No, you don't have to. You can just put "1" against your only preferred candidate.

Well thank heavens. Can you imagine being the poor bastards that have to count and calculate that every time? I felt sorry enough for our poor, overworked computer algorithms in this State that have to labor over 10 or more FPTP races...all at once too!

Actually there's probably a reason we have computers counting our ballots...

Rather a surprise in your election. If you would like to hear a Yank make a crackpot prediction about your future elections, judging by what you and Sass. have said about the last parliament. With these fixed-term parliaments, in the future, the government will have a very high chance of changing hands at every election. Why? Because (again from what you have said about this one) with the "inertia" at the end of every five year term, when governments will start to run out of ideas, it'll piss off the public about whichever party is in government at the time. The public will therefore almost always dump them just to get some new blood and new ideas.

Just a crackpot theory. But one which I think may turn out to be true. But if I'm still here in five years....

When do you normally get the definitive results of who won an election? How long does it take? A Canadian buddy of mine said it takes only several hours for them to find out after a federal general election. They count em pretty quickly. But even as of a few hours ago, like 3 or 4 am (7 or 8 in the UK) BBC still only had 400 or so out of 650 seats counted. Here they have the last definitive results about a few hours after California's polls close (like enough precincts counted in the west coast states to call it, but the exit polls usually have already called it about a couple hours after CA's polls close).

Perhaps I'm being too optimistic, but something tells me our democracy is no more corrupt than some of the others. Oh I am sure a lot of western parliaments (or even congresses, mostly in the new world) are less corrupt. But what gets me is that we're attracted not to the root of the crime---the crime of power---but to the glittering amounts of money. Without attempting to engage in whataboutery, is it possible we're not the only western democracy whose will of the people is thwarted by private interests? And maybe it just looks that way because it is easier to identify, as the amounts of money involved are more staggering? (see some of what I said above about Spiro Agnew)

My point is not to deny we have a problem. My point here is to say that, in fixing the problem, we better recognize the actual crime at the root of it all. The crime is not the amounts of money being accepted by members of Congress to their campaign funds; it's the subversion of the will of the people by private interests. And, as I demonstrated by bringing up Spiro Agnew's example, it doesn't always have to involve mind-boggling amounts of money.

At least we can see it that way. You cannot fix a problem you cannot identify.

I got a little off topic on my last post, sorry. That was more properly assigned to the thread on the UK Conference Season discussion...

Another idea I had arose from the UK conference thread. Apparently, the UK was required to have a Supreme Court, these days, due to EU human rights policy. Since the executive and legislative branches are intertwined in that country, unlike here, where they are separated, there has to be a broad range of people "in" on the appointment, otherwise it's just the Prime Minister making the recommendation to the Queen, which would amount to dictatorial control over the supreme court of the UK, especially if a PM (or his/her party) has been in power for long.

To prevent Supreme Court justices from being ideological carbon copies of the president who appointed them, require this: 2/3 super majority for the Senate to approve a Supreme Court justice, rather than a simple majority as it stands now, for all supreme court appointments. That would ensure more "compromise" candidates get onto the highest bench in the Land, and not someone the president likes, especially when his party is the majority in the Senate.

Yet another brilliant idea: And by the way, I think more of us Yanks should put our input into this one, as I agree with Danivon when he said he would like to see what we think.

The electoral college: "mend it, don't end it."

There are a few ways this could go. Divide the electors into two tiers, since everybody gets 2 electors as if they were their senators, and the remainder like their representatives (varies per state's population). They always talk about those two extra electors causing the smallest states to be over-represented. This might lessen that, while still maintaining the winner take all, first past the post principles for the other electors.

102 electors = apportioned pro-rate based on the national popular vote
436 electors = apportioned the same as members of the House (plus an extra for DC)

There would still be 538 electors.

Question is, how would it have affected elections like 2000, or even 1968?

And, there are other ways it could be done. Of course, there would have to be a way to legally accommodate the fact that *states* are supposed to appoint the electors. But I'm sure that could be worked out somehow...

1) applying a supermajority for SC nominees could just make it more political, and leads to the question of how long could the process be deadlocked for.

Also, how often is the nominee actually a copy of the President?

2) another way to make it a bit more proportional would be to propagate the system used by Maine and Nebraska, to allocate by plurality in each House district and add two for having a plurality across the State. That keeps the State link, and also means it is similar to the House and Senate voting. But the smaller states will tend to have delegations that are single-party.

France Fukuyama: Political Order and Political Decay

“All political systems are prone to decay over time. The fact that modern liberal democratic institutions supported by a market economy have been consolidated is no guarantee that they will persist forever. Institutional rigidity and repatrimonialization, are present in contemporary democracies.
Indeed both of these processes are evident in the US today. Institutional rigidity takes the form of a series of rules that lead to outcomes that are commonly acknowledged to be bad and yet are regarded as essentially unreformable. These include the electoral college, the primary system, various Senate rules, the system of campaign finance and the entire legacy of a century of congressional mandates that collectively produce a sprawling government that nonetheless fails to perform many basic functions, and does others poorly. Many of the sources of these dysfunctions are by-products of the American system of checks and balances itself, which tends to produce poorly drafted legislation (beginning with budgets) and ill designed handoffs of authority between Congress and the executive branch. The deep American tradition of law moreover enables the courts to insert themselves into either policy making or routine administration in a manner that has few parallels in other developed democracies. It would be possible in theory to fix many of these problems, but most available solutions are not even on the table because they lie too far outside of American experience.
The second mechanism of political deay – repatrimonialization – is evident in the capture of alrge parts of the US government by well-organized interest groups. The old 19th century problem of clientelism (the patronage system) in which individual voters received benefits in return for votes, was largely eliminated as a result of reforms during the Progressive Era, But it has been replaced today by a system of legalized gift exchange, in which politicians respond to organized interest groups that are collectively unrepresentative of the public as a whole. Over the past two generations wealth has become highly concentrated in the US and economic power has been able to buy influence in politics. The American system of checks and balances creates numerous points of access for powerful interest groups that are much less prominent in a European parliamentary system. Although there is a widespread perception that the system as a whole is corrupt and increasingly illegitimate there is no straight forward reform agenda for fixing within the parameters of the existing system.

He's a lot less optimistic that the decay in thee American Political system can be stopped than in other democracies....

Some things should be easy to do..
Since the revolution was based upon "No taxation Without representation" it should be easy to provide the voters of Washington DC with representation in the House and the Senate. Because that would mean more Democrats, since DC is overwhelmingly democratic its been blocked for years.
It should be easy to ditch the electoral college and move to counting ballots - one man one vote - but that math doesn't work for too many, so the very much less democratic electoral college remains.
So does the lack of any representation for US citizens of American territories like Peurto Rico and Guam. if the electoral system was set aside perhaps these citizens would gain a franchise more easily?
Arcane senate rules don't stand the test of "democratic/undemocratic". But they survive...
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/ ... ty-chamber

No offense to Mr Fukayama, but I'll politely say that though he mentions facts he is certainly welcome to his opinions as well. Ditto to the New Yorker magazine.

The revolution was based on a lot more than slogans such as taxation without representation. While I do not wish to get involved in a debate over the causes of the American Revolution, it seems that Americans in the colonies (well, the ones who had rights in the first place, e.g., not slaves) were stripped of their rights as the British massively overreacted to the situation. Some acts can scare people into submission; other times, they can outrage them into taking drastic action despite the risks of doing so.

Now, as for the electoral college, funny that no one complains the Senate is undemocratic. The electoral college is at least partially democratic. Yes, the smallest states are overrepresented---but to a point, and after reviewing some of that data myself, I do not agree that they are overrepresented as much as people complain that they are. California and its most populous brethren do get the bulk of the electoral votes. It is fortunate that the seven or eight most populous states are not politically aligned with each other. In 1860, the most populous states were all in solidly-Republican areas, dividing the country across geographical lines. Today, it is different. Out of all the states with 20 or greater electoral votes, you have states like Texas which is red, California and New York which are blue, and several others which are 'swing" or "purple" states. There is a greater balance of political power in the electoral college than there was in 1860.

The risk of enforcing "one person, one vote" at the federal level is pitting the populated areas of the country against the less populated ones, a situation which would result from the abolition of the electoral college. I do not think even Americans living in more populous states, or even actual urban areas, want to see that situation come about. The first election without an electoral college would be a repeat of the election of 1860, likely with some similar results.

Actually it is rather interesting you should mention the 5 territories as well as DC. The inhabitants of Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa and the [U.S.] Virgin Islands are technically Americans. They carry American passports. However, they are not "states". Which means that, as Americans, they can be Democrats, Republicans (and other parties) and vote in presidential primaries and even elect delegations to the party conventions. But they cannot vote in the general election, because the general election is an election for 538 electors. Weird, but true. Perhaps one day the five organized territories will agitate for an amendment similar in effect to the 23rd amendment, giving them each 3 electoral votes (though Puerto Rico would likely deserve 4 or 5 due to its higher population).

Danivon: there are always complaints that, in the late 20th century and today, Supreme Court jurists tend less to interpret the law and more to interpret the ideology of the president who appointed them to the bench. 2/3 would remove the accusation that the president "rubber stamped" it because he is of the same party as the majority party in the Senate, which must approve the appointment; and force the president to reach across the aisle for help to get his appointee approved. You see?

First, there is a a myth that needs to be dispelled, and it will help understand the nature of the presidency and its electoral mechanism. A little off topic but it needs to be discussed. Today, even some college professors still talk (with incredible naivety for people who are supposed to be academics!) as if the Constitution of the United States emerged from the womb of the constitutional convention in its present form, fully formed, operating in the same manner as it does today, upon the exact same political philosophy the founding fathers intended. It does not. The constitution's authors did not believe in three, co-equal branches of government capable of checking each other equally, as is the popular myth. Their political philosophy of the early American government was quite different: they thought of compartmentalizing the different types of power in the federal government, but the legislative power, they believed, would be the most powerful and "energetic". It was actually closer to parliamentary supremacy that most parliamentary democracies have (only they would have called it legislative supremacy, carefully avoiding the word "parliament".) Separate the powers to keep the different types of power in different hands and, therefore, quite diffuse. The whole point of the presidency was to enforce laws passed by Congress, as well as command the army and navy and so forth. Notice, if you read the Constitution, that Article I is very long, whereas II and III are much much shorter, and even the multitude of the president's powers are coupled with congressional caveats. It was agreed, maybe even before the convention sat down to do business, that a federal executive body or executive officer (e.g., like a president of some sort) was lacking in the Articles of Confederation, someone with the rightful authority and power to be able to enforce whatever Congress passed. The reason for this is that, under the Articles of Confederation, there was no federal officer or body of officers with the rightful authority to enforce laws passed by Congress. It was up to the states to enforce and enact them. And, naturally, they often simply ignored them! Hence, the need for the presidency....he was never intended to be "equal" to congress. Remember also that the distinction between a head of state and a head of government is a more recent one.

In the earliest drafts of the constitution, he was elected by Congress. But this created problems. Even though he was supposed to enforce the laws Congress passed, he still had to have some independence from them to be the chief magistrate (chief administrator of the executive arm of the government) of the United States federal government. They actually wanted the presidency--and they all knew exactly who they wanted to fill it, too, even if that particular person had no interest in it himself--to be infinitely re-electable. A president elected by congress could not be so. So, like any good deliberative assembly, they assigned the problem to committee and moved on to something else. The electoral college scheme was received as a brilliant--though somewhat imperfect--way of solving the problems created by a president dependent on the minefield of political patronage which would abound within the new Congress. The veto, ability to pardon federal offenses, etc., were simply weapons given to the presidency to protect him and allow him to act as chief magistrate as well as legal executor and commander in chief of the armed forces. (it's only logical to give the office of CINC to a singular person, rather than a diffuse, politically-divided body, right? You won't win too many wars with the latter arrangement!)

The electoral college was the way out of the congressional minefield. And before you object by saying "but the president can veto bills from Congress!" remember Congress had and still has the power to veto the veto and make the bill law without presidential consent (2/3 supermajority in both chambers would have been much easier without political parties, something the authors of the constitution, again, did not envision would form at the federal level).

Also remember: the USA is a FEDERATION; not a unitary state. Devolution is not the same thing as federalism.

Can you be more specific about arcane Senate rules, Ricky? I mean, have you read their parliamentary manual before? Not trying to snub you or be a smart ass but I'm wondering what it is you find arcane about Senate rules.

And yes, i read the New Yorker article you posted above. But remember, that's more of a cultural than a political magazine, traditionally. And the article does not read as if its actual authors are experts in parliamentary procedure in both houses of Congress. But you may be right, to an extent. It's hard to tell, unless you somehow have access to the Senate parliamentary manual. (hell, for all I know, maybe Ricky does...)

You dismiss Fukayma as an opinion...
Well, I believe some opinions are more informed, more learned and more worthwhile then others...
But none are unassailable... So, which of his opinions I quoted do you disagree with and why?

Surely you reinforce the notion that the political institutions are rigid, inflexible and unable to change with your own discourse. I picked on several undemocratic facets of US political institutions that I think, presented within the framework of the American view of personal liberties and democracy should be no brainers. Why shouldn't American citizens all be represented? If the political institutions are so rigid that this simple problem can't be fixed, more complex matters haven't a chance..

for instance:
hacker

Which means that, as Americans, they can be Democrats, Republicans (and other parties) and vote in presidential primaries and even elect delegations to the party conventions. But they cannot vote in the general election, because the general election is an election for 538 electors. Weird, but true

How is this in any way a defensible situation? They are taxed. They are citizens (I think one or two are actually treated as "nationals but not citizens".
This is essentially the same kind of treatment that lead to revolution.
If this can't be changed, then just how rigid are your institutions?

Rigid inflexible institutions inevitably lead to decay.

hacker

The revolution was based on a lot more than slogans such as taxation without representation

But this was the essential, and key notion. As you reinforce here...

it seems that Americans in the colonies (well, the ones who had rights in the first place, e.g., not slaves) were stripped of their rights

English law did not allow taxes to be raised unilaterally. But in the colonies they were.
Aren't the citizens in DC and the territories in the same boat?

hacker

Now, as for the electoral college, funny that no one complains the Senate is undemocratic.

Pretty much everyone does, and its been a point of discussion on this board many times. Including with you.
Jame Fallows writes:

.

. . When the U.S. Senate was created, the most populous state, Virginia, had 10 times as many people as the least populous, Delaware. Giving them the same two votes in the Senate was part of the intricate compromise over regional, economic, and slave-state/free-state interests that went into the Constitution. Now the most populous state, California, has 69 times as many people as the least populous, Wyoming, yet they have the same two votes in the Senate. A similarly inflexible business organization would still have a major Whale Oil Division; a military unit would be mainly fusiliers and cavalry. No one would propose such a system in a constitution written today.” . . . “I don’t think that America’s political system is equal to the tasks before us,” Dick Lamm, a former three-term governor of Colorado, told me in Denver. “It is interesting that in 1900 there were very few democracies and now there are a lot, but they’re nearly all parliamentary democracies. I’m not sure we picked the right form.

As for arcane rules. The super majority and the filibuster for one. There are dozens of procedural rules, including holding up POTUS nominations, and budget practices like inserting budgetary items as a privilege..

Any effective form of government has to be responsive to its citizenry. When an institution becomes rigid and inflexible it cannot. My purpose in picking on several "easily" changeable areas is to demonstrate that if they can't be changed.... then what can? (Your optimism in this topic, is what I challenge. Your ideas for change are often appealing.)

You dismiss Fukayma as an opinion...
Well, I believe some opinions are more informed, more learned and more worthwhile then others...
But none are unassailable... So, which of his opinions I quoted do you disagree with and why?

No I don't dismiss him as nothing more than an "opinion". Read my reply carefully. Also:

Surely you reinforce the notion that the political institutions are rigid, inflexible and unable to change with your own discourse.

No, I do not. And I did not. Also:

How is this in any way a defensible situation? They are taxed. They are citizens (I think one or two are actually treated as "nationals but not citizens".
This is essentially the same kind of treatment that lead to revolution.
If this can't be changed, then just how rigid are your institutions?

Did you see me in any way defend it? I explained it, I am not defending it. Explaining something does not automatically mean you agree with it. In fact, I agree it's kind of a crock.

With that said, I have a favor to ask: can you please read what I say a little more carefully before making your replies? (A peculiar reversal of the situation; it's typically Ricky accusing Hacker of not having reading skills.) Now before a personality debate ensues, I'll hit your reply, point by point, cross my heart, if you can assure me of that, first.

Awaiting your approval, I'll at least tackle some of the questions you asked me, that you seem to have at least partially understood.

Surely you reinforce the notion that the political institutions are rigid, inflexible and unable to change with your own discourse.

No I do not. In fact, if they were so unable to change, how could we have a constitutional convention that completely bypasses Congressional approval? (see Art. V)

Aren't the citizens in DC and the territories in the same boat?

No, they're not. Again, read up a little more on the American Revolution. Again the British overreacted by stripping the colonists of what they felt were their rights as natural born Britons. When Parliament & the King took away these rights in response, it stirred up a hornet's nest. It was, again, about a lot more than taxation.

Dick Lamm is also entitled to his opinions, which I find pretty daft. Wyoming gets the same 2 votes in the Senate as California--fact. But then again, Colorado has a population smaller than Maryland's and has one less congressman than we do. He should be supporting the Senate instead of lambasting it. Colorado also gets the same two votes as California, with a mere fraction of its population. What the hell is he complaining about, having been governor of Colorado? He says we should have picked the parliamentary form--opinion. I may also remind Mr Lamm that Australia is a parliamentary democracy but its federal system resembles that of the United States--their upper house, the Senate, has an equal number of senators for each of the six states, 12 of them, elected half at a time (just as the US Senate is elected 1/3 of its membership at a time). In fact, it was established this way in the very year he mentions: 1900. There are other parliamentary democracies which employ that sort of strong federalism (strong federalism not meaning in this case a powerful centralized government, but the opposite, or at least a "balance of power" between the two levels of government, regional and national/federal). Canada has such strong federalism, it has a weaker central government than the US, it simply achieves it in a different manner than the US does it. And in 1787, modern parliamentary democracy, as it existed in 1900 or today, did not yet exist. What an idiot. [Gov. Lamm, not you.]

As for arcane rules. The super majority and the filibuster for one. There are dozens of procedural rules, including holding up POTUS nominations, and budget practices like inserting budgetary items as a privilege..

What supermajority rules? Can you be more specific, as I asked, on which rules/procedures in the U.S. Senate require a supermajority? Your quote did not cover that. Oh, and you cannot filibuster POTUS nominations anymore. Don't you remember the infamous nuclear option?

Any effective form of government has to be responsive to its citizenry. When an institution becomes rigid and inflexible it cannot. My purpose in picking on several "easily" changeable areas is to demonstrate that if they can't be changed.... then what can? (Your optimism in this topic, is what I challenge. Your ideas for change are often appealing.)

Well thanks, it's not often I get a compliment from you. But yes, they can be changed. State governments have done so, and again, there will be a national convention, provided a few more states apply for it. The mechanism for the changes is there, Ricky. It can totally bypass the moribund Congress you often talk about, and the amendments it proposes do NOT require congressional approval. The authors of the constitution of 1787 included this mechanism to bypass Congress for this very reason. Over time, flaws in the constitution have been fixed, and sometimes, pretty quickly. (Like in 1800, an amendment was proposed soon after the great fiasco when Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in the electoral college and the House took 36 ballots to decide the issue. Later that year, Congress proposed the amendment fixing it. It was ratified within a few years.)

But should the constitution be too easy to change? A quick glance at the constitution of Maryland, for example, or any state for that matter, will show you what happens when it's too easy to repair. The result is just as disastrous.

Sorry, I could not find the pdf version I had found before but here it is in hyperlink (or whatever it's called) form. Take note: it is 108pp long: http://msa.maryland.gov/msa/mdmanual/43const/html/const.html

JimHackerMP wrote:Danivon: there are always complaints that, in the late 20th century and today, Supreme Court jurists tend less to interpret the law and more to interpret the ideology of the president who appointed them to the bench. 2/3 would remove the accusation that the president "rubber stamped" it because he is of the same party as the majority party in the Senate, which must approve the appointment; and force the president to reach across the aisle for help to get his appointee approved. You see?

I see what your proposed solution is. I was asking what the scale of the problem really is. "complaints" are normal in a divided partisan political culture.

But which of today's justices are just ideological copies of the President who nominated them?

Well, that's the thing, Danivon: both sides seem to bitch that the other side's nominees are ideological stooges of the president who nominated them. Scalia gets that accusation by the Democrats, Sodomayer by the Republicans...and so on. I hear the complaint too frequently to assume its a fluke or someone else's misunderstanding.

Here is the thing: remember I said the founding fathers did not anticipate federal-level political parties? It's fine to give the president the authority to make the appointment and the Senate the requisite authority to approve it---when the Senate is drawn into dozens of competing, temporary, shifting little factions that change from one issue to another. But divide them into Federalists and Republicans, and you cannot help but turn a supreme court justice's nomination hearings into a party pep rally. I would imagine that when it's another kind of nomination, something far less controversial to the public (or the part of the public who is more politically aware than the average voter who mostly concentrates on which person to pick for congressman or mayor, but not that higher awareness of things like political philosophy or jurisprudence), you don't get that much attention. Like if it's the new Chairman of the FCC who's being confirmed.

But hearings to fill the highest bench in the land? that's a little more rare, since there's nine of them, they serve for life, so most presidents get to pick one new justice, two if they're lucky, even if they're in for the full eight years. It gets a little bit more noticed. The left complains of carbon copies of Bush I, Bush II and Reagan; the right, of "judicial activism" since a lot of recent, high-profile decisions have been left-leaning and, I'll admit, despite being gay, that the Supreme Court's role isn't actually to legislate.

On the other hand, to give you an example, I wrote Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, the former District 8 congressman in Maryland quite a while ago, about his opinion on the Defense of Marriage Act. He stated, I kid you not, that Lawrence v. Texas was--quote--"the greatest case of judicial overreach since Roe v. Wade." (Lawrence v. Texas was the case in which the S.C. overturned TX's law against sodomy.) See? I'm willing to bet some of the complaining is, of course, exaggerrated, but nonetheless, it will be years before we see another Oliver Wendell Holmes or John Marshall or the like; justices who are remembered as "great jurists" not just "a Reagan appointee who stood for...." etc.

Ok admittedly I cannot tell you more than those two specifically, but the complaints seem to abound in the last few appointments to the SC.