited popular participation, adding that many were also concerned about ignorance-driven excesses in state governments in the 1770s and 1780s. He named James Madison and Gouverneur Morris as founders who believed the public was often ignorant about politics and irrational in evaluating the information it did have. Zadek added James Wilson as another who was unenthusiastic about widespread democracy, and framed democracy as a check on government rather than an end in itself; Somin allowed that some founders, Jefferson for instance, valued popular participation as an end in itself while remaining suspicious of it. Is America Doomed by Voter Ignorance? (2013)

The scope of the problem

Somin said he had been interested in the issue for at least 15 years, since he was a student, and that what persuaded him of its importance was its effect on almost every other policy problem, naming the spending crisis, gay rights, racial discrimination, economic regulation and environmental policy. He cited survey data showing substantial ignorance on each. On the federal budget he said the public greatly overestimates spending on foreign aid, believing it to be at least 5 to 10 percent or more of the federal budget when in reality it is less than 1 percent, while underestimating spending on entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security. On health care he cited a poll conducted in April by the Kaiser Foundation finding that 42 percent of the public did not realize that Obamacare was still the law, and a poll about a month or two later finding that 79 percent said they had heard nothing or very little about the Obamacare exchanges. Is America Doomed by Voter Ignorance? (2013)

On knowledge of government structure, Somin cited a 2006 poll finding that only 42 percent of the public could name the three branches of the federal government. He said the public has trouble distinguishing events for which politicians can be credited or blamed from those they cannot, rewarding and punishing incumbents for short-term economic changes they very likely had nothing to do with causing, giving incumbents a boost when local sports teams win championships, and blaming governors in farm states for droughts. The fundamental problem, he said, is that there is very little incentive for the average voter to spend more than minimal time learning about politics, because the chance any one vote will make a difference is infinitesimally small—roughly one in 60 million in a presidential election. Is America Doomed by Voter Ignorance? (2013)

Rational ignorance and political fans

Zadek put the point in personal terms, describing himself as reading political blogs while brushing his teeth and talking politics with the person in front of him at the checkout counter, and said Somin’s framework made him out to be wasting his time while those who pay no attention are far more rational. Somin agreed that becoming informed makes little sense if the only reason is to be a better voter, and drew an analogy to sports fans who acquire knowledge about professional sports teams not because they can influence games but because being a fan is fun. He called people who enjoy following politics and cheering on their favorite party or candidate “political fans,” said they are a minority of the population, and said it is not irrational to learn about politics if you enjoy it. Is America Doomed by Voter Ignorance? (2013)

Somin distinguished voting from becoming informed: voting is an extremely low-cost activity, maybe half an hour of your time at most, so if you care about your fellow citizens and think there is a substantial difference between the two sides it makes rational sense to vote, whereas acquiring more than minimal political knowledge is much more costly in time and effort. The resulting equilibrium, he said, is large numbers of people voting while most do not know very much about what they are voting on. He added that political fans, though they know more than average, often evaluate information poorly, overvaluing what confirms their preexisting views and ignoring or undervaluing what cuts against them, and that studies find the people who know the most about politics are some of the most biased in how they evaluate what they know. Is America Doomed by Voter Ignorance? (2013)

The miracle of aggregation

Zadek asked whether uninformed voters cancel each other out, with uninformed Democrats offset by uninformed Republicans so that the informed carry the day. Somin said some important scholars argue this, but that it is only likely to work if errors in one direction almost exactly offset errors in the other, and that the data on most issues suggest this is not true—that if you increase people’s knowledge, the distribution of opinion significantly changes. He added that the choices parties present are themselves heavily influenced by their knowledge that they face a mostly ignorant electorate, so a more knowledgeable electorate would likely see different candidates and almost certainly different party platforms. Is America Doomed by Voter Ignorance? (2013)

Court packing and legitimacy

A later episode turned to court packing and its implications for the American judiciary. The episode description states that Zadek and Somin discussed the historical precedent set by FDR, the potential for a legitimacy crisis within the Supreme Court, and alternative reforms such as judicial term limits. The topics listed for the episode include court packing, the Supreme Court, judicial review, FDR, term limits, constitutional law, Merrick Garland, the Bill of Rights, and separation of powers. How to Create a Legitimacy Crisis (2019)

Foot voting

In a 2020 episode Somin discussed Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom. The episode description states that Zadek and Somin explored why foot voting—the ability to choose which government to live under by moving—is often a more effective and informed mechanism for political freedom than traditional ballot box voting, and that they discussed the economic and moral implications of internal and international migration as well as regulatory barriers like zoning and occupational licensing that restrict human mobility. The topics listed include foot voting, federalism, migration, occupational licensing, zoning, economic freedom, constitutional law, international migration, the zero-sum fallacy, and Kelo v. City of New London. Foot Voting > Ballot Voting (2020)

Across episodes: from ignorance to exit

The same underlying question—what voters can be expected to know, and what follows for the design of political institutions—runs across the appearances. In the 2013 episode Somin argued that ignorance is rational because one vote is infinitesimally unlikely to matter, and that the remedy lies in decentralizing power to encourage foot voting over ballot box voting. In the 2020 episode he developed foot voting at book length, treating the ability to choose which government to live under by moving as often a more effective and informed mechanism for political freedom than ballot box voting, and extending the analysis to migration and to regulatory barriers such as zoning and occupational licensing. The 2019 episode on court packing and judicial legitimacy sits alongside these as a treatment of institutional design rather than of voter knowledge. The excerpts show a consistent position advanced by Somin across the episodes rather than a change in his argument.

What the sources do not cover

The excerpts do not give Somin’s educational background, the date or circumstances of his appointment at George Mason, or any detail of his earlier career. They do not state what Democracy and Political Ignorance or Free to Move argue beyond the points summarized above, nor do they report the publication dates of either book. The 2019 and 2020 excerpts are episode descriptions and topic lists rather than transcripts, so they contain no quotations from Somin or Zadek and no specifics of the arguments made on those shows. The 2013 transcript breaks off at the heading for the segment on foot voting versus ballot box voting, so the discussion in that segment is not available.

Episodes

7 appearances, 2013–2022.

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