Fixing the Two Party System

[Juton]

I believe that voting does matter, that choosing between Democrat or Republican (Liberal or Conservative up here) does make a difference to how the country is governed. It just doesn't make as big a difference as it should, both parties are populated with idiots, the corrupt and the incompetent. So what can be done about it.

With a first past the pole electoral system having ideologically aligned third parties can be a detriment to either main party because it can siphon away votes, so in a state with 60% left-leaning voters a right-leaning politician can win because of this. This can be fixed with alternate voting methods, but the voting populace seems reticent to do so.

My idea is inspired by the nascent Tea Party. When originally formed I hoped that make a stab at becoming a viable third party but in the end the where just a certain type of Republican. So what if the big political parties has sub-parties. We have Tea Party Republicans, we have Blue Dog Democrats, it doesn't take much to imagine having Libertarian Republicans or Green Democrats.

That leads to the question, what would be required for sub-parties to be a relevant part of the political process? These sub-parties would need to be exclusive, if a politician doesn't toe the right line they can get booted. A politician would only be allowed to be part of one at a time, if a politician could join most sub-parties they lose their purpose. Lastly the members of each sub-party would have to work much harder to foster popular engagement or else have their candidate lose in the primaries.

Definitely not a Panacea, but would something like this help democracy?

[Surgo]

Non first-past-the-post voting, perhaps?

A bill to adopt plurality voting instead is currently making its way through the New Hampshire legislature. I hope it passes. (I live in New Hampshire.)

[tzor]

Aside from "get rid of the idiots" I have no clue. I used to be a strong supporter of NY style fusion voting, where you can appear on more than one line in the ballot. In New York, this means there is a "Conservative" line (among the Republican and Democrat) lines and a person can be listed as both a Republican and a Conservative. Of course in the past few years the Conservative party hasn't been all that conservative.

I'm not sure even multiple parties solve the problem. Without vision, parties are just names. With vision, you don't even need a party (as in the proper political type) as the tea party movement showed back in 2010.

Personally I think we can do more by limiting the power of incumbency than by increasing the number of parties.

[Sashi]

The first step is to burn down the current 4th estate and rebuild actual journalism out of the ashes of the current monetized infotainmentpocalypse that the competing 24-hr news channels have created, in which days are spent arguing about whether yelling "You lie!" at the president during the SotU address is impolite rather than correct.

The second is to institute some kind of preferential/transferable voting system that allows people to vote Tea/Green party without splitting the conservative/liberal vote.

[Orion]

What if the minor parties acknowledged that only republicans and democrats can win elections, and they ran all their candidates as one or the other? But, they still had independent funding and networking.

Let's say you're a Green. The Green party still exists, you still get their newsletter, and you still donate them money. The Greens still select a candidate for Governor every election. But, the Green candidate runs in the Democratic Primary for the democratic endorsement, and promises to drop out of the race if he or she doesn't win the primary. This loses them almost nothing* because without getting a majority of democrats onboard, getting a majority of the population is not gonna happen.

The net effect is that every election boils down to a republican vs. a democrat, but the liberals, greens, blue dogs, and socialists get to fight it out for the democratic ticket. By donating to a minority party, you put pressure on your umbrella party. If the Greens have a sizable warchest, then that's an incentive for non-Green democrats to vote Green in the primary.

Basically, in the current system the Democrats have a bunch of subfactions. To support your favorite faction you have to research individual candidates and donate to the ones you like best; donating to the DNC leaves you no voice. Meanwhile those outside the big tent (greens) are useless. Under my proposed system, the various subfactions of Democrats would hang out a shingle where you could donate money to shore up that whole wing generally.

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*I'm aware that minority parties can gain from elections they don't win, by hitting thresholds that come with public money, automatic ballot access, etc. One way to fix this is a referendum that Massachusetts (sadly) just rejected. It would have allowed one candidate to appear on the ballot more than one. So, you could vote for Duval, Democrats; Duval, Greens; or Duval, Working-Families. All those votes would be totaled to see if he won, but counted separately to determine which parties get funding.

[K]

I've often thought that we should elect positions instead of factions. For example, there would be a Green position for environmentalism but also a Civil Rights position and a Lower Taxes position.

Of course, that will never happen. We seem wired for monkey hierarchies.

[MfA]

The usual way to get a mix between proportional representation and first past the post district fuckery is multi-seat districts ... unfortunately they are almost always used as a form of Gerrymandering in themselves (ie. some strong districts from the current minority are usually selected as "test beds"). So they are usually quickly reviled.

A district based model will always break to Gerrymandering unless you find some objective way to carve them out (some type of clustering algorithm could do it) and putting it into the constitution so it doesn't get corrupted down the line.

[fbmf]

Personally I think we can do more by limiting the power of incumbency than by increasing the number of parties.

If by this, you mean "term limits for every elected position ever", I am all for it.

I'd even be willing to compromise and grandfather in the current holders of no term limit positions, but once that particular person leaves that office, from the next person on we have strict term limits.

Game On,
fbmf

[Username17]

...because term limits have been so effective at restraining the power of Putin.

-Username17

[Sashi]

All term limits do is make it easier for the lobbyists to have more seniority than legislators.

[Juton]

In an ideal system there wouldn't be lobbyists, politicians would talk to their constituents and make the decisions that most benefit them. I have no workable ideas on how to get rid of lobbyists, but there are ways you can minimize their influence.

Right now you can use money to buy votes via advertising and general media presence. If politicians had to be actually good candidates and not merely better than their opponents then we might see the effect of campaign donations diluted.

[Username17]

For a lot of positions you could eliminate voting for individuals at all. Just vote for parties in abstract and let the parties put whoever they want into the senate based on their share of the vote.

-Username17

[tzor]

What if the minor parties acknowledged that only republicans and democrats can win elections, and they ran all their candidates as one or the other? But, they still had independent funding and networking.

Let's say you're a Green. The Green party still exists, you still get their newsletter, and you still donate them money. The Greens still select a candidate for Governor every election. But, the Green candidate runs in the Democratic Primary for the democratic endorsement, and promises to drop out of the race if he or she doesn't win the primary. This loses them almost nothing* because without getting a majority of democrats onboard, getting a majority of the population is not gonna happen.

Well this is basically very similiar to fusion voting. In New York the Green Party (since you mentioned them I'll use them as well) would generally cross endorse the Democrats who tend to align with the green party. So you can vote for John Q. Public, either on the Democrat line or on the Green line. John still gets the votes but it sends a message to the Democrats that he only won because he was green.

They get to fundraise, they get to campaign and if the big party doesn't follow the standard they get to choose someone else ... perhaps that very odd Republican?

The fundamental probem most very minor political parties have is that they are completely backwards. The chance for a minor party winning the presidental election (parties based on a charismatic candidate ... the bull moose party for example ... are totally different) is for all practical purposes zero. These parties must work bottom up, working local elections in towns, then counties and then states. They can even be "one issue parties" is fusion voting is allowed and do quite well (Right to life party in New York had a pretty long stretch before it ran out of votes and that was only because in New York you have to get a certain percentage in the governor's race in order to be a viable party.)

[tzor]

For a lot of positions you could eliminate voting for individuals at all. Just vote for parties in abstract and let the parties put whoever they want into the senate based on their share of the vote.

There is only one problem with that. Generally speaking the leaders of a political party are not elected by the "people" in order words the voters registered under the party. It really is one step away from a Republic. It also encourages the people to take a one step away from understanding the issues that face their government and just be loyal party sheep.

I want to vote for a person, not a party ... the party can go to hell as far as I am concerned! (And I say that as a committee man of a plotical party. I'm still working hard because I believe in the people I'm working for.)

[Severian]

The simplest solution would be for all U.S. states to switch to the electoral college system that Maine uses, where electoral votes are decided by district(with the two senatorial votes going to whoever wins the plurality in the state). That would make third parties relevant, as well as solving a bunch of other problems.

[cthulhu]

Two party lower house, with proportional representation in the upper house, ministerial positions lie with the majority in the lower house.

IMHO, lets the government of the day do all the tedious 'run the public service' shit that a government needs to do without becoming Belgium, while still having big forces in the upper house to moderate bills etc.

My Australian bais is probably talking a bit as well, but I'd wouldn't do it based on states.

[Sashi]

For a lot of positions you could eliminate voting for individuals at all. Just vote for parties in abstract and let the parties put whoever they want into the senate based on their share of the vote.

I'm not sure how much I like this position. On the one hand it gives basically all the power to the unelected party leaders. On the other ... that's not much different from how it works today (part of the reason the Republicans put up such a monolithic face in the House/Senate is because the RNC rules allow for committees to be reassigned arbitrarily, whereas the DNC goes by strict seniority).

[Maj]

In an ideal system there wouldn't be lobbyists, politicians would talk to their constituents and make the decisions that most benefit them.

Agreed. I would also recommend that once elected, bills proposed are anonymized so that no one knows who wrote them. That way, someone can't discard the bill because of the party of its author.

There have actually been studies done that show that if you stamp a liberal idea with a conservative label, liberals won't go for it (the converse was also true). In my mind, that just emphasizes the fact that when congress fails to agree, it's because they're not actually standing for what they believe in - they're standing against those other guys.

[Surgo]

Lobbyists are a way to talk to constituents. Like it or not, Big Tobacco are all constituents.

[RobbyPants]

I've often thought that we should elect positions instead of factions. For example, there would be a Green position for environmentalism but also a Civil Rights position and a Lower Taxes position.

Of course, that will never happen. We seem wired for monkey hierarchies.

People like categorizing things. I think if you had a way to just erase the current parties, new ones would spring up because people like lumping things in groups like that. We like our dichotomies. Even the false ones.

[Draco_Argentum]

I want to vote for a person, not a party ... the party can go to hell as far as I am concerned! (And I say that as a committee man of a plotical party. I'm still working hard because I believe in the people I'm working for.)

I want to vote for policies or at least policy direction. The people are spineless populist scum and the parties are ruled by a small band of heavyweights.

[sabs]

I vote Democrat, not so much because I approve of everything they do. But because when Democrats are in power, usually, not much gets done. They don't do all sorts of crazy shit i dissaprove of. If you put 3 democrats up for a vote, it's not clera how they are going to vote. Democrats tend to not vote straight party line.

Republicans.. almost never vote against the party line. When republicans are in power, the Digital Millenium Act, The Patriot Act get put through Congress. And, I find Republican policies dangerous for the common man, and for the world. What makes it worse, is that when Republicans are in power, the spineless Democrats vote with them, instead of trying to put up a real fight.

[tzor]

That was, as they say ... then. Today, Tea Party Republicans rejected the Republican Majority's attempt to push through the patriot act aeauthorization, for example. They held their party to the fire in terms of cuts. Currently they are voting for principle above that of party. Time will tell of course, and it's still early in the session.

[sabs]

Yeah, sadly everything the Tea Party stands for makes me want to get a gun and shoot someone

Well, not literally, but.
I'm a Federalist who thinks that nothing is more corrupt than Local/State government :") sorta the opposite of Small Government.

[angelfromanotherpin]

That was, as they say ... then. Today, Tea Party Republicans rejected the Republican Majority's attempt to push through the patriot act aeauthorization, for example. They held their party to the fire in terms of cuts. Currently they are voting for principle above that of party. Time will tell of course, and it's still early in the session.

If by today, you mean Tuesday (four days ago). And if by Tea Party Republicans, you mean 8 of the 52 members of the Tea Party Caucus, making up less than 1/3 of the 27 Republicans who voted against the reauthorization.

But hey, keep pushing that narrative, Tzor. Facts have never stopped you yet.