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Post by POA on Mar 23, 2004 10:58:57 GMT -5
This is a question I've wondered about for a while. I'm probably going to bump this up further (if bump works here-does it and if not, what's the equivalent?) when there are more members here for a discussion.
The Republicans are explicitly dishonest as a party, and the Democrats as a party, through their recent behavior, certainly aren't much better.
How could a political party be structured in such a way as to be both honest, and effective?
A couple of points I already thought of, in light of recent history:
1) It should be possible and practical to throw a politician out of the party for actions that are clearly hellbent on destroying it, and for corrupt activities. Zell Miller is outright campaigning for the Republicans; Lieberman and Joe Biden are currently attacking yet another Bush insider who has come clean about the monstrous failures of the Bush administration. The fact that nothing will be done to them for actions that seem to reflect not an honest difference of opinion, but a deliberate attempt at undermining, encourages further actions along these lines.
2) No electronic voting and clear (not antiquated) procedures for choosing candidates and what officials might exist.
(I'd like to hope this would be obvious).
3) Clear distinction of what fundraising activities exist, from the actual management of the party. This is so fundraising doesn't become dominant and over-ride all other concerns of the party.
POA
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Post by Moses on Mar 23, 2004 16:20:35 GMT -5
"Lieberman and Joe Biden are currently attacking yet another Bush insider who has come clean about the monstrous failures of the Bush administration. "
Say what? Lieberman and Biden are attacking Clarke?
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Post by Moses on Mar 23, 2004 16:23:44 GMT -5
The reason so many supported Clinton, is because he really seemed interested in solving the problems that were out of the box of the special interests, don't you think?
What happened?!
I did notice that the people who put him into office were the NAFTA people-- I wish I had paid more attentiion-- when they talked about NAFTA my brain went numb w/ boredom.
And then look how they took people out-- Mike Espy e.g.
I think all this needs to be revisited.
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Post by POA on Mar 23, 2004 17:36:47 GMT -5
"Lieberman and Joe Biden are currently attacking yet another Bush insider who has come clean about the monstrous failures of the Bush administration. " Say what? Lieberman and Biden are attacking Clarke? Yes. They are. I tracked down a link and a story that mentions this: From here. " "Nothing America could have done would have provided al-Qaeda and its new generation of cloned groups a better recruitment device than our unprovoked invasion of an oil-rich Arab country," Clarke wrote. "One shudders to think what additional errors (Bush) will make in the next four years to strengthen the al-Qaeda follow- ons: attacking Syria or Iran, undermining the Saudi regime without a plan for a successor state?" Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said Sunday he doesn't believe Clarke's charge that the Bush administration - which defeated him and former Vice President Al Gore in the 2000 election - was focused more on Iraq than al-Qaeda during the days after the terror attacks. "I see no basis for it," Lieberman said on "Fox News Sunday." "I think we've got to be careful to speak facts and not rhetoric." And Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that while he has been critical of Bush policies on Iraq, "I think it's unfair to blame the president for the spread of terror and the diffuseness of it. Even if he had followed the advice of me and many other people, I still think the same thing would have happened." Presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry said Sunday he asked for copies of Clarke's book to review. Kerry is vacationing at his Idaho home through Wednesday before returning to the campaign trail." (Biden's statement, of course, essentially takes 9/11 off the table as a campaign issue for the Democrats this year if people take him seriously.) POA
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Post by Moses on Mar 24, 2004 0:38:57 GMT -5
Back before cable became unaffordable, or not worth it, we used to keep CSPAN on alot, and followed Biden's pre-war Iraq hearings. It was clear that he was helping Bush orchestrate the war. Scott Ritter said as much.
They didn't ask anyone to the hearings that would have questioned the war's premise.
And this brings up a fundamental question about our Democracy. Delaware is a state that has a very small population, and is owned by the industries that park there to avoid taxes. This is who the two Senators from Delaware really represent.
Should these small states have so much power in the Senate? Likewise w/ the Western States.
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Post by POA on Mar 24, 2004 11:05:28 GMT -5
Back before cable became unaffordable, or not worth it, we used to keep CSPAN on alot, and followed Biden's pre-war Iraq hearings. It was clear that he was helping Bush orchestrate the war. Scott Ritter said as much. They didn't ask anyone to the hearings that would have questioned the war's premise. Interesting...I wasn't aware of that. I personally wouldn't say so. The way I tried to address this in the most recent version of CII was through unicameralism, but with representatives elected on a state-by-state basis with a higher minimum number, so that way small states still get representation, but there's no political system hostage-taking essentially. POA
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Post by upu8 on Mar 25, 2004 14:35:28 GMT -5
An honest political party is a bit of an oxymoron.
Parties are conglomerations of people allied to achieve political power. This leads almost inevitably to economic power too. I don't think the founders of the US wanted anything like the two party system we now have, and certainly didn't want the virtual one party system the Repubs envisage for us.
Parties are subject to corruption over time, no matter how much 'honesty' is intended when they are formulated. Human nature, I'm afraid.
To me, the problem is the electoral system as a whole in the US. It just isn't very representative or very democratic as it was created or as it has evolved. The US lacks the proportional representation that is the norm in most other democracies. Our winner-take-all system, the antiquated Electoral College, the virtual stranglehold on public office exerted by the two dominant entrenched parties, all work against participation by ordinary Americans.
And that's BEFORE the corrosive effects of torrents of money in our system are taken into account. The money powers now have a firm grip on our political system and incumbents are very, very hard to dislodge from power. The vast amounts of money needed to buy time/space in the media means that those who provide this money rule the rules of the game. Many of these are the same corporations that get the money back to pay for the political ads that the money buys.
Our system in the US seems to me to have gone from "not very democratic" to one that is corrupt and "hardly democratic at all".
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Post by Moses on Mar 26, 2004 20:43:39 GMT -5
Yes. The Political Parties are not our friends!!
I have heard that there are proposals floating around to reform the system, like run-offs.
What reforms do you think we should back, since we can't back the political parties any longer. ?
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Post by POA on Mar 29, 2004 14:47:36 GMT -5
Yes. The Political Parties are not our friends!! I have heard that there are proposals floating around to reform the system, like run-offs. What reforms do you think we should back, since we can't back the political parties any longer. ? I think that's a great question, but it'll take me a couple of days to write a thorough answer to it, so I'll come back to this topic with a redux then. POA
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Post by calabi-yau on Apr 3, 2004 19:00:56 GMT -5
An honest political party is a bit of an oxymoron. It all depends where you live... In the late 70's The Parti Québécois under René Lévesque put into place the most progressive and transparent campaign financing regulations ever seen in North America and Europe. The new laws apply at the Québec provincial level only and though Chrétien tried to leave the same heritage to all Canadians before retiring, his own party members refused to put this through Parliament. Paul Martin was then waiting in the wings and fought nail and teeth to make sure this would not happen before HIS election bid. Interesting point : VOTERS only are allowed to make contributions with a limit of $3,000 per registered voter. Here is a link to Financial contribution regulations : www.electionsquebec.qc.ca/en/characteristics_financing_system.asp It may help in determining ways of keeping your own political parties honest !
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Post by POA on Apr 8, 2004 18:05:02 GMT -5
I’m going to review in this post the various electoral reforms that I personally consider the most interesting, or have precedent. Multiple-Member Districts:Description: Each district has more than one representative assigned to it. In the election for the representatives, more than one representative is up for election at any given time (so as to not neutralize the advantage of this as a system). Advantages: A system like this (in combination with preference or choice voting, since multiple-member districts virtually invites the other) would allow for the representation of small parties. Ideally, it would also be paired up with the elimination of electoral districts on a state basis, so that way the issues involved with gerrymandering can never come up again. Disadvantages: While I think there is one electoral district in Georgia that because of chronic race-based gerrymandering issues has multiple-member districts, as a system it’s totally unfamiliar to Americans, and has nothing to do with how the Constitution is currently written. FusionDescription: Multiple parties endorse the same candidate, or group of candidates on a ballot. Advantages: There are a lot of small parties that have a good bit of overlap between them in terms of their dissatisfaction with our rotten current political order. This might be helpful in terms of greater collaboration between them in order to help break the duopoly. For example, Greens could partner with anti-war Libertarians regarding Iraq and drug war insanity, et cetera. Disadvantages: 43 states have laws against it, and there is a particularly rotten Supreme Court decision in the mid-1990s in which the majority opinion stated that states can pass laws against fusion in the interests of ‘preserving political stability’. The decision in question is called Twin Cities Area New Party v. Timmons, 520 US 351 (1997). For a list of which states explicitly/implicitly/don’t have anti-fusion laws, this url lists them all: www.nmef.org/state_indirectban_fusion.htm#marylandAdditionally, the duopoly could warp this through more of the type of “Democrats for Bush”/Republicrats/Demolicans that we’ve already seen, with both parties outright combining to defeat all other challengers. Then again, it could be argued that essentially they already do this, and coming out and admitting that they’re essentially two wings of the same destructive party would help destroy what little legitimacy they have. IRV (Instant Recall Voting): Mechanism: (taken from www.fairvote.org/irv/a_fairer_way.htm ) How IRV Works: Each voter has one vote, and ranks candidates in order of choice (1, 2, 3, etc.). The counting of ballots simulates a series of run-off elections. All first choices are counted, and if no candidate wins a majority of first choices, then the last place candidate (candidate with the least first-choices) is eliminated. Ballots of voters who ranked the eliminated candidate first then are redistributed to their next-choice candidates, as indicated on each voter’s ballot. Last place candidates are successively eliminated and ballots are redistributed to next choices until one candidate remains or a candidate gains over 50% of votes. Voters have the option to rank as many or as few candidates as they wish—their favorite candidate first, their next favorite second and so on. Voters have every incentive to vote for their favorite candidate rather than the "lesser of two evils" because their ballot can still count toward a winner if their first choice loses. There also is every reason for a voter to rank as many candidates as they want, since a voter’s lower choice will never help defeat one of their higher choices. IRV is used to elect the parliament in Australia and the presidents of the Republic of Ireland and the American Political Science Association. A related method is used in Cambridge (MA) for city council. Example: In both 1992 and 1996, Bill Clinton was elected president with less than 50% of the popular vote. IRV could been used to elect a majority-winner. Here’s how it could have worked. The 1992 Presidential Election—a Simulation Candidate First Choice % Ballots redistributed to 2nd choices Final Tally George Bush 38% +10% = 48% Bill Clinton 43% +9% = 52% Ross Perot 19% - 19% X Assume that, of the 19 percent of voters who ranked Ross Perot first, slightly more than half (e.g. 10% of all voters) ranked George Bush second on their ballots, and slightly less than half (e.g. 9% of all voters) ranked Bill Clinton second. When Ross Perot is eliminated, those votes are redistributed. Bill Clinton ends up with 52 percent of the overall vote, a clear majority, and is declared the winner. Advantages: It’s precedented, and additionally, more places are switching over to it. Locally (to me), San Francisco used IRV in it’s mayoral race, which resulted in an extremely close race between Newsom and his Green competitor, Gonzalez. An additional advantage is that it helps to acculturate Americans to the idea of actually ranking candidates instead of the ostensible ‘dichotomy’ between them that exists now. As far as races for executive offices, it is an improvement. Disadvantages: I don’t think that it actually addresses issues of gerrymandering or single-member districts, which is a large part of America’s current problem. [continued in followup]
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Post by POA on Apr 8, 2004 18:05:52 GMT -5
Preference Voting:
Mechanism: Candidates are listed on a ballot, and then they are ranked numerically with from most-preferred to least-preferred, with the number of preferences being equivalent to the number of candidates running for the position or positions.
Advantages: It’s compatible with multiple-member districts, and it would eliminate winner-take-all for most elections if implemented except for the presidency. It would also eliminate the horrible choice between voting for someone who can ‘win’, and someone who will actually get something positive done.
An additional advantage to preference voting compared to IRV is that the more candidates you rate in terms of preferences, the higher the chances are that somebody that you want to win, actually will win a mulitple-member district. With IRV as described previously on the fairvote website, it’s only the first-preferred that are counted in terms of whether a candidate stays for additional rounds or not.
Disadvantages: I’m concerned about ‘party based’ flooding. What this means is that an analog, or a future equivalent of the Republicans or the Democrats could flood the ballot with a lot of candidates from their own party, and at the same time, I think that there are great risks along the lines of saying that a party can only nominate as many candidates as there are openings in a given election.
This may count as either an advantage or a disadvantage, but preference voting may also penalize extremism in the sense that someone who generates a lot of negative opinion about themselves could end up being preferred last so many times, that candidates who are more moderate, or have more percieved positives about themselves may end up getting a higher ranking.
Vote by Party/Parliamentary Voting:
Mechanism: People vote for the party of their choice (perhaps in a state or a municipality), and then the proportion of votes for their party is translated into the number of MP’s that their party receives.
Advantages: It’s relatively uncomplicated, and has demonstrated through precedent to allow for the representation of third parties. In combination with other reforms, it would force major parties to seek the aid and support of third party votes, which would mean that the issues that third parties support would finally get some mention and assistance in exchange for those votes.
Disadvantages: This kind of system, while I’d say that it works well in other nations, requires a certain level of maturity as far as the behavior of political parties; ie, that given the trust of the percentage of the population that votes for them, they won’t abuse the trust given to them and put the absolute worst person they can find in charge because the party machinery likes them.
I see no rational reason to give that kind of trust to the machinery of either dominant party in the United States, which is sort of what I was getting at with my original question. Americans don’t just need systemic reform badly, we need political and social organizations capable of maintaining and furthering those reforms.
The Lazare Bet:
Mechanism: I’m calling this The Lazare Bet based on where he advocates this in his book The Velvet Coup. What he proposes is that a Presidential candidate sets up a bet with his (or her) opponent along the following lines:
If Candidate A wins the popular vote total, then their opponent (or opponents) will concede and tell their electors to vote for Candidate A.
If Candidate B wins the popular vote total, then their opponent (or opponents) will concede and tell their electors to vote for Candidate B.
Et cetera.
How it is supposed to work is that if any candidate fails to join the Lazare Bet, then their clear and obvious contempt for the vote will cause them to lose support. If they renege on the bet, then they will have little legitimacy or mandate if they take power anyway.
The point of the Lazare Bet is to hobble the Electoral College as an institution that can be taken seriously and used as a means of frustrating the popular will as far as Presidential elections are concerned.
My personal ideal solution would combine several different features out of the above. Here’s how:
Multiple representative states, with the number of representatives that each state gets being, in turn, a multiple of six (or perhaps nine). This is the lowest number that would allow you to divide classes of representatives up into three equivalent portions (so representatives do get some time to serve without constantly having to look over their shoulders regarding their next election), and would also mean that you have more than one representative up for election in any year, so you never get a situation in which a winner would take all.
If the number is any larger than this the number of representatives may rapidly become unwieldy for a nation the size of the United States. Representation necessarily must increase because an additional part of America’s problem is that regions that are rural and conservative are actually massively over-represented compared to the regions of the country that are demographically expanding.
Since state borders are also reasonably set in stone, there would additionally be no possibility of gerrymandering whatsoever because there would be no smaller districts with the bias involved in drawing them.
I also support preference voting in combination with the previous measure, so in that way, candidates could be fully ranked instead of the partial ranking from IRV.
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Post by Moses on Apr 8, 2004 18:44:20 GMT -5
Cross off the Parliamentary system and lets have a run-off with the rest.
Look at the fix Britain is in with Tony Blair as head of the Party. People can't get rid of him without voting in an even worse party.
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Post by spikeb on Apr 22, 2004 16:25:57 GMT -5
I think an honest party would look like some of the third parties we have here in the US, namely the Greens and the Libertarians. They have explicit policies for their members to help weed out corruption and the effect of corporates (in the case of the LP).
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Post by spikeb on Apr 22, 2004 16:28:53 GMT -5
A proportional parlimentary system is a VERY good idea, assumming finance reforms. Parties a b and c would get a certain percentage of seats based on votes gathered. Britian effectively has a bipartisan system, so they're a bad example of ANY of the reforms we're discussing.
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