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Oh dear me posted:Then it seems to me there is no constitutional way out of the problem and the sooner this is recognized the better. Maybe more populated states could look at setting up alternative structures, a 'Proportional Senate', a 'Reformed Court' and so on, and try to give those bodies powers instead? If nothing else they'd be institutions that were ready to go after a fight. Why not use the Bundesrat as a model? The smaller states still get more delegates compared to their population, but the bigger state still have much more power than just two senators. Hell, use their voting system too, the Bundesrat delegates aren't actually delegates, they are literally the state governments showing up and voting as a bloc, good times. *PS: It hasn't been the Reichstag since 1945, it's the Bundestag, the building is not the common name of the lower assembly of Germany.
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Nov 12, 2018 10:58
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Squalid posted:Yeah gerrymandering is comparatively easy to fix, although it has its own problems. For example if Democratic controlled states enact unilateral gerrymandering reform, it puts them at a national disadvantage against Republicans, who won't have so many scruples in the states they control. However a national level fix seems like it would be easier to manage politically than say an effort to neuter the Senate.
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Nov 12, 2018 11:04
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Flowers For Algeria posted:Axeil, I’d like to thank you for a great and meaty OP, but I’m kinda sad that it doesn’t stray too much from the D&D orthodoxy in terms of policy proposals. Which is why I’d like to introduce the following ideas into the debate and see what y’all think about them (I’m perfectly conscious that most of them would require scrapping the Constitution but let’s not stay attached to a text just because it was written by long-dead quasi-mythical political leaders): These are really interesting! Thanks for sharing. My thoughts on each. 1. This sort of ties in to having a less insane immigration system. I've been pro-open borders and easy immigration for a while but I don't know how much that would fly because even the non-racist white people will get the vapors if you suggest open borders. I think you could accomplish the goals of this by just loosening up the time to become a citizen rather than giving permanent residents or aliens the right to representation. 2. This relates to the conversation we were having about centralization earlier. While the states are fairly arbitrary today, I'm not sure that they should be gotten rid of entirely. That electoral law doesn't fall within the federal government is probably a good thing right now or you'd have Trump rigging every election. But I do think all the states that keep on passing abortion restrictions they know are unconstitutional solely in an attempt to get SCOTUS to chip away at that right shouldn't be allowed. Additionally, I'm not even sure how you'd constitutionally go about dissolving the states. Most nations have a province or regional government setup and they're so intertwined with the Constitution that removing them would be quite a challenge. 3. Every state and the nation should have referendums but I worry that they might be used to do some nasty things (ala the state constitutional bans on gay marriage in 2004) rather than good. RagnarokZ posted:Why not use the Bundesrat as a model? The smaller states still get more delegates compared to their population, but the bigger state still have much more power than just two senators. That could be a way you reform out the Senate. Change the House distribution to some sort of non-linear model where smaller states get more representation than they "should" to alleviate the removal of their power in the Senate. Oh, thanks for the terminology correction! I didn't know they changed the name of German parliament, I'll update it. Cicero posted:Utah just passed an anti-gerrymandering proposition and it's red as hell. Granted it barely passed and, as expected, it was the more liberal urban areas that voted for it and more conservative rural areas voted against it, but hey, a pass is a pass. Gerrymandering is one of the few things the right and left agree on because gerrymandering doesn't care what your political party is, if you're in the minority you'll be gerrymandered against. Look at Maryland's map right now, it's also gerrymandered to suppress GOP representation. axeil fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Nov 12, 2018 |
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Nov 12, 2018 14:31
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axeil posted:Gerrymandering is one of the few things the right and left agree on because gerrymandering doesn't care what your political party is, if you're in the minority you'll be gerrymandered against. Look at Maryland's map right now, it's also gerrymandered to suppress GOP representation.
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Nov 12, 2018 15:09
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axeil posted:Proportional Representation To be a pedant, this is an STV (multimember districts with ranked choice preference) model not an MMP one.
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Nov 12, 2018 15:40
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If I were to say my two biggest reforms now are: 1) Ranked choice voting. I think it brings more people into the political process, picks a more representative candidate, and will help to end certain races that end with people getting 45 percent of the vote. (Looking at you Maine and Democratic primaries!) 2) Uncapping Congress. There are states that gained population but lost seats because we are capped at 435 which means they got hosed over in a lot of ways because they represent more people with less power in Congress. Also, I think it will help combat some money issues in Congress as it will be cheaper for people to do elections.
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Nov 12, 2018 15:50
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Looking at the Wikipedia page for resident-alien voting, it looks like the only thing preventing it at the Federal level is a statute from 1996. States could unilaterally allow it in their own elections, and currently it is allowed for some local elections like for school boards. I doubt many aliens ever do vote,the law is such a clusterfuck, but still. I think expanding these rights is a good idea and seems doable. If nothing else is would really make the right lose their minds.
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Nov 12, 2018 15:51
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Squalid posted:Looking at the Wikipedia page for resident-alien voting, it looks like the only thing preventing it at the Federal level is a statute from 1996. States could unilaterally allow it in their own elections, and currently it is allowed for some local elections like for school boards. I doubt many aliens ever do vote,the law is such a clusterfuck, but still. I think expanding these rights is a good idea and seems doable. If nothing else is would really make the right lose their minds. Off of this, I know there is talk in local elections opening them up to allow people under the age of 18 to vote, usually 16 is the cutoff. I think that would be an interesting reform.
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Nov 12, 2018 15:53
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The Founding Fathers were so adamant about state's rights because they hated the way a central authority like a King could oppress anyone he wanted to. Without states the east coast of the US will be under control of King Schumer.
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Nov 12, 2018 15:53
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qkkl posted:The Founding Fathers were so adamant about state's rights because they hated the way a central authority like a King could oppress anyone he wanted to. Without states the east coast of the US will be under control of King Schumer. State's right and the autonomy of the states are sufficiently protected by the 10th amendment, I'm ok with state governments having a lot of power to govern their own territory (provided they don't violate the constitutional rights of individual citizens), I'm not ok with the senate being used as a tool for enforcing tyranny of the minority over everybody else
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Nov 12, 2018 16:03
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Cool thread, nice OP. I have a few questions, followed by some wacky ideas at the bottom. Questions: 1) How and why was the US system set up the way it was? Specifically. Like, why 2 senators per state. Why not 1, or 3? Why have 2 chambers of Congress? I'm interested in the philosophical basis, and then the technical measures put in place to implement this, and whether or not it worked. I learned recently that the founding fathers tried their best to avoid a 2 party system, and obviously failed. I'd love a book on the subject. 2) Related to 1: is there any precedent of gaming a system before implementing it? It seems like most suggestions, including the ones I'll make, use pretty short term thinking, typically righting some sort of imbalance. But what if the fix ends up with a new kind of imbalance in 50 years? It seems like with some game theory these hypothetical systems could be put through their paces. We know politicians will take every advantage of rules that they can-- it would be nice to simulate the system and design accordingly. Is this being done now? Wacky ideas: A) City states. The urban-rural divide is huge, and as been pointed out, cities are very under-represented. So maybe major urban areas could form their own states, along with their own senators and governors. I don't know enough about US politics to know if this is feasible or would actually help. But I feel generally that cities should have greater autonomy, while rural areas should maintain a good level of power lest whole classes of people lose their representation. B) Non-local reps. This is just spitballing, but it may be nice to have one set of reps based on location, and another that is not. For non-local, have a very large number of reps (thousands) and don't give the body too much power. So if I lived in NYC, I could vote for a rep in rural Montana. I suspect this would result in a lot of one-issue reps, which may or may not be a good thing. C) Representation by lottery. Sick of corrupt politicians? Why not treat part of government like jury duty? Making these people move to DC would be a non-starter, so maybe they should be allowed to vote remotely. Maybe allow anonymous voting for these people.
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Nov 12, 2018 16:15
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Typo posted:The senate is an archaic 18th century institution unsuited for governing a 21st century technologically advanced nation-state. Their purpose was originally to rope the smaller colonies into joining the Union: but the sort of federation that the senate was meant to serve had long ceased to exist. No, it was made to prevent "tyranny of the majority". To protect rural peoples from being overwhelmed by urban and small states from being bullied completely by larger. So you can't just stack a bunch of assholes in coastal "elite" cities to run the whole country. Sounds like it's working as intended! quote:People are not going to live in economically depressed states just so their voting power increases, so for the sake of tradition, necessary reforms don't get passed: and America falls further behind the rest of the world. Ironically, quite a few of these "economically depressed" flyover states y'all denigrate so much run on economic surpluses, where as California runs on a such a massive deficit, which has to be made up by these smaller states. Which is WHY someone in bumfuck, Wyoming deserves equal representation as his cultural, intellectual and political superior in the holy, progressive land of California. quote:The fact that the UN general Assembly is laughed at as a powerless and useless institution should also tell you how good of an idea this is The UN GA is worthless because the UN in general is worthless. But hey, GLOBALISM NOW NATIONALISM BAD (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 12, 2018 16:24
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Shiki Dan posted:But hey, GLOBALISM NOW NATIONALISM BAD Yah pretty much 
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Nov 12, 2018 16:32
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Shiki Dan posted:No, it was made to prevent "tyranny of the majority". To protect rural peoples from being overwhelmed by urban and small states from being bullied completely by larger. so people keep making this dumb argument who act like elections are a game of risk or something, and democrats just made a mistake in placing their pieces on the board. that's obviously not true: elections are supposed to reflect the will of the public, not force the public into byzantine moving arrangements to obtain their deserved political power. democrats didn't stack a bunch of well-educated thoughtful individuals in costal elite cities because of an error of political strategy. well-educated thoughtful individuals tend to congregate in cities, and each of those those well-educated thoughtful people deserve just as much say in their government as some guy in wyoming. Shiki Dan posted:Ironically, quite a few of these "economically depressed" flyover states y'all denigrate so much run on economic surpluses, where as California runs on a such a massive deficit, which has to be made up by these smaller states. it would probably be better if you didn't make massive basic factual errors while whining about coastal elites looking down on you. it might, you know, send the wrong message about how accurate their view that they are your intellectual superior. california, like its sister large blue state New York, is a net payer to the federal government. california subsidizes red states, not the other way around (though wyoming, likely due to its absence of people but its large natural resource extraction industries that are taxed, is a net payer as well - though tiny in absolute terms, but noticable in per capita terms).
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Nov 12, 2018 16:58
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Shiki Dan posted:Ironically, quite a few of these "economically depressed" flyover states y'all denigrate so much run on economic surpluses, where as California runs on a such a massive deficit, which has to be made up by these smaller states. Ironically both Wyoming and California were net contributors in FY 2016, still looking for a '17 but it's likely to be a similar result.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:03
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Just want to throw in my oddball suggestion of giving every state a 3rd senator, so every state has a senator up for reelection every cycle Also, here is what the Democrats are planning tpo do https://twitter.com/nprpolitics/status/1061922984116445184 The Glumslinger fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Nov 12, 2018 |
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Nov 12, 2018 17:05
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The Glumslinger posted:Just want to throw in my oddball suggestion of giving every state a 3rd senator, so every state has a senator up for reelection every cycle Giving every state another Senator is probably something we could get everyone on board with, but it sadly wouldn't change much about the balance of power in the Senate. Probably more fair to have every state have a Senatorial election every 2 years though.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:19
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Shiki Dan posted:No, it was made to prevent "tyranny of the majority". To protect rural peoples from being overwhelmed by urban and small states from being bullied completely by larger. Except in the 18th century, the rural states were the -larger- states, the urban coastal elites were the small states. The coastal elites back then were merchants who lived in the small New England states and larger states like Virginia or Pennsylvania were agrarian. So the system was designed -in favor- of the small elites to control the country. quote:So you can't just stack a bunch of assholes in coastal "elite" cities to run the whole country. By 2040 70% of Americans will live in 15 states, do you really think it's a good idea to let 30% of Americans decide 70% of the legislature? quote:Ironically, quite a few of these "economically depressed" flyover states y'all denigrate so much run on economic surpluses, where as California runs on a such a massive deficit, which has to be made up by these smaller states. Actually blue states tend to be net contributors and red states net consumers of the budget, California has a large domestic deficit but contributes surplus to the federal budget, which are in turn used to subsidize the "flyover" states. So a large reason why red states have surpluses is simply that the federal government subsidize them at high rates.  quote:The UN GA is worthless because the UN in general is worthless. So you want the US to be governed like the UN GA? Cuz that's how the senate does it Typo fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Nov 12, 2018 |
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Nov 12, 2018 17:25
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axeil posted:Giving every state another Senator is probably something we could get everyone on board with, but it sadly wouldn't change much about the balance of power in the Senate. Probably more fair to have every state have a Senatorial election every 2 years though. It's probably a bad plan as you can assume that those senators will be distributed according to the national leanings of those states, eroding the opposite-state dem advantage (i.e. there are many more red-state democratic senators than blue-state republican senators) that keeps Democrats competitive.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:28
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just make the senate like the EC, it's not exactly proportional to population and you can still give Nebreska or w/e disproportionate representation, just not so that they literally have 40x the representation of California on a per capita basis
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Nov 12, 2018 17:37
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Typo posted:just make the senate like the EC, it's not exactly proportional to population and you can still give Nebreska or w/e disproportionate representation, just not so that they literally have 40x the representation of California on a per capita basis You can't do that without either (a) sequential amendments (i.e. amend the amending process, then pass an amendment with less than 100% support) or (b) support from every single state, which you will not get.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:41
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WA state has it pretty loving good. They send a detailed information packet the week before you get the mail in ballet. Automatic registration too, and they even updated when I moved with out sending them notification.
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Nov 12, 2018 17:48
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Typo posted:just make the senate like the EC, it's not exactly proportional to population and you can still give Nebreska or w/e disproportionate representation, just not so that they literally have 40x the representation of California on a per capita basis The problem is that the Constitution very clearly states that every state gets equal representation in the Senate. When California's 50 times the size of Wyoming there's no way to create a system that's justifiable because things are just too skewed. It's why the only realistic way to fix the Senate is to turn it into something like the House of Lords imo and even that takes a Constitutional amendment to strip out its powers around treaties and Presidential appointments. Of course, you could also go down the crazy path and have a President+House just refuse to acknowledge the Senate's authority. Not sure what would happen in that case.
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Nov 12, 2018 18:08
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axeil posted:The problem is that the Constitution very clearly states that every state gets equal representation in the Senate. When California's 50 times the size of Wyoming there's no way to create a system that's justifiable because things are just too skewed. The presidency isn’t much better as an institution and still promotes FPTPism. It would be better if the executive was effectively the Speaker of the House, ala prime ministers in other countries.
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Nov 12, 2018 18:09
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axeil posted:The problem is that the Constitution very clearly states that every state gets equal representation in the Senate. When California's 50 times the size of Wyoming there's no way to create a system that's justifiable because things are just too skewed. I think it's pretty obvious that if you want to fix the senate you need constitutional amendment or breaking down Texas and California into multiple states ofc the 17th amendment was -actually- passed so there's hope for the former the easiest fix to the senate atm is to abolish the legislative fillibuster, since it seems that America is having wave elections pretty much every other cycle now, that might mean both sides could hold the senate at a 50-51 majority at least once every 10 years or so, so you don't have a complete gridlock because Wyoming doesn't want what the rest of the country wants. Typo fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Nov 12, 2018 |
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Nov 12, 2018 18:10
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Lightning Knight posted:The presidency isn’t much better as an institution and still promotes FPTPism. what america actually wants is a parliamentary system with like 6 parties and coalition governments , that's why there's people screaming about wanting third parties and bipartisanship every election the funny thing is there's an english speaking country bordering the US that has pretty much all the things Americans are afraid of (parliaments, neutered senate, socialized healthcare etc) where things are going pretty well but Americans seem convinced that all those things are inherently unworkable Typo fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Nov 12, 2018 |
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Nov 12, 2018 18:12
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Typo posted:what america actually wants is a parliamentary system with like 6 parties and coalition governments , that's why there's people screaming about wanting third parties every election Galaxy brain idea: Canada annexes the US at our request because fixing the Constitution is too hard.
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Nov 12, 2018 18:16
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axeil posted:Galaxy brain idea: Canada annexes the US at our request because fixing the Constitution is too hard. I mean I’m down to vote for this guy:  
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Nov 12, 2018 18:20
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Step 1. Take control of Congress and the Presidency Step 2. Carve 30 microstates out of California with the consent of their democratic state legislature. Step 3. Pass a Constitutional Amendment fixing the Senate and Electoral College using your new microstates Step 4. Merge the microstates back into one big state so you save money on flags.
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Nov 12, 2018 18:30
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Mantis42 posted:Step 1. Take control of Congress and the Presidency This sounds like an excellent plan if statehood can be granted and retracted fast enough. It's also something Republicans could do though so the reforms passed would have to be strong enough to stop that.
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Nov 12, 2018 18:38
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Mantis42 posted:Step 1. Take control of Congress and the Presidency in the interim, approve an interstate compact between the 30 microstates that lets them maintain the unified california government
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Nov 12, 2018 18:39
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would it take a Constitutional amendment to change the term length of a Senator?
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Nov 12, 2018 20:37
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Is there any model legislation for state level electoral reform? I'm thinking of, like, a reformist version of ALEC.
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Nov 12, 2018 20:48
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Carlosologist posted:would it take a Constitutional amendment to change the term length of a Senator? Yes.
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Nov 12, 2018 20:51
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PerniciousKnid posted:Is there any model legislation for state level electoral reform? I'm thinking of, like, a reformist version of ALEC. Maine implemented ranked choice so there is that
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Nov 12, 2018 21:07
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Flowers For Algeria posted:Would you at least grant me, Squalid, that wresting electoral law from the clutches of the states would do much to cleanse American democracy? Is it at all feasible? The VRA seems like it merely had a regulatory effect on electoral law, but could a potential future new VRA hand over the electoral process to a federal authority? I have zero faith that a national voting system would improve on what we already have. I'm convinced that any group of appointees assembled to nationalize electoral processes would be overrun by the kind of assholes that have deliberately hosed up voting in so many other states, and would result in everyone having a lovely system.
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Nov 12, 2018 21:18
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I think you guys are being too pessimistic about the chances of reforming/abolishing/neutering the senate. It may seem impossible now, but it was unthinkable not long ago, no one was even having these discussions. Going from taking it as a given, to “well it would be too difficult to change” is an improvement! It’s helpful that senate is basically indefensible on it’s merits.
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Nov 12, 2018 22:24
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Given any approach to neutering the senate will require a constitutional amendment, I'm curious which 38 states would actually be on board with it. There are twelve states with 1 or 2 representatives already, so there's your stonewall right there since they'd be basically agreeing to lose almost all power. You also have 6 more states with 3 or 4 allocated representatives, all of which are in the south or midwest except New Mexico. You'd be hard-pressed to get any of them to vote in favor of it either. Try to do it in the legislature and you're at an even worse disadvantage because then you need 2/3 of that same non-representative senate to vote to kill itself. That'll be even harder, because not even the supportive states' senators will want to hop off the gravy train there regardless of what their population's state vote would say.quote:It may seem impossible now, but it was unthinkable not long ago, no one was even having these discussions. No, people have been having this conversation for a good fifty+ years and it always comes down to the same thing: Inability to actually garner the votes from the states impacted to abolish their own power structures. The senate is only indefensible to people for whom it doesn't provide legislative power (I agree that it's poo poo, but I'm talking from the perspective of those it empowers). States with enough power in the House to ram things through hate the senate, but someone from Wyoming who has no power to impact the House loves having out-sized impact in the senate. I love the idea of destroying the senate. I just don't think there's a way of doing it within our existing legal framework.
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Nov 12, 2018 22:42
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Sundae posted:I love the idea of destroying the senate. I just don't think there's a way of doing it within our existing legal framework. What problem do you see with Mantis42's suggestion of temporarily splitting California into umpteen states? Would that need Senate approval?
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Nov 12, 2018 23:34
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RagnarokZ posted:Why not use the Bundesrat as a model? The smaller states still get more delegates compared to their population, but the bigger state still have much more power than just two senators. Germany basically has the political system that mid-20th Century centrist American liberals thought ideal, but they failed to sustain such a system in their own country in this timeline and in 2018 the path to return to it looks as hopeless as ever I think the Dems will ultimately have to try to govern without a Senate majority for the indefinite future, relying on the Presidency, House, and state governments
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Nov 12, 2018 23:40
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