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The sad part is that CA remains a one party state and this will just get swept under the rug. The power is too unchecked.

legulere 6y ago
As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves, and there are also referendums.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  A switch to proportional voting could require constitutional changes in most places. Also, proportional voting introduces all kinds of unnecessary problems like not having districts and thereby constituents having their votes diluted and not having a specific representative. Which is one things the American system gets right. What we really need is a switch from "first past the post" to approval/score/range voting, which would dissolve the two party system by eliminating spoilers and thereby making third parties viable. Score/range voting is "that thing the Olympics uses"; approval voting is "that thing the Olympics uses if the only possible scores a judge can give are 0 or 1". As far as I can tell the biggest impediment to this is a lot of people proposing alternative systems that aren't as good (e.g. IRV) and then no change is made because proponents of change are divided on which change to make.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > A switch to proportional voting could require constitutional changes in most places. Less places than you might think. It especially wouldn't for Congress (so long as it was proportional by a method similar to STV within state delegations, or within some subset of state delegations), as the only barrier there is a statutory prohibition on at-large districts for delegations greater than 1, adopted to head off the use of FPTP at-large districts to systematically deny representation not minorities. > Also, proportional voting introduces all kinds of unnecessary problems like not having districts Party list proportional would do that, but most other proportional systems would not. > and thereby constituents having their votes diluted Proportionality doesn't dilute votes; the more proportional a system is the more efficiently it allocated votes to give them maximum effect. > and not having a specific representative Proportional systems don't need to have that effect, either, no matter how you measure it (and FPTP—and any other simple singlr-member district system—definitely has that effect for supporters of the nonwinning party in a district, who are effectively unrepresented entirely.)
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > Proportionality doesn't dilute votes It causes your vote to be mixed with a larger number of other votes, which is the definition of dilution. By giving the candidates more alternative constituents to win over in order to stay in office, your vote is less important to them and there are more ways they can screw you over and still stay in office. > the more proportional a system is the more efficiently it allocated votes to give them maximum effect. That isn't inherently true. Suppose you have a state with two districts. 60% of the state are religious conservatives, 30% are libertarians, 10% are socialists. With proportional representation the socialists get disenfranchised because they don't get their own candidate. Even the libertarians might get disenfranchised if the religious conservatives manage to get two representatives. But with range voting, you end up with a candidate who has to make all the interests in their district as happy as possible because anyone who comes along and can make them happier would defeat them in an election -- so nobody gets disenfranchised because every victor needs to make everybody happier than anybody else. Proportional systems also fail in the same way but worse when forming governing coalitions. Suppose you have a White party and a Black party and the White party voters are 70% of the population. Then proportional representation gives them 70% of the representatives, they form the majority coalition and the Black party representatives lose every vote. Compare this to range voting where if you so much as have a White party, they lose even in many majority-White districts against a moderate candidate who can earn the support of both White and Black constituents. It promotes the election of moderates with broad appeal over the election of extremists who fight to gain a majority coalition that can steamroll over anyone in the outgroup.
  - Aeolun 6y ago
    > constituents having their votes diluted Wut? Literally every vote would be worth the same under proportional voting, that’s kind of the point isn’t it? Of course that means that people whose vote is currently outrageously relevant will have their vote dilluted.
    - tome 6y ago
      "Diluted" means "spread out". AnthonyMouse's point is that voters would no longer vote for a particular representative. Their vote would be "spread out" across the whole party list. (dragonwriter disagrees https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25549671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25549671, but I'm not sure what he/she is referring to)
      - vincnetas 6y ago
        There is this thing, where you vote for party, but give ratings for the representatives on party list. So basically if a guy is on the list down bellow but a lot of voters pick to prioritize him, then he moves to top. This happenes during ellections couple of months ago i LT, where guy was on 141 position, but still got a seat in parlament. Edit: that party got 50 seats total.
  - erentz 6y ago
    > What we really need is a switch from "first past the post" to approval/score/range voting, which would dissolve the two party system by eliminating spoilers and thereby making third parties viable. Systems like approval voting or STV when used with single member districts do not reduce the two party duopoly. To achieve this you must use multi member districts, which has the effect of reducing the threshold to gain a seat. The best case study for this is maybe Australia, which has been running systems like this for a century. In their Senate they elect using very large multi member districts and have a representation from a number of parties, whereas in their House they use single member districts. And the result there is a two party duopoly. For example at the moment in their Senate (multi member districts) currently there are seven parties and one independent: Liberal (31) Labor (26) Greens (9) National (5) One Nation (2) Centre Alliance (1) Lambie Network (1) Independent (1) On the other hand the Australian House uses single member districts and third parties do much worse. For example look at how the Greens have a whopping 11% of the seats in the Senate above but an absurd 0.6% in the House below. This absurd 20x discrepancy for the Greens in proportion of seats between the Senate and House is the impact of whether you use multi member vs single member districts with RCV. And the size of the multi member districts will determine the size of the impact. Labor (68) Liberal (61) National (15) Liberal National (1) Greens (1) KAP (1) Centre Alliance (1) Independent (3) As demonstrated here the Greens are clearly very popular with people but they just can't win in the duopoly reinforcing single-member districts. I would rather see us work to achieve an outcome like the the Australian Senate than the Australian House. WRT your concern about who is your representative in the multi member case. It can be argued now ~40% of people who vote for the loser in our current system don’t have a representative, and a more proportional system would clearly improve this. So I think, if say we had RCV with five member districts, you could either just contact whichever member you prefer, contact them all, or they could introduce joint offices to work together, or a system could be set up to assign them to “sub district” that would be akin to our current districts. For example assign them based on who gets the most first preference votes in a district. Or rotate them every six months between sub districts. This might even reduce partisanship.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      > Systems like approval voting or STV when used with single member districts do not reduce the two party duopoly. What do you mean? Suppose you have a single member district with four parties running: Democrats, Republicans, Greens and Libertarians. First past the post polling shows 48% Democrat, 48% Republican, 2% Green and 2% Libertarian. Your preferred candidate is polling at 2%. You're then going to vote for one of the major parties because you know perfectly well that your preferred candidate is not going to win and you also know that you prefer one of the major party candidates over the other one. By contrast, with approval voting, all four candidates get around 50% approval because there are no spoilers and no reason not to approve of the candidate you actually want, so one of the third parties can plausibly edge out both of the major parties for the highest approval and win the district. They also have a much better case that they could win which means they can get into the debates etc. Also, approval voting makes it plausible for independents to win when they tailor their platform to the district, which just might destroy the political parties whatsoever -- and that would be most excellent. > It can be argued now ~40% of people who vote for the loser in our current system don’t have a representative, and a more proportional system would clearly improve this. No one disputes that the existing system is terrible. But approval voting still fixes that, because a candidate with 60% approval loses to one with 70% approval, so someone who can make more of the district happy wins. And there is no way to give full consideration to 100.0% of the voters short of direct democracy, which has its own set of problems.
  - aqsalose 6y ago
    >Also, proportional voting introduces all kinds of unnecessary problems like not having districts and thereby constituents having their votes diluted and not having a specific representative. I'd rather phrase it, the proportional systems have quite large districts (or alternatively, much more of representatives per district) to achieve the proportional allocation. But I get what you mean. However, it is very well possible to design variations to any traditional party list proportional system where (at least nominally) one representative is identified with each current-sized and located district. For example, take a classic proportional system, and use it to select the number of representatives per party list. In proportional methods, usually the list is either preordered by the party or order within the list depends on the individual total popularity of candidates in all districts. So, to achieve nominal geographic representation, one can assign a district to each selected representative. E.G. each district is nominally represented by the one of those elected who had the largest share of votes in that district and is not yet assigned to some other district by the same rule (if one complains that one may have their representative elected by people out of one's district, this implicitly happens in such proportional systems anyway). Alternatively, one could achieve remarkable amount of geographic identification by relaxing the "one representative <-> one district" requirement. For example, require that each party list can put forward only one candidate per (equally populous) district; a candidate gets personal votes only in that district, but the number of seats given to list is allocated proportionally over all districts, as usual in proportional systems. Then the order within list is assigned by the personal votes of each candidate. (This has the added complication -- or benefit -- that districts with low overall turnout may be left without a specifically named representative and the district with high turnout for all candidates standing there may get them all elected; nevertheless, all votes count towards the party list total sum, no matter the district.)
  - specialist 6y ago
    To your point, in my state, reformers have been able to change our laws to allow RCV, a much easier lift. > ...we really need ... approval/score/range voting Agreed. That's been my long time position. That said, per The Democracy Nerd podcast, I'm newly curious about multi-member seats. Which might be a smaller lift in a lot of places. https://xraypod.com/show/democracy-nerd/saving-democracy-in-oregon-1 https://xraypod.com/show/democracy-nerd/saving-democracy-in-... "... Kristin Eberhard from Sightline Institute discusses her proposal to eliminate the state Senate, along with other ideas to save democracy in Oregon." (Sorry, no timestamp.) Eberhard claims that prior to eliminating multimember seats, Illinois' legislature was far more productive, constructive. FWIW, I'm strongly in favor or unicameral legislatures at the state level, and I'm chewing on the notion for the federal level.
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      The purpose of a bicameral legislature is to have a process for placing them in office that sufficiently differs as to allows the bodies to represent distinct interests in the legislature. The US Senate was originally appointed by the state legislatures and intended to represent the interests of the state governments at the federal level -- representation that they no longer have, leading to a massive federal takeover of government. Compare the ratio of tax revenues collected by the state vs. federal governments before and after the 17th amendment. There was a drastic, immediate, permanent shift.
      - specialist 6y ago
        Does this mean you support bicameral? In your future perfect PR world: Still bicameral? PR just for House? Replace House & Senate with a parliament? Or do you still want to preserve the vetocracy with a Senate (House of Lords)? What do state, county, city governments look like?
- grandmczeb 6y ago
  The US actually had quite a few cities with proportional voting in the early-mid 1900s. NYC for example had it from 1936 to 1947 when it was eliminated via referendum[1]. [1] https://www.fairvote.org/new_york_s_proportional_representation_experiment_demonstrates_potential_of_fair_representation https://www.fairvote.org/new_york_s_proportional_representat...
  - morsch 6y ago
    Proportional, and also ranked, that's awesome. Assigning ranks seems like a much more "high fidelity" way of describing what I want. The article's graph of vote vs representation is striking. "[R]epeal advocates blamed proportional representation for the election of communists to the city council. While the communist issue might have doomed proportional representation, the true deathblow came when the Republicans joined the Democrats to oppose it. Republicans had been early champions of proportional representation, but defected due to their dwindling role within a diverse and mostly progressive minority coalition."
    - tt433 6y ago
      The strategy of a small child: if I can't play in the pool anymore, I'll just shit in it.
- logicchains 6y ago
  Funnily enough, California's system did used to be slightly less one-sided, but an amendment introduced that was claimed would make it less one-sided actually ended up making it more.
  - dgoldstein0 6y ago
    care to share details?
    - logicchains 6y ago
      In 2010 California adopted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_blanket_primary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_blanket_primary.
  - mikelward 6y ago
    The CVRA (and subsequent rulings) has also forced adoption of single-member districts. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Voting_Rights_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Voting_Rights_Act Sunnyvale just switched to single-member districts because of this.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Because the parties that currently control all legislatures would lose out. In some areas a ballot initiative can eventually implement proportional voting (Maine passed an initiative for ranked choice), but that’s a very high bar to clear. It seems like the best way to get proportional voting is to create your democratic system with it that way from the beginning.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. Because change in voting systems has well-studied partisan and ideological impacts, and many of the people who know enough to understand the way that our current voting system contributes to widely-recognized problems in governance also have studied the issue well enough to understand those impacts, and many of them, even while accepting the problems as problems, think that the likely shift in ideological outcomes would be more adverse to their preferenced than the current set of problems. > The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves They are, but they don't want to. The only major voting system reform that has anywhere close to critical mass is IRV, which should have minimal impact (which is actually why it is within the space of possibility, though obviously not something advocates publicly trumpet.)
  - TwoBit 6y ago
    That of course is why one of the two US political parties is staunchly against abolishing the electoral college.
    - phnofive 6y ago
      Sadly, if not surprisingly, partisan support flipped in 2016, making this less ideological than tactical. https://news.gallup.com/poll/320744/americans-support-abolishing-electoral-college.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/320744/americans-support-abolis...
      - lenkite 6y ago
        Do you really trust these polls ?
      - boomboomsubban 6y ago
        The public's opinion is irrelevant, both parties will continue propping up systems that prevent any other competition from having a shot.
        deleted 6y ago
- wwwwwwwww 6y ago
  As another European: proportional voting has nothing to do with it. Its more about ideologized voters who care more about ideology than merit when voting.
  - Gwypaas 6y ago
    The natural balance of a system built on single member districts is two parties, which naturally has to oppose each other to the extreme in all topics. The final outcome is the US today. See the radical shift when New Zeeland shifted to MMP, which although not perfect is better. [0] For party-list based systems some modification of the Webster/Sainte-Laguë method [1] is often used to have about perfect representation compared to the votes with the caveats you desire, e.g. lower thresholds and so on, while still allowing some choice in the actual person and not party representing you. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_New_Zealand#General_elections_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_New_Zealand#Gener... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster/Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster/Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB_meth...
- wott 6y ago
  > As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. As a European, the elections in my country are: -- Presidential: uninominal majority (of course). -- Assembly: uninominal majority. -- Senate: no universal vote, voters emanate (mostly) from municipal councils majorities. -- Regional: allegedly proportional lists, but in fact a majority vote, since the leading list gets a majority bonus of 25% of the seats, and then only proportional applies (and still, it is a two-round vote in which lists under 12.5% are evicted from the first round, and then can be evicted again at the second round, even from proportional). So in practice the leading list is always granted more than 50% of the seats. -- Departmental: uninominal majority -- Municipal: in large towns, allegedly proportional lists, but in fact a majority vote, since the leading list gets a majority bonus of 50%!!! so there is not even a slight theoretical possibility of having a balance; in villages: plurinominal majority (so a list where every member gets 50%+1 votes gets 100% of seats). So, not a single actual proportional election, even in those which purport to be such. (That's France, if you wonder.) As a practical note, I would like to add that concerning the Assembly, the uninominal voting system used to produce a sort of balanced result, because of differences in history, culture, sociology, traditions and so on in different voting districts; but at present the populations are mixed, the medias are national, everything is more standardised, and so votes are more uniform, and as a consequence a party who has a small lead now has it almost everywhere and can get an overwhelming majority of seats despite only having that small lead.
- burlesona 6y ago
  We have the system that made sense to the people in 1792. It’s a system that is practical with their technology, and it responds to the very specific political problem they had at the time: getting 13 independent countries to surrender their sovereignty to a federal government. That system mostly worked, but it still required a civil war to prove the Union was really was sovereign and states could not leave. When you’re baffled by things happening over here, remember that the United States is less analogous to France or Germany and more analogous to the European Union. The individual states are more analogous to EU nations. It’s not a perfect comparison, but it’s helpful.
  - lhopki01 6y ago
    Isn't that the point the poster is making? States have enough independence that they could introduce proportional representation themselves. The only voting reform that I know of in the United States is Maine introducing ranked choice for Governer. Other changes of voting system such as everyone votes for every city councillor seem more designed to keep certain groups out of power.
    - hchasestevens 6y ago
      Actually, we also have RCV for our electoral college votes in the presidential election, as of 2020.
- AngryData 6y ago
  States do have complete power over elections, the problem is most state governments are just as corrupt as the feds and changing voting methods or procedures puts both republicans and democrats at risk of independent party members taking positions. It is about the two major parties trying to maintain political power despite increasing voter dissatisfaction going on decades.
- specialist 6y ago
  Our one saving grace is our "Democratic Party" is branding for 1,000s of individual party organizations. Ditto Republicans. For instance, in my state, official (legally recognized, meaning access to the ballot) parties are organized by legislative, county, and state wide. Depending on the whatifs, who's got the real power changes over time and context. And the intraparty Democratic fighting is far worse than the interparty stuff. IMHO. (Though I've attended Republican events, having never participated in their orgs, I can't compare. Though from popular press accounts, insurgents like the Tea Party, taking on their establishments, sounds comparable.) Then we have all sorts of non partisan politics. Like interest groups, lobbyists, agencies, media, etc. So while doupoly sucks, and PR would be so much better, our current system is not monolithic.
- ianhorn 6y ago
  I firmly believe that better voting systems are the highest ROI changes we can make to government. Unfortunately the people the current system over-favors are the ones who need to do it. It’s a microcosm of the whole problem of politics :(
justin66 6y ago
They might get away with it, but another metaphor is called for. Thanks to propublica they’ve pretty thoroughly failed to sweep it under the rug.
- forgingahead 6y ago
  Many scandalous issues are raised by outlets like ProPublica - this is a good thing, but only half of the process. If there are no consequences for the culprits, followed by systemic change to prevent this from occurring again, then this is essentially shouting into the wind. Parent is making the point that due to the one-party system, the latter outcomes will never happen.
claudeganon 6y ago
I don’t think Republican opposition is the answer, as they’re demonstrably just as corrupt and self-serving. But California could certainly benefit from some primary challenges from the left. LA is seeing this happen with the election of Nithya Raman and George Gascón (who were vehemently opposed by mainstream Democrats). Interested to see how they might shift the terrain.
- twblalock 6y ago
  Democrats getting defeated in primaries from the left only results in Democrats being replaced by other Democrats. We would still have one party in charge of the state, with a veto-proof majority in the legislature.
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    True, but that’s only a bad thing if you like the other party better. Which it appears the majority of voters in that state do not.
    - twblalock 6y ago
      One-party rule is bad no matter which party you like. Even if the party you like is the one that is in charge, you will see them become complacent and corrupt when no-one else is able to hold them to account.
      - claudeganon 6y ago
        While I agree with the sentiment in the abstract, I see no reason why a party like the Republicans provides any meaningful contrast or check on this complacent and corruption. It’s entirely possible for both parties to be bankrupt and awful, just dishonestly maneuvering however they can to take power. The only real check on power of from bottom-up accountability to one’s constituents, which the two party system in the US makes more difficult and has otherwise been almost entirely eroded by elections being private (vs. publicly) funded. Primaries are one of the few remaining vestiges of accountability in American democracy and have been used successfully by both the left and right to enforce it.
ardy42 6y ago
> The sad part is that CA remains a one party state and this will just get swept under the rug. The power is too unchecked. And I'm guessing the reason for that is that politics has gotten too nationalized, and the state-level opposition is too unwilling to distance itself from its national party to make itself competitive.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- minot 6y ago
  Corruption isn’t a partisan issue. California Republicans are just as if not more corrupt than California Democrats. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/09/23/editorial-santa-clara-county-sheriff-laurie-smith-should-resign/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/09/23/editorial-santa-clara... Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25190668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25190668
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    One party pretends not to be corrupt; the other seeks to legalize corruption. Which is worse?
- dgoldstein0 6y ago
  From what I've seen in California elections, as a California voter for the last 7 years: - Republicans running for Congress (Senate and House of Reps) tend to be aligned with the national party platform, and therefore sound super out of touch to me. For this reason, I doubt we'll see a Republican Senator from California anytime soon. - Republicans running for state positions tend to be more moderate, and sound a lot more palatable as a result. Doubly so for the less political positions like state auditor and treasurer, which are not about making policy as much as just making sure we use the state's resources appropriately. At least, for the candidates I see on my ballot in San Francisco.
twblalock 6y ago
I've got my signature form to recall the governor printed out, but what is holding me back from mailing it in is the fear that we could end up with someone even worse in charge if the recall succeeds.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  It happened last time. Drew Davis was recalled when he refused to pay $80B in enbezzled utility costs, and started an investigation of the embezzling. Arnold had the state just pay the $80B. Somebody got every penny of that $80B.
  - twblalock 6y ago
    I don't recall the $80 billion being a major factor in Gray Davis's recall. I remember the rolling blackouts, high power bills, and high car registration fees being more important. Those were having a real impact on voters, and there was a general sense that he was unable to solve those problems. I also remember the campaign to replace him devolving into a total zoo with all kinds of kooks on the ballot.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      You wouldn't; they of course didn't say why they were really trying to recall him. The rolling blackouts were an integral part of the embezzlement scheme; getting people to blame Davis for them was clever marketing. So was the zoo: when people are confused enough, they vote for a familiar name, and there was Arnold. The prospect of $80 billion, free and clear, buys a lot of clever marketing.
hnruss 6y ago
The power is checked by the voters, and every election Californians keep electing Democrats. It’s only sad to Republicans, and only because it’s not their party in power.
- jimbob45 6y ago
  ??? I’m not sure that party affiliation has anything to do with the level of corruption. I would imagine that corruption tracks far more closely to regional GDP - more money, more backroom deals.
  - hnruss 6y ago
    I agree that more money probably means more backroom deals. This seems simple to me: One party wants to regulate, the other de-regulate. Which of those platforms attracts the most money?
    - 29athrowaway 6y ago
      Deregulate the environment and you will be drinking polluted water, and breathing polluted air. Your food will be likely exposed to pollution too. Deregulate labor and you'll have exploited workers working 100 hours per week, being constantly harassed by their employers, people being discriminated at the workplace, as well as people exposed to poor safety conditions where they can get injured or killed. Deregulate consumer rights and now anyone can scam you and sell you something that doesn't work with no right to a refund. Deregulate restaurants and now noone is liable if you end up with food poisoining or die from allergies due to poor hygiene and bad practices. And the list goes on and on. Regulations are not bad. Excessive regulations are bad. The opposite excess, no regulations, is equally bad.
      - hnruss 6y ago
        Yes, and my guess is that there is more money to be made off of deregulation than on regulation. Thus, more corruption related to the party that wants to deregulate.
29athrowaway 6y ago
In a one-party system (e.g.: China), you can only vote for candidates from one party. CA is not a one-party system. If you constantly criticize the state and their elected officials, or do something unpopular like pissing off 38% of the state population (Hispanics/Latinos), do not expect your party to achieve anything significant in this state.
threatofrain 6y ago
The national Republican party has money which they can dynamically allocate to different states. If they want to pitch exciting offers to California, such as solutions for transportation or healthcare, then so be it. Kevin McCarthy is the house minority leader for the GOP and he's using his airtime by talking about how the presidential election is a fraud. That's a taste of the calibre of counter-narrative the GOP chooses to air. I would argue there's more healthy idea generation within party than between party.
- yostrovs 6y ago
  Half the country thinks it's a fraud just like half the country thought the last election was a fraud. And just like last time, the next few years will have to take up this matter for discussion and ripping society apart. The only difference i see is that there won't be a federal investigation into the matter this time, leaving a lot of people convinced that indeed this was a rigged election.
  - nkrisc 6y ago
    Who's arguing the last election was a fraud? I can't recall any major Democrat who claimed, continually without evidence, that Russia or Republicans engaged in voter fraud. The argument was that Russia interfered and/or colluded with the Trump campaign to spread misinformation and hack the DNC. No one was claiming the votes themselves were fraudulent. There have been investigations into allegations of voter fraud in this election. In fact one of the cases the Trump campaign alleged in Pennsylvania turned out to be true! The guy voted for Trump twice!
    - yostrovs 6y ago
      However you want to see it, half the country thinks Trump was an illegitimate president, elected thanks to external manipulation of the Russian government. This is a fact that has consumed all of media and good chunk of the population for 3 years. It's true it's not an exact mirror copy of the current election predicament. Nevertheless, the outcome of questioning the election and democracy in general is the result of both cases.
vkou 6y ago
CA will remain a one-party state as long as the Republican party continues to push absolutely insane policies and candidates. Which will keep happening, because the sane ones get primaried out.
- refurb 6y ago
  Are you arguing the democrats are putting out sane policies and candidates? Have you seen SF?
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
> The sad part is that CA remains a one party state A duopoly is a fraternal monopoly, marked by common self-serving behavior. Both parties trade law and power for campaign funds on a massive scale - every day of the year. It's unclear why one flavor of that might be preferable.
specialist 6y ago
I agree it's unlikely anything will happen. This is deeper than partisanship, one party rule, pay for play. Robert Caro's The Power Broker is one primer for how true power works in our system of government. I'm still clueless what the remedies are, indeed if there are any.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

legulere 6y ago

As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves, and there are also referendums.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
A switch to proportional voting could require constitutional changes in most places. Also, proportional voting introduces all kinds of unnecessary problems like not having districts and thereby constituents having their votes diluted and not having a specific representative. Which is one things the American system gets right. What we really need is a switch from "first past the post" to approval/score/range voting, which would dissolve the two party system by eliminating spoilers and thereby making third parties viable. Score/range voting is "that thing the Olympics uses"; approval voting is "that thing the Olympics uses if the only possible scores a judge can give are 0 or 1". As far as I can tell the biggest impediment to this is a lot of people proposing alternative systems that aren't as good (e.g. IRV) and then no change is made because proponents of change are divided on which change to make.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > A switch to proportional voting could require constitutional changes in most places. Less places than you might think. It especially wouldn't for Congress (so long as it was proportional by a method similar to STV within state delegations, or within some subset of state delegations), as the only barrier there is a statutory prohibition on at-large districts for delegations greater than 1, adopted to head off the use of FPTP at-large districts to systematically deny representation not minorities. > Also, proportional voting introduces all kinds of unnecessary problems like not having districts Party list proportional would do that, but most other proportional systems would not. > and thereby constituents having their votes diluted Proportionality doesn't dilute votes; the more proportional a system is the more efficiently it allocated votes to give them maximum effect. > and not having a specific representative Proportional systems don't need to have that effect, either, no matter how you measure it (and FPTP—and any other simple singlr-member district system—definitely has that effect for supporters of the nonwinning party in a district, who are effectively unrepresented entirely.)
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > Proportionality doesn't dilute votes It causes your vote to be mixed with a larger number of other votes, which is the definition of dilution. By giving the candidates more alternative constituents to win over in order to stay in office, your vote is less important to them and there are more ways they can screw you over and still stay in office. > the more proportional a system is the more efficiently it allocated votes to give them maximum effect. That isn't inherently true. Suppose you have a state with two districts. 60% of the state are religious conservatives, 30% are libertarians, 10% are socialists. With proportional representation the socialists get disenfranchised because they don't get their own candidate. Even the libertarians might get disenfranchised if the religious conservatives manage to get two representatives. But with range voting, you end up with a candidate who has to make all the interests in their district as happy as possible because anyone who comes along and can make them happier would defeat them in an election -- so nobody gets disenfranchised because every victor needs to make everybody happier than anybody else. Proportional systems also fail in the same way but worse when forming governing coalitions. Suppose you have a White party and a Black party and the White party voters are 70% of the population. Then proportional representation gives them 70% of the representatives, they form the majority coalition and the Black party representatives lose every vote. Compare this to range voting where if you so much as have a White party, they lose even in many majority-White districts against a moderate candidate who can earn the support of both White and Black constituents. It promotes the election of moderates with broad appeal over the election of extremists who fight to gain a majority coalition that can steamroll over anyone in the outgroup.
- Aeolun 6y ago
  > constituents having their votes diluted Wut? Literally every vote would be worth the same under proportional voting, that’s kind of the point isn’t it? Of course that means that people whose vote is currently outrageously relevant will have their vote dilluted.
  - tome 6y ago
    "Diluted" means "spread out". AnthonyMouse's point is that voters would no longer vote for a particular representative. Their vote would be "spread out" across the whole party list. (dragonwriter disagrees https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25549671 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25549671, but I'm not sure what he/she is referring to)
    - vincnetas 6y ago
      There is this thing, where you vote for party, but give ratings for the representatives on party list. So basically if a guy is on the list down bellow but a lot of voters pick to prioritize him, then he moves to top. This happenes during ellections couple of months ago i LT, where guy was on 141 position, but still got a seat in parlament. Edit: that party got 50 seats total.
- erentz 6y ago
  > What we really need is a switch from "first past the post" to approval/score/range voting, which would dissolve the two party system by eliminating spoilers and thereby making third parties viable. Systems like approval voting or STV when used with single member districts do not reduce the two party duopoly. To achieve this you must use multi member districts, which has the effect of reducing the threshold to gain a seat. The best case study for this is maybe Australia, which has been running systems like this for a century. In their Senate they elect using very large multi member districts and have a representation from a number of parties, whereas in their House they use single member districts. And the result there is a two party duopoly. For example at the moment in their Senate (multi member districts) currently there are seven parties and one independent: Liberal (31) Labor (26) Greens (9) National (5) One Nation (2) Centre Alliance (1) Lambie Network (1) Independent (1) On the other hand the Australian House uses single member districts and third parties do much worse. For example look at how the Greens have a whopping 11% of the seats in the Senate above but an absurd 0.6% in the House below. This absurd 20x discrepancy for the Greens in proportion of seats between the Senate and House is the impact of whether you use multi member vs single member districts with RCV. And the size of the multi member districts will determine the size of the impact. Labor (68) Liberal (61) National (15) Liberal National (1) Greens (1) KAP (1) Centre Alliance (1) Independent (3) As demonstrated here the Greens are clearly very popular with people but they just can't win in the duopoly reinforcing single-member districts. I would rather see us work to achieve an outcome like the the Australian Senate than the Australian House. WRT your concern about who is your representative in the multi member case. It can be argued now ~40% of people who vote for the loser in our current system don’t have a representative, and a more proportional system would clearly improve this. So I think, if say we had RCV with five member districts, you could either just contact whichever member you prefer, contact them all, or they could introduce joint offices to work together, or a system could be set up to assign them to “sub district” that would be akin to our current districts. For example assign them based on who gets the most first preference votes in a district. Or rotate them every six months between sub districts. This might even reduce partisanship.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > Systems like approval voting or STV when used with single member districts do not reduce the two party duopoly. What do you mean? Suppose you have a single member district with four parties running: Democrats, Republicans, Greens and Libertarians. First past the post polling shows 48% Democrat, 48% Republican, 2% Green and 2% Libertarian. Your preferred candidate is polling at 2%. You're then going to vote for one of the major parties because you know perfectly well that your preferred candidate is not going to win and you also know that you prefer one of the major party candidates over the other one. By contrast, with approval voting, all four candidates get around 50% approval because there are no spoilers and no reason not to approve of the candidate you actually want, so one of the third parties can plausibly edge out both of the major parties for the highest approval and win the district. They also have a much better case that they could win which means they can get into the debates etc. Also, approval voting makes it plausible for independents to win when they tailor their platform to the district, which just might destroy the political parties whatsoever -- and that would be most excellent. > It can be argued now ~40% of people who vote for the loser in our current system don’t have a representative, and a more proportional system would clearly improve this. No one disputes that the existing system is terrible. But approval voting still fixes that, because a candidate with 60% approval loses to one with 70% approval, so someone who can make more of the district happy wins. And there is no way to give full consideration to 100.0% of the voters short of direct democracy, which has its own set of problems.
- aqsalose 6y ago
  >Also, proportional voting introduces all kinds of unnecessary problems like not having districts and thereby constituents having their votes diluted and not having a specific representative. I'd rather phrase it, the proportional systems have quite large districts (or alternatively, much more of representatives per district) to achieve the proportional allocation. But I get what you mean. However, it is very well possible to design variations to any traditional party list proportional system where (at least nominally) one representative is identified with each current-sized and located district. For example, take a classic proportional system, and use it to select the number of representatives per party list. In proportional methods, usually the list is either preordered by the party or order within the list depends on the individual total popularity of candidates in all districts. So, to achieve nominal geographic representation, one can assign a district to each selected representative. E.G. each district is nominally represented by the one of those elected who had the largest share of votes in that district and is not yet assigned to some other district by the same rule (if one complains that one may have their representative elected by people out of one's district, this implicitly happens in such proportional systems anyway). Alternatively, one could achieve remarkable amount of geographic identification by relaxing the "one representative <-> one district" requirement. For example, require that each party list can put forward only one candidate per (equally populous) district; a candidate gets personal votes only in that district, but the number of seats given to list is allocated proportionally over all districts, as usual in proportional systems. Then the order within list is assigned by the personal votes of each candidate. (This has the added complication -- or benefit -- that districts with low overall turnout may be left without a specifically named representative and the district with high turnout for all candidates standing there may get them all elected; nevertheless, all votes count towards the party list total sum, no matter the district.)
- specialist 6y ago
  To your point, in my state, reformers have been able to change our laws to allow RCV, a much easier lift. > ...we really need ... approval/score/range voting Agreed. That's been my long time position. That said, per The Democracy Nerd podcast, I'm newly curious about multi-member seats. Which might be a smaller lift in a lot of places. https://xraypod.com/show/democracy-nerd/saving-democracy-in-oregon-1 https://xraypod.com/show/democracy-nerd/saving-democracy-in-... "... Kristin Eberhard from Sightline Institute discusses her proposal to eliminate the state Senate, along with other ideas to save democracy in Oregon." (Sorry, no timestamp.) Eberhard claims that prior to eliminating multimember seats, Illinois' legislature was far more productive, constructive. FWIW, I'm strongly in favor or unicameral legislatures at the state level, and I'm chewing on the notion for the federal level.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    The purpose of a bicameral legislature is to have a process for placing them in office that sufficiently differs as to allows the bodies to represent distinct interests in the legislature. The US Senate was originally appointed by the state legislatures and intended to represent the interests of the state governments at the federal level -- representation that they no longer have, leading to a massive federal takeover of government. Compare the ratio of tax revenues collected by the state vs. federal governments before and after the 17th amendment. There was a drastic, immediate, permanent shift.
    - specialist 6y ago
      Does this mean you support bicameral? In your future perfect PR world: Still bicameral? PR just for House? Replace House & Senate with a parliament? Or do you still want to preserve the vetocracy with a Senate (House of Lords)? What do state, county, city governments look like?
grandmczeb 6y ago
The US actually had quite a few cities with proportional voting in the early-mid 1900s. NYC for example had it from 1936 to 1947 when it was eliminated via referendum[1]. [1] https://www.fairvote.org/new_york_s_proportional_representation_experiment_demonstrates_potential_of_fair_representation https://www.fairvote.org/new_york_s_proportional_representat...
- morsch 6y ago
  Proportional, and also ranked, that's awesome. Assigning ranks seems like a much more "high fidelity" way of describing what I want. The article's graph of vote vs representation is striking. "[R]epeal advocates blamed proportional representation for the election of communists to the city council. While the communist issue might have doomed proportional representation, the true deathblow came when the Republicans joined the Democrats to oppose it. Republicans had been early champions of proportional representation, but defected due to their dwindling role within a diverse and mostly progressive minority coalition."
  - tt433 6y ago
    The strategy of a small child: if I can't play in the pool anymore, I'll just shit in it.
logicchains 6y ago
Funnily enough, California's system did used to be slightly less one-sided, but an amendment introduced that was claimed would make it less one-sided actually ended up making it more.
- dgoldstein0 6y ago
  care to share details?
  - logicchains 6y ago
    In 2010 California adopted https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_blanket_primary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_blanket_primary.
- mikelward 6y ago
  The CVRA (and subsequent rulings) has also forced adoption of single-member districts. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Voting_Rights_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Voting_Rights_Act Sunnyvale just switched to single-member districts because of this.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Because the parties that currently control all legislatures would lose out. In some areas a ballot initiative can eventually implement proportional voting (Maine passed an initiative for ranked choice), but that’s a very high bar to clear. It seems like the best way to get proportional voting is to create your democratic system with it that way from the beginning.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. Because change in voting systems has well-studied partisan and ideological impacts, and many of the people who know enough to understand the way that our current voting system contributes to widely-recognized problems in governance also have studied the issue well enough to understand those impacts, and many of them, even while accepting the problems as problems, think that the likely shift in ideological outcomes would be more adverse to their preferenced than the current set of problems. > The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves They are, but they don't want to. The only major voting system reform that has anywhere close to critical mass is IRV, which should have minimal impact (which is actually why it is within the space of possibility, though obviously not something advocates publicly trumpet.)
- TwoBit 6y ago
  That of course is why one of the two US political parties is staunchly against abolishing the electoral college.
  - phnofive 6y ago
    Sadly, if not surprisingly, partisan support flipped in 2016, making this less ideological than tactical. https://news.gallup.com/poll/320744/americans-support-abolishing-electoral-college.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/320744/americans-support-abolis...
    - lenkite 6y ago
      Do you really trust these polls ?
    - boomboomsubban 6y ago
      The public's opinion is irrelevant, both parties will continue propping up systems that prevent any other competition from having a shot.
      - deleted 6y ago
wwwwwwwww 6y ago
As another European: proportional voting has nothing to do with it. Its more about ideologized voters who care more about ideology than merit when voting.
- Gwypaas 6y ago
  The natural balance of a system built on single member districts is two parties, which naturally has to oppose each other to the extreme in all topics. The final outcome is the US today. See the radical shift when New Zeeland shifted to MMP, which although not perfect is better. [0] For party-list based systems some modification of the Webster/Sainte-Laguë method [1] is often used to have about perfect representation compared to the votes with the caveats you desire, e.g. lower thresholds and so on, while still allowing some choice in the actual person and not party representing you. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_New_Zealand#General_elections_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_New_Zealand#Gener... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster/Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster/Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB_meth...
wott 6y ago
> As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. As a European, the elections in my country are: -- Presidential: uninominal majority (of course). -- Assembly: uninominal majority. -- Senate: no universal vote, voters emanate (mostly) from municipal councils majorities. -- Regional: allegedly proportional lists, but in fact a majority vote, since the leading list gets a majority bonus of 25% of the seats, and then only proportional applies (and still, it is a two-round vote in which lists under 12.5% are evicted from the first round, and then can be evicted again at the second round, even from proportional). So in practice the leading list is always granted more than 50% of the seats. -- Departmental: uninominal majority -- Municipal: in large towns, allegedly proportional lists, but in fact a majority vote, since the leading list gets a majority bonus of 50%!!! so there is not even a slight theoretical possibility of having a balance; in villages: plurinominal majority (so a list where every member gets 50%+1 votes gets 100% of seats). So, not a single actual proportional election, even in those which purport to be such. (That's France, if you wonder.) As a practical note, I would like to add that concerning the Assembly, the uninominal voting system used to produce a sort of balanced result, because of differences in history, culture, sociology, traditions and so on in different voting districts; but at present the populations are mixed, the medias are national, everything is more standardised, and so votes are more uniform, and as a consequence a party who has a small lead now has it almost everywhere and can get an overwhelming majority of seats despite only having that small lead.
burlesona 6y ago
We have the system that made sense to the people in 1792. It’s a system that is practical with their technology, and it responds to the very specific political problem they had at the time: getting 13 independent countries to surrender their sovereignty to a federal government. That system mostly worked, but it still required a civil war to prove the Union was really was sovereign and states could not leave. When you’re baffled by things happening over here, remember that the United States is less analogous to France or Germany and more analogous to the European Union. The individual states are more analogous to EU nations. It’s not a perfect comparison, but it’s helpful.
- lhopki01 6y ago
  Isn't that the point the poster is making? States have enough independence that they could introduce proportional representation themselves. The only voting reform that I know of in the United States is Maine introducing ranked choice for Governer. Other changes of voting system such as everyone votes for every city councillor seem more designed to keep certain groups out of power.
  - hchasestevens 6y ago
    Actually, we also have RCV for our electoral college votes in the presidential election, as of 2020.
AngryData 6y ago
States do have complete power over elections, the problem is most state governments are just as corrupt as the feds and changing voting methods or procedures puts both republicans and democrats at risk of independent party members taking positions. It is about the two major parties trying to maintain political power despite increasing voter dissatisfaction going on decades.
specialist 6y ago
Our one saving grace is our "Democratic Party" is branding for 1,000s of individual party organizations. Ditto Republicans. For instance, in my state, official (legally recognized, meaning access to the ballot) parties are organized by legislative, county, and state wide. Depending on the whatifs, who's got the real power changes over time and context. And the intraparty Democratic fighting is far worse than the interparty stuff. IMHO. (Though I've attended Republican events, having never participated in their orgs, I can't compare. Though from popular press accounts, insurgents like the Tea Party, taking on their establishments, sounds comparable.) Then we have all sorts of non partisan politics. Like interest groups, lobbyists, agencies, media, etc. So while doupoly sucks, and PR would be so much better, our current system is not monolithic.
ianhorn 6y ago
I firmly believe that better voting systems are the highest ROI changes we can make to government. Unfortunately the people the current system over-favors are the ones who need to do it. It’s a microcosm of the whole problem of politics :(

justin66 6y ago

They might get away with it, but another metaphor is called for. Thanks to propublica they’ve pretty thoroughly failed to sweep it under the rug.

forgingahead 6y ago
Many scandalous issues are raised by outlets like ProPublica - this is a good thing, but only half of the process. If there are no consequences for the culprits, followed by systemic change to prevent this from occurring again, then this is essentially shouting into the wind. Parent is making the point that due to the one-party system, the latter outcomes will never happen.

claudeganon 6y ago

I don’t think Republican opposition is the answer, as they’re demonstrably just as corrupt and self-serving. But California could certainly benefit from some primary challenges from the left. LA is seeing this happen with the election of Nithya Raman and George Gascón (who were vehemently opposed by mainstream Democrats). Interested to see how they might shift the terrain.

twblalock 6y ago
Democrats getting defeated in primaries from the left only results in Democrats being replaced by other Democrats. We would still have one party in charge of the state, with a veto-proof majority in the legislature.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  True, but that’s only a bad thing if you like the other party better. Which it appears the majority of voters in that state do not.
  - twblalock 6y ago
    One-party rule is bad no matter which party you like. Even if the party you like is the one that is in charge, you will see them become complacent and corrupt when no-one else is able to hold them to account.
    - claudeganon 6y ago
      While I agree with the sentiment in the abstract, I see no reason why a party like the Republicans provides any meaningful contrast or check on this complacent and corruption. It’s entirely possible for both parties to be bankrupt and awful, just dishonestly maneuvering however they can to take power. The only real check on power of from bottom-up accountability to one’s constituents, which the two party system in the US makes more difficult and has otherwise been almost entirely eroded by elections being private (vs. publicly) funded. Primaries are one of the few remaining vestiges of accountability in American democracy and have been used successfully by both the left and right to enforce it.

ardy42 6y ago

> The sad part is that CA remains a one party state and this will just get swept under the rug. The power is too unchecked. And I'm guessing the reason for that is that politics has gotten too nationalized, and the state-level opposition is too unwilling to distance itself from its national party to make itself competitive.

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minot 6y ago
Corruption isn’t a partisan issue. California Republicans are just as if not more corrupt than California Democrats. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/09/23/editorial-santa-clara-county-sheriff-laurie-smith-should-resign/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/09/23/editorial-santa-clara... Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25190668 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25190668
- ncmncm 6y ago
  One party pretends not to be corrupt; the other seeks to legalize corruption. Which is worse?
dgoldstein0 6y ago
From what I've seen in California elections, as a California voter for the last 7 years: - Republicans running for Congress (Senate and House of Reps) tend to be aligned with the national party platform, and therefore sound super out of touch to me. For this reason, I doubt we'll see a Republican Senator from California anytime soon. - Republicans running for state positions tend to be more moderate, and sound a lot more palatable as a result. Doubly so for the less political positions like state auditor and treasurer, which are not about making policy as much as just making sure we use the state's resources appropriately. At least, for the candidates I see on my ballot in San Francisco.

twblalock 6y ago

I've got my signature form to recall the governor printed out, but what is holding me back from mailing it in is the fear that we could end up with someone even worse in charge if the recall succeeds.

ncmncm 6y ago
It happened last time. Drew Davis was recalled when he refused to pay $80B in enbezzled utility costs, and started an investigation of the embezzling. Arnold had the state just pay the $80B. Somebody got every penny of that $80B.
- twblalock 6y ago
  I don't recall the $80 billion being a major factor in Gray Davis's recall. I remember the rolling blackouts, high power bills, and high car registration fees being more important. Those were having a real impact on voters, and there was a general sense that he was unable to solve those problems. I also remember the campaign to replace him devolving into a total zoo with all kinds of kooks on the ballot.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    You wouldn't; they of course didn't say why they were really trying to recall him. The rolling blackouts were an integral part of the embezzlement scheme; getting people to blame Davis for them was clever marketing. So was the zoo: when people are confused enough, they vote for a familiar name, and there was Arnold. The prospect of $80 billion, free and clear, buys a lot of clever marketing.

hnruss 6y ago

The power is checked by the voters, and every election Californians keep electing Democrats. It’s only sad to Republicans, and only because it’s not their party in power.

jimbob45 6y ago
??? I’m not sure that party affiliation has anything to do with the level of corruption. I would imagine that corruption tracks far more closely to regional GDP - more money, more backroom deals.
- hnruss 6y ago
  I agree that more money probably means more backroom deals. This seems simple to me: One party wants to regulate, the other de-regulate. Which of those platforms attracts the most money?
  - 29athrowaway 6y ago
    Deregulate the environment and you will be drinking polluted water, and breathing polluted air. Your food will be likely exposed to pollution too. Deregulate labor and you'll have exploited workers working 100 hours per week, being constantly harassed by their employers, people being discriminated at the workplace, as well as people exposed to poor safety conditions where they can get injured or killed. Deregulate consumer rights and now anyone can scam you and sell you something that doesn't work with no right to a refund. Deregulate restaurants and now noone is liable if you end up with food poisoining or die from allergies due to poor hygiene and bad practices. And the list goes on and on. Regulations are not bad. Excessive regulations are bad. The opposite excess, no regulations, is equally bad.
    - hnruss 6y ago
      Yes, and my guess is that there is more money to be made off of deregulation than on regulation. Thus, more corruption related to the party that wants to deregulate.

29athrowaway 6y ago

In a one-party system (e.g.: China), you can only vote for candidates from one party. CA is not a one-party system. If you constantly criticize the state and their elected officials, or do something unpopular like pissing off 38% of the state population (Hispanics/Latinos), do not expect your party to achieve anything significant in this state.

threatofrain 6y ago

The national Republican party has money which they can dynamically allocate to different states. If they want to pitch exciting offers to California, such as solutions for transportation or healthcare, then so be it. Kevin McCarthy is the house minority leader for the GOP and he's using his airtime by talking about how the presidential election is a fraud. That's a taste of the calibre of counter-narrative the GOP chooses to air. I would argue there's more healthy idea generation within party than between party.

yostrovs 6y ago
Half the country thinks it's a fraud just like half the country thought the last election was a fraud. And just like last time, the next few years will have to take up this matter for discussion and ripping society apart. The only difference i see is that there won't be a federal investigation into the matter this time, leaving a lot of people convinced that indeed this was a rigged election.
- nkrisc 6y ago
  Who's arguing the last election was a fraud? I can't recall any major Democrat who claimed, continually without evidence, that Russia or Republicans engaged in voter fraud. The argument was that Russia interfered and/or colluded with the Trump campaign to spread misinformation and hack the DNC. No one was claiming the votes themselves were fraudulent. There have been investigations into allegations of voter fraud in this election. In fact one of the cases the Trump campaign alleged in Pennsylvania turned out to be true! The guy voted for Trump twice!
  - yostrovs 6y ago
    However you want to see it, half the country thinks Trump was an illegitimate president, elected thanks to external manipulation of the Russian government. This is a fact that has consumed all of media and good chunk of the population for 3 years. It's true it's not an exact mirror copy of the current election predicament. Nevertheless, the outcome of questioning the election and democracy in general is the result of both cases.

vkou 6y ago

CA will remain a one-party state as long as the Republican party continues to push absolutely insane policies and candidates. Which will keep happening, because the sane ones get primaried out.

refurb 6y ago
Are you arguing the democrats are putting out sane policies and candidates? Have you seen SF?

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

> The sad part is that CA remains a one party state A duopoly is a fraternal monopoly, marked by common self-serving behavior. Both parties trade law and power for campaign funds on a massive scale - every day of the year. It's unclear why one flavor of that might be preferable.

specialist 6y ago

I agree it's unlikely anything will happen. This is deeper than partisanship, one party rule, pay for play. Robert Caro's The Power Broker is one primer for how true power works in our system of government. I'm still clueless what the remedies are, indeed if there are any.

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