What would an honest political party look like?

[spikeb]

I actually advocate doing proportional representation for the lower house, and IRV for the upper house. That way, they keep their respective duties, yet effectively involve more people in the discussion.

[POA]

spikeb said:

I actually advocate doing proportional representation for the lower house, and IRV for the upper house. That way, they keep their respective duties, yet effectively involve more people in the discussion.

This is one of the reforms that would take a new constitution to change, but I actually support unicameralism, but with more representatives (I called them Members of Congress) to handle the increased workload.

Here's why:

1) Bicameralism weakens the power of the legislature, because it places additional hurdles in the way of any laws or measures that they may wish to pass. In comparison, the executive branch has no such hurdles, and that's one of the reasons why the greatest danger to what democracy exists in the United States is a presidency-turned-dictator, or rule-by-junta from unaccountable agencies in the executive branch that nobody's ever even heard of (ie, 'Homeland Security'/FEMA/et cetera.) Our legislative branch, relative to the executive branch, is too weak and needs strengthening.

2) Although IRV for an upper house would be an improvement, it wouldn't address a problem that people really haven't discussed for a long time now since both parties started considering themselves full partners in the system: unequal representation of states. At this point, California has something like 35 times the population of Wyoming (the United States' most and least populous states respectively), but both states recieve the same number of Senators.

As a result, because of the Senatorial power to filibuster, a small number of states' Senators can, and have in the past, effectively held the entire country hostage. This is part of the reason why political change in the United States is glacially slow.

3) A certain degree of informal unicameralism already exists. Both houses often have to cooperate with each other (or pass concurrent resolutions) right now.

4) The actual text of the Constitution on the issue of the Senate is deeply anti-democratic on the subject. The original plan was that Senators would be chosen by legislatures themselves, and after years of abuse along these lines (ie, the antebellum period and during the gilded age), this was changed to direct election during the first period of progressive reforms.

[spikeb]

The point of the senate is to represent that states, not the people. hence the equality between states on representation. BUT, i was speaking on a local (state) level when i was talking about PR for the lower house and IRV for the upper house.

[POA]

spikeb said:

The point of the senate is to represent that states, not the people. hence the equality between states on representation. BUT, i was speaking on a local (state) level when i was talking about PR for the lower house and IRV for the upper house.

But what is a state, if not the people?

[spikeb]

The government of the state. Sort of like the UN.