>> Do you have *any* concept of how politics works? What you've just >> described is how politics works when you have a party split in a >> single-member plurality system, as we saw earlier this week when the US >> House passed a Democrat-sponsored bill to allow Americans to buy >> prescription drugs from overseas instead of paying inflated domestic >> prices.
> The prescription plan that was passed recently (June) was a republican > backed and introduced bill covering mostly medicare, but havin a provision > for prescriptions especially for the elderly. And more recently it was a > republican sponsered bill that was passed in the house that would allow > the importation of prescription drugs. > And on July 25th this bill which was sponsered by a republican Gil > Gutknecht H. R. 2427 was passed by the house. This allows > The importation of prescription drugs.
> To authorize the Secretary of Health and Human Services to promulgate > regulations for the reimportation of prescription drugs, and for other > purposes.
Interesting that the US Congress passes a bill to allow Americans to take advantage of more enlightened health policies operated by the Canadian government.
State-funded health care in Canada allows canadian health providers to sit dwon with drgu companies - as single buyers - and get GOOD prices for drugs.
In New Zealand, the same thing is done. "PHARMAC" is the public, single buyer for all drugs in public hospitals. We get cheap drugs, too.
Maybe one day the two major parties in the US will shed the ideological blinkers that keep their people sick or poor - or both.
The US seems rich in theory....like Phoenix Rising....and poor in practical approaches that work well and do good things for citizens.
Universal health care is a no-brainer....I'd never live in a country without it. I never have.
But you can't tell an American that it works just fine
Well......it works fine unless a neo-right party that has captured power under winner take all is actively trying to subvert it so their buddies in insurance companies and private health companies can cash in - like in Ontario and "new" Labour in Britain.
In New Zealnd, we got past all that neo-conservative sabotage to justify privatisaiton and things are working fine again.
-- Steve -- "Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." - Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarshall
>> One easy answer is to revise the number of Congressional reps. The US >> has one of the worst rep to population ratios on Earth - 1:500,000 at the >> federal level.
>> The 435 reps have not been increased since 1911...and the US now has 291m >> people.
>> The UK, with 60m, has over 600 MPs. They also have regional parliaments >> in Scotland and Wales.
>> Germany, with 80m people, has about 660 federal reps, plus they also have >> several state legislatures - like the US.
> Why are more Rep's a priori a "desirable" thing? I'd rather have 1Rep > for 500,000 = 435 Reps than 1 Rep for 100,000 = 2175 Reps! In the latter > case, the power of an indivudal Rep would be nil in most cases!
There are several reasons why more might be good.
1. You might actually be able to get access to your rep if s/he is only servicing 100,000 people instead of 500,000 people. 2. If a rep only have to please 100,000 people they won't need the same vast sums required to campaign for 500,000.
Your country has almost 300 million people. For democracy to work, their representatives must be accessible. The US model is not "scaling" - to use an IT term. It's thrashing (to use another).
Another improvement would be to change the term to 4 years from 2 years. The two year terms makes reps sitting ducks for money-men with agendas.
If a rep can stand every 4 years in a district with 100,000 people, then almost anyone could consider standing - democracy would be "affordable" again.
With 2,175 reps....perhaps in 10 political parties elected via proportional representation, they would certainly be small individually - yet with 300 million people, perhaps that is a GOOD thing. No small group can dictate to the legislature like that. Speakers would represent entire caucuses....and perhaps significant faciotns within a caucus. Each party would have speaking time - and decide themselves how best to use it.
Maybe those 2,175 reps would be able to spend more time in their districts actively working with their voters - and being the link to the federal government - accessible and connected.
-- Steve -- "Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." - Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarshall
> I'm a little confused by how that would fix things, too.
> What it would do, however, is allow smaller parties to make inroads > into the legislature, as here and there may exist scattered pockets of > voters that can elect Greens or Libertarians if the districts were more > fragmented.
You continue to assume that minor parties = bad, despite all eevidence to the contrary in 88 democracies that have politically diverse legislatures.
This is no more valid an asumption than the one you attribute to me below.
> Steve, as a Green, would be in favor of this. However, > like most party loyalists, he seems to believe that the success of his > party = the success of the country. Maybe you agree, maybe you don't, > but it can hardly be held as an absolute truth.
That is not an assumption I have made. I assume a legslture more accurately reflecting the will of voters is a good thing - because I believe democracy is a good thing.
But you do touch on one of the negative features of the winner take all (first past the post - FPTP) system wherever it is used.
Partisanism.
In a two-party system like the US, it is "then and us". All politics is seen through this lens. Hence your easy assumption that as a Green I am incapable of making a statement of a generally applicable principle or truth without also having an interested agenda.
That is less of a factor in PR systems where parties with diverse backgrounds will have to work together to govern a country, region or municipality.
So...to me...your slotting me away as a "partisan" Green - requiring no further thought - is a very American thing to do...and is just one more of those "problems" with American democracy that prevents resolution to any number of issues facing your country.
Here, there certainly are partisan people...and in politics in a PR environment, they tend to do badly. It may aid success in a two-p[arty system....but dishonest partisan behaviour limits possibilities and undermines success in a PR situation. This is because a PR environment REQUIRES co-operation and consensus-building. It rewards people and parties who are constructive and do those things well.
This is one of those "gaps" between the US and Europe.
> I think 435 is a good number. I could see going as high as 600 or > as low as 400, and I could also see going to a 151-seat Senate (three > per state plus one for DC) so there would be no split votes from states > and there would consistently be one Senate election per state every two > years. However, that's pure thought exercise; if it ain't broke, don't > fix it, IMHO.
> --Phoenix Rising
....and in your eyes.....a legislature where there are only two parties for 300 million people and the representatives are returned to office more than 99% of the time (427 of 431 in 2002) due to gerrymandering and less than half of all voters actually vote....is a system that isn't broken?
Keep up your studies.....and do some traveling outside the US to the other democracies thriving out there.
>>So the "broad church" parties of the Democrats and Republicans will do two >>things:
>>1. Break up. They only exists as they are because the system offers no >>other choice.
>>2. Compete actively with a more clear and refined message - for votes.
> By which you mean a narrower and less comprehensive policy package
Not at all.
I mean several *competing* comprehensive policy packages - each with its own set of values underpinning it.
You appear to be used to system where the politicians dictate to you how things will be. I can see across several posts that you fail to appreciate that PR fundamentally alters the balance of power betwen voters and politicians.
It does.
> ... single interests designed to pick up votes at the cost of national > unity. New Zealand is small, as are most of your 88 countries with PR.
Size is not relevant.
Brasil has PR...and 160 million people. Russia has a form of PR....and 180 million people.
> Germany is the largest, and their political system could not sustain a > fracture into much more than the four dominant parties (with a few > smaller ones) that they already have. They're barely hanging on as it is.
Germany is a great example. They have weathered very well the system shock of re-absorbing the former communist East Germany.
I have no ideas what you mean by "barely hanging on".
But germany is not the largest country with PR. There are several that are larger - Indonesia, Japan and the two others named above come to mind.
Interestingly, India use winnertake all....but their regional and ethnic diversity see their legislature being very diverse anyway. With eleven official languages they won't be a two-party state any time soon.
>>>>more responsive to the just interests of the electorate, and >>>>promulgate the running for political office of individuals of a much >>>>higher quality and integrity than under the current system because of >>>>the aforementioned reasons.
>>> What aforementioned reasons?
>>This is more a failure on your part to understand than it is a failure on >>his part to explain himself.
> Then perhaps you could highlight for me the point in his post where > he did.
He said: "Proportional representation would make governments more competitive ( and thus more honest and open)".
What he meant, I think, was that it makes political *parties* more competitive. They can't rely on a two-party gerrymander to make votes for anyone else useless. They have to be *attractive* and not simple the lesser of two evils...or voters wil vote for someone else.
>>> Fundamentalist parties generally draw votes on claims of being "less >>>corrupt." It was how the Nazis got started as well.
>>The Nazi cannard. Excellent. There are 88 countries using proportional >>representation today.....and not a Nazi party in any of them.
> And you know all the parties in all 88 of them, I'm sure.
It's your example. Prove me wrong. If it is to be a sound basis for opposing PR, it MUST be a common problem and you will have no problem finding legisltures where neo-fascist parties are sneaking and taking over.
>>[snip] >>Germans were desperate. But even than, Hitler never got more than 40% of >>the vote in any election. in a PR system, that kept him from governing >>alone. he had to seize power at the point of a gun - using emergency >>legislation not much different to the US Patriot Act and its proposed >>successor.
> You call my example of the Nazis a "canard" and then pull out > standard delusional parallels between America and the Third Reich. > Sorry, not going there.
Then you miss the point. You seem to rule out a lot of relevant things because you don't like them.
You can't be a very good academic if you do that. Seriously.
Examine the US patriot Act I and proposed II - and compare the emergency powers that the allies forced the Germans to include in the Weimar Republic Constitution - in the hope of PREVENTING a Hitler.....except they actually enabled one.
Some Americans, like yourself, have an amazing propensity to stuff your heads down a hole when impleasant truths come knocking. It MUST be the years of propaganda and related conditioning. I grew up in North America. the United States holds no secrets for me. That may sound arrogant - but I say it to let you know that this behavious pattern is one I have seen so many times in the past....when the government line conflicts with the facts - all you see is American arses poking into the sky as far as the ey can see.....heads firmly planted in a nice, dark hole. Safe.
Since 9/11 it has been particularly bad. Understandably. But with the Bush Junta (Gore Vidal has that one right) taking advantage of it so shamelessly, you really do need to open up the old eyes.
>>Look at President Bush. If people knew when they (almost) elected him that >>he would lead the country into 2 wars.....they would not have voted for >>him.
> If we had known 9/11 was going to happen, it would have been a moot > point, and without that, there would not have been the two wars. > Afghanistan was well below the radar screen before that.
Bush was planning to attack Afghanistan in October 2001 BEFORE 9/11 happened. (Gore Videl "Dreaming War" - page 15)
It appears that Al Qaeda and the Taliban leared of a meeting in Berlin in July 2001 where the Bush Administration conveyed it's attention to attack to "interested parties" including Pakistani Intelligence. Four days later, UBL and the Taliban heard about this.
This raises the possibilty that the WTC attack was a pre-emptive attack.
>>> Generally, the highest-caliber candidates are those found at the >>>center, because they're the ones who can balance opposing poles and >>>still have a sense of self-identity.
>>Or they are gormless crawlers who agree with everyone.....
> No one can agree with everyone. But thank you for your disparaging > remarks towards the center.
You need to give weight to the word "or". "Or they are......"
Precision in understanding will help you in your studies - otherwise you may misinterpret what others have said and that would not be good.
You cannot credibly claim to be unaware of politicians who equivocate...and try to please everyone.
> I'm guessing you're a member of one of the > parties that would have been shown the door under single-member > plurality systems.
I'm a voter who wasn't satisfied with the limited choice on offer....so I helped to change the system so it offered more choice.
The voter is king. Maybe not at your house, but definitely at mine.
>>>They're also best at relating to >>>the widest swath of the American electorate. However, PR systems tend >>>not to foster the development of centrist parties; they foster the >>>development of extreme, single-interest, or ethnically-based ones.
>>This is an utterly fatuous statement. You've made it up.
>>If what you are saying is true, then at this very moment 88 countries are >>being governed by "extreme, single-interest, or ethnically-based" minor >>parties.
>>Let me save you some time. They aren't.
> They aren't necessarily *governed* by them, but those extreme > parties have a foothold in the government that would be denied them by > single-member plurality.
"In government"?
Or simply seats in the legislature? There is a big difference.
>>[snip]
>>>It would admittedly be difficult, but not unprecedened; the >>>UK is basically a three-party system with a single-member plurality >>>system. However, the two-party system ensures that extreme-wing parties >>>remain crowded out and are forced to align with more mainstream parties >>>before they can actually enter the halls of power, and their ideologies >>>are generally tempered by realism in the process.
>>The UK Parliament has about 7 parties in it - as does the Canadian >>Parliament. Why? Becasue anyone can get his name on the ballot for about >>$300 or $1000 dollars - depending on what country you refer to.
> And you consider this a good thing? You would like seeing porn > stars elected to the legislature?
Elected? Maybe - if that's what voters want. On the ballot - why not?
...and what's wrong with porn stars? My doctor is a former prostitute who went to medical school. She wrote a book about it.
It was a best seller. She's a very good doctor and a fine person.
The NZ Parliament also has one trans-sexual - also a former prostitute. "She" is an excellent MP - and a former two-term Mayor of Carterton - a very conservative farming town.
Having read several thousand words by you already today, you seem to have too many preconceptions to do well in this world - especially academically.
You need to open your mind a bit. I'm 45 years old...and been to university in 3 countries. I'm not one to brag about academic qualifications because I know a smart person can learn a hell of a lot more and faster without going to university at all. I also have had my share of academics who give you a bad mark if they don't like what you said. Take the same paper to someone else and get an A. I see degrees in that context - be they mine or anyone else's. Subjective - at best.
>>In the US, many states require thousands of signatures on a petition in >>order to even be on the ballot if you aren't a Democrat or Republican.
>>Just another corrupt method used to restrict democracy and reduce voter >>choice.
>>Judging from your various posts, restricted democracy and reduced choice >>are your primary concerns.
> Actually, denying fringe parties a foothold into the halls of power > of the land I love is my primary concern.
>> 1) Carry Texas in every recent presidential eleciton.
>> 2) Routinely win both U.S. Sentate seats
>> 2) Hold EVERY statewide office.
>> 3) Hold a majority in the Texas House.
>> 4) Hold a majority in the Texas Sentat.
>> 5) More Texans registered as Republicans
> If Texas is so Republican, then why can't >Republicans win more Congressional seats?
The COURTS drew the lines for race prefernce. They wished to insure minoritiy wins. They were unwilling to draw reasonable lines and let the chips fall where they may. It was all about race.
>> Why would anyone believe that the district map that was imposed on >> Texas by the courts reflects Texans' political will? >> Why can't the people of Texas draw their own map?
> The people of Texas aren't asking for >redistricting. Only Tom Delay and Governor >Perry are. Even the GOP Atty General says >the current map is valid and legal.
We all are.....I am, everyone I know wants redistricting. Most of the resistance is from outsiders like you who only see a political problem because of it........
> Texas is mired in debt, libraries are >being closed, textbook purchases curtailed, >family health coverage cancelled, and yet >the GOP insists on spending $11 million >on a redistricting session that no one wants.
> Is that what "fiscal conservatism" as >come down to?
Ask California and Democrat Davis.......
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ "The multicultural project will never fully succeed if 'diversity' is defined as one's own preferred ideologies and political groups."
--Richard E. Redding, "Grappling With Diverse Conceptions of Diversity," American Psychologist, April 2002, p. 301.
>>> 1) Carry Texas in every recent presidential eleciton.
>>> 2) Routinely win both U.S. Sentate seats
>>> 2) Hold EVERY statewide office.
>>> 3) Hold a majority in the Texas House.
>>> 4) Hold a majority in the Texas Sentat.
>>> 5) More Texans registered as Republicans
>> If Texas is so Republican, then why can't >>Republicans win more Congressional seats?
> The COURTS drew the lines for race prefernce. They wished to insure > minoritiy wins.
And the GOP wants to draw lines to make sure that the GOP wins. They have admitted it. They don't want fair elections - they want GOP victories. And they will keep redrawing the lines until they get them.
It is called "Perrymandering".
They were unwilling to draw reasonable lines and let
> the chips fall where they may. > It was all about race.
Sure. Given the history of whites marginalizing the black vote by breaking up their neighborhoods into "safe" white districts. Undoing racism takes years.
Hint: The current plan has the blessing of the GOP-dominated US Supreme Court. Or are they just a bunch of liberal activists as well?
>>> Why would anyone believe that the district map that was imposed on >>> Texas by the courts reflects Texans' political will? >>> Why can't the people of Texas draw their own map?
>> The people of Texas aren't asking for >>redistricting. Only Tom Delay and Governor >>Perry are. Even the GOP Atty General says >>the current map is valid and legal.
> We all are.....I am, everyone I know wants redistricting. > Most of the resistance is from outsiders like you who only see a > political problem because of it........
Name one major Texas daily paper that has editorialized in favor of redistricting. Even the far-right Dallas Morning News (which endorsed all the statewide GOP candidates) has come out against it.
>> Texas is mired in debt, libraries are >>being closed, textbook purchases curtailed, >>family health coverage cancelled, and yet >>the GOP insists on spending $11 million >>on a redistricting session that no one wants.
>> Is that what "fiscal conservatism" as >>come down to?
> Ask California and Democrat Davis.......
Yes - another GOP "cost is no object" grab for political power.
Everyone, note re. Texas that even the chatter-cluckers on NPR were discussing Texas's redistricting problems last night.
Steve wrote:
(Yes, Steve, I said everything, not "allegedly said" it.)
> > Any state with at least five House seats immediately is a good > > candidate for proportional representation. Never mind the > > gerrymandering and the court fights that would be needed instead to > > impose more rational districts, which would be contiguous, > > simply-shaped, and correspond not only socio-economically or otherwise > > but also to other existing political-and-utilitarian units that are > > there for the correspondence, so to speak, such as contiguous postal > > ZIP code areas, or Congressional census districts.
I'm going to first quickly address something you wrote farther below (address it here, out of order) to deal with it first before going to the more interesting statement you made here, on a related issue.
"Congress can change the situation any time it wanted." Yes, that is correct, as you and I both know. Congress only need modify the rules that require single-member districts for the states. They may have to keep them in effect for the states with less than five seats apportioned to them, but the rest can be changed to P.R. promptly, and "automated" (change the law to state specifically that P.R. will apply to the states as a whole for all states with five or more seats -- making it "automatic" when a smaller state gets a fifth seat).
Congress could then, at the same time, get together with the remaining states' legislatures and see to it that they have gerrymander-free districts in the cases of states with two, three, or four seats. In theory, it ought to be easy, and it has to be better than the nonsense we see now.
> One easy answer is to revise the number of Congressional reps. The US has > one of the worst rep to population ratios on Earth - 1:500,000 at the > federal level.
Be careful, and look before you leap. I.e., don't rush to do wrong in the other direction. I have advocated an increase in the size of the House of Representatives in Washington a number of times (depending on the rational to which to choose to appeal to the people, either a straight 500 members, ten times that of the Senate, to a more theoretically-based 600 or 625, laying down in advance a size prepared to handle the year 2050 or even 2100), but have qualified my statements by explaining why it might make sense. The burden of proof lies very, very heavily on me, and on you here, and on anyone advocating an increase in the size of Congress. We already have enough problems as it is with the Congress we have now, including all the associated staff membership! As with P.R. itself, too many big-government left-wing types simply want a bigger government along with even more power accrued to it from the states and localities in the USA where most of that power constitutionally should always be.
Still, the size of the House of Representatives (or state legislature, at least the lower house) is a valid issue -- yes, it is too small, currently -- and may be worth looking at before considering other, headier issues, such as going to a combination of place-population representation and weighting, which is an alternative worth considering for a unicameral legislature in the states (representation by counties), and even in Congress though many would prefer a popular single body with proportional representation to balance the Senate with two ambassadors from each State. (Area-population weighting is a big deal in Europe nowadays with the EU membership and choosing how many nations get how many seats on an EU Council. This could be analogous to a single-body Congress with respect to each state's membership and what weight each would have. It's an interesting side issue inasmuch as it may be a place-people-balancing alternative for new unicameral state legislatures in an ideal USA.)
Let's look at your statements again below, and then I'll add some more notes for you and other interested readers.
> The 435 reps have not been increased since 1911...and the US now has 291m > people.
> The UK, with 60m, has over 600 MPs. They also have regional parliaments in > Scotland and Wales.
> Germany, with 80m people, has about 660 federal reps, plus they also have > several state legislatures - like the US.
> Canada, with 30m people, 10 provinces, one autonomous region (Nunavut) and > one territory, has over 300 MPs.
Note that we'd have to have the law (including Constitutional law) changed. OK; that's assumed now.
Next -- adding weight to your arguments. Below are echoes as well as more theoretical views concerning how large a representative body should be (such as the "cube root rule").
Growth in U.S. Population Calls for Larger House of Representatives
Of note here are the square root (look up Penrose) and the cube root "rule."
NOTE: Our population is expected to level off in growth in mid-century, then remain stable or possibly decline. Preparing for the year 2050 rather than 2100 or "an infinite time horizon" is not necessarily short-sighted.
Dave Simpson
who has owned Shugart and Taagepura's "Seats and Votes" for many years
Karni 06 wrote: > Why are more Rep's a priori a "desirable" thing? I'd rather have 1Rep > for 500,000 = 435 Reps than 1 Rep for 100,000 = 2175 Reps! In the latter > case, the power of an indivudal Rep would be nil in most cases!
Obviously an enlarged House of Representives introduces the all-too-real concerns of worsening an already-bloated Washington, DC, establishement (the members of Congress often have large, powerful, unaccountable staffs).
Still, it makes sense; there is a good reason for it. The House is the body of Congress that was meant to be popular and democratic, closest to the people. The size of Congress has been frozen for several decades, making each Representative support a district that has more and more people. This is so in spite of the reallocation of House seats after every decennial census.
The theory and reasoning are all in favor of increasing the size of the House. The problems that already exist that would be made worse are not denied, but rather than give up, one must be willing to work at this, such as to limit expenditures by the offices of the Members of Congress, or even to the size of their official staffs.
In considering a reasonable increase to the House, the numbers range anywhere from a useful higher number (500 is ten times the size of the Senate, and we could even make that a "constantly applicable" rule, adjusting the House to be ten times that of the Senate, or some other multiple; 600 is particularly useful because it has so many divisors, which would work to define the various sub-groups formed by this body, committees, panels, and so on; 625 also is a useful number). The thing to do when considering the new size of the House is to look ahead to what the ultimate population will be for the USA and to try to plan for that remaining growth in selecting the new size. (Due to demographic as well as sociological changes, fertility continues to drop, and population growth in the USA is expected to shrink, and the total population is expected eventually to level off in growth and become stable, or even deline slightly. This long-term size is what ideally would be considered when enlarging the House.)
Many claim that history as well as theory support a size that is the cube root of the electorate (roughly half the population). Others note that the most useful size for representation is the square root of the electorate. The latter yields sizes that are far too high, though the square root values are still useful in allocating seats for representational bodies that are based on a combination of areas and populations, with varying population densities. The EU has to face this issue with utmost importance with national representation in the EU on a Council. (This would be analogous to area-population weighted representation in a unicameral state legislature or unicameral Congress.)
On a more-contemporary US note, seeking proportional representation for all fifty states would mean most likely at least five seats per state, and this is impractical, given that we'd want at the least, normally, to expect something like a House that is five times the current size, which is impractically and expensively large. Solving the small-state problem is tricky; going to regional representation seems sensible, yet is as anti-federal as an all-national, representatives-at-large, alternative.
Phoenix Rising wrote: > I'm a little confused by how that would fix things, too.
Again, laying aside the political issue and the ability to give losing ideas a better chance, and keeping only to politics-free, or neutral issues:
Most importantly, it would eliminate gerrymandering by eliminating districts.
Secondly, by eliminating districts, it would eliminate one of the worst problems associated with, sadly, as-local-as-possible representation, the ideal in theory for the House (but corrupted by the over-growth of the federal government and its routine dealing with citizens directly rather than indirectly through the states, as ought normally to be the case): it would greatly reduce if not eliminate (so far as states would still be beneficiaries) the localized "pork-barreling" phenomenon.
> I think 435 is a good number. I could see going as high as 600 or > as low as 400, and I could also see going to a 151-seat Senate (three > per state plus one for DC) so there would be no split votes from states > and there would consistently be one Senate election per state every two > years. However, that's pure thought exercise; if it ain't broke, don't > fix it, IMHO.
One must avoid breaking something more when trying to fix it, naturally, but it is broken now. Gerrymandering is a disgrace, and pork-barreling is a long and well-known problem from the publicly accepted overgrowth of the federal government into state and local matters. It definitely is broken, the case for increasing the size of the House has far more weight than the case for the status quo (which actually is weak), and an increase is more likely than not to be an improvement rather than a mistake. One excludes the obviously insensible cases such as a House of 2,000 or more members. (Even 1,000 is far too high.)
DC is not a state and should not get a seat in the Senate. Ideally, DC would re-acquire its Virginian territory, then give residents on the prospective sides of the Potomac the right to vote in the according state's elections, and be represented by those state's delegates to Congress.
600 is very useful given the number of divisors that can be used to define the size of the various panels, groups, committees, sub-committees, etc., and actually give an intellectual or academic appeal to these bureaucratic crazy goings-on.
500 is ten times the size of the Senate. A good piece of study would be to look at the earliest Congresses, then compare them to those later, and find out what the ratio of representatives was to Senators for the various states as well as the comparative House and Senate sizes. Is ten times, twenty times, the square, etc., a valid rule to try to apply to resizing the House?
Phoenix Rising wrote: > I think 435 is a good number. I could see going as high as 600 or > as low as 400, and I could also see going to a 151-seat Senate (three > per state plus one for DC) so there would be no split votes from states > and there would consistently be one Senate election per state every two > years. However, that's pure thought exercise; if it ain't broke, don't > fix it, IMHO.
Actually, it is broken now, and there are alternatives to P.R. that also merit consideration. The first area, of course, is to rationalize and correct the existing and attempted gerrymandering of the districts. Nobody can defend these incumbent-protecting, party-protecting misuse of the power to define the Congressional districts.
Then you can change the vote for each Representative, and at the same time, the Senate, and actually all other single-member office elections, by going to the approval vote, which is the best way to select one individual.
Other than that, there's a radical alternative for the House of Representatives that is inarguably superior to the mess we have now, even if by going to this alternative we end up with a number of truly incompetent people in Washington: Random selection in place of election for the House -- a glorified draft or form of jury duty. People who dislike the lack of women or minorities in Congress now, but realize quotas are illegitimate, could only smile at the prospect of drawing citizens from random, in each district in the USA, to go to U.S. House of Representatives. (It might work out well in the state legislatures, too!)
Yes, even random selection is better for the House than what we have now.
Steve wrote: > You continue to assume that minor parties = bad, despite all eevidence to > the contrary in 88 democracies that have politically diverse legislatures.
Truly negligeable parties can be bad. Even with the less-small of smaller parties, it can be bad if they have undue weight in a governing body, which is what's more serious a concern than "instability" or squabbling.
Getting rid of the negligeable-party problem, of course, is easy, by using a fair, reasonable threshold (minimum fraction of vote to get at least one seat).
The threshold, to be fair, must range somewhere between the size beyond which nobody can deny there is significance (What's a significant-sized minority of any population, that we should respect? What's a significant fraction of war losses? What's a significant proportion of anything, sick people, bad drivers, whatever, where we cannot or should not avoid giving it attention?) and the lower end of the range, where bare significance meets triviality or the state of being negligeable (Population fraction of homosexuals? Threshold for some issue that cannot be neglected?).
Normally in my experience the upper limit is between ten and twenty per cent, and the lower limit is around one to two per cent. Statistically speaking, it is looking at things in terms of one and two standard deviations from the mean at one end (tail).
The actual size of the threshold ought to correspond sensibly to the total number of seats, the size of the political body. A good starting point for determining the threshold is to set it to the fraction corresponding to the value of one seat divided by the total number. (Five seats, 20%; Ten seats, 10%, 100 seats, 1%) The number can be revised based on other criteria and real-world observations. (In a truly large body, having only one seat total makes no sense, so we look elsewhere, such as the 1-2%, two-standard-deviations idea I mentioned earlier, for the minimum.)
As far as number of parties, it always will be an imprecise representation of all political views among the electorate, but obviously, the more the number, the more precise the representation is, and the less the number of parties, the less precise all political views are represented. This nobody can deny. It is ridiculous on its face to state that our two-major-party system implies it is an accurate representation of our political views, and that generally we are one or another type. Nobody would dare be that simplistic in claiming to be accurately describing our society! As a practical issue there is "leeway" in party choice, seeking a "best-fit" choice, but this only serves also to confirm the lack of precision with fewer political parties that I mentioned above.
Steve wrote: > There are several reasons why more might be good.
> 1. You might actually be able to get access to your rep if s/he is only > servicing 100,000 people instead of 500,000 people. > 2. If a rep only have to please 100,000 people they won't need the same vast > sums required to campaign for 500,000.
Note something about P.R.: proponents point out (and upon reflection, it makes good sense practically) that with P.R., the idea isn't necessarily to get all the seats, or (correspondingly) as much of the vote as possible, but only that fraction that a party wants -- or believes it realistically can get. (In practice, it of course would try for more, and ideally as much as it could get.)
> With 2,175 reps....perhaps in 10 political parties elected via proportional > representation, they would certainly be small individually - yet with 300 > million people, perhaps that is a GOOD thing. No small group can dictate to > the legislature like that. Speakers would represent entire caucuses....and > perhaps significant faciotns within a caucus. Each party would have > speaking time - and decide themselves how best to use it.
> Maybe those 2,175 reps would be able to spend more time in their districts > actively working with their voters - and being the link to the federal > government - accessible and connected.
A House of Representatives over 2,000 members would be a dead issue. It would be impossibly expensive and very impractical. What I have tried to point out is that to desire a somewhat, and yes, significantly, enlarged House is not the same as the straw-man level that you bring up here (even if that wasn't your intention).
In realistic terms we're looking about anywhere from 450-650 members. It is my guess that people will balk at 700, certainly at 1,000, and I believe 1,000 members just won't cut it. Not that this is the defining criterion, but a real-world additional note is to desire to keep the size of current facilities pretty much the same as they are now, and to trade off more members as much as possible for reduced staff, forcing bloated staff to be shrunk to make room for official, as opposed to unoffical, members of government. (Cut their staffs in half, I say, as a Scrooge that supports an enlarged House of Representatives.)
> Look at the squabbles in the English version of legislation, I sometimes > catch it on CSPAN.
Note -- we are not discussing going to a parliamentary system, which is a perfectly reasonable thing in its own right and something that should be tried by some states, if desired.
> What a hoot, I am half expected those guys to start beating the hell out > of each other.
My very-conservative friend and I in Seattle said one time that we need that in the House of Representatives once in a while, with the C-SPAN folks calling the blows over the air.
In a more academic manner: Some say P.R. and many parties would mean the chance for all kinds of conflicts. But shouldn't that be normal if public opinion is full of conflicts?
> They surely have a much more livlier debate than the American house > or Senate, hell compared to the British politicians , our politicians act as > if they are dead.
Steve wrote: > Maybe if there were 4 or 6 Senators from each state - or maybe 10. Why not? > A state like California with only 2 senators - but 30 million people?
To get P.R. in the Senate, realistically you'd have to have at least five votes for each state, and that would lead to an unrealistically high size of the Senate. It's the House that is the large body; the Senate is not the same as the House. The Senate should not be vastly increased in size. (In the most extreme case, the same size or larger than the House, and with other changes, it's simply a second House, which is a worthless, wasteful, cumbersome piece of bureaucracy and nothing better.)
The Senate is not the same as the House of Representatives. The Senate has representation based on the states, and their members are ambassadors from the states, in effect, with strong plenpotentiary powers. (In fact, in modern times, they have no allegiance to the states and often tell the states what to do, rather than vice versa.) It also is meant to be aristocratic rather than popular and democratic, though since the early twentieth century it has been made more democratic in part (conversion to direct election of Senators).
Equal suffrage (voting, vote weighting) in the Senate cannot be changed without permission from the states that are affected. (The Constitution must be amended to change suffrage in the Senate, but amendments may not deprive states of equal suffrage in the Senate without the permission of the states that are subject to that deprivation.)
About the only way to change this is to abolish the Senate (again, it would require amending the Constitution). After the illegitimate activist Warren Court ruling in the 1960s about state legislatures, these legislatures have two houses that essentially duplicate each other, and this is a waste; also, in today's tough economic times, costs are saved considerably if they abolished the upper houses. In the case of abolishing the U.S. Senate, small states would be reluctant to ratify such an abolition.
Various area-person weighting schemes are under consideration in such cases as in the EU, where national represention is by area (nation) but also is weighted by population. The Penrose square-root rule or formula is one way to do this. (If I still have the figures I wrote down, and find them, I may post them, considering the analogous weighting for the fifty states based the 2000 census.)
Phoenix Rising wrote: > >.....the good news is that it is that simple. I live in a country with > >proportional representation....and your list of bogus complaints below are > >just that - bogus. They are rooted in a contempt for democracy that you may > >not even be aware you are exhibiting. > Nice try, but I'm not convinced. Particularly when you say that I > harbor a "contempt for democracy" when I prefer single-member plurality, > which any political scientist worth their weight will tell you *is* a > viable and indeed far more stable form of democracy than PR.
The "contempt for democracy" is a weak leftist argument, an appeal to emotion as well as misstatement of fact.
Note that solutions to the existing single-member districts are easy enough: We can go to approval voting (the best way to elect a single person), as well as even random selection from each district. (We could do random selection from an entire state as well, to fill multiple seats.)
> >You're really just moaning about the correct and proper operation of > >democracy.
> >Get over it.
> ROFL Who sells you this stuff? I'm starting to understand why the > top 10 political science programs in the world are all American.
> "The correct and proper operation of democracy" is anything but an > open-and-shut case, and there is no miracle pill.
Support for proportional representation in the USA is mainly from leftists who seek an alternative way to get into government ideas that have failed in the "marketplace of ideas."
That's not the whole story, however. The two major parties work to lock up government for themselves; they discriminate in the laws against other parties, for example, when it comes to ballot access(!).
> In a proportional system where one tiny party (say your 45-45-10 > system) with a single dominant interest has the tiebreaking vote, and > it's an issue that they don't care overmuch about because they have a > single interest (reparations for slavery, continued occupation of the > West Bank, universal healthcare, import duties on goods produced in the > third world, pick one), they'll simply vote with whatever party promises > to back them on that issue, guaranteeing that in order to get something > passed that has 55% of the vote, they'll have to pass something that > perhaps only 10% of the people actually support.
That is true. What this is sometimes called is the "kingmaker" phenomenon, and what it means is that this smaller party has far more power than it has the support of the people -- implying it has far more power than it deserves.
This is also the typical argument made against the need for a supermajority vote on certain especially-important issues, because it gives more power to the minority, the increase being equivalent to the difference between the supermajority requirement and one-half.
The ultimate end result of such power-shifting, of course, is the demand for unanimity, and what accompanies it, the (single-vote, absolute) veto.
Yet we believe there should still be supermajority votes on certain issues.
> Single-member plurality *is* a form of democracy. It is a *stable* > form of democracy because candidates need to appeal to where the > broadest number of voters are, which is hopefully in the center, and if > it isn't, then you've got far more problems than just institutional > structure. Proportional representation systems make it easier for > small, radical parties to hijack the political process.
This last sentence is the risk we undertake if we were to convert to P.R.. Note that the worst excesses of this would be countered by the threshold, with a value that is reasonable. (Let's say 10-20%)
There are problems with the "duopoly" we have that ought to be resolved, and we aren't obliged to enshrine the current two-party system as something that is as sacred as Social Security (neither are sacred, except as "sacred cows"). I have seen one example of reform that truly instituted the two-party system and it was perverse to me. If you like single-member offices, what is needed to make these contests the best they can be, other than a level playing field for other parties, is to go from the plurality vote to the approval vote (vote for as many candidates as you want). (Ranking or weighing candidates cannot be relied upon; the approval vote means an equal vote for every candidate the voter likes. Whoever gets the most total votes wins.)
Steve wrote: > Maybe if there were 4 or 6 Senators from each state - or maybe 10. Why not? > A state like California with only 2 senators - but 30 million people?
As I explained earlier, on the original thread, the Senate is not the same as the House. The House is representing the people (and after the Civil War, U.S. citizens, in fact), and has been intended to be both popular and democratic. The Senate has been intended to be aristocratic and a part of federalism that enables the small states to be protected against the larger states (size being nowadays defined as the relative population fraction of the nation as a whole). That earlier Progressive-era changes included more democracy that undermined this to some extent, not to mention the way things have worked since the New Deal, are irrelevent.
You cannot get 4-6 Senators (the reasonable minimum for P.R.) from each state without at least doubling the size of the Senate, which makes no sense (it's not like the House, where an increase makes some sense, and even with the House, an increase, while significant, wouldn't be an enormous increase, which is impractical -- do you expect a new Capitol building to handle the much larger numbers, along with more office buildings?)
There is a way to do this to get P.R. in all the states, though, in a special kind of new unicameral Congress composed of 500 members, which is fully within reason as far as a total size, and using a scheme that continues to protect the small vs. large states, and keep "the Grand Compromise" intact.
The two existing houses of Congress are combined into one, by dividing the new Congress of 500 members into half. With one-half the total seats, 250, each state gets five seats. That's five seats per state, which immediately makes P.R. applicable to all states. Your thought has been made real.
What is done with the remaining 250 seats is to apportion them as in the House of Representatives, giving each state an approportionment based the size of their population, using the same method that is used today, which slightly favors the larger states but which eliminates the worst odd situations such as the "Alabama paradox." The apportionment would be for a total of 250 rather than for 435 seats. Each state would get at least one seat, of course, and so the minimum number of seats total for any state (such as Wyoming, in reality) would be six (6) seats.
With six seats minimum per state in this new unicameral Congress, the vote threshold for P.R. to get one seat would be around one-sixth (16 2/3%). 20% or 15% (roughly the same as one standard deviation at the tail from the rest of the distribution, or the "mainstream") would be suitable choices for the vote threshold.
There -- Grand Compromise retained, total Congressional delegation shrunk by 35 members (reducing costs), going to a unicameral legislature (saving costs and political game-playing between the two existing houses), and enabling P.R. to be applied to all states, with not five, but six seats minimum per state.
Phoenix Rising wrote: > >.....the good news is that it is that simple. I live in a country with > >proportional representation....and your list of bogus complaints below are > >just that - bogus. They are rooted in a contempt for democracy that you may > >not even be aware you are exhibiting. > Nice try, but I'm not convinced. Particularly when you say that I > harbor a "contempt for democracy" when I prefer single-member plurality, > which any political scientist worth their weight will tell you *is* a > viable and indeed far more stable form of democracy than PR.
Some factual distinctions and real-world observations are in order, which boost your side of this argument.
The problem with PR is that it is promoted mainly by lefties who have lost out otherwise at the ballot box. Promoting PR by their typical emotional, often-childish behavior does tend to wreck their causes. PR and support for it in democratic, popularly-represented bodies is a good idea that unfortunately is tainted and carries a lot of disease-ridden baggage with it, as a result.
What's ironic is that these same lefties probably steam more than anyone else when the mainstream-Northeast Establishmentarian Wall Street Journal editorial board and other such people discuss proportional representation as well as third parties and independent candidates with openly expressed contempt. Yet they work to earn at least part of that contempt when they either bash critics emotionally, or behave as dupes in belief of PR or "democracy" as some magic elixir, which it isn't. I'm in favor of it, but for the intellectually and otherwise mature, truly academic reasons as well as practical reasons, which are reflected in the real world (major parties often are chosen not out of attraction, but to minimize harm done to us; no matter who, everyone gets "betrayed" too often by other parts of whatever party they favor, etc.).
The "progressives" [sic] have to accept sharing power with, and probably being out-voted by, paleo-conservatives or right-wing populists, who are the closest thing we have nowadays to Hamilton, despite historical torture by the likes of Michael Lind, if we went to P.R.. Racist black-American, Hispanic, or sexist women's left-wing parties would have to accept sharing power, and even being out-voted by, the Religious Right, and even face a men's rights anti-feminism party. The lefties S A Y they're willing to do it, but do others believe them, really?
Phoenix Rising wrote: > >Any state with at least five House seats immediately is a good > >candidate for proportional representation. [...] > >Just have a party list vote and apportion the seats according to the > >vote. > Would that it were so simple.
In reality, it would be that simple, in cases such as Texas.
Use the same seat-allocation formula for the state's seats that applies to all the states as far as allocation of seats of the House of Representatives. There; anyone contesting the allocation is self-discrediting.
> PR systems allow for fringe parties to emerge and sometimes come to > dominate national politics as coalition-makers or -breakers. Look at > the hard-right parties in Israel. Look at the history of Italian > politics. Imagine a system in which the House or Senate were to be 47% > Democrat, 47% Republican, and 6% a splinter party headed by Charles > Barron and Al Sharpton, or Roberton and Falwell, or Noam Chomsky.
Okay, and let's say there was a 5% threshold to get a seat, and we had five seats:
Splinter Party 1 seat Democrat 2 seats Republican 2 seats
If we had more than five seats, the splinter party might or might not get more seats; the greater the number of seats, the smaller the splinter's share would be relative to the others.
But, let's assume that neither the Dems nor the GOP have a majority and the Splinter Party holds the crucial tie-breaking seat or seats.
> Think > of what the currently matter-of-course bills to organize the House and > Senate would be like under that.
Actually, it's far from always "matter-of-course"; it depends on the bill. I'll note ahead of time, at risk of being a spoiler, that in Congress the votes are not that often in the interests of states or even localities(!), but are partisan, or failing that, ideological-political more of the time.
> The raving minority group could > extract severe concessions from whatever group they felt most strongly > aligned with, or could simply let it be known that there would be a > bidding war of political favors for their support in organizing the > legislature.
Yes -- the "kingmaker."
It's the analogue of arguing against a supermajority vote because of the increased power of the minority, the worst case being that of any member of a group having a veto.
But how often does this really happen, and how small would the other parties be, if they had a chance to compete equally and thereby grow, normally? And, the "splinter" fear is taken care of by a reasonable threshold. For example, with a state with five seats, a threshold would be around 20% of the vote, and the Splinter Party's 6% vote wouldn't qualify it for any seat. Instead, the five would be divided 3-2 or 2-3 for the majors, depending on the remaining fractions below 47% for each, and if tied, they might "time-share" the seat, hold a new election (possibly), or do something else such as leave it up to the state government to make an appointment, treating it the same as for a vacancy, etc.
> ... [T]he harmful fringe elements that would truly rend > the fabric of America to pursue their own divisive, narrow-minded > interests are shut out of the legislature, forcing them to moderate > themselves and amalgamate into the major parties rather than forcing the > major parties to kowtow to them. This is a *good* thing, unless you > happen to be one of the rabid members of those parties.
Phoenix, I see nothing wrong with four to six political parties active all over the USA, or even some restricted to regional appeal (a Dixie Party or a Religious Right party appealing to the Bible Belt), just as in a long-term view I see nothing wrong with division of North America north of the Rio Grande into four to six nations eventually.
In the case here (political parties), it's perfectly sensible to divide the Democratic Party's establishentarians (incrementalist, within-the-system movement toward Continental European democratic socialism and statism) from the activists (farther-left, more ambitious, "progressive" [sic] and even more defiant of the Constitution and US interests than the rest of the Democrats), and equally with the GOP something as was described well by Amitai Etzioni, a division into Whigs (libertarian, "economic conservatives") and Tories (nationalistic, authoritarian "social conservatives" who presumably would keep the eagle and flag as their political symbols). The GOP also might see a split between Democrat-Lite Rockefeller Wing Republicans (which include President Bush as well as more-liberal Colin Powell, and other GOP people in the Northeast such as Chaffee and Snowe!) and everyone else, or between the Religious Right and most others.
Even the Buchananite paleocon-populist people might return after no longer being marginalized (what passes for the Far Right in Washington has been marginalized and neutered for ages), a much larger party than a mere splinter or fringe party. (Buchanan drew huge interest in Washington State, and Perot got something like 25% of the vote there, which includes some of the most liberal places in this nation.)
The point being made here is that four to six political parties in the USA would not be "splinters" and wouldn't be restricted to the narrow-minded ideologues.
Keep the threshold reasonable (smaller body, 15% or one standard deviation away from the mean; larger body, 2% of two standard deviations away from the mean) and you eliminate a lot of the "splinter" problems -- and the arguments corresponding to them in opposition to P.R..
Volantus 4 wrote: > Proportional representation at both the state and Federal level in the > House of Representatives while the Senate of both remain winner take > all is appropriate in my opinion.
Yes -- and with Senate elections, it ought to be changed to the approval vote (vote for as many candidates as you want; whoever gets the most votes from everyone wins the election), particularly during the primaries.
> The current "winner take all" form of electoral representation promulgates > corruption
It also is misleading. If you have a state like California that went 51-49 then its huge number of electoral votes ought to be divided accordingly, not given all to one candidate or the other in this case.
The small states went to "winner-take-all" to boost their clout; it's a better practice instead to make it allocated on P.R. (as long as we have the two major parties, split the two extra electoral votes unless either person gets around 60% or slightly more, in which case both extra votes go to that person).
Rather than have small states go with "winner-take-all," instead the primary schedule should be rationalized and front-loaded among smaller states, then the larger states would either act to confirm and further winnow the field or would reject and revitalize the field in later weeks.
Those existing states that already have five or more seats (or the larger number that have five or more electoral votes) should go to P.R., in my opinion. No more district-drawing follies and gerrymandering. Gerrymandering may be indeed one of the best arguments in favor of P.R.!
Phoenix Rising wrote: > A third party might well emerge in America if the two parties split > far enough apart to make room for one in the center, where the most > voters are. It would admittedly be difficult, but not unprecedened; the > UK is basically a three-party system with a single-member plurality > system. However, the two-party system ensures that extreme-wing parties > remain crowded out and are forced to align with more mainstream parties > before they can actually enter the halls of power, and their ideologies > are generally tempered by realism in the process.
People are disenchanted with "moderates" or "centrists" who sell out and only appeal to those in the Mushy Middle.
Temperance already is guaranteed by the Senate, whose members are elected as individuals and thereby would tend to be in the center. (This would be even more true with conversion to the approval vote for such candidates, which is a superior method over the status quo.)
>> A third party might well emerge in America if the two parties split >>far enough apart to make room for one in the center, where the most >>voters are. It would admittedly be difficult, but not unprecedened; the >>UK is basically a three-party system with a single-member plurality >>system. However, the two-party system ensures that extreme-wing parties >>remain crowded out and are forced to align with more mainstream parties >>before they can actually enter the halls of power, and their ideologies >>are generally tempered by realism in the process.
> People are disenchanted with "moderates" or "centrists" who sell out >and only appeal to those in the Mushy Middle.
I haven't noticed this; most of the laments I hear are from people bitter about how far apart the parties have gone since 2000, providing them with two equally bad choices and no one in the center that would accurately represent them.
> Temperance already is guaranteed by the Senate, whose members are >elected as individuals and thereby would tend to be in the center. >(This would be even more true with conversion to the approval vote for >such candidates, which is a superior method over the status quo.)
> Dave Simpson
Members of the House are elected as individuals as well, you know.
As to the approval vote, you're throwing that up as a red herring after the discussion about PR; I would have nothing against switching to an approval vote, particularly in the primaries, as long as single-member plurality remained the final system to determine the delegate to Washington.
I think a telling admission was your statement earlier, in another post on this thread, that you would be OK with an eventual division of North America north of the Rio Grande into 4-6 nations. I am not. (If anything, I'd like to see an eventual economic and partial political union of the US and Canada, and possibly even Mexico in the farther distant future; however, I'm happy with the way things are now as long as we don't divide.)
If my earlier posting (that had an error which I addressed in a follow-up) failed, the problem with minority power is inherent in arguments against a supermajority vote, and most of all with unanimity and the power of the veto.
The "fringe" as opposed to "kingmaker" argument is overdone; a threshold (minimum vote to get one seat) is how this problem is solved (and lays to rest the common argument against P.R.). With five seats, a useful threshold is 20%, which eliminates the 6% Splinter Party example you provided.
The useful rule of thumb for a threshold is the fraction of the total number of seats represented by one seat: Five seats, 20%; ten seats, 10%, and so on. A refinement is to define the threshold logically and sensibly, corresponding to what amounts to a reasonable minimum fraction that constitutes significance and thereby legitimacy. With a small number of seats, 15% or one standard deviation from the mean is useful; with a large number of seats, 2% or two standard deviations from the mean is useful. Somewhere in the range (I often say it's what people often consider to be a fraction to which they'd pay attention in any context, around 10-20 per cent) is useful and shouldn't be too difficult to select.
To use your 47-47-06 case, if five seats were up for grabs, either the Splinter Party would be excluded, the Splinter Party might, but probably not, be given the seat, or more likely, either a new election be held for this one seat throughout the state, or (more probably, realistically, and practically) it would be treated in the same was as a vacancy that needed immediate filling for the fifth seat; obviously the Dems and GOP would each have two seats apiece and the only remaining issue would be what to do about seat number five.
What is it in Texas, 32 seats? The Splinter Party might get two seats, and the majors fifteen each. That's hardly anything to be worried about.
Aside from this is the reality that often even in the House, there is little state allegiance, but instead party allegiance followed by political or ideological desires. (That's an indictment of New Deal-onward revolutionary socio-political reality concerning federalism and the Constitution as well, but it's also the truth.)
>> I think 435 is a good number. I could see going as high as 600 or >>as low as 400, and I could also see going to a 151-seat Senate (three >>per state plus one for DC) so there would be no split votes from states >>and there would consistently be one Senate election per state every two >>years. However, that's pure thought exercise; if it ain't broke, don't >>fix it, IMHO.
> Actually, it is broken now, and there are alternatives to P.R. that >also merit consideration. The first area, of course, is to >rationalize and correct the existing and attempted gerrymandering of >the districts. Nobody can defend these incumbent-protecting, >party-protecting misuse of the power to define the Congressional >districts.
There, we can agree. However, people holding up PR as some kind of consequence-free utopian solution truly scare me. Gerrymandering and pork-barreling are problems. However, I think that blaming the system instead of the people who run it is shifting attention to the wrong things. The hypothesis that "fixing" the system would change the character of the people doesn't ring true to me.
> Then you can change the vote for each Representative, and at the >same time, the Senate, and actually all other single-member office >elections, by going to the approval vote, which is the best way to >select one individual.
I could live with this, as I said in an earlier post.
> Other than that, there's a radical alternative for the House of >Representatives that is inarguably superior to the mess we have now, >even if by going to this alternative we end up with a number of truly >incompetent people in Washington: Random selection in place of >election for the House -- a glorified draft or form of jury duty. >People who dislike the lack of women or minorities in Congress now, >but realize quotas are illegitimate, could only smile at the prospect >of drawing citizens from random, in each district in the USA, to go to >U.S. House of Representatives. (It might work out well in the state >legislatures, too!)
> Yes, even random selection is better for the House than what we have >now.
> Dave Simpson
Well, I disagree with you here, but it's certainly interesting to think about. There is no way it would have legitimacy, however.
--Phoenix Rising
"It truly frightens me that the judicial system of the United States rests on the shoulders of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty."
> People are disenchanted with "moderates" or "centrists" who sell out > and only appeal to those in the Mushy Middle.
Typical "Black / White" or binary thinking patterns that are common among conservatives. They are always trying to force extremes. I believe its cause is a deep urge for simplification over accuracy while giving the illusion of accuracy. --
