Possibilities of a Reform to the United States Political System

[agurus1]

Just as the Constitution is a Living Document, shouldn't our political system be dynamic and flexible as well? Many of the problems we have today (I feel) are the result of a deeply entrenched Bureaucracy, and the polarized 2 party system. Both parties (despite their rhetoric) have only one goal, and that is political power. Their rush to gain this power leads them to seek a majority of the vote. Most of the time though this leads to a significant part of the population being unrepresented in the political world. If you vote for a Republican for your Senator for instance, but a Democrat wins, your vote, and the vote of every other person who voted for the Republican, is discounted. In addition, you now have a senator representing you who does not share your beliefs. How is this fair? When a Government only represents the slight majority of its citizens, what has gone wrong? "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." said Thomas Jefferson.

So, if you agree with the above, if you think that a substantial overhaul of our political establishment is in need, if you believe that our representatives should be beholden only to the people and not the certain interest groups or demographics that will get them elected, if you believe this then lets discuss if there is ANY way to get a COMPLETE REFORM of the current political system going. According to my understanding, 2/3 of both the house and senate need to approve such a measure. Do you think such a move has any chance of becoming a reality? To what extent should the people go to get their power back from the hands of Big Government?

 

[samsmart]

We don't have a two-party system because of government fiat. We have a two-party system because of our electoral system. We have a Single Member District - Plurality Rule electoral system. A plurality rule, or “winner-take-all” system naturally leads to a two-party system. Conservatives and liberals need to keep as many votes as they can so any split between right-wingers and left-wingers will actually help the other guy win. This is called Duverger's Law.

A perfect example of this was the 2009 special election in New York's 23rd district. If you don't know the story, NY-23 is a Republican stronghold - most of it hasn't been represented by a Democrat since the 1850's. In the 2008 congressional election, Republican incumbent John M. McHugh won the seat, but President Obama nominated him for a position in his administration as Secretary of the Army, which he accepted.

A special election to fill his seat was called but there was no primary; instead, county party leaders would choose the candidates. Democrat leaders chose Bill Owens and Republican leaders chose Dierdre Scozzafava.

Unfortunately, Scozzafava's stance on some issues went against the GOP platform. She's pro-choice, for same-sex marriages, and has ties to organized labor. This made her far too liberal for a lot of NY-23's voters. So Doug Hoffman ran as a candidate for the Constitution Party, an ultra-conservative political party.

During the campaign, conservatives were split between Scozzafava and Hoffman but eventually Scozzafava pulled out of the race a few days before the election because more conservatives were leaning towards Hoffman. However, her name was still on the ballot and she received votes.

Bill Owens received 48.7% of the vote, Dough Hoffman received 46.4% of the vote, and Dierdre Scozzafava received 4.9% of the vote. Because Owens, a Democrat, won the most votes, he was elected as NY-23 Congressman to the House of Representatives, even though 51.3% of the constituency voted for a conservative candidate.

This is why elections with more than two candidates are so dangerous in this country - it’s all to easy to split the ticket and get someone unpopular into office. This is why there are so many calls for political reform. However, we cannot have political reform until we have voting reform.

This is why we need some other voting system besides Plurality Rule. We need a voting system that allows for more parties to become viable. My choice is Instant Run-off Voting. In an IRV election, all candidates from all registered parties are listed on a ballot. Voters rank the candidates in order of preference and then the ballots are tallied. If no candidate has 50% +1 of the votes, then the candidate with the fewest 1st choices is eliminated and those ballots go to the 2nd choices on there. This continues until one of the candidates get 50% +1 of the vote.

So in the case of the NY-23 2009 special election, in which Owens got 48.7% of the vote, Hoffman got 46.4% of the vote, and Scozzafava got 4.9% of the vote, nobody would have won right off. Instead, Scozzafava, since she got the fewest votes, would have all the ballots who ranked her as the 1st choice go to the 2nd choices. Since she’s a conservative, those 2nd choice votes likely would have gone to Hoffman, who would have won the seat as a Conservative Party candidate with a final tally of 51.3% to Owens’ 48.7%. Under IRV, multiple parties could have run for the office but the conservative district would still have been represented by a conservative candidate.

With IRV, voters can vote for the candidate they want but can also vote for the candidate they’re willing to compromise on. This will could potentially lead to less polarizing candidates being elected into office since while not every voter will get their 1st choice elected, they may get their 2nd or 3rd choice into office. This could lead to a better centrism than having the pendulum politics we do today. On the other hand, Congress will have to legislate via coalitions, which will severely hamper the passage of all laws. But that might not be such a bad thing either.

Unfortunately, it has been extremely difficult to get electoral reform legislation passed, as winner-take-all is ingrained into American culture. In one instance where IRV was allowed, it was overturned by a judge for violating the principle of “one man, one vote.” Until there’s a more popular outcry for a different electoral system, it’s not going to get changed.

 

[Maximus Zeebra]

Just as the Constitution is a Living Document, shouldn't our political system be dynamic and flexible as well? Many of the problems we have today (I feel) are the result of a deeply entrenched Bureaucracy, and the polarized 2 party system. Both parties (despite their rhetoric) have only one goal, and that is political power. Their rush to gain this power leads them to seek a majority of the vote. Most of the time though this leads to a significant part of the population being unrepresented in the political world. If you vote for a Republican for your Senator for instance, but a Democrat wins, your vote, and the vote of every other person who voted for the Republican, is discounted. In addition, you now have a senator representing you who does not share your beliefs. How is this fair? When a Government only represents the slight majority of its citizens, what has gone wrong? "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." said Thomas Jefferson.

So, if you agree with the above, if you think that a substantial overhaul of our political establishment is in need, if you believe that our representatives should be beholden only to the people and not the certain interest groups or demographics that will get them elected, if you believe this then lets discuss if there is ANY way to get a COMPLETE REFORM of the current political system going. According to my understanding, 2/3 of both the house and senate need to approve such a measure. Do you think such a move has any chance of becoming a reality? To what extent should the people go to get their power back from the hands of Big Government?

Yes yes yes..

Finally someone putting the focus where it needs to be..

Firstly..

Election money, to make it possible for anyone to be elected not just the rich, must be limited to a set certain LIMITED amount of public funding in each round for each type of election.

Secondly..

Media and politics must be regulated. During a campain the private networks cannot be allowed to elect candidates for us. The remedy is a neutral network that gives everyone the same time, in a straightforward and easy way. Also this network should neutrally and with no opinion show the voting record of politicians who seek re-elections or other elections.

Thirdly(but much more important)

Political parties must be disallowed. The system must become a one party system where people vote for politicians based on their political platform, not their personality, or someone else bashing them, nor their lies and propaganda. In a one party state everyone must be forced to vote on individual cases independent of what the party wants them to vote, they must follow their heart and knowledge, not party orders.
A one party system creates problems because parties will form, therefor they must be made illegal.

And..

Fourth..
Politicans must be under complete surveilance, not at home in their beds, but when they discuss things with other politicans, the people has the right to know what is said. This will stop parties from forming. Furthermore, all political institutions must be under complete surveilance and completely transparent.


Fifth(and even more important)

Disallow people in power, remove the president post, the cabinet and everything. Create a structure, where a rotating group of the individuals in the one party has the ability to TOGETHER in majority take rapid decisions whereas in such areas as defined.

Sixt(an alternative to election)

A better alternative to election, that will certainly remove parties, interest groups, career politicians and such, is to DRAFT the one party members among the whole population, to represent the population, of all ages, races, sexes and such as exist in the people.

Seventh

If not sixt is an option.
Stop political career makers and such by introducing maximum terms and lenght as one party member. Create a long break period and possibility of being involved again 15 years later for re-election as one party member.
Creates limits to all kind of things, to remove career politicians, and hinder the creation of a political class.



I know a lot of people will misunderstand some of these points. So please let me know where I can explain better before blaming me for your interpretation.

 

[Ikari]

Just as the Constitution is a Living Document, shouldn't our political system be dynamic and flexible as well? Many of the problems we have today (I feel) are the result of a deeply entrenched Bureaucracy, and the polarized 2 party system. Both parties (despite their rhetoric) have only one goal, and that is political power. Their rush to gain this power leads them to seek a majority of the vote. Most of the time though this leads to a significant part of the population being unrepresented in the political world. If you vote for a Republican for your Senator for instance, but a Democrat wins, your vote, and the vote of every other person who voted for the Republican, is discounted. In addition, you now have a senator representing you who does not share your beliefs. How is this fair? When a Government only represents the slight majority of its citizens, what has gone wrong? "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." said Thomas Jefferson.

So, if you agree with the above, if you think that a substantial overhaul of our political establishment is in need, if you believe that our representatives should be beholden only to the people and not the certain interest groups or demographics that will get them elected, if you believe this then lets discuss if there is ANY way to get a COMPLETE REFORM of the current political system going. According to my understanding, 2/3 of both the house and senate need to approve such a measure. Do you think such a move has any chance of becoming a reality? To what extent should the people go to get their power back from the hands of Big Government?

You either have to change the base of our election process and political funding/rules or start hanging corrupt politicians beholden more the Wallstreet then they are the American People.

 

[Goshin]

Yes yes yes..

Finally someone putting the focus where it needs to be..

Firstly..

Election money, to make it possible for anyone to be elected not just the rich, must be limited to a set certain LIMITED amount of public funding in each round for each type of election.

Secondly..

Media and politics must be regulated. During a campain the private networks cannot be allowed to elect candidates for us. The remedy is a neutral network that gives everyone the same time, in a straightforward and easy way. Also this network should neutrally and with no opinion show the voting record of politicians who seek re-elections or other elections.

Thirdly(but much more important)

Political parties must be disallowed. The system must become a one party system where people vote for politicians based on their political platform, not their personality, or someone else bashing them, nor their lies and propaganda. In a one party state everyone must be forced to vote on individual cases independent of what the party wants them to vote, they must follow their heart and knowledge, not party orders.
A one party system creates problems because parties will form, therefor they must be made illegal.

And..

Fourth..
Politicans must be under complete surveilance, not at home in their beds, but when they discuss things with other politicans, the people has the right to know what is said. This will stop parties from forming. Furthermore, all political institutions must be under complete surveilance and completely transparent.


Fifth(and even more important)

Disallow people in power, remove the president post, the cabinet and everything. Create a structure, where a rotating group of the individuals in the one party has the ability to TOGETHER in majority take rapid decisions whereas in such areas as defined.

Sixt(an alternative to election)

A better alternative to election, that will certainly remove parties, interest groups, career politicians and such, is to DRAFT the one party members among the whole population, to represent the population, of all ages, races, sexes and such as exist in the people.

Seventh

If not sixt is an option.
Stop political career makers and such by introducing maximum terms and lenght as one party member. Create a long break period and possibility of being involved again 15 years later for re-election as one party member.
Creates limits to all kind of things, to remove career politicians, and hinder the creation of a political class.



I know a lot of people will misunderstand some of these points. So please let me know where I can explain better before blaming me for your interpretation.

You have some intresting ideas. This is where you lost me:

Political parties must be disallowed. The system must become a one party system

This would appear to be a contradiction. Are parties outlawed, or is there one party?

If the latter I would never support the notion. Parties, even if there is just one, accumulate power of their own whether legally or extra-legally. A one-party system could end up more abusive and screwed up than even what we presently have.

Possibly there was some miscommunication here, and you might like to expound on that theme.

 

[Goshin]

We don't have a two-party system because of government fiat. We have a two-party system because of our electoral system. We have a Single Member District - Plurality Rule electoral system. A plurality rule, or “winner-take-all” system naturally leads to a two-party system. Conservatives and liberals need to keep as many votes as they can so any split between right-wingers and left-wingers will actually help the other guy win. This is called Duverger's Law.

....This is why elections with more than two candidates are so dangerous in this country - it’s all to easy to split the ticket and get someone unpopular into office. This is why there are so many calls for political reform. However, we cannot have political reform until we have voting reform.

This is why we need some other voting system besides Plurality Rule. We need a voting system that allows for more parties to become viable. My choice is Instant Run-off Voting. In an IRV election, all candidates from all registered parties are listed on a ballot. Voters rank the candidates in order of preference and then the ballots are tallied. If no candidate has 50% +1 of the votes, then the candidate with the fewest 1st choices is eliminated and those ballots go to the 2nd choices on there. This continues until one of the candidates get 50% +1 of the vote.

...With IRV, voters can vote for the candidate they want but can also vote for the candidate they’re willing to compromise on. This will could potentially lead to less polarizing candidates being elected into office since while not every voter will get their 1st choice elected, they may get their 2nd or 3rd choice into office. This could lead to a better centrism than having the pendulum politics we do today. On the other hand, Congress will have to legislate via coalitions, which will severely hamper the passage of all laws. But that might not be such a bad thing either.

Unfortunately, it has been extremely difficult to get electoral reform legislation passed, as winner-take-all is ingrained into American culture. In one instance where IRV was allowed, it was overturned by a judge for violating the principle of “one man, one vote.” Until there’s a more popular outcry for a different electoral system, it’s not going to get changed.

You make an intresting case for IRV. Unfortunately I think it would take something very close to a revolution (or mass protests and strikes, by tens of millions of people) to get it enacted. I fear that political apathy is too deeply ingrained among too many of my countrymen for that to happen, unless the cable TV goes out and the Lil'Cricket runs out of BEER....then you might see revolution. :mrgreen:

 

[Ikari]

You make an intresting case for IRV. Unfortunately I think it would take something very close to a revolution (or mass protests and strikes, by tens of millions of people) to get it enacted. I fear that political apathy is too deeply ingrained among too many of my countrymen for that to happen, unless the cable TV goes out and the Lil'Cricket runs out of BEER....then you might see revolution. :mrgreen:

I believe you are unfortunately correct on all counts. I would LOVE to see IRV instituted, but everyone damned well knows the Repbulocrats do not want it, and they're in charge and set the rules now. Bastards!

 

[flaja]

We don't have a two-party system because of government fiat. We have a two-party system because of our electoral system. We have a Single Member District - Plurality Rule electoral system. A plurality rule, or “winner-take-all” system naturally leads to a two-party system.

Actually we have a two party system precisely because it has legal support. Things like single member districts (as opposed to proportional representation) and plurality elections (as opposed to run-off elections to allow a majority to be determined) are part of statutory law; these issues are not addressed in either the U.S. Constitution or (to my knowledge) in any state constitution.

Florida is a prime example of how the two major parties have used statutory law to maintain their power. A third-party/no party candidate for office in Florida must either pay a qualifying fee (equal to something like 1% of a year’s salary for whatever office is being sought- beyond the pocketbook of most Floridians) or submit a petition signed by a certain number of voters in the district where the election is to be held (something like 100,000 signatures are needed to run for governor or U.S. senator) and the candidate must either provide an affidavit swearing he is impoverished or pay a fee of 10 cents per signature to have state election authorities (all Democrats or Republicans) verify them. Floridians cannot even cast a write-in vote for anyone who has not officially registered with state election authorities.

 

[flaja]

Election money, to make it possible for anyone to be elected not just the rich, must be limited to a set certain LIMITED amount of public funding in each round for each type of election.

Would you give tax money for Communist Party or Nazi Party candidates? If not, what qualifies you to be the arbiter of whom is it that is and is not eligible for tax money? What you propose is flat wrong. The government has no right to take my money via taxation and then force me to subsidize people whose ideas I find abhorrent.

I would consider limiting campaign spending by a candidate to a certain amount of money per vote cast in the last election for the office sought, but I don’t otherwise support blanket limits on how much can be spent. I do, however, support prohibiting candidates from taking monetary contributions except from individual persons who are eligible to vote for them and then I would prohibit candidates from transferring campaign money to other candidates or saving the money for any future election.

Media and politics must be regulated. During a campain the private networks cannot be allowed to elect candidates for us.

And the First Amendment means nothing?

Political parties must be disallowed.

Again the First Amendment.

Politicans must be under complete surveilance, not at home in their beds, but when they discuss things with other politicans, the people has the right to know what is said.

What about when they discuss matters of natioanal security? The Constitution expressly gives the Congress the power to discuss things without any public witnesses, i.e., they can exclude certain things from the congressional journals.

Disallow people in power, remove the president post, the cabinet and everything. Create a structure, where a rotating group of the individuals in the one party has the ability to TOGETHER in majority take rapid decisions whereas in such areas as defined.

I guess I wasted my time by taking you serioiusly. What you describe is the Politburo.

 

[Regicollis]

As an outsider I see to main problems with the US constitutional system. One is the two-party system that leaves a lot of opinions unrepresented. Another is the influence of money on politics that prevents ordinary citizens from taking part in the political process as anything other than spectators.

I think a proportional system of election is the most fair. With the current system if the Democrats get 51 % of the vote in all districts they will get 100 % of the seats while the Republicans will get none. This results in a congress that provides a very poor representation of the views amongst the voters.

In a proportional system a party will receive a fraction of the seats in parliament similar to the fraction of votes they get. This creates a parliament with more parties represented and gives voters more choice.

Of course legislation would have to be made by coalitions but the practical problems involved with these are neglible and the proportional multi-party system works efficiently in many countries around the world.

Proportional representation is a bit more different when electing someone for single offices such as president or governor. The solution used in many parts of the world is to have two election rounds. All candidates compete in the first round. If no candidate receives more than 50 % of the votes cast a second round is held where only the two candidates who received the most votes competes.

Systemic corruption and influence of money in politics is also a severe stain on American democracy. When politicians are dependant on money from big contributors they will take the special interests of these groups more serious than the interests of their constituents.

Thus a cap on campaign contributions has to be made so that you can only contribute a certain amount to a campaign. This amount should be so small that all will be able to afford it.

This should be combined with government funding for campaigns. All parties or candidates running for election should receive a set amount to campaign for. This should be the same amount for all as the results of elections should depend on how much the ideology of the parties and candidates appeal to voters - not on the amount of money the candidate has.

To reduce the costs of campaigning - and thus allow the possibility for new parties to enter the political process - it should be considered to ban political TV ads. They cost a huge amount of money and provide little real information. Instead the air time should be used for debates and critical interviews with candidates from all parties.

 

[flaja]

As an outsider I see to main problems with the US constitutional system. One is the two-party system that leaves a lot of opinions unrepresented. Another is the influence of money on politics that prevents ordinary citizens from taking part in the political process as anything other than spectators.

Didn’t Obama raise hundreds of millions of dollars a few dollars a time from tens of millions of voters? Money does not always guarantee one political outcome over another- just ask Mitt Romney and H. Ross Perot.

I think a proportional system of election is the most fair. With the current system if the Democrats get 51 % of the vote in all districts they will get 100 % of the seats while the Republicans will get none. This results in a congress that provides a very poor representation of the views amongst the voters.

They don’t have to get 51%. In a two-candidate race all the winner needs is one vote more than 50% of the votes cast. And in a race with 3 or more candidates the winner just needs 1 vote more than the candidate with the next highest number of votes in a plurality election. The winner of a 5 candidate race with 100 votes cast could have as little as 21% of the votes.

In a proportional system a party will receive a fraction of the seats in parliament similar to the fraction of votes they get. This creates a parliament with more parties represented and gives voters more choice.

Can you tell me if you know of any PR system that allows non-party and write-in candidates to be elected? What about replacing office holders that die or resign before the next election? Do the seats remain vacant or is there someone with the power to appoint a replacement? Also, do all PR systems have candidates run at large or do they still represent particular geographic regions?

Of course legislation would have to be made by coalitions but the practical problems involved with these are neglible and the proportional multi-party system works efficiently in many countries around the world.

This would depend on how many parties are involved and whether or not a single party wins a majority of the votes. I don’t believe that multiple parties would always mean coalition government in the U.S.

Proportional representation is a bit more different when electing someone for single offices such as president or governor. The solution used in many parts of the world is to have two election rounds. All candidates compete in the first round. If no candidate receives more than 50 % of the votes cast a second round is held where only the two candidates who received the most votes competes.

The idea of states is so ingrained in the American political psyche that I doubt that states would ever give up their say in choosing the president in favor of any kind of national popular election. But the U.S. has no national elections so no part of our national government is responsive to the national interest. So I personally would prefer a national popular election as long as we had mechanisms that would keep the big states and large urban areas from dominating the elections (I live in a metropolitan area of a million people in the 4th or 5th(?) largest state in the Union). I would either require the states to choose their presidential electors by popular vote and require run-off elections whenever no candidate wins a majority in a given state. Or I would have a national popular vote election but then let the House of Representatives, voting by states, choose the president when a national winner does not win majorities in a majority of the states.

it should be considered to ban political TV ads. They cost a huge amount of money and provide little real information. Instead the air time should be used for debates and critical interviews with candidates from all parties.

TV ads obviously accomplish something- otherwise candidates wouldn’t waste so much money on them. Also, barring candidates from advertising on TV would put them at the mercy of the news media. Imagine if Barak Obama wasn’t allowed air TV ads to respond to Fox News.

 

[samsmart]

As an outsider I see to main problems with the US constitutional system. One is the two-party system that leaves a lot of opinions unrepresented. Another is the influence of money on politics that prevents ordinary citizens from taking part in the political process as anything other than spectators.

I see you're from Denmark. The problem with some of your suggestions is that the U.S. political system has evolved vastly different from the parliamentary democracies of Europe. I've studied some parliamentary systems, so I would like to point out some differences.

I think a proportional system of election is the most fair. With the current system if the Democrats get 51 % of the vote in all districts they will get 100 % of the seats while the Republicans will get none. This results in a congress that provides a very poor representation of the views amongst the voters.

That's not quite the case. Our legislature is divided into two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives is capped at 435 members and elections are held every 2 years. The Senate is comprised of 2 per state (currently 100) and elections are held every 6 years, but are staggered so that 1/3 of the Senate is elected every 2 years.

In order to pass laws, the House and the Senate must pass the same bill in their chambers. If the House and Senate can't reconcile a bill, it dies in Congress.

This makes it HIGHLY unlikely that one party will shut out all the rest.

With regards to the Senate, if you get all Democrats voted in an election year, that's only 1/3 of the Senate; the Republican Senators elected 4 years ago and 2 years ago still retain their seats. This gives the Senate more stability than the House.

The reason why this will never happen in the House of Representatives is because Representatives aren't elected on a national basis; they are elected within a congressional district. Districts are redrawn every 10 years based on numbers from the census. Basically, the census determines how many House seats a state gets and then leaves it to the state legislatures to redraw district lines. This is to preserve the nature of federalism between the state governments and the federal government. It also means that, for instance, while the Democrats may hold a majority in U.S. Congress, the district redrawing could be done in a state where the Republicans have a majority in the state legislature.

Drawing congressional districts is a bipartisan affair, and there's great care in drawing lines around "safe" neighborhoods. For instance, they try to cram all the Democratic voters together with all the Republican voters. This tends to maximize their votes. Also, it's pretty standard fare that redistricting be challenged and go to the courts so a judge can make sure no gerrymandering happened.

In a proportional system a party will receive a fraction of the seats in parliament similar to the fraction of votes they get. This creates a parliament with more parties represented and gives voters more choice.

Like I mentioned, the U.S. political system is different. In some parliamentary systems, voters elect politicians to represent them in the national government. So, for example, if 33% of the U.S. are Democrats and 39% are Republicans and 27% are Libertarians and 11% are Greens, then the number of seats in parliament are divided up to accommodate so that all political parties represent the national political mood proportionally.

The U.S. is not like that. Representatives represent a single district and the Senators represent the entire state. This was originally done so that the local interests of the people and the interests of state governments would dictate Congress.

Of course legislation would have to be made by coalitions but the practical problems involved with these are neglible and the proportional multi-party system works efficiently in many countries around the world.

You're right, it does. But America tends more towards simplicity rather than efficiency and it's difficult to change our ways. Besides, proportional systems often violate the "one man, one vote" principle we are used to, and under a system like IRV people are given more than one vote. That's why the winner-take-all system continues to flourish - courts have a hard time validating other voting systems that would better allow multiple parties.

Proportional representation is a bit more different when electing someone for single offices such as president or governor. The solution used in many parts of the world is to have two election rounds. All candidates compete in the first round. If no candidate receives more than 50 % of the votes cast a second round is held where only the two candidates who received the most votes competes.

We have the Electoral College for voting for the President. Basically, each states get a number of electoral votes equal to their Representatives and Congress. While how those electoral votes are allocated are up to the states to determine, for the most part whichever candidate receives the most votes in a state gets all the electoral votes from that state. Whichever candidate gets 50%+1 of the electoral votes becomes President.

There's a lot of call for reforms from the Electoral College because of influence of large swing states, but it also prevents urban-centric control of the Presidency.

Systemic corruption and influence of money in politics is also a severe stain on American democracy. When politicians are dependant on money from big contributors they will take the special interests of these groups more serious than the interests of their constituents.

Thus a cap on campaign contributions has to be made so that you can only contribute a certain amount to a campaign. This amount should be so small that all will be able to afford it.

Well, here's a problem with the United States as compared to some other parliamentary systems. Here in the U.S., we have a freedom of speech. The Supreme Court has ruled that money is a form of free speech. The argument is that limits on campaign contributions won't limit politicians, it will limit the voters who support them.

Yeah, this definitely DOES give a lot of clout of our politicians to corporations. However, corporations and businessmen have just as much say in our politics than everyday laborers. If labor wanted more clout, they'd have to organize into unions and use the income from dues to contribute to politicians they're sympathetic to.

This should be combined with government funding for campaigns. All parties or candidates running for election should receive a set amount to campaign for. This should be the same amount for all as the results of elections should depend on how much the ideology of the parties and candidates appeal to voters - not on the amount of money the candidate has.

Why should politicians who are not equally popular receive only equal amounts of funding? That would be the argument against. Those candidates who are more popular will get more funding. Those candidates that are extremist politicians won't receive any funding and will never rise to make a mess of things.

Also, Americans have an innate trust of government and think politicians already get too much from taxpayer revenue. Why should we have our taxes pay for their campaigns?

Also, candidates are not the only ones who do the campaigning. PACs and other political groups often run their own ads to support candidates they support. So even if you limit a candidate's government spending you can't limit the spending a political organization does for political candidates. Freedom of speech.

To reduce the costs of campaigning - and thus allow the possibility for new parties to enter the political process - it should be considered to ban political TV ads. They cost a huge amount of money and provide little real information. Instead the air time should be used for debates and critical interviews with candidates from all parties.

Banning TV political ads would be an intrusion against people's freedom of speech, so it's NEVER going to happen. It doesn't matter how much it costs - that's up for the free market to decide. It doesn't matter how much real information it has - lawsuits can be filed if there's any defamation. It's not the news media's job to provide interviews from all parties - it's the job of the news media to bring in ad revenue for their shareholders. If a voter wanted to learn all the aspects of an issue it's up to the voter, not to the media and CERTAINLY not to the government, to research it for himself.

(note that the above aren't necessarily my own views on the subject; however, I've heard these arguments so much that I know what kind of opposition you're going to get from most Americans, especially the lawyers)

 

[flaja]

That's not quite the case. Our legislature is divided into two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives is capped at 435 members and elections are held every 2 years.

The Constitution says that we cannot have more than 1 representative for every 30,000 people, but other than that the number of representatives is set by statutory law. The current figure of 435 is based on a federal law that was enacted in 1912. Such a small number of representatives cannot adequate represent the interests of a country of 300,000,000 people- or even the 100,000,000 or so that usually vote in federal elections. The number of members of Britain’s House of Commons is about double the number of members of our House of Representatives and Great Britain has a population that is only about 20% of ours. Even Canada has a smaller representative to constituent ratio that the U.S. has.

This makes it HIGHLY unlikely that one party will shut out all the rest.

How so? When one of the two major parties has the White House and majorities in both Houses of Congress, that party can effectively shut out the other party- as the Republicans are likely soon to be when Congress shoves Obama’s socialized medicine down our throats. When a party is not effectively shut out of the legislative process it is usually because the less extreme members of the party in power won’t tow the party line.

With regards to the Senate, if you get all Democrats voted in an election year, that's only 1/3 of the Senate; the Republican Senators elected 4 years ago and 2 years ago still retain their seats.

But what if only a few Republicans were elected 4 years and 2 years ago? Democrats won most of the Senate seats in 2006 and most of the senate seats in 2008. Right now 59 of the 100 Senate seats belong to the Democrats. That is just 1 shy of the number of votes the Democrats need to shut down a Republican filibuster.

This gives the Senate more stability than the House.

Since 1957 House incumbents have had something like a 98% re-election rate.

The reason why this will never happen in the House of Representatives is because Representatives aren't elected on a national basis; they are elected within a congressional district. Districts are redrawn every 10 years based on numbers from the census. Basically, the census determines how many House seats a state gets and then leaves it to the state legislatures to redraw district lines. This is to preserve the nature of federalism between the state governments and the federal government.

Actually the Constitution says nothing about congressional districts and a case could be made that they are unconstitutional because they are not in the Constitution and work against majority rule. Furthermore, it has been a long-standing practice for the party that controls a state’s legislature following a census to draw CDs to give their own party an advantage. Party candidates for the U.S. House compete with each other more than they compete with the other party and most incumbents usually face no opposition from either within or from without their own party.

Drawing congressional districts is a bipartisan affair, and there's great care in drawing lines around "safe" neighborhoods.

If drawing CDs was a bipartisan affair, it would done in such a way to give neither party an advantage. I am 42 years old and I have lived in the same city that I was born in for my entire life. I have had only 3 different people serve as the representative for my district (regardless of what part of town I have lived in and regardless of how the state legislature has drawn the CDs) for my entire life. And my mother has lived here since 1960 and she has also had one of these same 3 people represent her district in Congress.

Whichever candidate gets 50%+1 of the electoral votes becomes President.

And you can become president by winning a plurality (not a majority) of the popular vote in the 10(?) most populous states.

 

[EpicDude86]

Just as the Constitution is a Living Document, shouldn't our political system be dynamic and flexible as well? Many of the problems we have today (I feel) are the result of a deeply entrenched Bureaucracy, and the polarized 2 party system. Both parties (despite their rhetoric) have only one goal, and that is political power. Their rush to gain this power leads them to seek a majority of the vote. Most of the time though this leads to a significant part of the population being unrepresented in the political world. If you vote for a Republican for your Senator for instance, but a Democrat wins, your vote, and the vote of every other person who voted for the Republican, is discounted. In addition, you now have a senator representing you who does not share your beliefs. How is this fair? When a Government only represents the slight majority of its citizens, what has gone wrong? "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." said Thomas Jefferson.

So, if you agree with the above, if you think that a substantial overhaul of our political establishment is in need, if you believe that our representatives should be beholden only to the people and not the certain interest groups or demographics that will get them elected, if you believe this then lets discuss if there is ANY way to get a COMPLETE REFORM of the current political system going. According to my understanding, 2/3 of both the house and senate need to approve such a measure. Do you think such a move has any chance of becoming a reality? To what extent should the people go to get their power back from the hands of Big Government?

Your heart is in the right place, but you sound like a high school kid who just discovered the Declaration of Independence and has developed the delusion that you can rally people around the same old "DOWN WITH BIG GOVERNMENT" rhetoric just because you've got charisma.

I've been there. But you have to come to terms with reality, and go about fixing the system from the inside. Get into the system, get your like minded patriots into the system, and start tearing ass about the place with a red, white, and blue monkey wrench. Step on enough toes and do enough for the common man, and then you'll get some coverage. Then give your speech.

Good Luck, if you make it that far, count me in. I just don't have time to go jumping on everyone's "Take Back the Government" bandwagon cause there's literally thousands (possibly more) of uncoordinated people doing this.

 

[Regicollis]

Can you tell me if you know of any PR system that allows non-party and write-in candidates to be elected?

I will answer based on the PR system I know the best; the Danish. Here candidates usually run on party lists. Each party runs a list of candidates and voters have the choice either to vote for a candidate or for a list of candidates.

How many seats a list wins is determined by how many votes are cast for the list and for the candidates on the list. I will not bore you with the fine print of the calculations involved but basically the difference between votes for a party list or votes for a candidate is to determine which candidate on the list actually gets the seat, provided that the party list itself gets enough votes to win seats in the election. Basically the higher a candidate is on the list and the more personal votes he gets the higher his chances of getting elected.

Lists does not have to be connected to a party. For local elections it is common to have non-ideological lists run for a city council.

Candidates don't have to run on a list but can run as independents. Independents don't have many chances of getting elected though; the last time it happened was in 1994.

Some PR systems - for instance the Swedish - allow for write-in candidates.

What about replacing office holders that die or resign before the next election? Do the seats remain vacant or is there someone with the power to appoint a replacement?

If a candidate dies or resigns in office his seat is taken by the person on the party list who did not get enough votes to win a seat. These persons also act as temporary replacements when the office-holder for instance is sick, on maternity leave etc.

Also, do all PR systems have candidates run at large or do they still represent particular geographic regions?

As many candidates are running the mere impracticability of the huge ballots makes it necessary to distribute candidates geographically.

In Denmark the system is a bit complicated but it works. The parliament has 179 seats, of those two are elected in Greenland and two on the Faroe Islands. Of the the remaining 175 seats 135 are elected in multi-seat constituencies. How many seats there are in a constituency depends on the population. Then the last 40 seats are distributed according to rules that ensure a nation-wide proportional representation.

This would depend on how many parties are involved and whether or not a single party wins a majority of the votes. I don’t believe that multiple parties would always mean coalition government in the U.S.

This all depends on the outcomes of the election. Sometimes you'll have one-party governments, at other times coalition governments and sometimes even minority governments that have to negotiate a majority in parliament for each piece of legislation.

TV ads obviously accomplish something- otherwise candidates wouldn’t waste so much money on them.

A TV ad is a terrible media for conveying any kind of complex message. They help candidates with money, but do they help democracy?

 

[samsmart]

The Constitution says that we cannot have more than 1 representative for every 30,000 people, but other than that the number of representatives is set by statutory law. The current figure of 435 is based on a federal law that was enacted in 1912. Such a small number of representatives cannot adequate represent the interests of a country of 300,000,000 people- or even the 100,000,000 or so that usually vote in federal elections. The number of members of Britain’s House of Commons is about double the number of members of our House of Representatives and Great Britain has a population that is only about 20% of ours. Even Canada has a smaller representative to constituent ratio that the U.S. has.

Yes, that's why I'm actually a proponent of reform so that whichever state has the fewest people get 1 seat in the House and the allocation of seats is based on that. So states who would have twice the population as the least populated state would get 2 House seats, states with three times the population as the least population would get 3 House seats, etc. That would bring about better representation in the House.

How so? When one of the two major parties has the White House and majorities in both Houses of Congress, that party can effectively shut out the other party- as the Republicans are likely soon to be when Congress shoves Obama’s socialized medicine down our throats. When a party is not effectively shut out of the legislative process it is usually because the less extreme members of the party in power won’t tow the party line.

Republicans aren't shut out. There's still plenty of Republican Congressmen, and those who are out of office got that way through a legal election, not any Democratic skullduggery. If the Republican Party better represented the people then more people would vote for them. If you want more Republicans voted into office then the GOP needs to represent more interests rather than getting rid of certain types of voters and calling for purity tests.

But what if only a few Republicans were elected 4 years and 2 years ago? Democrats won most of the Senate seats in 2006 and most of the senate seats in 2008. Right now 59 of the 100 Senate seats belong to the Democrats. That is just 1 shy of the number of votes the Democrats need to shut down a Republican filibuster.

So? I'm personally not worried. It means that the majority of voters wanted Democrats into Congress. That's how popular democracy works.

Since 1957 House incumbents have had something like a 98% re-election rate.

Thats because those incumbents are popular with their constituency. If they weren't, their constituency would vote them out of office.

And having incumbents isn't a bad thing. We need professional politicians, conservative and liberal, who know what's going on in Senate and House committees to effectively run government. We need professional politicians to understand foreign relations and the armed services. We need professional politicians who understand agricultural regulations and banking and finance. We need experience in our politicians.

Actually the Constitution says nothing about congressional districts and a case could be made that they are unconstitutional because they are not in the Constitution and work against majority rule. Furthermore, it has been a long-standing practice for the party that controls a state’s legislature following a census to draw CDs to give their own party an advantage. Party candidates for the U.S. House compete with each other more than they compete with the other party and most incumbents usually face no opposition from either within or from without their own party.

Yup. That's why we need to pay attention to state politics just as much as national politics.

If drawing CDs was a bipartisan affair, it would done in such a way to give neither party an advantage. I am 42 years old and I have lived in the same city that I was born in for my entire life. I have had only 3 different people serve as the representative for my district (regardless of what part of town I have lived in and regardless of how the state legislature has drawn the CDs) for my entire life. And my mother has lived here since 1960 and she has also had one of these same 3 people represent her district in Congress.

Well, there's argument that gerrymandering is a GOOD thing in that it lets mostly Democratic neighborhoods vote together for Democrats and lets mostly Republican neighborhoods vote together for Republicans. That lessens the chances for a split ticket in a congressional race, and districts are more likely to get represented by the kind of candidates they want.

And you can become president by winning a plurality (not a majority) of the popular vote in the 10(?) most populous states.

When it comes to the Electoral College, I'd prefer to keep it as it is but have a congressional district's electoral vote go to whichever candidate wins the most votes in that district, and the whoever wins the most votes for the state get that state's two electoral votes from Senators. Maine and Nebraska have chosen this method, and I think it would be a good compromise between our current Electoral College and popular voting that would lead to urban-centric control of the President.

 

[flaja]

I've been there. But you have to come to terms with reality, and go about fixing the system from the inside.

You cannot fix the system from the inside. If you are inside the system you are part of the system and thus have a vested interest in keeping the system as is.

 

[flaja]

As many candidates are running the mere impracticability of the huge ballots makes it necessary to distribute candidates geographically.

I don't know how Denmark is divided geographically for government purposes, but do your representatives represent an entire region comparable to a U.S. state or are they distributed over districts within the state-region? If we had PR in the U.S. based on your system, would Florida’s 27(?) representatives represent the entire state, or would they each have a district?

My local city council does not have PR. It has 19 members with 4 being elected at large. But the at large members must live in one of four districts.

A TV ad is a terrible media for conveying any kind of complex message. They help candidates with money, but do they help democracy?

TV isn't regulated in the U.S. the way it is in Europe. The broadcast frequencies are considered to be public property and broadcasters must get a government license to use them and then the government has some say in setting (very lax) obscenity standards. But the broadcasters otherwise own their broadcast facilities and they have pretty much total control over programming and absolute control over news material. You could not regulate TV ads without having a First Amendment fight.

 

[bowerbird]

Just as the Constitution is a Living Document, shouldn't our political system be dynamic and flexible as well? Many of the problems we have today (I feel) are the result of a deeply entrenched Bureaucracy, and the polarized 2 party system. Both parties (despite their rhetoric) have only one goal, and that is political power. Their rush to gain this power leads them to seek a majority of the vote. Most of the time though this leads to a significant part of the population being unrepresented in the political world. If you vote for a Republican for your Senator for instance, but a Democrat wins, your vote, and the vote of every other person who voted for the Republican, is discounted. In addition, you now have a senator representing you who does not share your beliefs. How is this fair? When a Government only represents the slight majority of its citizens, what has gone wrong? "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." said Thomas Jefferson.

So, if you agree with the above, if you think that a substantial overhaul of our political establishment is in need, if you believe that our representatives should be beholden only to the people and not the certain interest groups or demographics that will get them elected, if you believe this then lets discuss if there is ANY way to get a COMPLETE REFORM of the current political system going. According to my understanding, 2/3 of both the house and senate need to approve such a measure. Do you think such a move has any chance of becoming a reality? To what extent should the people go to get their power back from the hands of Big Government?

Personally I would do away with the rounds of elections that currently characterise the presidential election and bring in ONE election using the preferential system. It would be easier, cheaper, allow for multiple candidates, encourage multiple parties and would eliminate the "biggest pocketbook syndrome

Downside - explaining it to some members of certain political parties:nails:wink:

 

[bicycleman]

Your heart is in the right place, but you sound like a high school kid who just discovered the Declaration of Independence and has developed the delusion that you can rally people around the same old "DOWN WITH BIG GOVERNMENT" rhetoric just because you've got charisma.

I've been there. But you have to come to terms with reality, and go about fixing the system from the inside. Get into the system, get your like minded patriots into the system, and start tearing ass about the place with a red, white, and blue monkey wrench. Step on enough toes and do enough for the common man, and then you'll get some coverage. Then give your speech.

Good Luck, if you make it that far, count me in. I just don't have time to go jumping on everyone's "Take Back the Government" bandwagon cause there's literally thousands (possibly more) of uncoordinated people doing this.

Agreed. I can see all hell breaking loose in this country, though, if the government tries to confiscate weapons.

 

[Regicollis]

I don't know how Denmark is divided geographically for government purposes, but do your representatives represent an entire region comparable to a U.S. state or are they distributed over districts within the state-region? If we had PR in the U.S. based on your system, would Florida’s 27(?) representatives represent the entire state, or would they each have a district?

That depends on how the system is made to work but the Danish system is based on multi-seat districts. The district I live in elects 17 MP's, the largest district elects 21 and the smallest elects two. The MP's don't have a district of their own. When citizens want to present a case to the political system it usually happens by contacting the relevant spokespersons of parties that would be sympathetic to the cause (issues regarding health are adressed to the health spokespersons, issues regarding taxation are adressed to the tax spokespersons etc.).

Whether representatives in a US system would be elected in state-wide districts or in smaller districts would all depend on how you prefer the system to be made. For instance the 53 seats of California could conveniently be divided over a few districts. While the same would not be relevant for the two seats from Rhode Island.

The federal nature of the US naturally makes it necessary to have representatives elected in each state and probably makes it impossible to assign seats nation-wide to ensure proportionality. Instead this would have to happen in each state. It would not be any problem doing that in California (for instance 40 representatives could be elected in three or four districts while the remaining 13 seats could be assigned state-wide to ensure proportionality) but for smaller states with only one or two representatives this would be problematic as there are not enough seats to ensure proportionality. Thus it might be necessary to expand the number of seats in Congress in order to make proportional representation possible in smaller states.

 

[molten_dragon]

This is why we need some other voting system besides Plurality Rule. We need a voting system that allows for more parties to become viable. My choice is Instant Run-off Voting. In an IRV election, all candidates from all registered parties are listed on a ballot. Voters rank the candidates in order of preference and then the ballots are tallied. If no candidate has 50% +1 of the votes, then the candidate with the fewest 1st choices is eliminated and those ballots go to the 2nd choices on there. This continues until one of the candidates get 50% +1 of the vote.

So in the case of the NY-23 2009 special election, in which Owens got 48.7% of the vote, Hoffman got 46.4% of the vote, and Scozzafava got 4.9% of the vote, nobody would have won right off. Instead, Scozzafava, since she got the fewest votes, would have all the ballots who ranked her as the 1st choice go to the 2nd choices. Since she’s a conservative, those 2nd choice votes likely would have gone to Hoffman, who would have won the seat as a Conservative Party candidate with a final tally of 51.3% to Owens’ 48.7%. Under IRV, multiple parties could have run for the office but the conservative district would still have been represented by a conservative candidate.

With IRV, voters can vote for the candidate they want but can also vote for the candidate they’re willing to compromise on. This will could potentially lead to less polarizing candidates being elected into office since while not every voter will get their 1st choice elected, they may get their 2nd or 3rd choice into office. This could lead to a better centrism than having the pendulum politics we do today. On the other hand, Congress will have to legislate via coalitions, which will severely hamper the passage of all laws. But that might not be such a bad thing either.

Unfortunately, it has been extremely difficult to get electoral reform legislation passed, as winner-take-all is ingrained into American culture. In one instance where IRV was allowed, it was overturned by a judge for violating the principle of “one man, one vote.” Until there’s a more popular outcry for a different electoral system, it’s not going to get changed.

This is an interesting idea but I can see some problems with it that would need fixed. Mostly dealing with the fact that for every election, people would need to vote several times over the course of several days. Unless you made it so people could vote from home, voter numbers would be way down.

 

[Regicollis]

This is an interesting idea but I can see some problems with it that would need fixed. Mostly dealing with the fact that for every election, people would need to vote several times over the course of several days. Unless you made it so people could vote from home, voter numbers would be way down.

Voters would not be required to vote several times. For instance on the same ballot they can mark one candidate as their first priority, another as their second etc. until they have used their number of votes. Instead of writing an X next to the name of the candidate the voter could write a 1, a 2, a 3 etc.

The system is used and has been demonstrated to work for instance in Irish parliamentary elections.

 

[samsmart]

This is an interesting idea but I can see some problems with it that would need fixed. Mostly dealing with the fact that for every election, people would need to vote several times over the course of several days. Unless you made it so people could vote from home, voter numbers would be way down.

Well, IRV is Instant Run-off Voting. Regicollis explained it.

The reason why courts ruled that it violates "one man, one vote" is because how you rank the candidates provides people with multiple votes. You're effectively voting for your first, second, third choices, etc. on one ballot. It's a pretty thin argument against instituting IRV, however.

 

[molten_dragon]

Voters would not be required to vote several times. For instance on the same ballot they can mark one candidate as their first priority, another as their second etc. until they have used their number of votes. Instead of writing an X next to the name of the candidate the voter could write a 1, a 2, a 3 etc.

The system is used and has been demonstrated to work for instance in Irish parliamentary elections.

I must have misunderstood how it worked then. I thought that after each candidate was eliminated, everyone had to go and vote again.