I admit I haven’t thought this all the way out and I’m sure I have huge blind spots that’ll be pointed out but…
Would this be a imperfect, but much better, solution to our current divide? Say we doubled the number of representatives and each district elected a representative from both parties. We keep the number of senators to 100, each state sending one Democrat and one Republican to Washington. The vice-president would lose the ability to cast a vote in the senate. The president would lose veto power but otherwise would be elected the same way.
Obviously this would kill all third parties in an official sense, and mini-parties would probably form on each side, but the beauty of this is that only laws that had bi-partisan agreement would pass as no party would ever have absolute power. I think the incentives of the voter to elect a “fighter” would eventually change to desiring someone who could convince the other side to work with them.
This is an idea that demands we surrender some freedom of speech (the ability to run for federal office without associating with a political party), but maybe it’s for the greater good. It’s far from ideal and would probably just move inter-party politics to intra-party politics, or cause unequal representation (say 60% of the country is liberal, 40% is conservative), but would this be better than what we are dealing with now?
The only people who might not like the current system are those not in power at this time. But anyone that likes your idea at all needs to call a brain surgeon and a geologist.
Who’s to stop the wolves in sheep’s clothing? You can elect two Senators, one from each party, from a solid red state, but what would stop a Republican for running for the "Democratic’ seat?
“Democrat” and “Republican” are meaningless. Is Bernie Sanders really a (D)? Is Trump really a ®? dalej42 is right. Who gets to determine who is a true party member? RINO is pretty well recognized now.
And what about voters and politicians who are neither D or R? Will we split power even more, making sure Libertarian, Green, Constitution, and the other 224 parties are represented? What about people who want to start a new party because “none of the above” is never an option?
No, this won’t solve the current divide. The current divide is the result of deep philosophical differences that won’t be resolved, because some (on either side) believe that those who don’t align with their belief system are irredeemable, and therefore expendable.
I believe we can stagger along for a while longer, but like most democracies*, we will become a totalitarian state.
*I know, the US is not a democracy, but certain groups want to end the republic and have begun dismantling it. Direct election of Senators was an early step. Ending the electoral college (all in the name of fairness, don’tcha know) will be the death knell.
This proposal also seems to assume that both political parties are equally valid and approximately equivalent so each deserves and equal share of political power. I think one of the few things Democrats and Republicans could agree on is that neither of them accept that premise. Both sides feel that they’re right and the other side is wrong and neither side believes the correct answer lies halfway between right and wrong.
Both parties feel that the best system is one in which they have a majority, control the government, and can enact their agenda. To a large extent, I agree. I think a party should be able to win a majority and put its ideas into practice. Then the voters get to decide if they like or dislike the outcome.
A simpler way might be to convert to ‘ranked choice voting’, where you rank the candidates from first choice to last. Then if your first-choice candidate is eliminated (because they were the lowest vote-getter) your vote switches to your second choice. This repeats until some candidate gets over 50% of the votes from voters. So you end up with a winner who got a vote from most of the voters. Often that’s a moderate or compromise candidate, someone who is not so stridently partisan.
This could greatly diminish the power of political parties, and encourage candidates who can work together with all parties.
We do this for local elections in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, and Duluth, and some other places in California & Massachusetts. While I have some issues with hw it works, I do see it as an improvement overall.
I think one of the biggest flaws in the proposal is that it’s either unnecessary or impossible - if they would work together there wouldn’t be any need for the proposed system to force them to work together and if there is a need for the proposed system to force them to work together then they wouldn’t work together enough to agree to use that system. It would have to be imposed from outside and who could do that?
I think replacing first past the post with a different system is a move away from a confrontational two party system that has a better chance of success.
I think CGP Grey’s videos on voting are very good. Here’s a link to the first one, explaining the problems with FPTP and why it leads to a confrontational two party system and many disillusioned voters:
In addition to all of the above problems, the agreement would only work until one party believed that by having a traditional election, it could win and gain all of the power. And the money. And the women.
I don’t feel Grey made a very convincing argument. His theoretical election had no similarity to any American election.
In the election he made up as an example, there were seven major candidates who split the votes as follows: 20%, 19%, 18%, 15%, 13%, 9%, and 6%.
When’s the last time you saw an election in the United States where the seventh place vote getter received six percent of the votes? There are very few election where the third place vote getter receives that many votes.
On the other end, when’s the last time you saw an election in the United States where the top vote getter only received twenty percent of the votes? I doubt that’s ever happened in any election in this country.
If we actually had elections where multiple parties were getting significant shares of the votes, Grey’s idea might make sense. But given the way Americans vote in real elections, he seems to be arguing for a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
I’m curious what news bubble OP lives in. Does he only watch CNN? Is his view of U.S. politics based on 50-year old textbooks? Or, would his solution to the age-old problem of foxes in the henhouse be to give each side equal vote?
Treating the U.S. political divide as being between “liberals” and “conservatives” may be a source of faulty conclusions. Voter interviews suggest “educated” vs “uneducated” are also useful one-word descriptors for the divide. Should we insist that Congress be split 50-50 between those with and those without college degrees?
American elections are comparable to the final stage of his example system - a de facto two party system, tactical voting and many disillusioned voters. As is the case in most if not all places that have had FPTP and stability for long enough.
His example wasn’t intended to be a disguised version of elections in the USA. It was a general criticism of FPTP, an illustration of his argument that FPTP leads to a de facto two party system, tactical voting and many disillusioned voters even if it starts with more parties.
It would be time for a revolution, as that would be the point where they stop even pretending this is a government of the people and is actually a government of the parties.
The real answer is to revoke H.R. 17654 (91st), sections 104, 106, 120, 121, 243. These require that Congress attach names to votes and make them public. This allows intimidation tactics to work (the party base and party heads are more readily able to force you to vote the way they want) and allows for vote buying, since lobbyists and special interests can confirm that you went the way they paid you.
Prior to these, Legislators had more chance to use the information they had unearthed by talking to experts and doing deep-dive research to come to decisions. Now, they have to stick to solutions that conform to whatever Sean Hannity or Michael Moore has sold to the public, and crossing the aisle means political death. Similarly, crossing your financial benefactors will also mean your political death since there’s big business in vote buying, which drives up the cost of campaigning, meaning that you can’t get the gig if you can’t gain the trust of campaign backers - and they’ll know exactly how you voted.
Private ballot would be even better, but I’ll take what I can get.