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This is a problem of legislative mechanism. The way U.S. and state gov'ts create and pass legislation is a playground of perverse incentives, opaque procedure,

This is a problem of legislative mechanism. The way U.S. and state gov'ts create and pass legislation is a playground of perverse incentives, opaque procedure, and the worst aspects of gamesmanship. One immediate fix would be for strict party line votes being the norm. It would remove horse trading from the equation: a majority party would pass the legislation it wants to, without adding extreme elements to negotiate away, or riders to buy critical swing votes. The result would be more coherent legislation that can be judged on its merits.

learc83 6y ago
With that system you effectively remote one or the biggest advantages of the rule of law—predictability. At the very least you’d need to massively increase the term length of Congress. Radical swings back and forth every 2 years would be a nightmare for planning anything. It would also basically ensure that any policy that took more than a few years to make a positive impact was doa.
- jabl 6y ago
  Like diapers, politicians become dirty and need to be changed. I don't think drastically longer terms are a solution. Systems with proportional representation tend to be much less susceptible to this, as a few seats changing won't tip the balance from one extreme to the other. I have no idea how such a thing could be enacted though, as legislative power is in the hands of the two parties that would be the major losers in a switch away from FPTP.
zachrose 6y ago
But wouldn’t that just move the horse trading into the even more opaque process of deciding party positions?
- fatbird 6y ago
  Party positions are decided by party leadership--an even smaller and clearer group to hold accountable for particular laws. You already have an opaque process of deciding party positions amongst insiders. What party-line votes do is cause 1) clearer legislation to be passed that's 2) entirely the responsibility of a single party.
cortesoft 6y ago
That would make a 51% majority just as powerful as a 85% majority. Also, this sort of policy would make an even SMALLER minority of the country to have absolute rule over everyone else. Think about what would happen. Ok, so now the party that has 51% of the congress has absolute legislative power. The other 49% shouldn't even bother to show up, they aren't even voting on anything anymore. Now we have to figure out what are the party positions? What laws are we going to pass? Well, we have to come to some internal agreement, so they probably end up having some kind of vote on each issue. So now, only 51% of 51% of the legislature have to agree on something for it to become law. Suddenly, only 26% of the population has to agree on something for it to become a law. That is terrifying. We do not need anything that REDUCES the level of agreement required to do something. In fact, I think some of the best aspects of the US governmental system are the checks on simple majority rule. Tyranny of the majority is a real thing to be afraid of. Also, we already have the issue of a two party system not being able to accurately reflect the myriad combinations of viewpoints that real people have, and we don't want to exacerbate the problem by removing entirely the ability to have diversity of positions within a party. We elect representatives who have a particular set of views, and that person is (usually) a member of the party whose viewpoints more closely align with. This doesn't mean they agree on every issue.
- fatbird 6y ago
  Look at Canada to see how this works and decide whether you get an even more extreme tyranny of the minority. You don't. Legislative priorities are decide by party leadership, which is much more accountable for the laws passed by the party because it's much more obvious what a party did when it was in power. Nowadays you have members of Congress trying to earnestly explain how they "voted for it before I voted against it".
  - didibus 6y ago
    Hum.. In Canada laws are approved by all elected member of parliament and senate. Maybe I'm not following what you're trying to imply? Also, so many other things just work very differently in Canada, there's a series of readings, committees are put together to review and ammend bills before they are presented, etc. And at any time, a vote of no confidence can take place dissolving the current government. There's also more than two parties. The prime minister has no special powers (unlike the President), and the Senate has no party affiliation. With all these differences and more, I don't know how useful it is to compare a single difference in isolation.

learc83 6y ago

With that system you effectively remote one or the biggest advantages of the rule of law—predictability. At the very least you’d need to massively increase the term length of Congress. Radical swings back and forth every 2 years would be a nightmare for planning anything. It would also basically ensure that any policy that took more than a few years to make a positive impact was doa.

jabl 6y ago
Like diapers, politicians become dirty and need to be changed. I don't think drastically longer terms are a solution. Systems with proportional representation tend to be much less susceptible to this, as a few seats changing won't tip the balance from one extreme to the other. I have no idea how such a thing could be enacted though, as legislative power is in the hands of the two parties that would be the major losers in a switch away from FPTP.

zachrose 6y ago

But wouldn’t that just move the horse trading into the even more opaque process of deciding party positions?

fatbird 6y ago
Party positions are decided by party leadership--an even smaller and clearer group to hold accountable for particular laws. You already have an opaque process of deciding party positions amongst insiders. What party-line votes do is cause 1) clearer legislation to be passed that's 2) entirely the responsibility of a single party.

cortesoft 6y ago

That would make a 51% majority just as powerful as a 85% majority. Also, this sort of policy would make an even SMALLER minority of the country to have absolute rule over everyone else. Think about what would happen. Ok, so now the party that has 51% of the congress has absolute legislative power. The other 49% shouldn't even bother to show up, they aren't even voting on anything anymore. Now we have to figure out what are the party positions? What laws are we going to pass? Well, we have to come to some internal agreement, so they probably end up having some kind of vote on each issue. So now, only 51% of 51% of the legislature have to agree on something for it to become law. Suddenly, only 26% of the population has to agree on something for it to become a law. That is terrifying. We do not need anything that REDUCES the level of agreement required to do something. In fact, I think some of the best aspects of the US governmental system are the checks on simple majority rule. Tyranny of the majority is a real thing to be afraid of. Also, we already have the issue of a two party system not being able to accurately reflect the myriad combinations of viewpoints that real people have, and we don't want to exacerbate the problem by removing entirely the ability to have diversity of positions within a party. We elect representatives who have a particular set of views, and that person is (usually) a member of the party whose viewpoints more closely align with. This doesn't mean they agree on every issue.

fatbird 6y ago
Look at Canada to see how this works and decide whether you get an even more extreme tyranny of the minority. You don't. Legislative priorities are decide by party leadership, which is much more accountable for the laws passed by the party because it's much more obvious what a party did when it was in power. Nowadays you have members of Congress trying to earnestly explain how they "voted for it before I voted against it".
- didibus 6y ago
  Hum.. In Canada laws are approved by all elected member of parliament and senate. Maybe I'm not following what you're trying to imply? Also, so many other things just work very differently in Canada, there's a series of readings, committees are put together to review and ammend bills before they are presented, etc. And at any time, a vote of no confidence can take place dissolving the current government. There's also more than two parties. The prime minister has no special powers (unlike the President), and the Senate has no party affiliation. With all these differences and more, I don't know how useful it is to compare a single difference in isolation.