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Certainly it's not a perfect system, but I think a lot of these questions could be addressed. Party affiliation could be determined by the percentage of the po

Certainly it's not a perfect system, but I think a lot of these questions could be addressed. Party affiliation could be determined by the percentage of the popular vote a party receives in the presidential election (or there could be a separate question on the ballot for what party you want to appoint judges on your behalf). So party affiliation or independent status wouldn't matter, just who an individual votes for. That wouldn't be perfect, for example I generally vote for one of the major parties even though they don't actually represent my views that well; however, it would still provide at least some balance of power that is currently lacking. I'd envision third parties being handled in the same way that countries with proportionate representation do. As I understand it, a party gets a proportion of the seats equal to it's votes and small parties can band together so that collectively they have enough votes to get a seat.

eesmith 4y ago
> So party affiliation or independent status wouldn't matter, just who an individual votes for. I take it you don't think an independent will ever win the presidential election. You're almost certainly right, but that would be a flaw with this system. If extended to state judges and the governorship, it would have been a problem for Alaska in 2014–2018, when Bill Walker was governor. > That wouldn't be perfect Here's a big flaw - it requires judges to have a party affiliation. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/registered-voters-by-party https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/registered-... says there are about 38.8 registered Republicans and 49 million registered Democrats and over 210 million registered voters. If those numbers are right, most of the voting population is not registered with a party, even though most of the population votes for one of two parties. But in a system which requires judicial party membership to reflect voting preference, you end up forcing judges to join a party, just to have a job. Right now a lot of judges are "non-partisan". Of the recent state Supreme Court elections, "61 are held by nonpartisan justices", "14 are held by Republican justices, "five are held by Democratic justices" - https://ballotpedia.org/State_supreme_court_elections,_2024 https://ballotpedia.org/State_supreme_court_elections,_2024 (Though I think that means the race was not partisan, not necessarily the judge wasn't a party member?) Still, you can see AZ Supreme Court - https://ballotpedia.org/Ann_Timmer https://ballotpedia.org/Ann_Timmer who is listed as nonpartisan and with "Partisan Confidence Score: Indeterminate". This leads to problem #2: since there appear to be a lot of judges with no registered party membership - far more than the percentage of non-D/non-R votes - how do you determine if the current judicial distribution is skewed? Will you only select party-affiliated judges until the numbers balance the election results?
- harimau777 4y ago
  Yes, I think it's virtually impossible for someone with no party affiliation at all to win. Running a national campaign would pretty much require some party organization even if it's a third party. That being said, if they were an independent then I guess they are effectively a party of one and can just pick their own judges? Similar to with the voters, I don't really care what party a judge says (or doesn't say) they are a member of. My concern is who appoints them. So I would consider a situation where a disproportionate number of judges have been appointed by one party to be skewed.
  - eesmith 4y ago
    > So I would consider a situation where a disproportionate number of judges have been appointed by one party to be skewed. My observations concern your earlier statement "the law could require the ratios of federal judges to match the ratio of the popular vote in the most recent election". I said that had problems. The new criteria of "disproportionate number" is too subjective to provide meaningful policy. After Lincoln was elected, and the then-new Republican Party got 39.8% of the vote, you would have let the new President replace a substantial number of existing judges? You'll need to be careful as "party" is a bit tricky when you get to the details. If I'm a member of a state party, am I also a member of the national party? Consider the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, created in 1944. It is NOT the US Democratic Party, but like all state Democratic parties it is affiliated with the US Democratic Party. Would party membership have changed due to the merger? Where once there were Farmer-Labor and Democratic Party judges, would some of them need to be kicked out because in 1945 they were the same party? This could lead to all sorts of interesting ways to game the system, like a state with three Democratic Party-affiliated state parties, and bylaws that allow membership in multiple (affiliated) parties at the same time. Or as another hack, legally abolish the party every few years and create a new one (X Party 2028, X Party 2032, etc), and allow automatic transfer of members into the new party. Poof - now every re-election the administration gets to change out any judge, because none of the existing judges were appointed by the President of X Party 2036.
    - harimau777 4y ago

eesmith 4y ago

> So party affiliation or independent status wouldn't matter, just who an individual votes for. I take it you don't think an independent will ever win the presidential election. You're almost certainly right, but that would be a flaw with this system. If extended to state judges and the governorship, it would have been a problem for Alaska in 2014–2018, when Bill Walker was governor. > That wouldn't be perfect Here's a big flaw - it requires judges to have a party affiliation. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/registered-voters-by-party https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/registered-... says there are about 38.8 registered Republicans and 49 million registered Democrats and over 210 million registered voters. If those numbers are right, most of the voting population is not registered with a party, even though most of the population votes for one of two parties. But in a system which requires judicial party membership to reflect voting preference, you end up forcing judges to join a party, just to have a job. Right now a lot of judges are "non-partisan". Of the recent state Supreme Court elections, "61 are held by nonpartisan justices", "14 are held by Republican justices, "five are held by Democratic justices" - https://ballotpedia.org/State_supreme_court_elections,_2024 https://ballotpedia.org/State_supreme_court_elections,_2024 (Though I think that means the race was not partisan, not necessarily the judge wasn't a party member?) Still, you can see AZ Supreme Court - https://ballotpedia.org/Ann_Timmer https://ballotpedia.org/Ann_Timmer who is listed as nonpartisan and with "Partisan Confidence Score: Indeterminate". This leads to problem #2: since there appear to be a lot of judges with no registered party membership - far more than the percentage of non-D/non-R votes - how do you determine if the current judicial distribution is skewed? Will you only select party-affiliated judges until the numbers balance the election results?

harimau777 4y ago
Yes, I think it's virtually impossible for someone with no party affiliation at all to win. Running a national campaign would pretty much require some party organization even if it's a third party. That being said, if they were an independent then I guess they are effectively a party of one and can just pick their own judges? Similar to with the voters, I don't really care what party a judge says (or doesn't say) they are a member of. My concern is who appoints them. So I would consider a situation where a disproportionate number of judges have been appointed by one party to be skewed.
- eesmith 4y ago
  > So I would consider a situation where a disproportionate number of judges have been appointed by one party to be skewed. My observations concern your earlier statement "the law could require the ratios of federal judges to match the ratio of the popular vote in the most recent election". I said that had problems. The new criteria of "disproportionate number" is too subjective to provide meaningful policy. After Lincoln was elected, and the then-new Republican Party got 39.8% of the vote, you would have let the new President replace a substantial number of existing judges? You'll need to be careful as "party" is a bit tricky when you get to the details. If I'm a member of a state party, am I also a member of the national party? Consider the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, created in 1944. It is NOT the US Democratic Party, but like all state Democratic parties it is affiliated with the US Democratic Party. Would party membership have changed due to the merger? Where once there were Farmer-Labor and Democratic Party judges, would some of them need to be kicked out because in 1945 they were the same party? This could lead to all sorts of interesting ways to game the system, like a state with three Democratic Party-affiliated state parties, and bylaws that allow membership in multiple (affiliated) parties at the same time. Or as another hack, legally abolish the party every few years and create a new one (X Party 2028, X Party 2032, etc), and allow automatic transfer of members into the new party. Poof - now every re-election the administration gets to change out any judge, because none of the existing judges were appointed by the President of X Party 2036.
  - harimau777 4y ago