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The consequences in theory are political. Theoretically Congress should be impeaching Presidents and expelling members that do not uphold their oaths. Executin
by SllX 4y ago
The consequences in theory are political. Theoretically Congress should be impeaching Presidents and expelling members that do not uphold their oaths.
Executing consequences into popular Presidents or other members of Congress would also be politicized and have political consequences for Congress, so it doesn’t happen. That said, leaving impeachment or expulsion of legislative members to the Courts would also give them too much power.
So the real consequences are at election time. If you ran to retain your seat, and lost, that’s your comeuppance. It’s not granular, but it gets the job done eventually. This is also why control of the White House flips back and forth so much: nothing any President does is particularly popular most of the time, they just have the votes to do it. Incumbents do get massive advantages in staying power but in the present day, two terms looks like about the maximum we would be able to tolerate a President’s political party in the Oval Office and typically after midterms they no longer have the votes in Congress either.
Most of this is generally applicable to the States, but I don’t know New York politics specifically but would note that the previous Governor was put into a position where he was pretty much forced to resign both for scandals and for the actions he took while in office; and that was a slow slow build up.
- kodah 4y agoThis is pretty good insight. Now I'm wondering what public data sources show overturned bills as well as all sponsors of a bill. I think Congress' website tracks the latter, but the former might be difficult to obtain.
- lkrubner 4y agoChristopher H. Achen & Larry M. Bartels wrote a whole book showing that voters do not keep track of what elected officials do, and so politicians are not punished for bad behavior, see excerpt here: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/longer-elected-terms-lead-to-better https://demodexio.substack.com/p/longer-elected-terms-lead-t...
- SllX 4y agoCorrect, which is why I spoke mostly of Presidents and Parties who are all big enough targets that most American voters do form opinions about what they’re up to, even with only vague notions about the details. Individual members of Congress can usually skate by, but that’s only as true as their district or State is uncompetitive. And in States where “big issue” lawmaking is deferred to the public via referendum on a regular basis there’s almost no incentive at all to mind what the legislature or governor is doing; especially if tax increases also have to be voter approved. Who do you hold accountable when it’s the voters who make a bad decision about a law?
- lkrubner 4y agoThe emphasis on parties might be the most accurate part. This is a possible reason for the so-called "Panama Exception" -- a nation the should be a dictatorship and yet has been a thriving democracy: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/the-panama-exception https://demodexio.substack.com/p/the-panama-exception
- phpisthebest 4y agoThis is also shown in polling data, where congress on the whole has an approval rating of less than 10%, yet most years the incumbent is reelected That statistic alone has me questioning if democracy is a good system
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoWe need an option 'against all' and if that option wins, all candidates are disqualified for life. Then approval rating would mean something.
- gruez 4y agoThat arguably makes vote splitting worse. Do you cast your vote for the least bad corrupt candidate so the other candidate that wants to [legalize killing babies/control women's bodies] doesn't win, or do you vote for the "against all" option so that both corrupt candidates get disqualified?
- lkrubner 4y agoAssuming we need some kind of government, then does "against all" actually offer an improvement over the current system? The economist Kenneth Arrow suggested something in the opposite direction, approval voting, where the voters get as many votes as their are candidates, so the voters have the option of voting for everyone except maybe the absolute worst. Arrow did the math and liked the results from such a system of voting. And also, what is the goal of voting? Is it to give an individual an avenue for self-expression, or is it to achieve the social goal of forming a government? This is the argument against self-expression: https://demodexio.substack.com/p/should-a-system-of-voting-aim-to https://demodexio.substack.com/p/should-a-system-of-voting-a...
- zugi 4y agoParaphrasing Winston Churchill: democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. For those decisions that need to be made collectively, democracy is just the worst bad method we've come up with. But one huge benefit of freedom is that if we embrace freedom, the vast majority of decisions can be made individually, or by mutual agreement of consenting individuals, and not collectively. So the negative consequences of democracy aren't as impactful.