[Zipperfish]

JJ wrote:

Zipperfish wrote:

I consider myself reasonably politically astute and yet I cannot, to this day, figure out the US voting system. It's bizarre.

What's so bizarre? The US electoral college is basically exactly the same as the Parliament of Canada: a body of state representatives who appoint the leader in a process completely unrelated to the national popular vote total.

OK, have it your way then. YEAH, THE US ROCKS!!!!

[Psudo]

The Atlantic wrote:

When the U.S. Senate was created, the most populous state, Virginia, had 10 times as many people as the least populous, Delaware. Giving them the same two votes in the Senate was part of the intricate compromise over regional, economic, and slave-state/free-state interests that went into the Constitution. Now the most populous state, California, has 69 times as many people as the least populous, Wyoming, yet they have the same two votes in the Senate. [...] No one would propose such a system in a constitution written today

I would. Sounds like Kjorteo might, too.

The same concerns that established equal representation in the Senate (but not the House) still apply today: namely, that regional differences should be respected, and that the only way that'll happen is if regional ("State") governments have a forum in which they are represented as equals. Federalism of this nature, in which states are considered equal in one legislative body and populations proportionally represented in another, is one of the prime innovations of the US Constitution. It was brilliant, and is a major reason "It has survived in more or less recognizable form over more than two centuries" (as the article earlier noted).

By the way, that "69 times" figure is only true because California is a radical outlier in terms of population size. If you take the 2nd largest and 2nd smallest states (a minor change in a 50-state dataset), the resulting figure is "40 times" -- a radically disproportionate reduction.

The Atlantic wrote:

Similarly, since it takes 60 votes in the Senate to break a filibuster on controversial legislation, 41 votes is in effect a blocking minority.

The alternative is to give complete governmental control to a simple majority in legislature if the President doesn't veto. We'd have alternating Republican and Democrat administrations changing everything, then changing it back in the next administration, back and forth. In what way is that better? The existing system requires some semblance of consensus before controversial bills are passed; isn't that exactly how it should be?

---
The article is huge and I'm not going to reply to all of it, but here are a few other quick points. I agree with the article's criticism of gerrymandering and having the same two political parties for 100+ years (though "the same" is somewhat disputable; the issues and sides are very different today than in 1890-1910).

They complain about infrastructural decline ("The average dam in the United States is 50 years old." etc), which is certainly true and likely caused by the fact that no one is responsible for individual infrastructural projects. No one owns these things, so no one cares as a personal issue whether they're kept up. (Yes, in a sense we all own them, but that diluted sense of ownership undermines the motivation to fix it up. We wonder, "Why don't the other owners fix it and save me the trouble?" A single owner would have no one to whom they can pass the buck, and thus would either keep it up or lose it.)

I'd be OK with a bipartisan compromise: let's cut both welfare spending and military spending in unison and use the money to invest in infrastructure, research funding, and education. Both sides want the other side's priority cut, so both sides are, in a sense, getting what they want even before the money is redirected. Any takers?

Martin14 wrote:

Living in Europe, you start to realize just how good the systems in North America really are.

Can you elaborate on this, please? Tell me more about various European systems and how they compare.

JJ wrote:

The arbitrary way "statehood" (or provincehood) was doled out in previous centuries is one of the main reasons why I am skeptical of an "equal representation" Senate [...] the check on this power has to be stem from some higher principle of legitimacy than simply "well, this arbitrarily designated parcel of land gets special status because of some crooked, bribe-filled, backroom deal made by politicians more than a century ago."

Do you have an alternative method in mind for designating official regions for equal representation? I agree with you in principle -- each official region (state, province, whatever) should have some legitimate cultural unity to it or it's a pointless distinction -- but how can more reasonable redistricting be achieved in practice?

Kjorteo wrote:

everyone knows that the Senate is just better than the House under our current system, due to their being less of them (that's an unavoidable part of the design) and their terms being three times as long (that really should be changed.) The two houses of Congress should be equal. They aren't. That's the problem.

They're different. But is the Senate really better? They can't initiate spending bills. They don't reflect public sentiment as currently or actively as the House (at least in theory). Being a Senator is a better job, but is that how the value of a legislative body is measured?

On the other hand, would your judgment of the Senate as "better" stand up if Senators were still elected by state legislatures rather than state-wide popular vote? That's a pet reform of mine, returning the Senate to state government representatives rather than representatives of the state's population directly.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

[quote="bootlegga"]
That's fine in theory, but most die-in-the-wool partisans (pick your poison) could never see themselves voting for both parties.

Yer prolly right, but the choice would be nice. It would allow us to vote strategically. I think the real issue with my theory is, not so much the partisanship, but any party willingly taking the chance on losing a measure of power in the House.

[martin14]

Psudo wrote:

Martin14 wrote:

Living in Europe, you start to realize just how good the systems in North America really are.

Can you elaborate on this, please? Tell me more about various European systems and how they compare.

Currently, elections in Italy almost every year.
Temporary government in the Czech Republic, almost 50/50 left/right split there.
Near dictatorship in Belarus.
Slovakia almost falling into a black hole, Serbia diving into it.
All republics, but no systems to counter balance the extremists.

More historically, the Euro kingdoms, Holland, Belgium, Denmark,
all adopting more British/Canadian styles of constitutional monarchy,
rather than the absolute rule of before.

Of course, others like pre 1922 Italy, Weimar Republic, and of course the USSR..


All these countries have changed / rewritten their constitutions
closer to what is in North America, rather than us changing to the
various European models. The result of hundreds of years of war,
while the US and Canada grow, develop, and live in peace.

[JJ]

Zipperfish wrote:

JJ wrote:

Zipperfish wrote:

I consider myself reasonably politically astute and yet I cannot, to this day, figure out the US voting system. It's bizarre.

What's so bizarre? The US electoral college is basically exactly the same as the Parliament of Canada: a body of state representatives who appoint the leader in a process completely unrelated to the national popular vote total.

OK, have it your way then. YEAH, THE US ROCKS!!!!

Uh, can you actually reply? I want to know what you find confusing. I'm not saying the US is better or worse, I'm just saying if you can understand how the prime minister of Canada is chosen, it shouldn't be that hard to understand how the president of the United States is.

[Kjorteo]

Psudo wrote:

I'd be OK with a bipartisan compromise: let's cut both welfare spending and military spending in unison and use the money to invest in infrastructure, research funding, and education. Both sides want the other side's priority cut, so both sides are, in a sense, getting what they want even before the money is redirected. Any takers?

I'd have to hear more specifics on where the cuts are made. Just like how everyone wants "smaller government" but no one wants the programs they actually like being cut (NASA, nooooo,) it's easy to say "cut welfare and military spending" but I'm hesitant to support it until I know just what you mean by that.

Assuming it checks out, though? Yes, I'll sign on for that.

Psudo wrote:

On the other hand, would your judgment of the Senate as "better" stand up if Senators were still elected by state legislatures rather than state-wide popular vote? That's a pet reform of mine, returning the Senate to state government representatives rather than representatives of the state's population directly.

No, I think that's a step in the wrong direction. I like direct election--that's why I like the office of the President of the United States more than that of the Prime Minister of Canada. I just want to attempt to equalize the relative importance of being a Representative versus being a Senator. Putting both on four-year electoral cycles as a compromise (rather than two for House and six for Senate) would help with that, I think.

[Zipperfish]

JJ wrote:

Uh, can you actually reply? I want to know what you find confusing. I'm not saying the US is better or worse, I'm just saying if you can understand how the prime minister of Canada is chosen, it shouldn't be that hard to understand how the president of the United States is.

Sorry, I was just a little surprised anyone would legitimately try to argue that the American system is as clear as the British Parliamentarian one.

Confusing aspects of the American system include: state control of federal elections, electors that need not pay any heed to how the people they are representing are chosen, gerrymandering. And in the primaries there;s this business of delegates and superdelegates that I never understood.

Many newer countries emulate the traditions of the US, but it's rare you'll see them copy their voting system. IN my opinion, because it's unnecessarily complicated.

[Kjorteo]

I'm one of the (distressingly few, it seems) people out there who actually like and would gladly defend the state-based electoral voting system, though one of my reforms would be to make the distribution of electoral votes automatic, rather than having an electoral college with people in it. The states' votes are all pledged by the time the election is decided anyway, so literally the only thing the "have the electoral college cast their votes" step is good for is to briefly make us all worry about faithless electors.

[JJ]

In any political system, it seems there is lots of nonsense you simply have to ignore if you want to properly understand it. In Canada, it's the Queen, the governor general and the lieutenant governors, and the Senate. In the US, it's the Electoral College and the party conventions.

Obviously rare situations can arise where the above institutions actually become relevant (and both the US and Canada have had some very unusual bouts of political turmoil recently which put some of these things back into the spotlight) but by and large they're not terribly necessary for a day-to-day understanding of how the countries' democracies function.

I'm kind of indifferent on the electoral college, but I think its supposed "weirdness" is greatly exaggerated in disproportion to its actual relevance. Likewise, a lot of Canadians don't seem to understand the US primary process at all, but I think that's more just a depressing statement on just how deferential our own political culture has become towards elite-run, super-hierarchal political parties in this country. ("Americans get to VOTE on who becomes the leader of the party? What madness is this!?")

Psudo wrote:

Do you have an alternative method in mind for designating official regions for equal representation? I agree with you in principle -- each official region (state, province, whatever) should have some legitimate cultural unity to it or it's a pointless distinction -- but how can more reasonable redistricting be achieved in practice?

I think it would be fairly easy to redraw state or provincial borders in a common-sense way that takes into account 21st Century realities about our clearly-identifiable regional cultures, geography, economies, and so on. Most anthtopologists of modern North America redraw our borders all the time for the purposes of their own studies, the Nine Nations of North America is one of the more popular examples. I think it's clear some areas of the United States have too many arbitrary states and some areas don't have enough rational ones. It's even more evident in Canada, which has such massive disparities in how the eastern vs. western provincial borders are drawn.

But obviously redrawing borders would be an impossible task in the modern era, and I think the Atlantic article makes a good point about why this is: the existing political system is now so corrupted by special interests and an entrenched professional political class that it becomes impossible to engage in big national projects, not matter how necessary or logical. This is the lesson Canada painfully learned when Brian Mulroney tried to change our constitution.

I know it's very easy for conservatives to just say bwa bwa bwa government is always bad, it's good it can't do anything! But at some point a permanently crooked, unfunctioning system does begin to erode national morale and confidence.

Kjorteo wrote:

everyone knows that the Senate is just better than the House under our current system, due to their being less of them (that's an unavoidable part of the design) and their terms being three times as long (that really should be changed.) The two houses of Congress should be equal. They aren't. That's the problem.

Psudo wrote:

They're different. But is the Senate really better? They can't initiate spending bills. They don't reflect public sentiment as currently or actively as the House (at least in theory). Being a Senator is a better job, but is that how the value of a legislative body is measured?

One of the arguments you sometimes hear in Canada by supporters of a more US-style Senate is that Canada would benefit from the presence of a political class equivalent to the American Senate caucus. Because House ridings are smaller, and often less competitive because they are gerrymandered or in weird homogeneous communities or whatever, the politicians who emerge from them tend to be more partisan, or extreme, or dumb, or lazy, or niche-interest driven. Because they have to run in more competitive state-wide elections, Senators, in contrast have to be more moderate, competent, and sensitive and knowledgeable in regards to a diverse range of issues.

The fact that only Senators seem to run for president or appear on talk shows, and the fact that governors and congressmen are always trying to weasel their way into the Senate to give themselves more gravitas I think all adds up to the sort of "betterness" that Kjorteo was speaking of.

[Psudo]

I didn't mean this to be so long. Please don't sign me up for a Typewriter medal.

Kjorteo wrote:

Psudo wrote:

let's cut both welfare spending and military spending in unison and use the money to invest in infrastructure, research funding, and education.

I'd have to hear more specifics on where the cuts are made. Just like how everyone wants "smaller government" but no one wants the programs they actually like being cut (NASA, nooooo,)

I don't have any specific cuts in mind. I'm just trying to work out a proposal that would get both sides of the aisles cutting costs rather than continually spending more and more of our (especially my) money. Maybe have House Republicans propose cuts in the military and Democrats propose cuts in welfare to ensure the most responsible considerations. If that doesn't work, switch sides and watch the cuts pour in. It's almost like punishment for refusing to help. >=]

I'm also not sure whether it's more fair to match both sides dollar to dollar, or proportionally. Whichever side is spending the most will obviously prefer dollar to dollar comparison, but aside from that what considerations make one more fair than the other? I'm leaning toward proportional equalization, but I'm not sure why.

Also, NASA falls under the heading "research funding", so it would be one of the destinations for the cash -- certainly not cut to raise cash.

Kjorteo wrote:

Psudo wrote:

On the other hand, would your judgment of the Senate as "better" stand up if Senators were still elected by state legislatures rather than state-wide popular vote? That's a pet reform of mine, returning the Senate to state government representatives rather than representatives of the state's population directly.

No, I think that's a step in the wrong direction. I like direct election--that's why I like the office of the President of the United States more than that of the Prime Minister of Canada. I just want to attempt to equalize the relative importance of being a Representative versus being a Senator. Putting both on four-year electoral cycles as a compromise (rather than two for House and six for Senate) would help with that, I think.

First thing's first. You're only looking to equalize term length? That would certainly make them similar in one respect, but it wouldn't equalize their power (their one vote as a proportion of the entire chamber) nor their base (state-wide vs. regional within a state). Even accounting for the Representatives' power as the sole origin of spending bills, it still looks like Senator is a more influential office than Representative.

Now on to what is, to me, the more important point: you're trying to homogenize the two chambers into near uniformity. Acquiring the majority approval of two different chambers elected in two different ways and representing the country by two different means is a safeguard against flawed representation. That is, a unicameral legislature is subject to manipulation based on the specific method of representation, as is a bicameral legislature with few variances between the chambers. But a bicameral legislature in which the two chambers are elected by dramatically different means offers a protection against any such manipulation, since it is unlikely such manipulation would affect both forms of representation in the same way at the same time.

This needs an example... imagine the mother of all internet memes drills it's way into the popular imagination, and we all have a silly saying stuck in our heads. In a political debate, one side makes a terrifically witty reference to it and the other side is oblivious ("You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy."). Thus, for a few weeks at least, it is cemented into the public mind that the former is "with it" and "cool", while the latter is "lame" and "culturally ignorant". If this happens in October, it could be just the October Surprise that side needs to win a landslide election despite is irrelevance to substantive politics. Currently, as the House and 1/3rd of the Senate are elected at the same time, that means the House and 1/3rd of the Senate are stupidly biased toward the "With It Party" (WIP). In your proposed system, the whole Senate and House would be affected (or perhaps half of each; you didn't explicitly declare whether you'd keep off-year elections or not). In my proposed system, the House would be affected while the Senate would probably not (it's unlikely that state legislators would be as influenced by such a fad as common folk).

Similar things can happen with substantive policy issues as well. If the hacked emails that have caused the global warming lobby such grief had been released in October, surely that'd have altered election results in the Republican's favor for largely invalid reasons.

A fad with the opposite effect is also possible: a study that sharply contradicts a political myth comes out in October resulting in a much more reasonable election in November before a plausible-but-flawed criticism of the study is released in December, returning people to their baseless prejudices. Sometimes it's good to ride the fad, sometimes it's not. Thus, we should have two legislative chambers, one that responds quickly to public sentiment and one that is more steadfast.

The staggered election years for Senators are a strong protection against fads-following. State legislature elections are a stronger one. Simultaneous elections for the whole legislature would be a universal weakness to such fads. See what I mean?

JJ wrote:

I think it would be fairly easy to redraw state or provincial borders in a common-sense way that takes into account 21st Century realities about our clearly-identifiable regional cultures, geography, economies, and so on. Most anthtopologists of modern North America redraw our borders all the time for the purposes of their own studies, the Nine Nations of North America is one of the more popular examples.

There was also that Russian scientist who divided up the USA by what nations would conquer what parts if ("when") it collapsed. I recognize your point that there are better partitioning schemes out there, but I don't know of any objective way to suggest one is better than another, or that any are better than the current borders. Not to mention the issue of popular sentiment.

Also, I'd say 9 states is way too few. Anything between 60 and 30 is OK with me, and I'd be OK with 13 for the symbolic heritage of it.

Maybe a preferable system would let states divvy themselves into partitions or, if two states agreed, allow them to unite as one provided that an internal popular majority and a US legislative majority both accepted the change? A constitutional amendment could theoretically enable such a system, and I can see the advantages of a formal system for "state management". Maybe then Puerto Rico could settle the question of whether they want to become a state with some finality.

I have no real conclusions. Just thinking out loud (or, rather, in print).

JJ wrote:

Because House ridings are smaller, and often less competitive because they are gerrymandered or in weird homogeneous communities or whatever, the politicians who emerge from them tend to be more partisan, or extreme, or dumb, or lazy, or niche-interest driven. Because they have to run in more competitive state-wide elections, Senators, in contrast have to be more moderate, competent, and sensitive and knowledgeable in regards to a diverse range of issues.

It's irrelevant to your point, but the bold portion would be even more true with a state legislature elected US Senate.

[Taospark]

JJ wrote:

One of the arguments you sometimes hear in Canada by supporters of a more US-style Senate is that Canada would benefit from the presence of a political class equivalent to the American Senate caucus. Because House ridings are smaller, and often less competitive because they are gerrymandered or in weird homogeneous communities or whatever, the politicians who emerge from them tend to be more partisan, or extreme, or dumb, or lazy, or niche-interest driven. Because they have to run in more competitive state-wide elections, Senators, in contrast have to be more moderate, competent, and sensitive and knowledgeable in regards to a diverse range of issues.

The fact that only Senators seem to run for president or appear on talk shows, and the fact that governors and congressmen are always trying to weasel their way into the Senate to give themselves more gravitas I think all adds up to the sort of "betterness" that Kjorteo was speaking of.

Part of the reason that governors and Congressmen vie for a Senatorial seat is because it's also more insulated from reality. If something's wrong in your state, you blame the House Representative for your district or the governor if your property taxes and insurance rates are too high.

Senators simply have to appear more high-minded to appear competent but can easily escape blame since they don't have to originate bills, provide oversight to many federal agencies, or have to apportion as much money for local interests since they represent an entire state, not a specific county.

I'd like to think the US Civil War did provide a test for and provided some improvements to our system of government, but it did so primarily for the South. After the Civil War, the vote was extended not just to blacks but also to poor whites for the first time. (Before the Civil War, many states in the South required the ability to read and own property.)

It was really the stories of Senators being brazenly bought by the "robber barons" of the Gilded Era like Carnegie and Rockefeller that finally forced the direct election of US Senators. The only major change after that was the 27th Amendment, which limited payraises for federal legislators, and that took 202 years to ratify.