Imagine if the states had parliaments

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Something that came to me. Let's imagine all 50 states had parliamentary systems instead of state legislatures, and thus could hold elections at any time instead of all 50 at once, like Canadian provinces and Australian states. We'll assume the maximum time between elections is 4 years. That's 48 months, meaning we'd have more than one election a month on average!

I do wonder though how many would be interesting, obviously Idaho and Massachusetts wouldn't be...unless the local Republicans/Democrats in each state split, which is most certainly possible. Actually I'd expect that currently ultra-Republican states would have to run against some type of Tea Party-esque splinter. I can see Kansas and Alaska having elections between some type of "Tea Party" and the Republicans, who on the local election would actually be closer to the state Democratic parties.

[BlueDog Bimble]

Something that came to me. Let's imagine all 50 states had parliamentary systems instead of state legislatures, and thus could hold elections at any time instead of all 50 at once, like Canadian provinces and Australian states. We'll assume the maximum time between elections is 4 years. That's 48 months, meaning we'd have more than one election a month on average!

I do wonder though how many would be interesting, obviously Idaho and Massachusetts wouldn't be...unless the local Republicans/Democrats in each state split, which is most certainly possible. Actually I'd expect that currently ultra-Republican states would have to run against some type of Tea Party-esque splinter. I can see Kansas and Alaska having elections between some type of "Tea Party" and the Republicans, who on the local election would actually be closer to the state Democratic parties.

With states like Idaho and Massachusetts, this isn't necessarily true, if you examine Albertan provincial elections since 1971.

[Lief 🗽]

I doubt many stats would have party systems dramatically different from the Democrat/Republican one. Look at Germany for example, where the state party systems are (more or less) identical to the national one, with the exception of smaller parties here and there that win a few seats (like SSW or Freie Wähler).

Though you do already see some unique party systems in the American states, like in Vermont with the Progressive Party or "coalition governments" supported by break-away factions, like in Alaska.