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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[SalmonGod]

I also think that some form of proportional representation is the only way to loosen the two-party hold on the government.  But that kind of change isn't going to happen without a serious fight.

[Frumple]

It'd be really nice. I'd love to be able to cast a vote for someone besides evildee and evildum knowing it wasn't going to make things easier for whichever the (apparent) worse of them is to win. Also be nice to have it so not having majority didn't mean my vote meant not only jack-nothing, but was in fact being shanghai'd to support the person I didn't vote for. It would give me a vaguely fuzzy feeling, right in the cockles. I don't even think humans have cockles, but such a change would generate them and make them somewhat fuzzy anyway.

Though I would think having a small fuzzy clam attempting to displace one of my inner organs would be rather painful. Eh.

[misko27]

I'm going to go and say a party representational system would never work in the united states as is. If you split the parties into say six groups, the groups would end up aligned about as much as they are now, and given what the parties actually are in the US, that'd be functionally the same. The whole bloody system would have to fall down in flames before that happen (and bear in mind that it has, numerous times, and survived). I could explain but I lost the first try.

Also I understand the complaints about the electoral college, but between the fact that it effects a whooping total of 1 election, every four years, and one that usually sees a higher turnout then any other election; and the fact that the electoral college has changed the outcome of that election exactly four times, bear with me when I say it really, truly, does not matter. The interest and participation rate thing could be solved with mandatory voting. But it's a minor issue with massive entrenchment and it's not worth the political capital to fix.

[scrdest]

'Our Republican Party’s Commitment to Conservation
Conservation is a conservative value.'

For some reason, this sentence makes me giggle like mad.

[SalmonGod]

I'm going to go and say a party representational system would never work in the united states as is. If you split the parties into say six groups, the groups would end up aligned about as much as they are now, and given what the parties actually are in the US, that'd be functionally the same.

It would not be functionally the same to me if it enabled even a single environmentalist to gain a voice in upper-level government.  We may be a severe minority in the U.S., but I think there's enough of us that we should not be lacking this.

[Helgoland]

I think it might work out pretty well - Blue Dog Democrats could very well enter a coalition with the more moderate elements of the Republican party, for example. Similarly I could see parties forming that cater to the segments of the black population who are socially conservative, but progressive in other areas - or parties of complete nutbags, like the Tea Party guys, that might work with the governing parties in selected areas - bank and corporate regulation for some of them, for example - but remain in the opposition on others.

[RedKing]

I do think the House needs massive rebalancing. Computer-generated districting and proportional representation, perhaps. The House is supposed to be the chamber most responsive and most aligned with "the people". Instead, it's become the crazy funhouse where people propose idiotic bills like forbidding Sharia law or criminalizing flag-burning purely for the grandstanding points come election time (which is every two years, so they're pretty much in permanent campaign mode) because they know the responsible half of Congress will be along shortly to stop them.

Keep in mind though, that any system which makes it feasible for Greens to win seats is also liable to make it feasible for far-right parties to win seats.

Once that's done, I think the Senate could stay mostly as it is. Third-parties would have a much tougher time cracking the Senate, but I could see them running/supporting candidates in blocs, similar to how the European Parliament does. So instead of Senator Guy McBroDude running as Republican or Democrat, he might be running/representing a general "Left" bloc or "Right" bloc or maybe even a "center" bloc.

[Frumple]

Keep in mind though, that any system which makes it feasible for Greens to win seats is also liable to make it feasible for far-right parties to win seats.

Honestly, that's fine. I might think most of them are absolute nutjobs and a great deal should probably be in jail for some of what they propose (mostly the bigotry and disenfranchisement/corruption stuff they like to pull, off the top of my head), but if we're going to do this democracy thing they should get due representation -- their vote and representation shouldn't be buried under FPTP bullshit any more than mine should.

As is, when a left candidate in their area gets elected, they lose representation and have their vote effectively stolen from them just the same as a leftie does when a right-wing candidate wins their area. It would be really goddamn nice if that weren't so. Changing from the FPTP system might not be a silver bullet, but it would damn sure be a nice 9mm to the knee or something.

[RedKing]

I used to be an autocrat, but then I took a vote to the knee.

[mainiac]

and the fact that the electoral college has changed the outcome of that election exactly four times

The US has only had 3 close popular vote elections in the past century (1960, 1976, 2000, 2004).  Of those the electoral college swapped the result of one election (2000) and turned another from competitive to lock (1960).  So while "only" 1 result has been swung, it's changing the race half the time!  And it's the two closest elections (1960 and 2000) where it impacted the race.

You could pick the electors at random from the voters and let them decide and that would give you an electoral college that was less of a factor then the current system.

I think it might work out pretty well - Blue Dog Democrats could very well enter a coalition with the more moderate elements of the Republican party, for example.

So four percent of the house is going to ally itself with two percent of the Senate (maybe 3 if Rand Paul is in a feisty mood)?  That's not exactly a political juggernaut, even with the swing vote factor.

There are very few blue dogs left because there isn't much point and they are heavily targeted (literally at times).  Moderate republicans have no choice but to keep their heads down in congress.

[GavJ]

Computer-generated districting and proportional representation, perhaps. The House is supposed to be the chamber most responsive and most aligned with "the people".

- Computers have to be programmed, with algorithms that will generally obviously favor some group or another. Doesn't really solve much. Unless you get like, some Japanese hermit genius programmer living under a rock to design it who knows nothing about any of the situation other than "we need to reasonably divide these people into X many clusters in such and such state borders". Which of course has NO other possible negative side effects, lol.

- The House is supposed to be the chamber most aligned with people in heavily populated states, not just "people." The senate being the chamber most aligned with people in rural states. They both represent different people more heavily, which is the point of having two houses.

[SealyStar]

- The House is supposed to be the chamber most aligned with people in heavily populated states, not just "people." The senate being the chamber most aligned with people in rural states. They both represent different people more heavily, which is the point of having two houses.

Yet thanks to gerrymandering we now have a Senate representing the "city folk party" and a House representing the "suburban/country folk party".

"Supposed to be".

[Criptfeind]

Computer-generated districting and proportional representation, perhaps. The House is supposed to be the chamber most responsive and most aligned with "the people".

- Computers have to be programmed, with algorithms that will generally obviously favor some group or another.

What? Why? You can just make a program that splits states into perfect districts in a totally non biased way. It seems to me like it would actually be harder to write a program to gerrymander a state automatically. Considering that needs to take into account far more information. Furthermore, any program could and certainly would be watched by... Just about everyone, no one would get away with tampering it. I mean, if the program was actually implemented in good faith.

Edit: Unless by "generally obviously favor some group or another" you mean that parties with more people voting for them will get more representation. But if that happens, I mean, fair enough.

[misko27]

and the fact that the electoral college has changed the outcome of that election exactly four times

The US has only had 3 close popular vote elections in the past century (1960, 1976, 2000, 2004).  Of those the electoral college swapped the result of one election (2000) and turned another from competitive to lock (1960).  So while "only" 1 result has been swung, it's changing the race half the time!  And it's the two closest elections (1960 and 2000) where it impacted the race.

You could pick the electors at random from the voters and let them decide and that would give you an electoral college that was less of a factor then the current system.

Oh believe me when I say it fucks things up, but my fundamental premise is that any effort to change it (and there have been for quite a while) would require huge support that just does not exist. Weiss then regular reform even, since republican states have opposed reform on principle, and purple states benefit from it. There's more valuable and lower hanging fruit then that, and yet it's all most can think of when the topic of electoral reform is broached. And moreover, it affects one branch of one level of gov't. It does not deserve the attention it steals from other aspects of reform.

Anyway, I'm not sure what GavJ is saying, but I'm not aware of any technical hurdles to districting. I mean courts draw them up for, why not a computer?

[GavJ]

You can just make a program that splits states into perfect districts in a totally non biased way.

Go for it! In plain English very high level pseudocode, in the thread!
I don't think this is as trivial as you think.

I DO think you can pretty easily do way the hell more fair of a method than we have now, but "completely unbiased" sounds like a pipe dream.

Note that I'm not saying an algorithm is necessarily intentionally designed for bias. Just that any algorithm is going to noticeably favor certain groups aligned with certain political agendas. And there are going to be several logical such algorithms, all of which favor different people, and I don't see how a nearly deadlocked voting populace would realistically settle on one of them.

I could be totally wrong. Seriously, give it a swing.