This is the real stuff here. I’d like to put another question to you.
Donald Trump as a strongman was the whole image he projected in his first election, but the point at that time wasn’t “I’m a dictator” but “It’s time someone actually got something done at the top.”. Even with all this fire and brimstone, I think this underlying suspicion that our government doesn’t actually govern effectively is still the real problem.
I don’t know that it’s one that the Democrats can cure either, even if they somehow come out on top. Do you?
Yes, I do. While no form of human government will ever be truly as consistently effective as we might like, this door was opened for them in the first place by an extended policy of greed being good.
If we accept that as a mistake, we can do some reforms that return a better balance of politician responsibility to their citizens. We need election reform for that, though. Campaign funding should be more equalized so being rich is less advantageous, anonymous campaign funding banned so having rich friends is irrelevant, and voting districts drawn up by independent powers because gerrymandering. That would require a powerful mandate. Or a very bloody war, which I think we’d best try to avoid.
While their distaste for objective facts can lead to battlefield incompetence, it would nonetheless be a total dice roll what we might end up with after a massive outbreak of widespread violence.
Additionally changing at a federal level from First Past The Post to some kind of proportional voting system. FPTP strongly incentivises devolving to only two viable parties and then encourages them to put as much distance between each other as possible resulting in each being pushed towards extreme positions. This is a double wamy and we’re seeing the results of that now.
A proportional voting system on the other hand allows for, and in fact encourages multiple smaller parties. Depending on the variant chosen it can also reward moderate policies that appeal to the largest base while also not being disliked by as few people as possible. STAR would be an excellent choice for this outcome.
Using proportional voting would lead to a more diverse Congress and Senate forcing representatives to actually engage in cooperation and compromise rather than just brute forcing through a majority every time they happen to achieve it.
I agree with you, but it is worth noting that most election laws are done at the state and not the national level. If US Congress required states to use RCV, you would have a weird mismatch where national politicians and state politicians were elected with a different system. The US federal government only has the legal authority to change election laws for national politicians not state politicians.
I imagine that would cause some confusion when your state politician is elected by FPTP and your national politician is elected by RCV.
Represent.us is an non-partisan organization working to help push RCV on a local and state level. I just found it from lemmy earlier today.
I think this is one of those cases where the federal government needs to step in and mandate all federal positions use a proportional voting system. If states want to elect their non-federal offices using some other system that’s fine, it’s their right to do so, but at the federal level it’s important that everyone be on a level playing field.
I know the presidents election process is somewhat specified in the constitution so that would need to be amended, but I don’t think the house or senate have anything specified other than the number of representatives each state gets. So ultimately we’d need a new amendment that changes the existing amendment specifying how the president gets elected as well as adding new rules for how representatives are elected.
I mean sure, it would be great if they did but have you seen our federal government lately. It’s all they can do to keep the government funded.
It wouldn’t require an amendment to do at a federal level, all congress would have to do is pass a law requiring that states that decide to choose their electors via popular vote do so by RCV or STAR. However, if they did that it red states could theoretically pass a law saying that state representatives get to choose the electors instead of the people.
I think the easiest way to actually change the system (instead of simply hoping for change from a federal level) is to push for the change locally. That means push for your city or your state to adopt RCV. Represent us has 10+ campaigns going on in various states that are pushing for various types of voter reform.
My current shithole of a state has literally passed a law that bans anyone from using RCV state wide. As with the standard playbook they’ve also gerrymandered everything to maximize the voting power of those deep red areas. Pretty much the only way we’re getting RCV at this point is either the complete destruction of the GOP, or federal mandate.
I can believe it. Very few politicians (and probably no GOP politicans) are fans of RCV and other systemic democracy reforms. But don’t ignore the fact that the most successful way to changing the state laws is through ballot initiatives. It is the best tool we, as citizens, have. Marijuana, minimum wage increases, and abortion access have all been won through ballot initiatives. Every state has some form of ballot initiative that can be used although some are more restrictive than others.
Pretty much the only way we’re getting RCV at this point is either the complete destruction of the GOP, or federal mandate.
I can certainly understand this viewpoint, but to me it seems somewhat like defeatism. I have very little hope that our politicians will willingly take federal action on issues like RCV and campaign finance. The opinions of 90% Americans have very little impact on if Congress will make laws about that particular issue.
Money does. They serve their donors not the American people. And their donors largely want status quo.
Local and Direct Action on the other hand works and is achievable. Women’s suffrage, interracial marriage, and marriage equality all started with local grassroots movements before they were enshrined into law nationwide. More recently it’s been marijuana which started with a few states legalizing it and is now widespread even in red areas. It wouldn’t surprise me if it is federally de-scheduled soon. That was all made possible by it first being legalized in colorado and then in many many other states.
I think local action in other states can certainly pave the way, but I don’t think local action in my state will make any headway at all until we’re already at the point where people are seriously discussing federal mandates. They’re just too dug in and entrenched.
The other option would be if the GOP imploded to the point where a concerted push by non-GOP voters could overcome the gerrymandering and voter suppression tactics in order to get a Democrat elected as governor and hopefully a majority of the state senate as well. At that point local pressure might be enough to get the RCV ban repealed and with even further pressure RCV or STAR voting enacted. I think that’s less likely to occur than a federal mandate though.
Ultimately though, no matter the exact mechanism of achieving it every state is going to need to enact proportional voting if it’s going to have any hope of fixing our politics, and for that I still think we’ll need a federal mandate, whether the majority of states have adopted it at that point or not.
Remember that the Constitution needs to be amended to remove the two-party-system default. “Most votes” iirc is the phrase. Specific to FPTP elections.
Fixing the two party system in the house can be done piecemeal by states, because states run their own house elections.
Fixing the two party system in the presidency requires either an amendment or an interstate pact.
Because what the constitution says is that if no single candidate gets a majority in the electoral college’s FPTP election, then the president is whichever candidate the US house prefers.
The Twelfth Amendment (Amendment XII) to the United States Constitution provides the procedure for electing the president and vice president. It replaced the procedure in Article II, Section 1, Clause 3, under which the Electoral College originally functioned. The amendment was proposed by Congress on December 9, 1803, and was ratified by the requisite three-fourths of state legislatures on June 15, 1804. The new rules took effect for the 1804 presidential election and have governed all subsequent presidential elections.
Under the original Constitution, each member of the Electoral College cast two electoral votes, with no distinction between electoral votes for president or for vice president. The presidential candidate receiving the greatest number of votes—provided that number was at least a majority of the electors—was elected president, while the presidential candidate receiving the second-most votes was elected vice president. In cases where no individual won the votes of a majority of the electors, as well as in cases where multiple persons won the votes of a majority but tied for the most votes, the House of Representatives would hold a contingent election to select the president. In cases where multiple candidates tied for the second-most votes, the Senate would hold a contingent election to select the vice president. The first four presidential elections were conducted under these rules.
The 12th amendment did not impose any specific requirements on how states should allocate electoral votes. Electoral votes are entirely different than normal votes. The 12th amendment is referring to electoral votes not normal votes that you and I cast. States aren’t even required by the constitution to have an election. They aren’t required to hold a popular vote or election to determine how their electoral votes are awarded in presidential elections either. Instead, it is up to each state to determine its own method of selecting electors who will cast the electoral votes on behalf of the state.
This is the real stuff here. I’d like to put another question to you.
Donald Trump as a strongman was the whole image he projected in his first election, but the point at that time wasn’t “I’m a dictator” but “It’s time someone actually got something done at the top.”. Even with all this fire and brimstone, I think this underlying suspicion that our government doesn’t actually govern effectively is still the real problem.
I don’t know that it’s one that the Democrats can cure either, even if they somehow come out on top. Do you?
Yes, I do. While no form of human government will ever be truly as consistently effective as we might like, this door was opened for them in the first place by an extended policy of greed being good.
If we accept that as a mistake, we can do some reforms that return a better balance of politician responsibility to their citizens. We need election reform for that, though. Campaign funding should be more equalized so being rich is less advantageous, anonymous campaign funding banned so having rich friends is irrelevant, and voting districts drawn up by independent powers because gerrymandering. That would require a powerful mandate. Or a very bloody war, which I think we’d best try to avoid.
While their distaste for objective facts can lead to battlefield incompetence, it would nonetheless be a total dice roll what we might end up with after a massive outbreak of widespread violence.
Additionally changing at a federal level from First Past The Post to some kind of proportional voting system. FPTP strongly incentivises devolving to only two viable parties and then encourages them to put as much distance between each other as possible resulting in each being pushed towards extreme positions. This is a double wamy and we’re seeing the results of that now.
A proportional voting system on the other hand allows for, and in fact encourages multiple smaller parties. Depending on the variant chosen it can also reward moderate policies that appeal to the largest base while also not being disliked by as few people as possible. STAR would be an excellent choice for this outcome.
Using proportional voting would lead to a more diverse Congress and Senate forcing representatives to actually engage in cooperation and compromise rather than just brute forcing through a majority every time they happen to achieve it.
I agree with you, but it is worth noting that most election laws are done at the state and not the national level. If US Congress required states to use RCV, you would have a weird mismatch where national politicians and state politicians were elected with a different system. The US federal government only has the legal authority to change election laws for national politicians not state politicians.
I imagine that would cause some confusion when your state politician is elected by FPTP and your national politician is elected by RCV.
Represent.us is an non-partisan organization working to help push RCV on a local and state level. I just found it from lemmy earlier today.
I think this is one of those cases where the federal government needs to step in and mandate all federal positions use a proportional voting system. If states want to elect their non-federal offices using some other system that’s fine, it’s their right to do so, but at the federal level it’s important that everyone be on a level playing field.
I know the presidents election process is somewhat specified in the constitution so that would need to be amended, but I don’t think the house or senate have anything specified other than the number of representatives each state gets. So ultimately we’d need a new amendment that changes the existing amendment specifying how the president gets elected as well as adding new rules for how representatives are elected.
I mean sure, it would be great if they did but have you seen our federal government lately. It’s all they can do to keep the government funded.
It wouldn’t require an amendment to do at a federal level, all congress would have to do is pass a law requiring that states that decide to choose their electors via popular vote do so by RCV or STAR. However, if they did that it red states could theoretically pass a law saying that state representatives get to choose the electors instead of the people.
I think the easiest way to actually change the system (instead of simply hoping for change from a federal level) is to push for the change locally. That means push for your city or your state to adopt RCV. Represent us has 10+ campaigns going on in various states that are pushing for various types of voter reform.
My current shithole of a state has literally passed a law that bans anyone from using RCV state wide. As with the standard playbook they’ve also gerrymandered everything to maximize the voting power of those deep red areas. Pretty much the only way we’re getting RCV at this point is either the complete destruction of the GOP, or federal mandate.
I can believe it. Very few politicians (and probably no GOP politicans) are fans of RCV and other systemic democracy reforms. But don’t ignore the fact that the most successful way to changing the state laws is through ballot initiatives. It is the best tool we, as citizens, have. Marijuana, minimum wage increases, and abortion access have all been won through ballot initiatives. Every state has some form of ballot initiative that can be used although some are more restrictive than others.
I can certainly understand this viewpoint, but to me it seems somewhat like defeatism. I have very little hope that our politicians will willingly take federal action on issues like RCV and campaign finance. The opinions of 90% Americans have very little impact on if Congress will make laws about that particular issue.
Money does. They serve their donors not the American people. And their donors largely want status quo.
Local and Direct Action on the other hand works and is achievable. Women’s suffrage, interracial marriage, and marriage equality all started with local grassroots movements before they were enshrined into law nationwide. More recently it’s been marijuana which started with a few states legalizing it and is now widespread even in red areas. It wouldn’t surprise me if it is federally de-scheduled soon. That was all made possible by it first being legalized in colorado and then in many many other states.
I think local action in other states can certainly pave the way, but I don’t think local action in my state will make any headway at all until we’re already at the point where people are seriously discussing federal mandates. They’re just too dug in and entrenched.
The other option would be if the GOP imploded to the point where a concerted push by non-GOP voters could overcome the gerrymandering and voter suppression tactics in order to get a Democrat elected as governor and hopefully a majority of the state senate as well. At that point local pressure might be enough to get the RCV ban repealed and with even further pressure RCV or STAR voting enacted. I think that’s less likely to occur than a federal mandate though.
Ultimately though, no matter the exact mechanism of achieving it every state is going to need to enact proportional voting if it’s going to have any hope of fixing our politics, and for that I still think we’ll need a federal mandate, whether the majority of states have adopted it at that point or not.
Remember that the Constitution needs to be amended to remove the two-party-system default. “Most votes” iirc is the phrase. Specific to FPTP elections.
Fixing the two party system in the house can be done piecemeal by states, because states run their own house elections.
Fixing the two party system in the presidency requires either an amendment or an interstate pact.
Because what the constitution says is that if no single candidate gets a majority in the electoral college’s FPTP election, then the president is whichever candidate the US house prefers.
Source? What part is that in?
Election laws are currently largely controlled by state or local governments. That’s why Maine and Alaska were able to change to use RCV recently.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
It’s not a states thing.
The 12th amendment did not impose any specific requirements on how states should allocate electoral votes. Electoral votes are entirely different than normal votes. The 12th amendment is referring to electoral votes not normal votes that you and I cast. States aren’t even required by the constitution to have an election. They aren’t required to hold a popular vote or election to determine how their electoral votes are awarded in presidential elections either. Instead, it is up to each state to determine its own method of selecting electors who will cast the electoral votes on behalf of the state.