Market politics

[bhtooefr]

Realistically, here's how I'd like to see this work for the House of Representatives (I'm not sure how to deal with the Senate (IIRC @neroden advocated straight-up abolishing it, and I'm sympathetic to that)):

1. Each party in each state has a primary in which the top nine candidates are selected for the state party list, in descending order of their vote share. (If there's fewer than nine candidates, so be it.)
2. The general election for the House selects parties, not candidates.
3. Seats are proportionally allocated to each party on a national basis
4. Each party takes the percentage of votes that their party got in each state, and sorts the states in descending order of vote share. Then, they take the top candidate from each state's list in order (so if a party has at least 50 seats, all states will have representation from that party), then the second candidate from each state's list in order, so on, so on, until all of their allocated seats are filled.

This way, all states are all but guaranteed representation (there are ways that a state could lose all representation, but it would require nine or more parties, with each party doing better in approximately 49 other states - and a fallback could be done in the seat allocation process to ensure that each state has at least one seat), but the people vote for the parties they want.

Now, for the Presidency... you could do it two ways. You could do some sort of alternate election method - approval (easy to understand, harder to see obvious fraud, still encourages some strategic voting against your interests), instant runoff (slightly harder to understand, easy to see obvious fraud, reduced strategic voting but still some), actual runoff (similar results to instant runoff if done right, just far more expensive, so it's usually not done right), or some Condorcet method of tallying ranked choice ballots (quite hard to understand, and not being able to understand how votes are counted does present issues with the consent of the governed). Or, you could move to a more Westminster-like system, where a Prime Minister is elected from the House. Each has its pros and cons, I suspect the latter is far, far more controversial, though.

 

[bkp_duke]

There do not seem to be many American politicians today of the type we used to call statesmen. Now they are largely panderers to their bases. For that situation, it appears we can thank the modern primary voting system.

This comment applies to Democrats as well. Anyone that doesn't believe that is wearing blinders.

 

[JRP3]

This comment applies to Democrats as well. Anyone that doesn't believe that is wearing blinders.

What exactly is the Democrat base? The centrists, the neocons, or the progressives who are trying to change things? They are all Democrats.

 

[bkp_duke]

Realistically, here's how I'd like to see this work for the House of Representatives (I'm not sure how to deal with the Senate (IIRC @neroden advocated straight-up abolishing it, and I'm sympathetic to that)):

1. Each party in each state has a primary in which the top nine candidates are selected for the state party list, in descending order of their vote share. (If there's fewer than nine candidates, so be it.)
2. The general election for the House selects parties, not candidates.
3. Seats are proportionally allocated to each party on a national basis
4. Each party takes the percentage of votes that their party got in each state, and sorts the states in descending order of vote share. Then, they take the top candidate from each state's list in order (so if a party has at least 50 seats, all states will have representation from that party), then the second candidate from each state's list in order, so on, so on, until all of their allocated seats are filled.

This way, all states are all but guaranteed representation (there are ways that a state could lose all representation, but it would require nine or more parties, with each party doing better in approximately 49 other states - and a fallback could be done in the seat allocation process to ensure that each state has at least one seat), but the people vote for the parties they want.

Now, for the Presidency... you could do it two ways. You could do some sort of alternate election method - approval (easy to understand, harder to see obvious fraud, still encourages some strategic voting against your interests), instant runoff (slightly harder to understand, easy to see obvious fraud, reduced strategic voting but still some), actual runoff (similar results to instant runoff if done right, just far more expensive, so it's usually not done right), or some Condorcet method of tallying ranked choice ballots (quite hard to understand, and not being able to understand how votes are counted does present issues with the consent of the governed). Or, you could move to a more Westminster-like system, where a Prime Minister is elected from the House. Each has its pros and cons, I suspect the latter is far, far more controversial, though.

Honestly, I think all of these ideas are horrible. You are adding in so many additional layers. Just look at how much fraud there is at each layer now, and you want to layer more of that on?

Term limits for both the House and Senate would fix the bulk of the problems we have (career politicians) without overly complication the process.

 

[bkp_duke]

What exactly is the Democrat base? The centrists, the neocons, or the progressives who are trying to change things? They are all Democrats.

Pick any of the above you list, then look at the array of candidates. Each candidate is trying to pander to a subset of that base.

 

[JRP3]

Actually they are trying to reach beyond the subset if they want to get the nomination, let alone elected. Subsets of a base aren't a majority.

 

[bkp_duke]

Actually they are trying to reach beyond the subset if they want to get the nomination, let alone elected. Subsets of a base aren't a majority.

A base is a base, even if it isn't the majority.

 

[JRP3]

And since you can't win with just the base the suggestion that the Dems are pandering to their base makes no sense. They have to attract from outside of their base to win. Unless there is another upset from the electoral college and we get another minority elected president.

 

[ggr]

The rules in California changed recently; no-one can be elected in the primary. The reason for this is simple. There is always relatively little turnout for the primary. So the top two vote-getters in the primary (even if they're from the same party) go to run off in the general election. If there's only one candidate they get to run unopposed, so they don't appear in the primary, but they still have to get a majority of the votes cast in the general. If there are exactly two candidates, they don't appear in the primary and just go straight to the general. (At least that's my current understanding, I'm new to this, could be wrong.)

 

[Paracelsus]

Even in Michigan.....the home of ICE's, we are getting closer and closer to a Green New Deal all the time.
"KALAMAZOO, MI — The city of Kalamazoo has approved a resolution to declare a climate emergency, supporting the development of a city climate action plan with aggressive and measurable goals."
City of Kalamazoo declares ‘climate emergency’

 

[bkp_duke]

The rules in California changed recently; no-one can be elected in the primary. The reason for this is simple. There is always relatively little turnout for the primary. So the top two vote-getters in the primary (even if they're from the same party) go to run off in the general election. If there's only one candidate they get to run unopposed, so they don't appear in the primary, but they still have to get a majority of the votes cast in the general. If there are exactly two candidates, they don't appear in the primary and just go straight to the general. (At least that's my current understanding, I'm new to this, could be wrong.)

Yeah, and it is the reason we have a supermajority of dems in the CA legislature now. This system is worse than gerymandering.

 

[Norbert]

Realistically, here's how I'd like to see this work for the House of Representatives (I'm not sure how to deal with the Senate (IIRC @neroden advocated straight-up abolishing it, and I'm sympathetic to that)):

1. Each party in each state has a primary in which the top nine candidates are selected for the state party list, in descending order of their vote share. (If there's fewer than nine candidates, so be it.)
2. The general election for the House selects parties, not candidates.
3. Seats are proportionally allocated to each party on a national basis
4. Each party takes the percentage of votes that their party got in each state, and sorts the states in descending order of vote share. Then, they take the top candidate from each state's list in order (so if a party has at least 50 seats, all states will have representation from that party), then the second candidate from each state's list in order, so on, so on, until all of their allocated seats are filled.

This way, all states are all but guaranteed representation (there are ways that a state could lose all representation, but it would require nine or more parties, with each party doing better in approximately 49 other states - and a fallback could be done in the seat allocation process to ensure that each state has at least one seat), but the people vote for the parties they want.

Now, for the Presidency... you could do it two ways. You could do some sort of alternate election method - approval (easy to understand, harder to see obvious fraud, still encourages some strategic voting against your interests), instant runoff (slightly harder to understand, easy to see obvious fraud, reduced strategic voting but still some), actual runoff (similar results to instant runoff if done right, just far more expensive, so it's usually not done right), or some Condorcet method of tallying ranked choice ballots (quite hard to understand, and not being able to understand how votes are counted does present issues with the consent of the governed). Or, you could move to a more Westminster-like system, where a Prime Minister is elected from the House. Each has its pros and cons, I suspect the latter is far, far more controversial, though.

For the presidency, for example like this:

First, everything is done the same way as today, yet in all states proportionally (instead of winner-takes-all in some states).

Then, as long as the number of electors assigned for each party, in total, disagrees with the popular vote too much, an additional elector is assigned to the state that so far has the highest number of votes per elector.

 

[EVNow]

This comment applies to Democrats as well. Anyone that doesn't believe that is wearing blinders.

If this were true we'd never have people like Feinstein or Pelosi winning. One of the bluest states - and the politicians actively diss Dem base, mock new leaders like AOC, tell young climate activists to take a walk etc. They are completely out of touch with the Dem base, 80+ in age and yet keep winning.

Dem politicians treat the corporate donors as the stakeholders / "base". The politicians are the "product" that are marketed to the customers / "voters". Once we start thinking in these terms, we get a much better idea of the political parties.

 

[bkp_duke]

If this were true we'd never have people like Feinstein or Pelosi winning. One of the bluest states - and the politicians actively diss Dem base.

So not true. Until the last 4 or so years, those politicians were "middle of the road" for the base, and that's exactly how they got elected.

The democratic party has moved so far left in the past 4 years, so much so that "traditional" democrats look like conservatives by comparison.

 

[EVNow]

So not true. Until the last 4 or so years, those politicians were "middle of the road" for the base, and that's exactly how they got elected.

The democratic party has moved so far left in the past 4 years, so much so that "traditional" democrats look like conservatives by comparison.

You need to distinguish between economic and social issues. On economic issues Democrats (and Republicans) have moved to the right. That is what the progressives are fighting against. Sanders was very much a centrist among Dems in the pre-Clinton era.

But "blue dog" Democrats - like Clinton threw away 100 years of pro working class policies of the Democratic party and embraced neoliberalism. But that was not true for blue state Dems. NAFTA passed with mostly Republican votes. Even in 2004 Kerry ran anti-offshoring ads against Bush.

In 2008 Republican nominee recognized the problem of Climate Change. But the 2016 nominee thinks its a Chinese hoax. Which party has changed a lot ? The healthcare that Obama passed was devised by the Heritage Foundation, first proposed by Nixon and even enacted by Romney. So, which party has changed a lot ?

Democrats had this weird idea that if they moved to the center, Republicans will meet them there. You see that Joe Biden still talks about it (probably even thinks that way, when he can). But that is not what happened, Republicans just moved more to the right. Infact I remember in one of the Republican primaries there was a question about what should happen to a poor person who doesn't have health care. The audience chanted "they should die" ! To his credit, Perry was the only one who stood up against the crowd, got booed but said that isn't ok.

Where Democrats have indeed moved to the left - is on social issues. But the country as a whole has moved as well - as you can see from approval of guy marriage, for eg. That is why Republicans don't even make it an election issue any more. They have moved on to other social issues.

 

[Oil4AsphaultOnly]

Yeah, and it is the reason we have a supermajority of dems in the CA legislature now. This system is worse than gerymandering.

No, it's a reflection of the composition of the state. I know a few people who voted for Trump, and somehow they think they represent the majority and that the politicians were bought by the corporations. I know that a significant number of Trump voters are located more in the central valley, and those generally have republican representatives, and also are less populous than the urban/suburban areas. I think you're mistaking reality for gerrymandering.

 

[wdolson]

Also the electoral college should be defined in such a way that it can never have a majority in one direction, when the popular vote has a majority in the other direction. That's not really difficult to do. Otherwise one person's vote counts more than another person's vote.

Yeah, and it is the reason we have a supermajority of dems in the CA legislature now. This system is worse than gerymandering.

Each state can determine how it selects its electors (in the early years the state legislature decided the electors and that happened once or twice after the civil war), so I don't think a federal law can change it, but I think instead of the state compact movement going on now (states are passing laws that when 270 EVs of states sign on the compact, all those states will pledge their electors to the popular vote winner), they should start a compact to proportionally distribute their vote based on percentage of the vote which is how most states distribute delegates for the presidential primaries.

You need to distinguish between economic and social issues. On economic issues Democrats (and Republicans) have moved to the right. That is what the progressives are fighting against. Sanders was very much a centrist among Dems in the pre-Clinton era.

But "blue dog" Democrats - like Clinton threw away 100 years of pro working class policies of the Democratic party and embraced neoliberalism. But that was not true for blue state Dems. NAFTA passed with mostly Republican votes. Even in 2004 Kerry ran anti-offshoring ads against Bush.

In 2008 Republican nominee recognized the problem of Climate Change. But the 2016 nominee thinks its a Chinese hoax. Which party has changed a lot ? The healthcare that Obama passed was devised by the Heritage Foundation, first proposed by Nixon and even enacted by Romney. So, which party has changed a lot ?

Democrats had this weird idea that if they moved to the center, Republicans will meet them there. You see that Joe Biden still talks about it (probably even thinks that way, when he can). But that is not what happened, Republicans just moved more to the right. Infact I remember in one of the Republican primaries there was a question about what should happen to a poor person who doesn't have health care. The audience chanted "they should die" ! To his credit, Perry was the only one who stood up against the crowd, got booed but said that isn't ok.

Where Democrats have indeed moved to the left - is on social issues. But the country as a whole has moved as well - as you can see from approval of guy marriage, for eg. That is why Republicans don't even make it an election issue any more. They have moved on to other social issues.

I lot of this has to do with the era we've been in. From 1933 to 1980 we were in the FDR era where FDR's memes were the political norm and everyone from both parties cast everything in New Deal terms. Reagan who went from a ranting nutter on the far right to the meme maker in about 12 years set a new terminology based on neoliberal economic ideas and conservative social memes. The conservative social memes failed to catch on, but the Democrats have had to conform to the neoliberal economic ideas.

Bernie didn't change. He sounded normal during the New Deal era, but a left wing nutter during the Reagan era, and now he's beginning to sound normal again because the Reagan era is about to end.

No, it's a reflection of the composition of the state. I know a few people who voted for Trump, and somehow they think they represent the majority and that the politicians were bought by the corporations. I know that a significant number of Trump voters are located more in the central valley, and those generally have republican representatives, and also are less populous than the urban/suburban areas. I think you're mistaking reality for gerrymandering.

Exactly. Washington pioneered the system California uses and Washington has had a split Senate (50% control by each party) as recently as a few years ago. In most states the urban centers are liberal, the suburbs are moderately conservative who have voted Republican until 2018, and the rural areas are very conservative. Washington and Oregon are close to the norm, California is different because most of the large cities have had Democratic voting suburbs for the last 30 years. The two exceptions were Orange County and San Diego. Orange County flipped in 2018 because it saw the same trend in suburban voting that other places nationally saw.

Part of this is demographic. California has a large minority population and does not discourage voting like Texas does. Minorities have felt hostility from the Republicans so they mostly vote Democratic, with a few exceptions (like Cubans). Texas stays red because they have been very successful in suppressing the minority vote. If Texas saw turnout like California does, it would go blue in a heartbeat.

California isn't 100% vote by mail yet (an idea started in Oregon, adopted by Washington, and almost there in CA), but vote by mail encourages high turnout. Oregon has been one of the highest turnout states in the US since it adopted the system. It's also cheaper to do elections than the old fashioned way. Poorer people tend to vote Democratic, but they also tend to have less free time, so the ability to vote at 11 PM on a Sunday night allows poorer people with tight schedules more opportunity to vote.

I noticed this when I was a kid. Republicans have been a smaller party than the Democrats for quite some time, but they have always had more reliable voters. They tend to have a higher percentage of older voters, and more affluent members, both of which contribute to being more reliable. Both being retired and being affluent allows more people to get to the polls to vote. Making voting easier for everyone allows more economically poorer people the opportunity to get out and vote, which ultimately favors Democrats because that's more of their membership.

In Washington, California, and Oregon the most rural parts of the states are represented by Republicans because those are conservative areas. Proportionally Oregon and Washington have a little more of their population in rural areas. But in the last 10-20 years it's all become about the suburbs. They went blue in CA a long time ago, but have only started going blue in other states recently.

 

[Norbert]

Each state can determine how it selects its electors (in the early years the state legislature decided the electors and that happened once or twice after the civil war), so I don't think a federal law can change it, but I think instead of the state compact movement going on now (states are passing laws that when 270 EVs of states sign on the compact, all those states will pledge their electors to the popular vote winner), they should start a compact to proportionally distribute their vote based on percentage of the vote which is how most states distribute delegates for the presidential primaries.

The idea of my proposal above was to preserve the indirect principle of the electoral collage, while aligning the number of electors with the proportionality of actual votes.

I'm not personally opposed to a direct popular vote, but was assuming that it would be a smaller change to preserve the electors as an immediate step of the election.

 

[dmckinstry]

The democratic party has moved so far left in the past 4 years, so much so that "traditional" democrats look like conservatives by comparison.

Thwy are, compared to 50 years ago.

 

[dmunjal]

Thwy are, compared to 50 years ago.

Yet, in the same time frame they've moved to the right on war, Wall Street, and corporatism.