Earlier quoted context omitted.
Moving to proportional representation would greatly curtail gerrymandering or even eliminate it altogether, especially with some sort of ranked voting system. It also solves the third party problem; no longer does a vote for the Green party hurt the Democratic candidate or a Libertarian vote hurt the Republican candidate. IIRC Spain has a system along these lines. First past the post needs to go.
PR tackles assemblies, councils, houses. +1 Approval voting is best for executive positions, like governor, mayor, sheriff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting -- FPTP is terrible. Among other reasons, per Duverger's Law, it begats a two party system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law People railing against duopolies (Democrats & Republicans) haven't yet learned it's the result of the form of e…
When Lobbying was Illegal
151–160 of 165 posts
Re: When Lobbying was Illegal
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ireland works this way; there are about 25k voters per representative. What happens is clientilism: representatives become very concerned with local issues and neglect national issues. Corruption of a different, more local kind, is encouraged.
That's how democracy is meant to work.
I disagree. I think that exactly the opposite of how democracy is supposed to work. In the US, anyway.
Re: When Lobbying was Illegal
#153Perhaps the least understood view of lobbying that really informs how perverse the system has become is that as a general rule people believe the lobbyists are calling the congresspeople to offer them money. In reality, it's the congresspeople, desperate for campaign cash, that are calling the lobbyists for money. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/27/145923803/the-f... The cost of congressional elections has…
In France and Belgium the total amount of money you can spend on your campaign is regulated and financed by the state. Which of course leads to another kind of problems.
How do you deal with third parties? In the US every time we try to limit what politicians can spend, the money goes instead to "independent" single-issue groups.
Re: When Lobbying was Illegal
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
The solution is to actually increase the number of politicians so that each district is small enough that you don't need money to get elected (you need districts of about 25,000 voters). The crazy thing is it doesn't even cost anymore money because as you increase the politicians you take away their staff. If you want to know more about this idea see [1]. 1. http://www.thirty-thousand.org
Ireland works this way; there are about 25k voters per representative. What happens is clientilism: representatives become very concerned with local issues and neglect national issues. Corruption of a different, more local kind, is encouraged.
I attended a lecture by an Irish psephologist which covered the neglect of national issues in Irish politics. His view was that the cause of this "chronic localism" was a lack of effective local democracy. (I'd like to see this dealt with, because in some important respects the rest of the world has something to learn from the Irish constitution. Only Austria, Germany and Switzerland have more institutionalised checks on executive power, and all three use forms of proportional representation that I consider inferior to Ireland's.)
Re: When Lobbying was Illegal
#155Perhaps the least understood view of lobbying that really informs how perverse the system has become is that as a general rule people believe the lobbyists are calling the congresspeople to offer them money. In reality, it's the congresspeople, desperate for campaign cash, that are calling the lobbyists for money. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/27/145923803/the-f... The cost of congressional elections has…
Ah yes, the old "I do it because everyone else does it" excuse. It's not the system that's broken, it's every individual politician who chooses to follow that path. "You won't make it in industry X unless you do Y" is pure self-serving bullshit.
Re: When Lobbying was Illegal
#156Perhaps the least understood view of lobbying that really informs how perverse the system has become is that as a general rule people believe the lobbyists are calling the congresspeople to offer them money. In reality, it's the congresspeople, desperate for campaign cash, that are calling the lobbyists for money. http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/01/27/145923803/the-f... The cost of congressional elections has…
Ah yes, the old "I do it because everyone else does it" excuse. It's not the system that's broken, it's every individual politician who chooses to follow that path. "You won't make it in industry X unless you do Y" is pure self-serving bullshit.
Lobbying was made legal because it was (and will) happen regardless of legality. With legality, it can be documented and the details publicly released. If we made it illegal, it will just go back to being an "under the table" thing and we won't know who has been bought by whom.
Do I think lobbying (as a system) needs to be fixed/changed/altered/tweaked? Most definitely. But making it outright illegal is like making drug use illegal, people are still going to do it regardless. At least with it being legal, we can keep tabs and utilize harm reduction when necessary.
Re: When Lobbying was Illegal
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Moving to proportional representation would greatly curtail gerrymandering or even eliminate it altogether, especially with some sort of ranked voting system. It also solves the third party problem; no longer does a vote for the Green party hurt the Democratic candidate or a Libertarian vote hurt the Republican candidate. IIRC Spain has a system along these lines. First past the post needs to go.
PR tackles assemblies, councils, houses. +1 Approval voting is best for executive positions, like governor, mayor, sheriff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approval_voting -- FPTP is terrible. Among other reasons, per Duverger's Law, it begats a two party system. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law People railing against duopolies (Democrats & Republicans) haven't yet learned it's the result of the form of e…
You can do proportional Approval Voting.
Re: When Lobbying was Illegal
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
The trouble with the Australian 'VAP' number is Australia has a very large percentage on non-citizens. It seems from the data that they have divided the votes by the total population rather than the number of Australian citizens.
Good eye. Noting that VAP is appropriate for international comparisons. Domestically, it also informs policy, like enfranchisement thru citizenship. Radicals like me believe no taxation without representation. I support enfranchising pretty much everyone, especially for local issues.
> Radicals like me believe no taxation without representation.
For reasons of equality among the states, the US capital is not located in any of them. The District of Columbia, not being a state, doesn't have the privileges of a state either, such as being represented in the US government. This is not easy to fix; giving DC state privileges would be a severe blow to the idea that the federal government doesn't favor any one state over another.
It still gets taxed, though. People are sore enough about this that when someone submitted the suggestion of "no taxation without representation" for the slogan on DC license plates, it was vetoed by DC government for being "too controversial".
I would actually be OK with saying that DC doesn't get taxed, since they're legally prohibited from participating in the government. But I don't think that's a widespread viewpoint. Do you have an opinion?
Re: When Lobbying was Illegal
#159Re: When Lobbying was Illegal
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree. I think that exactly the opposite of how democracy is supposed to work. In the US, anyway.
Obviously, since the US is not a democracy, but a representative republic.
democracy \di-ˈmä-krə-sē\ a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting - Merriam Webster, first definition
democracy (dĭ-mŏkˈrə-sē) Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives - American Heritage dictionary, first definition
With apologies to Plato, the word "democracy" most commonly refers to nearly any political system that involves voting. The only time anyone uses the word democracy to mean "direct democracy," with every citizen voting on every issue, is when they're criticizing someone else for using the word democracy in exactly the way almost everyone does all the time.
See my companion rant: Hitler's National Socialism was a form of fascism in the way we use that word today, even though he and Mussolini had distinct political ideas.