8 ms·

My understanding is that it is more a consequence of politics than the system... Sure you have a veto proof majority on this bill, but what about what comes nex

My understanding is that it is more a consequence of politics than the system... Sure you have a veto proof majority on this bill, but what about what comes next? The governor is able to stop "tyranny of masses" by their veto power. Almost no bill in our partisan age is able to pass with a veto proof majority. So the governor has the ability to prevent good outcomes for specific members of their party in the legislature in the future. Sure a budget that makes the party and governor look good will pass, but members who "step out of line", will find that they can't "bring home the bacon" in terms of what is allocated to their district. So could the bill be pushed through unmodified despite an governor's veto? Of course. The system expressly allows this given a 2/3rds vote. But the legislature needs to weigh their options: 1.) Have all members push the bill forward anyways 2.) Have just enough members push the bill forward 3.) Accept the governor's revisions and move the bill forward 4.) Drop the bill As a representative it is hard to tell which of 1/2 you are choosing in the moment. The issue is that 2 may paint a target on your back. The members of the party opposing the governor are less incentivized to care about the veto. So do you want the governor to hold a grudge with "1 of X" representatives of their own party who sided against them? Granted the legislature is about 2/3rds democrat, so for a break with the governor to happen maybe half the democratic legislature would have to break with the governor. 3 Is appealing over 4, since you are able to claim victory for now. Something was passed after all, and the name of the bill alone is usually enough to make a good ad come re-election. and if the issues really are so severe, this is just another victory for the future you.

unity1001 4y ago
> "tyranny of masses" That's democracy. If you water down or prevent the democratic will through ANY means to empower the will of the minority over the majority for ANY reason, then you end up implementing the governance of an elite. Minority rights of the people are a different matter - they would be guaranteed by the civil law governing human rights in a country - they dont have anything to do with the democratic will.
- jamiek88 4y ago
  No. We live in representative democracies not absolute democracies and these table thumping maximalist positions rarely make good conversation or policy. They get retweeted though.
  - unity1001 4y ago
    > representative democracies / absolute democracies The dichotomy above is impossible to interpret. What does that even mean. So when a democracy is representative, the minority's will can override the majority's will? Then what does the representation part in the representative democracy mean.
    - ThrustVectoring 4y ago
      > So when a democracy is representative, the minority's will can override the majority's will? Yes, and this is a feature, not a bug. Majority voting on issues one at a time cannot generate a deal that a majority would prefer when the compromise is presented as a block. Eg, if there are six different compatible single-issues that 10% of the people care solely about each, each individual one would get voted down 90-10, while representatives can make a bargain that delivers a combined platform approved of by 60%.
      - lotsofpulp 4y ago
        What does compatible mean if they would get voted down 90-10?
        ThrustVectoring 4y ago
        Something like a policy proposal costing a low but non-zero amount of money for exactly zero benefit outside of the eyes of the 10% who really care about their pet cause. The non-packaged proposals get voted down not because the majority hates them, but because they don't care, at least not like the special interest does. If a vector space is more your jam, imagine a six-dimensional vector space of policies, and each of these six hypothetical interest groups as voting for any combination of policies with a positive value along the axis in question, and against any combination of policies with a negative value. [100, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1], [-1, 100, -1, -1, -1, -1], etc, will each get voted down when presented individually as policies, but their sum as a package gets supported by each interest group.
- ThrustVectoring 4y ago
  Pure majoritarianism isn't necessarily best either, it just always takes the majority's side in disputes where a strongly-held minority opinion comes in conflict with a weakly-held majority one. Like, it's obvious that you should take the side of the majority when it's "we'd rather not be slightly inconvenienced by paying for rent-seekers" regardless of how intensely the minority of rent-seekers want to rent-seek, but it's much less obvious that we should have zero handouts to narrow interests when it's "please spend $10000 per life saved via rare-disease research and treatment, I don't care how little the general public is aware of and cares about it and would generally prefer lower taxes"
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    > but it's much less obvious that we should have zero handouts to narrow interests when it's "please spend $10000 per life saved via rare-disease research and treatment, I don't care how little the general public is aware of and cares about it and would generally prefer lower taxes" In reality, this turns into we should have billion dollar handouts to narrow interests because rather than use taxpayer funds to R&D cures into the public domain using the existing world class university system, the narrow interests would prefer being able to benefit from patented medicines: https://www.wsj.com/articles/drug-prices-reach-new-highin-the-millions-11671990099 https://www.wsj.com/articles/drug-prices-reach-new-highin-th... > Since August, U.S. or European health regulators have approved four new products intended as one-time treatments for rare genetic diseases that carry list prices of at least $2 million a patient, including two from Bluebird Bio Inc.
    - ThrustVectoring 4y ago
      Okay, make the hypothetical be malaria nets or insulin then. The exact specifics don't matter all that much, it's just an illustration that you can't use issue-by-issue majoritarianism to generate a coalition that can pass a broadly popular group of policies that lacks individual plank-by-plank popularity. There's no enforcement mechanism to coordinate a "you vote for my pet issue and I'll vote for yours".
  - unity1001 4y ago
Jon_Lowtek 4y ago
The Legislative is not a single person, who weights the options, who accepts the governors revision on behalf of the senate and assembly?
- Buraksr 4y ago
  The language on their website implies that they act collectively in the event of a veto “A vetoed bill can become law if two-thirds of the members of each house vote to override the Governor's veto.”[0]. Practically speaking, there are usually committees (may be area specific, or general such as scheduling/introductory) that make the first choice as to how the process will continue. For new york this seems to be the standing committee which decides what will be put to a vote, “ Members of Standing Committees evaluate bills and decide whether to "report" them (send them) to the Senate floor for a final decision by the full membership.”[0]. [0]-https://www.nysenate.gov/how-bill-becomes-law https://www.nysenate.gov/how-bill-becomes-law
  - Jon_Lowtek 4y ago
    Thank you for the explanation, but that does not quite hit the spot: it explains what would happen if the governor vetoes the bill. In this case the governor claims she made some "agreement" with the Legislative to change the text of the bill shortly before signing it. And it appears that happened without Senate and Assembly voting on these changes, completely skipping this "final decision by the full membership". I would like to know who the governor made an agreement with. The Standing Committees might be a possibility. kwiens named the bills sponsors as a possibility. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34193369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34193369). If the bill was changed shortly before signing it, i would also like to know what the text of the signed bill is. This whole process implied by memorandum #93 seems irregular to me. Stuff like this should be documented publicly, IMHO.
Linosaurus 4y ago
> 3.) Accept the governor's revisions and move the bill forward Nice write up, but leaves me wondering how this works formally. My main guesses: 1.) There will be a vote to formally accept the new changes, but it’s treated as a done deal. 2.) The governor can formally edit the text to say anything she wants, and it’s up to the legislature to protest afterwards.

unity1001 4y ago

> "tyranny of masses" That's democracy. If you water down or prevent the democratic will through ANY means to empower the will of the minority over the majority for ANY reason, then you end up implementing the governance of an elite. Minority rights of the people are a different matter - they would be guaranteed by the civil law governing human rights in a country - they dont have anything to do with the democratic will.

jamiek88 4y ago
No. We live in representative democracies not absolute democracies and these table thumping maximalist positions rarely make good conversation or policy. They get retweeted though.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > representative democracies / absolute democracies The dichotomy above is impossible to interpret. What does that even mean. So when a democracy is representative, the minority's will can override the majority's will? Then what does the representation part in the representative democracy mean.
  - ThrustVectoring 4y ago
    > So when a democracy is representative, the minority's will can override the majority's will? Yes, and this is a feature, not a bug. Majority voting on issues one at a time cannot generate a deal that a majority would prefer when the compromise is presented as a block. Eg, if there are six different compatible single-issues that 10% of the people care solely about each, each individual one would get voted down 90-10, while representatives can make a bargain that delivers a combined platform approved of by 60%.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      What does compatible mean if they would get voted down 90-10?
      - ThrustVectoring 4y ago
        Something like a policy proposal costing a low but non-zero amount of money for exactly zero benefit outside of the eyes of the 10% who really care about their pet cause. The non-packaged proposals get voted down not because the majority hates them, but because they don't care, at least not like the special interest does. If a vector space is more your jam, imagine a six-dimensional vector space of policies, and each of these six hypothetical interest groups as voting for any combination of policies with a positive value along the axis in question, and against any combination of policies with a negative value. [100, -1, -1, -1, -1, -1], [-1, 100, -1, -1, -1, -1], etc, will each get voted down when presented individually as policies, but their sum as a package gets supported by each interest group.
ThrustVectoring 4y ago
Pure majoritarianism isn't necessarily best either, it just always takes the majority's side in disputes where a strongly-held minority opinion comes in conflict with a weakly-held majority one. Like, it's obvious that you should take the side of the majority when it's "we'd rather not be slightly inconvenienced by paying for rent-seekers" regardless of how intensely the minority of rent-seekers want to rent-seek, but it's much less obvious that we should have zero handouts to narrow interests when it's "please spend $10000 per life saved via rare-disease research and treatment, I don't care how little the general public is aware of and cares about it and would generally prefer lower taxes"
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > but it's much less obvious that we should have zero handouts to narrow interests when it's "please spend $10000 per life saved via rare-disease research and treatment, I don't care how little the general public is aware of and cares about it and would generally prefer lower taxes" In reality, this turns into we should have billion dollar handouts to narrow interests because rather than use taxpayer funds to R&D cures into the public domain using the existing world class university system, the narrow interests would prefer being able to benefit from patented medicines: https://www.wsj.com/articles/drug-prices-reach-new-highin-the-millions-11671990099 https://www.wsj.com/articles/drug-prices-reach-new-highin-th... > Since August, U.S. or European health regulators have approved four new products intended as one-time treatments for rare genetic diseases that carry list prices of at least $2 million a patient, including two from Bluebird Bio Inc.
  - ThrustVectoring 4y ago
    Okay, make the hypothetical be malaria nets or insulin then. The exact specifics don't matter all that much, it's just an illustration that you can't use issue-by-issue majoritarianism to generate a coalition that can pass a broadly popular group of policies that lacks individual plank-by-plank popularity. There's no enforcement mechanism to coordinate a "you vote for my pet issue and I'll vote for yours".
- unity1001 4y ago

Jon_Lowtek 4y ago

The Legislative is not a single person, who weights the options, who accepts the governors revision on behalf of the senate and assembly?

Buraksr 4y ago
The language on their website implies that they act collectively in the event of a veto “A vetoed bill can become law if two-thirds of the members of each house vote to override the Governor's veto.”[0]. Practically speaking, there are usually committees (may be area specific, or general such as scheduling/introductory) that make the first choice as to how the process will continue. For new york this seems to be the standing committee which decides what will be put to a vote, “ Members of Standing Committees evaluate bills and decide whether to "report" them (send them) to the Senate floor for a final decision by the full membership.”[0]. [0]-https://www.nysenate.gov/how-bill-becomes-law https://www.nysenate.gov/how-bill-becomes-law
- Jon_Lowtek 4y ago
  Thank you for the explanation, but that does not quite hit the spot: it explains what would happen if the governor vetoes the bill. In this case the governor claims she made some "agreement" with the Legislative to change the text of the bill shortly before signing it. And it appears that happened without Senate and Assembly voting on these changes, completely skipping this "final decision by the full membership". I would like to know who the governor made an agreement with. The Standing Committees might be a possibility. kwiens named the bills sponsors as a possibility. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34193369 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34193369). If the bill was changed shortly before signing it, i would also like to know what the text of the signed bill is. This whole process implied by memorandum #93 seems irregular to me. Stuff like this should be documented publicly, IMHO.

Linosaurus 4y ago

> 3.) Accept the governor's revisions and move the bill forward Nice write up, but leaves me wondering how this works formally. My main guesses: 1.) There will be a vote to formally accept the new changes, but it’s treated as a done deal. 2.) The governor can formally edit the text to say anything she wants, and it’s up to the legislature to protest afterwards.