Would you support this political system? (user search)
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
April 26, 2024, 03:59:53 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  General Politics
  Political Debate (Moderator: Torie)
  Would you support this political system? (search mode)
Pages: [1]
Poll
Question: -skip-
#1
Yes
 
#2
No
 
#3
Unsure
 
Show Pie Chart
Partisan results

Total Voters: 40

Author Topic: Would you support this political system?  (Read 1568 times)
brucejoel99
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 19,726
Ukraine


Political Matrix
E: -3.48, S: -3.30

« on: May 15, 2019, 10:58:44 PM »


The House & Senate system, as we currently have it structured, is a pretty good way to try to balance the power of the states & the people (though I'd personally support an enlarged Senate run on MMP).

- The House of Representatives undergoes following changes:
  - 500 members elected in constituencies drawn by independent commission.
  - The party that won the national popular vote gets 50 extra representatives. One per state, who are determined ahead of the election(so-called at-large members).

This is a slippery slope. A majority bonus system can work but only within basic limits, i.e. awarding a number of seats to allow government stability. If it can potentially enable a single party to promulgate constitutional changes, though, then you could end up having a Mussolini on your hands.

  - The term is fixed to four years; vacancies get filled by a special election within 30 days. At large members get replaced by their parties.

This is undemocratic in that it could give too much power to a centralized party machine.

- The House elects a president at the beginning of the term, usually their leader. No term limit.
  - The president remains head of state and government + commander-in-chief
  - Unless his/her term expires, the president can only be replaced by the House if a new president is elected. This is essentially a vote of no confidence, but can only succeed if a new officer gets elected.
  - President choses cabinet members without legislative approval. They can be removed by the House with a single majority (or get fired by president).
  - President nominates Supreme Court judges who need a 3/5 majority of the House
  - There is no vice presidency. In case something happens to the president the Speaker becomes acting president until the House elects a new president for the remainder of the term

I don't know, if we're going to have an even number of representatives (550) in this reconstituted House, then there should still be somebody who's ex officio enabled to cast a tie-breaking vote when there's a deadlock, though considering you're saying that the House would usually elect "their leader" (I presume this usage of "leader" means Pelosi, Ryan, Boehner, etc.) to be President, this might mean that the Speakership would be reconfigured in the image of a parliamentary speaker like Britain's or Canada's (i.e. presiding over the House's debates, determining which members may speak, etc.), in which case they'd cast a tie-breaking vote according to Speaker Denison's rule (in addition to likely carrying over the VP's current duty of presiding over most of the impeachment trials of federal officers as well as likely presiding over this House's presidential election, similar to how the VP currently presides over & certifies the official vote count of the U.S. Electoral College), so this problem might already be accounted for.

Aside from that, though, there should probably still be an officer of the executive branch who, like the current VP, is enabled to perform certain executive duties as assigned either by the President or Congress (whether it's as a participant in the administration's policymaking, adviser to the president, a symbol of American concern or support in that the ceremonial duties of the presidency are often delegated to the vice president, etc.).

Since the administration is always guaranteed to have a majority and midterms are abolished, the system would actually function better. In addition, the prez is more responsible to the House while not losing the titles head of state+govt and commander-in-chief.

Yeah, on paper, the system would logistically function better (after all, can't have gridlock if it's all-but-impossible), but it does so at the price of dramatically weakening congressional checks & balances (since divided government encourages more policing of those in power by the opposition, as well as limiting spending & the expansion of undesirable laws) as well as going backwards regarding congressional electoral mandates (since abolishing midterms would modify the people's ability to change the composition of Congress from every 2 years to every 4 years) & taking away our electoral measuring stick regarding the popularity of the incumbent president.

Would you support to change the US political system to this model (a mix of presidential and parliamentary system)?

On the overall merits of this system as presented, no.
Logged
Pages: [1]  
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.033 seconds with 15 queries.