Does the US need to be fundamentally transformed?

[Josquius]

New parties need not come from the ground up. I'd imagine a lot of it will come from splits within the existing parties. The more leftwards democrats and rightwards democrats running against each other- telling their supporters to put them first but the other democrat as a decent second choice who their colleagues would be more than willing to work with should it come down to it.

[Admiral Yi]

The incentives exist in Westminster systems for minor parties because of the possibility of entering a coalition government.  There are no incentives in the US system for minor parties except for expressing ideological purity/single interests.  A Bernie Saunders or Whatshisname the Jew traitor have nothing to gain and everything to lose in terms of committee assignments and seniority by announcing themselves members of a third party and no longer caucusing with the Democrats.

[DGuller]

The incentives exist in Westminster systems for minor parties because of the possibility of entering a coalition government.  There are no incentives in the US system for minor parties except for expressing ideological purity/single interests.  A Bernie Saunders or Whatshisname the Jew traitor have nothing to gain and everything to lose in terms of committee assignments and seniority by announcing themselves members of a third party and no longer caucusing with the Democrats.

That can be overcome.  Seniority rules, AFAIK, are just a tradition.  Committee assignments, or just mutual recognition of seniority, could be part of an agreement between the two parties that want to caucus into 51+ Senate votes.

[Admiral Yi]

That can be overcome.  Seniority rules, AFAIK, are just a tradition.  Committee assignments, or just mutual recognition of seniority, could be part of an agreement between the two parties that want to caucus into 51+ Senate votes.

The two parties that want to what now?

You need to think about committee chairmanships.  Right now majority party gets them all.

[KRonn]

What worries me is that we have two parties, and which ever one has the majority controls most everything. Controls all the committees, controls if legisltation comes up for a vote, controls if an investigation of wrong doing can be brought to bear, just about everything.  I feel that the minorit party should have more power.
 
Then I worry that we'll go for a long stretch with either party in power and that party will hold all the cards. That's worrisome. We've been lucky that, at least on the national level, the Dems and Repubs are pretty evenly balanced, trading places for the top spot every now and then.

We see one party rule at the State level in some states. In Massachusetts the last three Speakers of the House have been convicted of crimes, at least one of them in prison. Now the current Speaker may be under scrutiny as more Federal investigations hit the State for various issues. Frigging Mass system is broken, mainly because there's no one really holding the party in power to task, no strong counter balance.

[DGuller]

That can be overcome.  Seniority rules, AFAIK, are just a tradition.  Committee assignments, or just mutual recognition of seniority, could be part of an agreement between the two parties that want to caucus into 51+ Senate votes.

The two parties that want to what now?

You need to think about committee chairmanships.  Right now majority party gets them all.

That's what I said.  You need 51 seats in the Senate to be considered a majority, with all the perks attached.  Obviously that's easy enough to accomplish with two parties, but with more parties, none of them may have that number.  Therefore, you would need a couple of parties to caucus together, so that their combined numbers would have 51+ seats. 

This concept is already in force now, with Lieberman and Vermont socialist being sort of like parties of their own caucusing with Democrats.  While Democrats right now don't need to give Lieberman any chairmanships, you bet your ass Lieberman would chair something good if Democrats were one seat short of the Senate majority, regardless of his seniority.

[Sheilbh]

I don't think you're right Yi, or you're confusing Euro systems with Westminster. This is the UK's first peacetime coalition in ninety years, and there weren't many before then. Similarly other Westminster countries like Canada and Australia have more of a history of one party governments. I don't think that's the incentive at all.

My point on PR, which I'm not totally sold on, is that aside from history and the system, there's no reason why Sununu and Palin are in the same party. With PR small parties have a chance.

In terms of strucure of US politics the problem is your system is designed for coalition, consensus, negotiation (like Europe) while your political culture is argumentative, partisan and confrontational (like Westminster). I don't know that PR or whatever else would change that because I think Anglo-American political culture is disputatious by nature.

[Josquius]

I recall seeing something back during the AV debacle in the UK about past British governments which showed that though we haven't had much in the way of true coalitions of the years we have came very close indeed. Weak minorities far outnumbering strong ones.

And yeah, thats a big problem with the US system. It was designed assuming that the people in government would be good representatives of their communities working together for the betterment of the country, not true politicians in the nastiest sense of the word. The UK at least quite solidly recognises in the fundamentals of the system the idea that there is a government and an opposition (as undesirable as this may be).

Its strange really to compare American politics to British politics. Whereas in Britain we have a fight for the centre, both parties trying to become ever more mellow and least undesirable, in America you instead have the parties far more heading to the extremes (well, the republicans anyway). I guess the thing is that American politicians are far more individual and have to appeal to their party whilst British politicians are more collective and the party wants to appeal to the general population.

I'm not big on PR. I like the constituency link. I really believe AV to be the best and most representative voting system.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Maybe we'd get new ones if people thought there was a chance they could win. We could have: Neilists.

Neilism is unconstitutional.  They'd be coming for your guns, and most of their punishments are cruel and/or unusual.

but the dreadnaughts make up for it, not?

[Neil]

I really believe AV to be the best and most representative voting system.

Or at least the one that would benefit Labour the most, and that's what's important to you.

[Neil]

Maybe we'd get new ones if people thought there was a chance they could win. We could have: Neilists.

Neilism is unconstitutional.  They'd be coming for your guns, and most of their punishments are cruel and/or unusual.

but the dreadnaughts make up for it, not?

Can you imagine the dreadnoughts I could build with the US military budget?  Especially once I've forced socialized medicine on them and increased taxes so there's more money to play with?

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Maybe we'd get new ones if people thought there was a chance they could win. We could have: Neilists.

Neilism is unconstitutional.  They'd be coming for your guns, and most of their punishments are cruel and/or unusual.

but the dreadnaughts make up for it, not?

Can you imagine the dreadnoughts I could build with the US military budget?  Especially once I've forced socialized medicine on them and increased taxes so there's more money to play with?

glorious

[garbon]

Maybe we'd get new ones if people thought there was a chance they could win. We could have: Neilists.

Neilism is unconstitutional.  They'd be coming for your guns, and most of their punishments are cruel and/or unusual.

I don't have any guns.

[The Brain]

Maybe we'd get new ones if people thought there was a chance they could win. We could have: Neilists.

Neilism is unconstitutional.  They'd be coming for your guns, and most of their punishments are cruel and/or unusual.

I don't have any guns.

Unwise. Obama will just take your organs instead.

[garbon]

Maybe we'd get new ones if people thought there was a chance they could win. We could have: Neilists.

Neilism is unconstitutional.  They'd be coming for your guns, and most of their punishments are cruel and/or unusual.

I don't have any guns.

Unwise. Obama will just take your organs instead.

I already requested to be reviewed by a death panel.