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» Ship of Fools   »   » Oblivion   » How to make elections (and Congress) in the US more democratic?

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Source: (consider it) Thread: How to make elections (and Congress) in the US more democratic?
stonespring
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This is taking off of the discussion of filibuster reform in the US Senate. I was wondering if anyone with knowledge of US politics had an all-encompassing idea of how to make legislatures (especially the US congress) more representative of and accountable to the populations they represent, elected by a majority instead of vocal party bases, and likely to get anything done.

Here is my suggestion. What are yours?

1. Make the filibuster consist of only a Senator getting up and speaking until giving up for any and all votes - no alternatives. That way, once the die hards have had their say, only a majority vote will be needed to get anything done. Any other Senate procedural rules that prevent this will be eliminated.

2. Allow a petition of the majority of House or Senate members to bring a bill to the floor for a vote regardless of the will of the House Speaker or Senate majority leader (this provision may already exist in the rules of either chamber, but it is almost never used and viewed as a kind of nuclear option. It should be used as often as there is a bill that the majority party leader opposes but the majority of a house of Congress supports.)

3. Some huge consequences for Congress if they cannot pass a budget at the beginning of each year. Snap elections don't really work in this country (and only the extreme party base would vote in them anyway), so either all the pay of congress members should be frozen or all of them will be unable to run for reelection. Any other suggestions for accomplishing this?

4. Get rid of the debt ceiling. The annual increase (or decrease) in the national debt will be voted on by Congress in the passing of a budget this year. Voting to raise or not raise the debt ceiliing is absurd because it is a vote on whether to pay the debt that government has already incurred due to laws Congress has passed.

5. If fiscal conservatives demand it, a Constitutional Amendment limiting the US governemnt deficit to 3% of GDP. A majority in Congress may vote to increase this limit for a year or series of years, but each percentage point increase over 3% in one year must be met by a percentage point under 3% in a year no later than 10 years from the current year. For example, you can have a 4% deficit one year, a 2% deficit the next year, and 3% deficits going onward. This is not meant to make things cancel out perfectly mathematically, but rather to limit the deficit spending power of congress in general. A 60% majority in both houses of Congress can declare a fiscal emegency and waive the 3% rule for a set number of years (as in a war).

6. A constitutional amendment to rid of the Electoral college for US president already. To preserve the importance given to every state regardless of size, let a state retain its electoral votes based on its number or representatives and senators in Congress, but let those electoral votes be divided (including into fractions of a vote) by the breakup of the votes in each State.

7. Change presidential party primaries so that a different state (always a small one) gets to have the first one each year, followed by a medium one, followed by a large one, and so on cycling through different sizes of states but assigning the order randomly and finishing all primaries by May of the election year. No more caucuses, only primaries.

8. A constitutional amendment to give Washington DC voting representation in the House and 2 Senators each as if they were states, whether or not it becomes a state. In the same amendment, allow 2 Senators and a number of congresspersons proportional to the population to be elected at large from all US citizens in other US non-state territories (ie Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa), and abroad in other countries who do case absentee ballots as residents of one of the States.

9. Replace the first-past-the-post voting system for all national and state offices with either:

-A two-round election (ie, with one runoff if no one gets a majority in the first round) as with the Chamber of Deputies and President in France. This is the most likely to happen.

-Instant Runoff/Alternate Vote where candidates are ranked in order of preference, as with the House of Representatives in Australia, but with no above-the-line voting and with people able to rank only the top 3 or so candidates they want and leave the rest blank if they wish.

-Single Transferrable Vote, as with the Dail in Ireland. (Like Instant Runoff, but with multiple-member consituencies) - least likely to happen.

10. A constitutional amendment that limits any individual or corporation's donation to any political candidate, party committee or association, PAC, SUPERPAC, or political "social welfare" organization (you know who you are) to 20% of the median income and limiting any individual or corporation's overall political donations to all candidates, parties, committees, etc., to 50% of the median income. All donations over 5% of the median income must be made public.

11. (This one is probably going to be the least likely among unlikely things.) A constitutional amendment enacting a one-term limit for all federal and state offices. Extend the term of members of the House of Representatives to 4 years but have them only be elected in the midterm elections between presidential elections so as to check presidential power. Keep the six year terms for the Senate with a third elected every 3 years and the 4 year terms for president.

12. Require all politicians to make public every meeting they have with employees of lobbying firms/political interest groups and senior officers of major corporations and nonprofits, even when on vacation. If they are close personal friends or neighbors, this must also be made public and can be an explanation for not exlpaining every time you see each other at Church, etc.

13. A constitutional amendment requiring all elections for national or state office and all statewide referenda to be on election day in November, which would now be a national holiday. If runoff voting is implemented, the first round of all elections must be at the same time (also a national holiday) and the second, final round must be on Election Day in November. This way the largest number of people possible are likely to know that an election is happening and to turn out to vote.

Ok, so all of these things impossible and some of them might seem horrible ideas to you. But things have not been working politically in this country for a long time and even when they were there were some pretty undemocratic properies of our political system. Feel free to suggest your own list of reforms.

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stonespring
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Oh, and I forgot to add:

13 (lucky number). If presenting a Valid ID is to be required anywhere when a person votes, it is the government's responsibility to provide free Valid ID to all citizens. Government employees must find, contact, and if necessary (as with the sick, the elderly, and those with limited means of transportation) travel to every citizen of voting age within the 50 States to register them for and send them this idenitfication. If this is too costly, then voter ID laws that strictly limit the forms of acceptable ID would be unconstitutional.

14. No citizen of voting age who is not legally insane (and there should be very strict limits to what constitutes legal insanity for voting purposes) can be deprived of her or his right to vote, regardless of what crimes s/he has committed or whether or not s/he is in prison.

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Crœsos
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Some interesting ideas, but I was struck by the fact that some of your suggestions (numbers 3, 5, and 11) would actually make the U.S. government less democratic. There may be reasons why those suggestions would be improvements in the functionality of government over the current system, but they're designed to restrict, rather than expand, the power of the people to self-govern.

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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stonespring
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Totally forgot this too:

15. Constitutional amendment requiring all legislative district boundaries to be drawn by a nonpartisan commission in each state, with all such boundaries being demonstrably based on geographical boundaries, city boundaries, and/or ethnic communities, etc., and all districts still being equal in population.

****

Croesus: I know that some of these things (the term limits in particular) are anti-democratic in that they limit the choices people can make. 3 and 5, if they are enacted by the people's representatives, would reflect the will of the people in requiring governance from their representatives. Most parliamentary democracies have a mandatory fall of the government, dissolution of parliament and/or snap election if a budget cannot be passed. The budget deficit restriction is something that in the US might be necessary to add to a reform agenda in order to get anything passed. So yes, it's a bit a political maneuvering on my part, but it is also a better solution than the current cycle of budget crisis after budget crisis.

As for the term limits, it is hard to argue that they are not anti-democratic. I guess I am arguing for republican democracy in this instance rather than plebiscite democracy. By this I mean that I believe that even in a perfect political system there will be a discrepancy between what best reflects the will of a poltician's constitiuents, a poltician's own will, and what is most likely to get a politician re-elected. I think that term limits remove the third consideration, but they allow for the possibility that the second might dominate over the first. I guess recall elections, if there is a huge number of valid petition signatures, say 20% of voting-eligible constituents, on Election Day midway through a legislator's term, might be one way of addressing that. I think the danger of a politician voting and acting just to be reelected (ie, to win over the interest groups that influence voters or to make symbolic gestures that can be pointed to in a reelection campaign) is a greater threat to democracy than that of un-reelectable politicians entering office and beginning to disregard the people's will altogether. I think a poltician has a job: to translate the will of the people into working legislation, guided by his/her own conscience (which should have aligned with the party platform the candidate ran on in the first place). This is more complicated than keeping opinion polls high or keeping campaign contributions coming in. Actually, the amount of time spent fundraising and managing poll numbers takes a huge amount of time out of legislating and governing. Term limits are very controversial in terms of how democratic or anti-democratic they are and that is why they are the thing I am most unsure about.

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Crœsos
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How exactly do you distinguish between "a politician voting and acting just to be reelected" and "translat[ing] the will of the people into working legislation"? Is it 'enacting the will of the people' when you do it but 'shameless pandering' when your opponent does? Term limits have always seemed to indicate an inherent distrust of the electorate, along the lines of "stop us before we vote again!"

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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Og, King of Bashan

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A few comments on a few of your points.

4. I agree that this should be done away with. It is nothing more than a way for people to score talking points, and causes a lot more trouble than it fixes.

5. I am pretty weary of any attempt to set fixed budget percentages in a constitution. I think this unnecessarily takes power away from the legislature or congress. I voted against a measure in my state this year solely because it set a floor for what percent of revenue must be spent on one program. I think a little flexibility is a good thing.

11. I think a lot of the trouble in the Senate today can be traced to first term senators. I think that building relationships across the aisle is key to making the body work.

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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy

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HCH
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I have my own pet notion, and it does not require a constitutional amendment: Change the rules of the House and/or the Senate to require that anything on which there is a vote has a single clearly-stated purpose: no omnibus bills, no irrelevant amendments or riders or attachments.

As for constitutional amendments, I rather like the idea of the "Plain English" amendment.

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Clint Boggis
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quote:
7. Change presidential party primaries so that a different state (always a small one) gets to have the first one each year, followed by a medium one, followed by a large one, and so on cycling through different sizes of states but assigning the order randomly and finishing all primaries by May of the election year. No more caucuses, only primaries.

Why have primaries on different days? Maybe I've missed something but it seems like an idea from the days when a big country was constrained by the speed of horse-drawn wagons. Why not have a national campaign(s) with anyone who wants to join in, all vote together and see who comes out on top for each party? At present it's like a travelling circus with party workers getting a year's work every election cycle so candidates have to raise huge amounts of money for 50 circuses instead of concentrating on their policies.

Introduce Party (or major candidate) Political Broadcasts and stop all the who-can-spend-the-most-TV-money stupidity.

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Wilfried
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Overturn Citizens United.

[ 26. November 2013, 17:48: Message edited by: Wilfried ]

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Crœsos
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quote:
Originally posted by Clint Boggis:
quote:
7. Change presidential party primaries so that a different state (always a small one) gets to have the first one each year, followed by a medium one, followed by a large one, and so on cycling through different sizes of states but assigning the order randomly and finishing all primaries by May of the election year. No more caucuses, only primaries.
Why have primaries on different days? Maybe I've missed something but it seems like an idea from the days when a big country was constrained by the speed of horse-drawn wagons.
Actually the current American system of primaries and caucuses is mostly a post-World-War-II development, developed as a rejection of major parties picking their candidates in "smoke filled rooms" (national party conventions that were composed of local party faithful).

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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Crœsos
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"Fun" Fact: Since the Iowa caucus became the first contest in American presidential elections in 1972, farm subsidies have never been cut.

When every Senator sees a future president looking back at him (or her) out of the mirror, it's good to go first.

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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stonespring
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HCH: Yes! I forgot to include that. I am not sure though how to allow for amendments that might improve a flawed bill or make a necessary bill passable - while still not allowing amendments that have nothing to do with the bill at hand. Especially with appropriations bills, how do you define what is related to a bill and what isn't? Anyway, I think this is a necessary reform.

Creosos: I repeat that term limits are the most expendable part of my list precisely because of the issues you raise. Here is a better explanation of my reasoning. Reelection campaigns require politicians and their staff to pay for and spend time and money monitoring and interpreting many more polls, focus groups, etc. than they would otherwise. Polls and focus groups are not inherently bad things and will exist in any democracy, but when they are constant they have a way of framing debate, exhausting voters, and promoting a cycle of news coverage that ignores underlying issues and focuses only on the shouting of opinions and numbers without context. I think that being a lame duck, while perhaps still being accountable to a recall election or to one's party caucus in some way, allows politicians to work on crafting legislation and getting it passed. The surest way to get reelected it seems, is to do nothing but cast protest votes on the side of a bill that is likely to fail, token votes on bills that are bound to pass, and vote for lots of meaningless resolutions and call for lots of congressional hearings that get you attention but do not lead to any meaningful legislation or government action. If all elected officials were lame ducks, the party, not the official, would suffer if they did not do what they said they would do when running for office. This way the party would look for people who not only were likely to get elected but were also likely to keep their promises (ie, stick to the party platform). If they break from the party platform, their colleagues could then cease to sponsor their bills and also fund and support a midterm recall campaign against them. Term limits are an imperfect solution to the problems of incumbency and I agree that sometimes long-time officeholders are the wisest and most sensible, and it seems unfair for the people to not be able to reelect them. So if most people don't like it, ditch the idea. I still think something has to be done about the amount of time politicians spend fundraising, polling, and campaigning rather than legislating and/or governing. Any other ideas?

Clint Boggis: A national primary does seem fairer, simpler, and cheaper in many ways. However, small states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina hold so dearly onto the power they have gained from having early primaries/caucuses that any reform of the system will probably have to keep the part where small states are asked their opinion first when it comes to party nominations. If it were a different small state every election, at least it would be fairer and would prevent the alternative where candidates only campaign in large population centers. I guess you could have only a few early primaries, with at least one small state followed by a medium state then a large state and then have a Super-Duper Tuesday when all other primaries happen so it is all over by March or so.

Og, King of Bashan: As a Liberal I agree that sometimes budget deficits are necessary or even helpful in stimulating the economy. I think that they were more effective and less dangerous though, before limits on the movement of capital were lifted and large amounts of the national debt began to be held outside the country. As long as the debt is largely held domestically (which most of it still is, but less than before), government debt can be met with private investment. But large trade deficits mean lots of US national debt held overseas, which is more destabilizing to the economy and puts us more at risk of being victim of volatility in the currency and sovereign bond markets. We are no where near as vulnerable as a small Eurozone country without the ability to print its own currency, or as a developing country with almost all its sovereign debt in a currency other than its own, but we are still more vulnerable than before. I think that a globalized economy requires nations to be more careful about their debt and also requires some kind of global government with sovereign power (including the power to print currency, sell bonds, and collect taxes) to manage financial crises, among other things. That will be very hard to accomplish and is a topic for another thread. I am not an economist so forgive me for my probably error-laden explanation!

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stonespring
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quote:
Originally posted by Wilfried:
Overturn Citizens United.

One of the things on my list does that by capping the amount individuals and corporations can contribute to a relatively small level - although maybe if someone did the math it might allow smaller donors to give a bit more than they do now. I guess you could just let individuals contribute and not allow corporations or unions to conribute at all (which would require a constitutional amendment given the way the courts have gone in this country). I was trying to get things passed [Smile] and so allowed for corporate personhood for the people (including the ACLU even) who support it but not allowing corporations more rights than real people have (which they currently do under current federal campaign finance law).
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Crœsos
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quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
Reelection campaigns require politicians and their staff to pay for and spend time and money monitoring and interpreting many more polls, focus groups, etc. than they would otherwise. Polls and focus groups are not inherently bad things and will exist in any democracy, but when they are constant they have a way of framing debate, exhausting voters, and promoting a cycle of news coverage that ignores underlying issues and focuses only on the shouting of opinions and numbers without context. I think that being a lame duck, while perhaps still being accountable to a recall election or to one's party caucus in some way, allows politicians to work on crafting legislation and getting it passed.

I think this solution fails on its own terms. Unlike the Presidency, which is usually supposed to be followed by either retirement or being an unofficial goodwill ambassador, members of legislative bodies often look for other elected posts to fill. So I'm not sure anything is really improved by having a Congressman running for election to the Senate during his term in the House instead of running for re-election to the House of Representatives. I suppose you could stipulate that no term in the legislature could be followed by any elected government post at the federal level, but I'm not sure that does anything other than chop up the terms of service.

At any rate, whatever the merits of term limits might be, they're certainly not "democratic", so it fails the question asked by the thread title.

quote:
Originally posted by stonespring:
As a Liberal I agree that sometimes budget deficits are necessary or even helpful in stimulating the economy.

Part of the problem with limiting deficits to a certain percentage of GDP is that number also has a denominator. So during a recession, for example, contracting GDP will increase government spending as a percentage of GDP even if government spending in dollars has remained constant. And recessions are times when government services (unemployment insurance, nutritional assistance, etc.) are typically more in demand. Your proposal would require cuts to those programs in recessions just to maintain a constant spending-to-GDP ratio.

To take the obvious recent example, if we start in 2008, when the financial system melted down, the U.S. federal deficit shot up quite dramatically as a percentage of GDP, despite federal spending being relatively flat. The main factors driving this were that GDP was contracting as were federal tax revenues (unemployed people typically don't pay income tax).

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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the giant cheeseburger
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I agree that Bills should be allowed to be introduced by members without approval of the leadership. I think the best way this could work would be for the long title of the Bill to be read, and if seconded by a minimum of five other members then the member proposing would speak in support of the bill ahead of an immediate vote requiring at least a third of the full membership to support it before continued debate would be allowed. You get a balance of allowing all Bills to be read on the floor and entered into the record along with a process for quickly filtering out frivolous proposals.

Introducing a daily Question Time in the House of Representatives could have merit too, with the President and Cabinet required to either attend to answer questions in person or have a proxy accept the questions of the members for a written answer or a spoken answer on the floor of the House to be given within five sitting days.

----------------

I also agree with those who have said arbitrary term limits are not necessarily a good thing for democracy, if the people want a brilliant incumbent to stay on they should not be arbitrarily forced to accept the next-best alternative.

A better system in my opinion would be to allow the people to define the term limits. If the term of office for a Representative was extended to four years, there would be a plebiscite one year before expiry asking the people whether that person should have a term limit placed on them, barring them from contesting the next election for the same office. It could work for Senators and Presidents as well.

A minimum of one year "cooling off" could also be introduced between a person ending their previous employment with a state/federal government (whether in an appointed or elected position) and becoming eligible for election to a different federal position. This would have the effect of eliminating the regular instances of incumbent House/Senate members neglecting the responsibilities of their offices while focused on their election campaign for the Senate/Presidency.

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If I give a homeopathy advocate a really huge punch in the face, can the injury be cured by giving them another really small punch in the face?

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Dave W.
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quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
A better system in my opinion would be to allow the people to define the term limits. If the term of office for a Representative was extended to four years, there would be a plebiscite one year before expiry asking the people whether that person should have a term limit placed on them, barring them from contesting the next election for the same office. It could work for Senators and Presidents as well.

This seems bizarre and pointless. We already have mechanisms for imposing discretionary term limits for individual elected officials - they're called "elections."
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Crœsos
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quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
A minimum of one year "cooling off" could also be introduced between a person ending their previous employment with a state/federal government (whether in an appointed or elected position) and becoming eligible for election to a different federal position. This would have the effect of eliminating the regular instances of incumbent House/Senate members neglecting the responsibilities of their offices while focused on their election campaign for the Senate/Presidency.

And have the unintended (but easily foreseen) consequence of increasing the perverse incentives involved in "revolving door" lobbying and consultantships.

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Humani nil a me alienum puto

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stonespring
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The budget deficit cap and term limit things are not my biggest priorities anyway - so I'm not going to argue for them anymore. I acknowledge all that has been said about their drawbacks.

The biggest priority, in my opinion, is making sure that a comprehensive budget passes Congress each year rather than the current pattern of pay-as-you-go appropriations bills and no large-scale fiscal planning except when the die-hard fiscal conservatives and anti-spending types sit on their hands and refuse to do anything until there are deficit cuts. Although the simplest answer might be to vote out all the fiscal conservatives and antigovernment crazies [Smile] , even that would leave us with a Congress that it is very hard to get a budget through.

The next priority is making sure that if there is majority support in either house for a bill, that it comes to a vote.

The third would be making sure that Congress represents the nation as a whole and not just the party bases, which are a minority.

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