Thread: An examination of delegate allocation

Originally Posted by AetheLove

Ya, sequencing issues.

Read your idea. So... that's like a House of Representatives and a Parliamentary Proportional Senate?

So, after the proportional votes are counted, do the respective parties just get to decide who fills the positions? It sounds like the Senate vote is just a vote for whichever party you like.

Cheers,


AetheLove

Yep, that's a good way to put it. The seats could be filled with anyone really, such as party members. Their really more of a physical representation of the party and the whole party would vote as a block. And yes, a Senate vote would be for a party you like, which may differ from who you vote for Representative. Let's say you're a conservative in a liberal area. You can vote for the Representative you think has the best chance to win, like a moderate Republican, but you really prefer the Libertarian party, so you could cast you vote for Senate for the Libertarians. If they break 5%, they'd get representation. This would force parties in the Senate to form a coalition to get a majority.

Originally Posted by deathgodusmc

Are you suggesting rhode island would get butt raped?

No, even if they may deserve it, I'm worried about different states resources. Some low population states offer and have things that higher population states do not have. With unequal representation, they might be forced to give up some things they might not like to give up.

Originally Posted by Bubbasam

Got it. I remember you talking about this in another post. It sounds like what would happen is, with a two party system, we would simply have 1 repub and 1 dem in each state. Unless you are saying the bigger states get more senators based on their population representation (sounds like conjunction junction all over again). There again I fear for the smaller states not having as much of a say (and I think this is what you are wanting) and being used in a not so nice way.

I wouldn't allocate a set number of Senators to each state. The Senate is no longer about every state having equal representation because nowadays Senators have more loyalty to their party and business dealing than to their states. In my idea, you have to divorce the two. And yeah, I'd expand the number of Senators at least 3 fold (and increase the House to around 635). Yes, the two major parties would still hold a majority of the Senators in my plan, but it would give an opening to third parties to move in, and if they start gaining seats, it forces the major parties to recognize them and start actually listening to their ideas.

Originally Posted by Bubbasam

No, even if they may deserve it, I'm worried about different states resources. Some low population states offer and have things that higher population states do not have. With unequal representation, they might be forced to give up some things they might not like to give up.

Dont worry. No one is coming to montana to take shit. To many hill billies with rifles and government resentment.

Originally Posted by Fovezer

I wouldn't allocate a set number of Senators to each state. The Senate is no longer about every state having equal representation because nowadays Senators have more loyalty to their party and business dealing than to their states. In my idea, you have to divorce the two. And yeah, I'd expand the number of Senators at least 3 fold (and increase the House to around 635). Yes, the two major parties would still hold a majority of the Senators in my plan, but it would give an opening to third parties to move in, and if they start gaining seats, it forces the major parties to recognize them and start actually listening to their ideas.

This plan still would give a dem majority state the majority of senators, and so forth - right? I do like the idea of a third party sneaking some representation and getting a bit of a foothold. I also like the idea (though I'm not sure how well it would work) of filling the seats with party members. The " loyalty to their party and business dealing" would still hold true I'm afraid and might give us the same characters we have in the senate now, just MORE of them. The pension plan would have to be abolished as well, cause we really can't afford the current plan. Overall it comes down to people being a "true" representative of the people, and not their interests. I don't know if we can find 635 qualified people to do this.

You guys really think a 3 or 4 party system would change anything? I would think you need to fix the rules and enforce the current ones before any change would be felt regardless of how you divided it.

Originally Posted by Bubbasam

This plan still would give a dem majority state the majority of senators, and so forth - right? I do like the idea of a third party sneaking some representation and getting a bit of a foothold. I also like the idea (though I'm not sure how well it would work) of filling the seats with party members. The " loyalty to their party and business dealing" would still hold true I'm afraid and might give us the same characters we have in the senate now, just MORE of them. The pension plan would have to be abolished as well, cause we really can't afford the current plan. Overall it comes down to people being a "true" representative of the people, and not their interests. I don't know if we can find 635 qualified people to do this.

No, it would proportionally divide the Senators based solely on the percentage of votes your party was able to get. It doesn't have anything to do with states because they would not be allocated any Senators. If the Democrats won 40% of the NATIONAL party vote, they'd get roughly 40% of the delegates, irrespective of state. And if you have more Senators, you dilute their individual power, so you'd see fewer Senators like the ones we have now. If they are just party members serving as a physical representative of the party in the Senate, they are merely there to vote what the party wants and don't have any real power. This way, too, if you feel a party has become too corrupt, you can vote for a different party, either to the left or the right and not be left with the "one or other" nonsense.

Originally Posted by deathgodusmc

You guys really think a 3 or 4 party system would change anything? I would think you need to fix the rules and enforce the current ones before any change would be felt regardless of how you divided it.

It's MORE representative and many of the problems we have can be traced to the two parties in power not having an incentive to change anything.

I can see your point but i have to disagree with it being the main problem. Money, favors, and gifts being allowed to change hands in the main issue if you ask me.

Originally Posted by deathgodusmc

I can see your point but i have to disagree with it being the main problem. Money, favors, and gifts being allowed to change hands in the main issue if you ask me.

Yes, that is a problem, but how will you fix that when the system continually reinforces that? There is no incentive for them to change. When it's this ingrained in the system, the only way to fix it is a clean slate.

With the frequency that the Broken Government thing comes up, I sometimes wonder that I don't see Lawrence Lessig's name more often (or at all) in these forums.

Good article on Lessig's new book (and another book), and the Government thing, in the New York Review of Books here:

Our Corrupt Politics: It’s Not All Money by Ezra Klein | The New York Review of Books

Cheers,


AetheLove