Well, shryke is right in that it is a negative of a MMP system. It's just a negative that I don't feel outweighs the positives it could bring.
Under MMP (assuming we're still talking about the two major American political parties) I'd still vote for the Democrats, because in general the worst Democrat is still better than the best Republican. That may seem like a generalization but if Democrats win a vast majority of the representation proportionality I think things would improve, even if that means a couple of stinkers get thrown in with the rest.
I don't feel like the party would rather have a bunch of Blue Dogs at the top of the list, though. If anything I think it would likely lead to the more liberal/conservative members of each party getting the top spot on the party list, and the more moderate candidates further down, by virtue of those seats being safe regardless, so you'd want somebody who doesn't water down the party platform representing it.
ITT, desperate apologists for two-party system now claim that there is no such thing as a red or blue seat. 'Oh yeah, that totally is a legit race in Calgary.'
ITT The Ender is incapable of dealing with any criticism of MMP and must invent strawmen to keep his psyche from fracturing
Like, seriously dude, FPTP ultimately allows the ability to remove any specific candidate from office via vote. MMP does not. The ease of doing so is on a sliding scale in FPTP, yes. No one has argued against this. What you are missing is that in MMP, there is no scale. Party List MPs are all in safe seats, no matter what. They live or die and owe loyalty only to the party and it's fortunes.
Like I already said, you can think this isn't an issue, but it's there and it's a totally valid criticism of the system.
I'm having trouble finding an issue where I disagree with a candidate strongly enough to want them ousted but would still vote for a party that protects them to the exclusion of others that would better reflect the party values.
I mean, at that point, you are voting for your 'team' and not the policies you want enacted.
Bob is head of the Kittens and Puppies Party, which obviously you favor. He killed your dog, insulted your mother and chews food with his mouth open. Since you can't vote for his party but not for him you're left with voting for the Mega Super KiloHitler party.
You're kidding yourself if you think the vast majority of voters really identify with policy rather than people.
Candidates could still stump for support in a MMP system. Granted it would not be a "vote for me" kind of stumping, but it would be closer to "I'm #X on the list, and if you want to support me, we need to cross this threshold of votes".
By the way, the proposed Ontario system is kind of interesting. They use one vote for the party they want to support, and the other to specify which candidate they support. So there's still a FPtP element to it, in that you still directly support candidates, but it also helps to counteract gerrymandering and other voting shenanigans by going statewide proportional on the party votes.
They vote on whether to adopt this on Oct. 10, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes down.
Candidates could still stump for support in a MMP system. Granted it would not be a "vote for me" kind of stumping, but it would be closer to "I'm #X on the list, and if you want to support me, we need to cross this threshold of votes".
Well yes but if you loathe a certain candidate of the party you agree with you have no way of expressing that. I was flip above but perhaps you know he is a serial adulterer or incredibly homophobic or any other personal flaw that isn't really policy but disinclines you to put him in a position of power.
I don't think this is some immutable feature of the system as it must be, just as it has been implemented.
There's an incentive for parties not to include those members on the list. The DNC and RNC still want to get as many votes as possible, so they should strongly consider expelling members with that kind of baggage.
You're not wrong though. It's something MMP does not fix if the parties decide they still want to run a shitty candidate like that.
Well, the whole point of such a system is to build a coalition government, so it's not really an 'issue'.
And FptP parties do exactly the same thing with members; they're just more dishonest about it. Nobody wants Rob Anders in the Conservative party except Conservative brass who he's buddies with, so they stuck him in Tuscany where he's guaranteed to win every time. Arguably the same is true for Harper - most Conservative people in large population centers don't even like him, but he's in with the party brass, so he gets a seat in Calgary where he's guaranteed to win.
What's the practical difference between picking people who are given automatic seats & picking people who will automatically win a given seat?
John Howard would be able to tell you.
(For those who don't know, in the Australian election that brought the Rudd government to power, Howard (who had been ignoring his own seat in favor of focusing on national issues) not only lost the national election, but was defeated in his bid for his actual seat in Parliament, due to his opponent focusing on how Howard was ignoring the needs of his district.)
A clear failure of the MMP system can be seen in the recent Turkish uprising.
To recap, the Turkish uprising came about because a popular park was rezoned for commercial use, thus being slated for demolition. The rezoning happened because the politicians in charge all lived outside of the city, due to the MMP system. Those politicians only saw dollar signs floating over them, so they managed to out vote the local city dwelling politicians to rezone the park.
Imagine if NY state decided to rezone Central Park in NYC. That's about as close as you can get to what happened.
This is basically both my original points come together. These were almost all politicians who were not directly elected, who lived far away from the section of the country that they were making laws on. The only recourse the Turkish city dwellers had at that point was mass protest and revolt.
A clear failure of the MMP system can be seen in the recent Turkish uprising.
To recap, the Turkish uprising came about because a popular park was rezoned for commercial use, thus being slated for demolition. The rezoning happened because the politicians in charge all lived outside of the city, due to the MMP system. Those politicians only saw dollar signs floating over them, so they managed to out vote the local city dwelling politicians to rezone the park.
Imagine if NY state decided to rezone Central Park in NYC. That's about as close as you can get to what happened.
This is basically both my original points come together. These were almost all politicians who were not directly elected, who lived far away from the section of the country that they were making laws on. The only recourse the Turkish city dwellers had at that point was mass protest and revolt.
You actually think there was an uprising in Turkey because of a park?
A clear failure of the MMP system can be seen in the recent Turkish uprising.
To recap, the Turkish uprising came about because a popular park was rezoned for commercial use, thus being slated for demolition. The rezoning happened because the politicians in charge all lived outside of the city, due to the MMP system. Those politicians only saw dollar signs floating over them, so they managed to out vote the local city dwelling politicians to rezone the park.
Imagine if NY state decided to rezone Central Park in NYC. That's about as close as you can get to what happened.
This is basically both my original points come together. These were almost all politicians who were not directly elected, who lived far away from the section of the country that they were making laws on. The only recourse the Turkish city dwellers had at that point was mass protest and revolt.
You actually think there was an uprising in Turkey because of a park?
That's absurd.
Of course not. It came about because the MMP system completely marginalized the moderates who lived in Istanbul, as the entire political machine was basically conservatives run by Ankara. The park brought the whole thing to a head, because it was such a clear violation of what happens when politicians who live a 1000 miles away decide they know best.
I don't know where to start with that. It's utterly ignorant to ignore the history of Turkey - contentious issues such as Islam, secularism, Erdogan, the PKK, corruption, the EU, police brutality and much much more.
I can't even find someone sharing your opinion by googling it. And that is the same internet that Rule 34 applies to.
Well, the whole point of such a system is to build a coalition government, so it's not really an 'issue'.
And FptP parties do exactly the same thing with members; they're just more dishonest about it. Nobody wants Rob Anders in the Conservative party except Conservative brass who he's buddies with, so they stuck him in Tuscany where he's guaranteed to win every time. Arguably the same is true for Harper - most Conservative people in large population centers don't even like him, but he's in with the party brass, so he gets a seat in Calgary where he's guaranteed to win.
What's the practical difference between picking people who are given automatic seats & picking people who will automatically win a given seat?
I don't understand; Do the political parties in Canada not hold primary elections like in the US? Because even with their low turnout, a candidate usually has a pretty healthy risk in losing the primary in a district where noone likes him/her, even if (s)he's in a gerrymander'd district that practically worships the party (s)he belongs to. Or are you assuming "Better the devil you know..." and multi-$$$ ad campaign free speech is always going to get them to the main election regardless of what his other in-party opponents might say?
I don't understand; Do the political parties in Canada not hold primary elections like in the US? Because even with their low turnout, a candidate usually has a pretty healthy risk in losing the primary in a district where noone likes him/her, even if (s)he's in a gerrymander'd district that practically worships the party (s)he belongs to. Or are you assuming "Better the devil you know..." and multi-$$$ ad campaign free speech is always going to get them to the main election regardless of what his other in-party opponents might say?
I see. Yeah, when the leaders of the party gets to pick who runs where under their billet, it can create a similar problem to what MPP has with "elected" officials getting seats the pretty much can never lose as long as they continue to suck up to the part brass.
Foefaller on
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Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
MMP is a good system but it doesn't promise to solve all problems and it may well not be appropriate in a large system like the US.
In NZ it seems to work well enough. But NZ has a history of strong parties where MPs do what they are told and no primaries. Switching to a system where the party leadership has direct control over the list MP selection isn't really much different practically. Party HQ usually got final say under FPP and it does now too.
The parties seem to make an effort to find local candidates from across the regions too, even the smaller parties. They don't need to but they do all the same. So there is hardly a metropolitan lock. But in NZ we have a very strong local candidate bias to the parties and MPs feel they need to assign List MPs to electorates and to do surgeries.
One feature of NZ MMP is that half of MPs are appointed by party, which was designed to allow experts or minorities to be selected. NZ has a rule where ministers must be elected MPs first and it was thought that this might help broaden the talent pool. NZ local parties also seemed to have trouble selecting candidates that were not white men for winnable electorates.
Now whilst this all open to abuse, it does seem to mean that almost all the parties select more women and more minorities. If the party of the right has appointed selected a married Maori lesbian as a List MP, then the system can't all be bad. More widely, the amount of Maori MPs roughly reflects the number of Maori in the population, likely for the first time ever.
I guess part of the difficulty is in deciding exactly what you want to get out of the system.
That step seems to get skipped a lot in this kind of discussion, because everyone dives into the tangle of different specific setups.
Hertzberg had an article once where he suggested we change the senate over to a proportional representation system based on a national vote. That makes a lot of sense to me. Fooling around with the House . . . I don't know. Everything about the House is a well of insanity.
I guess part of the difficulty is in deciding exactly what you want to get out of the system.
That step seems to get skipped a lot in this kind of discussion, because everyone dives into the tangle of different specific setups.
Hertzberg had an article once where he suggested we change the senate over to a proportional representation system based on a national vote. That makes a lot of sense to me. Fooling around with the House . . . I don't know. Everything about the House is a well of insanity.
Except that we can't, as not only is every state getting two senators with the right to vote in the Constitution, it is written as the only thing that can't be changed with an amendment. The US would literally have to make a new Constitution to change that, and I think most Americans (especially the ones who might have the power to do that) love our 226 year old document too much to go through with that. Though I guess you could change how they are elected, as that already happened once before (Senators used to be appointed by the state they represented IIRC, until an amendment changed it to a direct vote like House Representatives.)
Any attempts to create an MPP system, or any changes to how elected officials represent the people of the United States would pretty much have to be contained to the House.
I guess part of the difficulty is in deciding exactly what you want to get out of the system.
That step seems to get skipped a lot in this kind of discussion, because everyone dives into the tangle of different specific setups.
Hertzberg had an article once where he suggested we change the senate over to a proportional representation system based on a national vote. That makes a lot of sense to me. Fooling around with the House . . . I don't know. Everything about the House is a well of insanity.
Except that we can't, as not only is every state getting two senators with the right to vote in the Constitution, it is written as the only thing that can't be changed with an amendment. The US would literally have to make a new Constitution to change that, and I think most Americans (especially the ones who might have the power to do that) love our 226 year old document too much to go through with that. Though I guess you could change how they are elected, as that already happened once before (Senators used to be appointed by the state they represented IIRC, until an amendment changed it to a direct vote like House Representatives.)
Any attempts to create an MPP system, or any changes to how elected officials represent the people of the United States would pretty much have to be contained to the House.
I guess part of the difficulty is in deciding exactly what you want to get out of the system.
That step seems to get skipped a lot in this kind of discussion, because everyone dives into the tangle of different specific setups.
Hertzberg had an article once where he suggested we change the senate over to a proportional representation system based on a national vote. That makes a lot of sense to me. Fooling around with the House . . . I don't know. Everything about the House is a well of insanity.
Except that we can't, as not only is every state getting two senators with the right to vote in the Constitution, it is written as the only thing that can't be changed with an amendment. The US would literally have to make a new Constitution to change that, and I think most Americans (especially the ones who might have the power to do that) love our 226 year old document too much to go through with that. Though I guess you could change how they are elected, as that already happened once before (Senators used to be appointed by the state they represented IIRC, until an amendment changed it to a direct vote like House Representatives.)
Any attempts to create an MPP system, or any changes to how elected officials represent the people of the United States would pretty much have to be contained to the House.
Can you expand on that? I'm not sure I follow.
Article V of the Constitution:
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
I guess you can change the number of senators, but unless you want to redistrict whole states every census like we do Representative districts (gerrymandering at a national level, oh joy) every state, regardless of size or population, will get the same number of senators with the same voting power, unless someone pulls a Palpatine and convinces the states to give up that right.
Theoretically possible. We just need states to sign up for it. Not really sure this is that much more of stretch from completely rewriting the way the senate is elected anyways.
Practically possible. National election and each party lists two representatives from each state. Divy that up in such a way to reflect the national popular vote while giving each state two Senators. Only doesn't work if you want to make the case for something ridiculous like there are no Democrats in Texas or something.
On the whole I would actually be quite fine with something like that. I think the House's ties to local areas is a positive but that the current resolution is way too low, jack up the number of seats there while freeing the Senate up from geography in all but some nominal fashion.
You could also just make the equal representation of the states be 0 in the senate and then create a new body which has all the old duties of the senate
I have a feeling the Court would get grumbly about that but it is hilarious. I'm not sure you need the second part, just don't have Senators have any state affiliation at all. Each state has an equal amount of sufferage in the Senate, zero.
I have a feeling the Court would get grumbly about that but it is hilarious. I'm not sure you need the second part, just don't have Senators have any state affiliation at all. Each state has an equal amount of sufferage in the Senate, zero.
I think that would come down to interpretation - are the states required to have an equal number of reps or are the states required to each have an equal share of the total, essentially hinging on can you even have non-state-affiliated senators at all
Theoretically possible. We just need states to sign up for it. Not really sure this is that much more of stretch from completely rewriting the way the senate is elected anyways.
Practically possible. National election and each party lists two representatives from each state. Divy that up in such a way to reflect the national popular vote while giving each state two Senators. Only doesn't work if you want to make the case for something ridiculous like there are no Democrats in Texas or something.
On the whole I would actually be quite fine with something like that. I think the House's ties to local areas is a positive but that the current resolution is way too low, jack up the number of seats there while freeing the Senate up from geography in all but some nominal fashion.
Or there are some number of democrats between 0 and 49%
Theoretically possible. We just need states to sign up for it. Not really sure this is that much more of stretch from completely rewriting the way the senate is elected anyways.
Practically possible. National election and each party lists two representatives from each state. Divy that up in such a way to reflect the national popular vote while giving each state two Senators. Only doesn't work if you want to make the case for something ridiculous like there are no Democrats in Texas or something.
On the whole I would actually be quite fine with something like that. I think the House's ties to local areas is a positive but that the current resolution is way too low, jack up the number of seats there while freeing the Senate up from geography in all but some nominal fashion.
Or there are some number of democrats between 0 and 49%
In what I was proposing a states actual votes would not have any impact on what party "their" representative would be from. Texas could vote 75% R but if the national results were 90% D they may well have two D's representing them.
I'm sure we could propose more or less equitable ways of determining what states got what for representatives but this little thought was based on making the Senate linked to geography as little as possible.
Theoretically possible. We just need states to sign up for it. Not really sure this is that much more of stretch from completely rewriting the way the senate is elected anyways.
Practically possible. National election and each party lists two representatives from each state. Divy that up in such a way to reflect the national popular vote while giving each state two Senators. Only doesn't work if you want to make the case for something ridiculous like there are no Democrats in Texas or something.
On the whole I would actually be quite fine with something like that. I think the House's ties to local areas is a positive but that the current resolution is way too low, jack up the number of seats there while freeing the Senate up from geography in all but some nominal fashion.
I dunno, if you make Senate seats a national vote you could make the argument that Senators no longer represent the states they belong to, thereby denying them "equal suffrage." I don't even think is has to be an argument of "there aren't enough Democrats in Texas to justify a Democratic Senator coming from Texas." Just the fact they weren't elected and/or appointed by the state itself or its population.
I have a feeling the Court would get grumbly about that but it is hilarious. I'm not sure you need the second part, just don't have Senators have any state affiliation at all. Each state has an equal amount of sufferage in the Senate, zero.
I think that would come down to interpretation - are the states required to have an equal number of reps or are the states required to each have an equal share of the total, essentially hinging on can you even have non-state-affiliated senators at all
I think "Equal Suffrage" pretty much implies that the Senate is a thing and that its members have the power to meaningfully vote on issues; You're probably right that it wouldn't fly.
Second idea is a bit more plausible, but I think you have a real tough argument on whether non-state senators are still representatives of the state they live in (unless you're getting them all from DC and Peurto Rico)
Of course, many of these ideas kinda hinge on a fact that isn't really a fact about US politics: that political parties are an official part of the political process, which IIRC, they technically are not. At the very least, nothing in the Constitution acknowledges their existence, which I believe has led some people to thing it's authors didn't want political parties in the US (even though most of them went off to form their own parties before the ink had finished drying)
Theoretically possible. We just need states to sign up for it. Not really sure this is that much more of stretch from completely rewriting the way the senate is elected anyways.
Practically possible. National election and each party lists two representatives from each state. Divy that up in such a way to reflect the national popular vote while giving each state two Senators. Only doesn't work if you want to make the case for something ridiculous like there are no Democrats in Texas or something.
On the whole I would actually be quite fine with something like that. I think the House's ties to local areas is a positive but that the current resolution is way too low, jack up the number of seats there while freeing the Senate up from geography in all but some nominal fashion.
I dunno, if you make Senate seats a national vote you could make the argument that Senators no longer represent the states they belong to, thereby denying them "equal suffrage." I don't even think is has to be an argument of "there aren't enough Democrats in Texas to justify a Democratic Senator coming from Texas." Just the fact they weren't elected and/or appointed by the state itself or its population.
I have a feeling the Court would get grumbly about that but it is hilarious. I'm not sure you need the second part, just don't have Senators have any state affiliation at all. Each state has an equal amount of sufferage in the Senate, zero.
I think that would come down to interpretation - are the states required to have an equal number of reps or are the states required to each have an equal share of the total, essentially hinging on can you even have non-state-affiliated senators at all
I think "Equal Suffrage" pretty much implies that the Senate is a thing and that its members have the power to meaningfully vote on issues; You're probably right that it wouldn't fly.
Second idea is a bit more plausible, but I think you have a real tough argument on whether non-state senators are still representatives of the state they live in (unless you're getting them all from DC and Peurto Rico)
Of course, many of these ideas kinda hinge on a fact that isn't really a fact about US politics: that political parties are an official part of the political process, which IIRC, they technically are not. At the very least, nothing in the Constitution acknowledges their existence, which I believe has led some people to thing it's authors didn't want political parties in the US (even though most of them went off to form their own parties before the ink had finished drying)
Political parties will always be part of the process because organization is the force multiplier.
Theoretically possible. We just need states to sign up for it. Not really sure this is that much more of stretch from completely rewriting the way the senate is elected anyways.
Practically possible. National election and each party lists two representatives from each state. Divy that up in such a way to reflect the national popular vote while giving each state two Senators. Only doesn't work if you want to make the case for something ridiculous like there are no Democrats in Texas or something.
On the whole I would actually be quite fine with something like that. I think the House's ties to local areas is a positive but that the current resolution is way too low, jack up the number of seats there while freeing the Senate up from geography in all but some nominal fashion.
I dunno, if you make Senate seats a national vote you could make the argument that Senators no longer represent the states they belong to, thereby denying them "equal suffrage." I don't even think is has to be an argument of "there aren't enough Democrats in Texas to justify a Democratic Senator coming from Texas." Just the fact they weren't elected and/or appointed by the state itself or its population.
I have a feeling the Court would get grumbly about that but it is hilarious. I'm not sure you need the second part, just don't have Senators have any state affiliation at all. Each state has an equal amount of sufferage in the Senate, zero.
I think that would come down to interpretation - are the states required to have an equal number of reps or are the states required to each have an equal share of the total, essentially hinging on can you even have non-state-affiliated senators at all
I think "Equal Suffrage" pretty much implies that the Senate is a thing and that its members have the power to meaningfully vote on issues; You're probably right that it wouldn't fly.
Second idea is a bit more plausible, but I think you have a real tough argument on whether non-state senators are still representatives of the state they live in (unless you're getting them all from DC and Peurto Rico)
Of course, many of these ideas kinda hinge on a fact that isn't really a fact about US politics: that political parties are an official part of the political process, which IIRC, they technically are not. At the very least, nothing in the Constitution acknowledges their existence, which I believe has led some people to thing it's authors didn't want political parties in the US (even though most of them went off to form their own parties before the ink had finished drying)
Political parties will always be part of the process because organization is the force multiplier.
I know. I'm just saying that before you have a system that lets a political party have an official say on who runs for what and where, or who gets that seat if we get X% of the vote, there has to be a system that recognizes their role in the electoral process, and as far as I know that doesn't exist in the US, at least on the federal level.
I guess part of the difficulty is in deciding exactly what you want to get out of the system.
That step seems to get skipped a lot in this kind of discussion, because everyone dives into the tangle of different specific setups.
Hertzberg had an article once where he suggested we change the senate over to a proportional representation system based on a national vote. That makes a lot of sense to me. Fooling around with the House . . . I don't know. Everything about the House is a well of insanity.
Except that we can't, as not only is every state getting two senators with the right to vote in the Constitution, it is written as the only thing that can't be changed with an amendment.
Changing how the Senate is populated would probably be a bad idea. It was created as a way for smaller states to actually have input to things, as the 2 reps from NH can do fuck-all compared to the 53 that California gets, so more populous states would have more sway over issues in places that are not near them.
Drill in a Utah Park? I don't care
Dump sewage in Maine? Sure, go ahead.
As others have said, our main problem is our electorate, as people can't be bothered to pay attention for 5 minutes a day or look up conflicting arguments on an issue.
Changing how the Senate is populated would probably be a bad idea. It was created as a way for smaller states to actually have input to things, as the 2 reps from NH can do fuck-all compared to the 53 that California gets, so more populous states would have more sway over issues in places that are not near them.
Drill in a Utah Park? I don't care
Dump sewage in Maine? Sure, go ahead.
As others have said, our main problem is our electorate, as people can't be bothered to pay attention for 5 minutes a day or look up conflicting arguments on an issue.
Frak the Adirondacks? Oh, wait, NYC is cool with that so I guess that's happening.
It still comes down to arbitrary lines drawn two hundred years ago giving certain lots of land grossly disproportionate power. I know I'm somewhat radical in saying "States" in the US sense are rather a bit silly but if we're going to revolutionize the Senate we might as well do it right.
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Under MMP (assuming we're still talking about the two major American political parties) I'd still vote for the Democrats, because in general the worst Democrat is still better than the best Republican. That may seem like a generalization but if Democrats win a vast majority of the representation proportionality I think things would improve, even if that means a couple of stinkers get thrown in with the rest.
I don't feel like the party would rather have a bunch of Blue Dogs at the top of the list, though. If anything I think it would likely lead to the more liberal/conservative members of each party getting the top spot on the party list, and the more moderate candidates further down, by virtue of those seats being safe regardless, so you'd want somebody who doesn't water down the party platform representing it.
Bob is head of the Kittens and Puppies Party, which obviously you favor. He killed your dog, insulted your mother and chews food with his mouth open. Since you can't vote for his party but not for him you're left with voting for the Mega Super KiloHitler party.
You're kidding yourself if you think the vast majority of voters really identify with policy rather than people.
They vote on whether to adopt this on Oct. 10, so it'll be interesting to see how that goes down.
Well yes but if you loathe a certain candidate of the party you agree with you have no way of expressing that. I was flip above but perhaps you know he is a serial adulterer or incredibly homophobic or any other personal flaw that isn't really policy but disinclines you to put him in a position of power.
I don't think this is some immutable feature of the system as it must be, just as it has been implemented.
You're not wrong though. It's something MMP does not fix if the parties decide they still want to run a shitty candidate like that.
John Howard would be able to tell you.
(For those who don't know, in the Australian election that brought the Rudd government to power, Howard (who had been ignoring his own seat in favor of focusing on national issues) not only lost the national election, but was defeated in his bid for his actual seat in Parliament, due to his opponent focusing on how Howard was ignoring the needs of his district.)
To recap, the Turkish uprising came about because a popular park was rezoned for commercial use, thus being slated for demolition. The rezoning happened because the politicians in charge all lived outside of the city, due to the MMP system. Those politicians only saw dollar signs floating over them, so they managed to out vote the local city dwelling politicians to rezone the park.
Imagine if NY state decided to rezone Central Park in NYC. That's about as close as you can get to what happened.
This is basically both my original points come together. These were almost all politicians who were not directly elected, who lived far away from the section of the country that they were making laws on. The only recourse the Turkish city dwellers had at that point was mass protest and revolt.
You actually think there was an uprising in Turkey because of a park?
That's absurd.
I can't even find someone sharing your opinion by googling it. And that is the same internet that Rule 34 applies to.
How do you do MMP without abandoning the regionalism which the nation is built on
I think that a good number of MMP supporters see that as a feature, not a bug.
I don't understand; Do the political parties in Canada not hold primary elections like in the US? Because even with their low turnout, a candidate usually has a pretty healthy risk in losing the primary in a district where noone likes him/her, even if (s)he's in a gerrymander'd district that practically worships the party (s)he belongs to. Or are you assuming "Better the devil you know..." and multi-$$$ ad campaign free speech is always going to get them to the main election regardless of what his other in-party opponents might say?
No, we don't have primaries in Canada.
I see. Yeah, when the leaders of the party gets to pick who runs where under their billet, it can create a similar problem to what MPP has with "elected" officials getting seats the pretty much can never lose as long as they continue to suck up to the part brass.
http://buchanan.houseenews.net/mail/util.cfm?returnmsg=formsubmit&formid=859
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Ugh. Vengeance sells. People like seeing others punished, regardless of whether it is just for the state to be killing people or not.
Before we get off topic, I do like the idea of that proposed Ontario voting system. It sounds nice, in theory.
In NZ it seems to work well enough. But NZ has a history of strong parties where MPs do what they are told and no primaries. Switching to a system where the party leadership has direct control over the list MP selection isn't really much different practically. Party HQ usually got final say under FPP and it does now too.
The parties seem to make an effort to find local candidates from across the regions too, even the smaller parties. They don't need to but they do all the same. So there is hardly a metropolitan lock. But in NZ we have a very strong local candidate bias to the parties and MPs feel they need to assign List MPs to electorates and to do surgeries.
One feature of NZ MMP is that half of MPs are appointed by party, which was designed to allow experts or minorities to be selected. NZ has a rule where ministers must be elected MPs first and it was thought that this might help broaden the talent pool. NZ local parties also seemed to have trouble selecting candidates that were not white men for winnable electorates.
Now whilst this all open to abuse, it does seem to mean that almost all the parties select more women and more minorities. If the party of the right has appointed selected a married Maori lesbian as a List MP, then the system can't all be bad. More widely, the amount of Maori MPs roughly reflects the number of Maori in the population, likely for the first time ever.
That step seems to get skipped a lot in this kind of discussion, because everyone dives into the tangle of different specific setups.
Hertzberg had an article once where he suggested we change the senate over to a proportional representation system based on a national vote. That makes a lot of sense to me. Fooling around with the House . . . I don't know. Everything about the House is a well of insanity.
Except that we can't, as not only is every state getting two senators with the right to vote in the Constitution, it is written as the only thing that can't be changed with an amendment. The US would literally have to make a new Constitution to change that, and I think most Americans (especially the ones who might have the power to do that) love our 226 year old document too much to go through with that. Though I guess you could change how they are elected, as that already happened once before (Senators used to be appointed by the state they represented IIRC, until an amendment changed it to a direct vote like House Representatives.)
Any attempts to create an MPP system, or any changes to how elected officials represent the people of the United States would pretty much have to be contained to the House.
Can you expand on that? I'm not sure I follow.
Article V of the Constitution:
I guess you can change the number of senators, but unless you want to redistrict whole states every census like we do Representative districts (gerrymandering at a national level, oh joy) every state, regardless of size or population, will get the same number of senators with the same voting power, unless someone pulls a Palpatine and convinces the states to give up that right.
Theoretically possible. We just need states to sign up for it. Not really sure this is that much more of stretch from completely rewriting the way the senate is elected anyways.
Practically possible. National election and each party lists two representatives from each state. Divy that up in such a way to reflect the national popular vote while giving each state two Senators. Only doesn't work if you want to make the case for something ridiculous like there are no Democrats in Texas or something.
On the whole I would actually be quite fine with something like that. I think the House's ties to local areas is a positive but that the current resolution is way too low, jack up the number of seats there while freeing the Senate up from geography in all but some nominal fashion.
I think that would come down to interpretation - are the states required to have an equal number of reps or are the states required to each have an equal share of the total, essentially hinging on can you even have non-state-affiliated senators at all
In what I was proposing a states actual votes would not have any impact on what party "their" representative would be from. Texas could vote 75% R but if the national results were 90% D they may well have two D's representing them.
I'm sure we could propose more or less equitable ways of determining what states got what for representatives but this little thought was based on making the Senate linked to geography as little as possible.
Nope. Montana was closest and SCOTUS told them to fuck off, the First Gilded Age never happened.
(SCOTUS decision slightly paraphrased)
Very slightly.
Why yes, I am still harboring seething rage over that decision.
I think we all are. Obviously as a resident you more than most though.
I dunno, if you make Senate seats a national vote you could make the argument that Senators no longer represent the states they belong to, thereby denying them "equal suffrage." I don't even think is has to be an argument of "there aren't enough Democrats in Texas to justify a Democratic Senator coming from Texas." Just the fact they weren't elected and/or appointed by the state itself or its population.
I think "Equal Suffrage" pretty much implies that the Senate is a thing and that its members have the power to meaningfully vote on issues; You're probably right that it wouldn't fly.
Second idea is a bit more plausible, but I think you have a real tough argument on whether non-state senators are still representatives of the state they live in (unless you're getting them all from DC and Peurto Rico)
Of course, many of these ideas kinda hinge on a fact that isn't really a fact about US politics: that political parties are an official part of the political process, which IIRC, they technically are not. At the very least, nothing in the Constitution acknowledges their existence, which I believe has led some people to thing it's authors didn't want political parties in the US (even though most of them went off to form their own parties before the ink had finished drying)
Political parties will always be part of the process because organization is the force multiplier.
I know. I'm just saying that before you have a system that lets a political party have an official say on who runs for what and where, or who gets that seat if we get X% of the vote, there has to be a system that recognizes their role in the electoral process, and as far as I know that doesn't exist in the US, at least on the federal level.
Ah, article five. I forgot.
Drill in a Utah Park? I don't care
Dump sewage in Maine? Sure, go ahead.
As others have said, our main problem is our electorate, as people can't be bothered to pay attention for 5 minutes a day or look up conflicting arguments on an issue.
Frak the Adirondacks? Oh, wait, NYC is cool with that so I guess that's happening.
It still comes down to arbitrary lines drawn two hundred years ago giving certain lots of land grossly disproportionate power. I know I'm somewhat radical in saying "States" in the US sense are rather a bit silly but if we're going to revolutionize the Senate we might as well do it right.