2 ms·
>When lawmakers start actively going against the interests of society at large[...] But how does banning subsequent attempts at passing bills prevent this? Mor
by gruez 1y ago
>When lawmakers start actively going against the interests of society at large[...]
But how does banning subsequent attempts at passing bills prevent this? Moreover what's preventing this mechanism from being abused to block legislation that society actually want?
- the_duke 1y agoThe tactic here is sneaking legislation through the system by bringing it up again and again, hoping for the public to eventually lose interest, or to catch a time with a lot of other drama going on so they can avoid the public attention/backlash. I do think there are procedural ways to support this, like: proposed bills that are very similar to previous rejected ones need a preemptive vote with 60%+ support to be considered - if brought again with a certain time frame. I do see your point though, there can be unforeseen consequences.
- Yeul 1y agoGood thing we have paid professionals whose job it is to vote on these things.
- gruez 1y agoBut the whole premise is that those paid professionals have gone rogue?
- idle_zealot 1y agoThere's really no fixing that kind of failure state with a bandage solution. The whole idea of a representative democracy is premised on citizens being able to elect representatives who represent their interests. If that's not holding then that's the part that needs to be fixed.
- coldtea 1y agoI'd say it's premised on the naivety of citizens to believe what they elect are representatives
- spwa4 1y agoNo the idea of representative democracy is that the representatives would still be of "better quality" than the population average, because it takes something to become one. This is done because there's no way the majority of citizens would vote to, say, responsibly manage debt.
- Yeul 1y agoA political party can table any motion they want and other political parties will vote against it. That is not going rogue it is doing your job.
- the_duke 1y agoNewsflash: it's the paid professionals that are doing this...
- coldtea 1y agoIt's those paid professionals that are the problem
- davorak 1y ago> There should be sorts of an exponential backoff So some cool off period that gets larger each time a bill fails. There is not a detailed proposal, but I would assume some max cool off period is reasonable/desirable as well. So it could not be used to block legislation that society actually wants forever but it would block the legislature from passing it in a limited time frame. Another reasonable addition that would work well at more local levels but would be a new challenge to implement at the national level in the USA is to have citizen lead referendums with minimum participation requirements to by pass this cool off period. That way if legislation is important the voters can bypass the cool off period.