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In the US where the parties cling to stupid and outdated viewpoints and agendas in order to differentiate themselves from the other party. Legislators have to
by dsfyu404ed 8y ago
In the US where the parties cling to stupid and outdated viewpoints and agendas in order to differentiate themselves from the other party. Legislators have to vote with the party if they don't want to find the party funding an opponent in the next election cycle. This is an improvement insofar as it allows legislators to nominally vote with the party while voting more strongly in favor of things they actually care about.
This would probably work well in two party states because it would allow lawmakers to vote as weakly as possible for stupid things just to say they're towing the party line while not actually voting strongly for them. In single party states this is probably a bad thing because it gives the people who ran as the other party just to get their name on the ticket to only weakly vote the way their platform says they should be voting.
If this system were used outside of the legislature (i.e. to actually elect legislator) it would probably be a total shitshow because as other commenters have mentioned it rewards coordination which basically just favors the status quo. If there's anything we need it's less status quo in general elections.
So yeah, this might work in a legislature but I don't see it working well to elect the actual politicians themselves.
- SubiculumCode 8y agoThe more that politics become local the more this all goes away. States need to be at the foreront again
- ereyes01 8y agoI'd go further and argue that city-states make the most sense in today's world, with a federal government to arbitrate resources and defense. US state boundaries are quite arbitrary with respect to how actual communities are organized on the map.
- SubiculumCode 8y agoBut you have an option to move to a new state that fits your beliefs. Much harder to do when it is a Federal system with a single law for all thr lands.
- creato 8y agoThere are plenty of examples of more local politics leading to worse outcomes. For example: balkanized cities zoning for too many offices and not enough housing, and jurisdictions racing to the bottom of tax policy to entice business.
- SubiculumCode 8y agoThere are plenty of examples where Federal law created worse outcomes in a particular locality, but is much harder to change the law because its Federal.
- creato 8y agoI'm not claiming the federal government is better. Only that it isn't obvious that more local = automatically better. Both approaches have drawbacks and advantages.