Does the US need to be fundamentally transformed?

[mongers]

No, I'm sure America's enemies think it's doing just fine. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

I still don't really know what despiess was wanting to talk about but I do think we could change our government style a bit. Over the past 5 years I've come to think we need to incorporate some elements of Westminster style governments (fuck off Canadians.)

I don't 100% agree with the way the UK or Canada (or Australia) do things, but the one thing I'd like to see us incorporate into our system is the ability to essentially eliminate gridlock. If the Prime Minister in any of those countries can't get his shit through the legislature, then you can have new elections...and that's a powerful blockage cleaner.

However in the U.S. system we have a technically weak executive (in comparison to any of the Westminster PMs), who in practice has grown immensely powerful with massive control of legislation in addition to their substantial official powers. So I'd probably want to avoid anything that would immediately make the President more powerful. One way in which mixed-systems have cleared log jams is you have the ability to dissolve the legislature and call elections. I wouldn't want that power to solely be in the hands of the President, because he wouldn't be directly impacted by the results of the elections (he'd get to keep his job either way.)

I'm not a constitution-writer, but just doing some off the wall suggestions I think I'd make these changes:

1. I'd give the Speaker of the House the ability to dissolve the body and force new elections.
2. I'd give the President the ability to dissolve the House, but it would require consent (by majority vote) of the Senate.
3. I'd give the presiding officer of the Senate the ability to cloture any debate on a House dissolution vote and immediately end any ongoing filibuster.
4. I'd change House terms to normally be 4 years.
5. I'd only require annual budget bills be passed by the House, and they would bypass the Senate directly.
6. I'd allow the House to bypass the Senate on any other bill with a 3/5ths majority vote in the House, but bypassing in that way causes an automatic one year delay to take effect...the President can't sign it into law for a year.
7. I'd make it easier to override a Presidential veto: 3/5ths majority in both houses would override (down from 2/3rds), and 2/3rds of the House by itself could override a veto.

This would clear up the following gridlock scenarios:

1. One party controls White House & Senate, but other party controls house - The House either gets in line or gets dissolved by the executive.
2. One party controls White House & House, but other party controls Senate - The Senate has far less ability to get in the way now, so this isn't much of a concern to the party in the White House outside of things like judicial confirmations.
3. One party controls White House, other party controls Senate & House - The executive has little recourse, but now his vetoes can be overridden easier so he will be more inclined to negotiate with legislative leadership or face repeated humiliating veto overrides.

[Razgovory]

You really like the House don't you?

[Neil]

You really like the House don't you?

One could make the argument that the House is the most democratically responsive part of the US governent.  Still, since more democracy is usually a bad thing in the civilized world, and since the House is also the least responsible part of the US government, I'm not sure Otto's plan is for the best.

[OttoVonBismarck]

You really like the House don't you?

I don't really like the current incarnations of House or Senate, but our current system has very few effective mechanisms in place to resolve issues when the House and Senate don't get along and when the House, Senate, and President can't get along. I feel that the Presidency since the 1930s has eroded substantially the division of powers in our government so if you can give some additional powers to the legislature that also can help alleviate gridlock, that's a good thing.

The House is the most representative and the most accountable, since they have shorter terms and more closely map to population than Senate seats.

I'm fine with turning the Senate into a House of Lords esque body (although it would be a bit more powerful and relevant), and boosting the ability of the legislature to slap the President in the face if they want...while also giving the President the "nuclear" option to use on a recalcitrant and immoderate House. If the people vote in a Senate and a White House of X party I don't think we need the other party using the House to basically bring the entirety of government to a stand still every time they don't get their way.

[OttoVonBismarck]

You really like the House don't you?

One could make the argument that the House is the most democratically responsive part of the US governent.  Still, since more democracy is usually a bad thing in the civilized world, and since the House is also the least responsible part of the US government, I'm not sure Otto's plan is for the best.

I agree as you might know that more democracy is usually a bad thing. However the problem with the Senate is it too disproportionately represents states like Rhode Island and New Hampshire that have less people in them than some counties of other States, and with their extremely long terms they're just too unaccountable for their actions.

The British and Canadians seem to mostly do okay with their "lower house" being the real source of all government power and I don't think either of those countries has devolved into any of the anarchical states you can get from "too much democracy." I mean, we'd still have sensible election laws like using first past the post voting and all that, I'm not talking about retard-systems like plurality or preferential voting.

[PDH]

Wyoming does its democratic duty by electing senators who are useless twats.

[Neil]

Yeah, the Senate would certainly work a lot better if there were fewer states.  The whole point of the Senate is to defend regional interests against the tyranny of the majority, and in that it is invaluable.  But when you have so many states that have essentially identical interests, that value is reduced.

The only problem with more power to the House is the sort of people who get elected to the House.  Then again, longer terms would probably help with that, as the representative would be able to spend 2 years prostituting themselves and 2 years legislating, as opposed to the current 2 whoring/0 legislating split.

[Siege]

Transformed?
Of course not.
The US have a self-correcting system. If it goes to far left, like with Obama, Americans will vote him out and move the country back to center. If it goes to far right...well, the US haven't been that far right ever, in its entire history, despite of what the European balls of light might think.

[Razgovory]

Transformed?
Of course not.
The US have a self-correcting system. If it goes to far left, like with Obama, Americans will vote him out and move the country back to center. If it goes to far right...well, the US haven't been that far right ever, in its entire history, despite of what the European balls of light might think.

Oh course it has.  When it did they hung folks like you.

[DGuller]

If there is one thing that needs to be transformed, it's the power of the small states.  Not only do they get a disproportionate share of the Senators, but those Senators tend to stick for a while, and thus gain even more power through seniority rules.  Maybe the Great Compromise made sense back when we had to convince independent colonies to give up sovereignty to join the federation, but by know aren't we all Americans? 

For the same reason, we need to do away with Electoral College.  In practice, what Electoral College leads to is wholesale ignoring of the states which lean one way or the other, and disproportionate power for the quarter of the states deemed to be battlegrounds.  A citizen is a citizen, whether he lives in New York or Ohio.

[Tonitrus]

The idea of both those institutions is to prevent large, populous states from running roughshod over smaller, less populous states (i.e., California doesn't want to store nuclear waste on it's soil, so we'll just use our massive voting power to put it all in Idaho). 

It's another essential check-and-balance.

The EC gets a lot of flack, but it is just trying to apply that principle to the Executive branch as it exists in the Legislative (though there might be a better way than currently exists).

Of course, the Judicial branch has no such check or balance.  Another reason lawyers are evil.

[dps]

Transformed?
Of course not.
The US have a self-correcting system. If it goes to far left, like with Obama, Americans will vote him out and move the country back to center. If it goes to far right...well, the US haven't been that far right ever, in its entire history, despite of what the European balls of light might think.

Oh course it has.  When it did they hung folks like you.

When did the US ever have laws that imposed hanging as the penalty for drunkeness?

[Razgovory]

I'm sure Siege does good work, but I admit I am kinda worried the one day there's going to be some kinda of scandal where they find some sergeant has been poisoning wells.

[CountDeMoney]

The idea of both those institutions is to prevent large, populous states from running roughshod over smaller, less populous states (i.e., California doesn't want to store nuclear waste on it's soil, so we'll just use our massive voting power to put it all in Idaho). 

But as it stands now over two centuries of development, the Senate is heavily weighed towards states with heavy rural populations.  Kansas or Wyoming has as much swag as New York or New Jersey.  A far cry from the population distribution of 1787.