Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Mr. Cairo]

Looks like we already fixed it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sta...ions,_2014
Majority vote getters won majority seats!



Seriously, you're still claiming that party unity is real and important, more important than local geographic representation or knowing your Congressman or clear results, or getting minority representatives into Congress, or any of the other benefits of FPTP district voting.

There's plenty of electoral systems that maintain local geographic representation while mostly ensuring proportional representation. PR isn't just granting a number of seats to a party based on a nationwide vote. There's mixed-member PR, which is what Germany has. There's a variety of ranked ballot systems. And a whole lot more that I don't know. It's disingenuous to claim that FPTP is the only way to ensure local representation in cental governments.

[Mardoc]

Perhaps more rigorously what I'm claiming is that I don't see any benefit to abandoning FPTP, that would justify the disruption or effort in switching.  There are real benefits to a district-based system, and real costs, and I don't really know which way the cost-benefit ratio would come out if transition were free and instant, but I do strongly believe that the costs of transition would be too high.

The separation of powers between two Houses and Presidency and Supreme Court already accomplish the main thing, which is to ensure that legislation is not passed without more-than-majority support, and to ensure that no single person can get what they want; some compromise is always necessary.  The exact percentage required is not known, maybe not knowable, but it's definitely higher than the normal parliamentary/referendum standard of 50%+ at a single instant in time.  Adrien's statistics are misleading on this front, because you keep looking at one component of the system, while the important thing is the balance of the whole system.

It's clear that the Republicans do not currently have the united votes to pass much legislation, as you can see by the way that not much legislation is being passed.  It's also clear that the Democrats have fewer votes, as you can see by the way they're not getting their way either.  The biggest downside to proportional systems in my opinion is the way that there do not appear to be any checks on the parliament in question, so they literally only need 51% agreement to make things happen.  They also generally don't have any time constraints - they can pass major bills the day after the election.  Although, I do grant that it's possible I'm misled about this and parliamentary systems in practice have constraints that aren't visible to me.

Our system requires that majority be sustained for years before it's reflected in the Senate, and decades before it's reflected in the Supreme Court. And that's before taking into account the centrifugal effects of geographic representation - which obviously matter since that's what's currently hindering the R's.  The only things that can happen quickly are things that everyone agrees are more important than party or re-election.

If I were able to change something about the US government, it would be to decrease the overall authority given to the majority, not to better measure the majority.  Why do I care if 48% or 51% of the country is required to approve to violate my rights?  Why is it better that 51% was enough for Brexit?  The mere fact of majority doesn't appear to be making anyone any happier about Brexit, even though it was a literal directly-measured majority.  It certainly doesn't make me happier to know that the only reason the NSA isn't reading my e-mail is that I'm neither important nor sexy, even though I'm pretty sure 60%+ of the country would approve of the NSA having that power (because, well, it's been public for decades and they still have the power)

So, Mixed-member PR is interesting, but you don't mention the important part: who picks the MP who will stand for election? Is that something like a primary, or is it the party? Because if the party picks, then the party can un-pick, and that gives them the power, despite appearances.

From cynicism, I think if we changed systems, we wouldn't get mixed-member PR. Most likely there wouldn't be a majority for any option, which means the winner would be decided in the proverbial smoke-filled back room to grant power to someone I don't want to have it.  Probably it would have a cutesy acronym name, a simple slogan, just like the PATRIOT act, and just like the PATRIOT act it wouldn't do what it's labeled.

[Bacchus]

Only in the US is this an argument. Does Siberia have half the seats in the Douma ? Are the Scottish highlands more important than London in the house of commons ?

Yes to both, actually.

Each 90,000 Scotsmen return an MP compared to each 120,000 Londoners. This was even more pronounced before devolution, when Scotland had 74 MPs against the current 59. Back then Scotland was actually more important than London in absolute terms, as London has 73 MPs. This disbalance in representation is an absolute given in UK politics, nobody even raises the idea that London should have more power, if anything, vice versa.

Siberia is overrepresented in two ways at the Russian Parliament. It has a quarter of the seats in the upper chamber, because each region has exactly 2 representatives, regardless of population, US Senate style.
As for the lower chamber, each region returns at least 1 MP, so.the Siberian Republic of Altai, with a population of 210k returned one MP, whilst Moscow with a population of 12m returned 15 MPs. Altai is a bit of an anomaly, but Siberia in general returned around 1 MP per 500k, Moscow — only 1 per 800k.

As for the question of domination — in a very large and diverse country, if nine parts of the country want something done, and one part of the country doesnt, even if this one part is more populous, I would say the nine parts should have priority, within reason. If one compact community is that much at odds with the rest of its compatriots, the reasonable thing appears to be secession.

There are multiple reasons for why its generally thought and enacted in practice that densely populated areas should be underrepresented at the national level. For me the primary is diversity of opinion. Communities herd, at some point each additional voice stops actually adding anything and simply repeats after the crowd. Modern democracy is not about giving the largest crowd what it wants. Also, at the national level especially, the question of policy really doesn't ride on "what would an opinion poll within national borders show", its more "what the hell are all these communities even doing under one political roof and why should they follow a single decision, however thats arrived that". Its why referenda are highly politically impotent instruments, they divide the nation instead of bringing it together, and they pretend the nation is composed of a mass of individuals, not of communities. Its no surprise that the country most fond of referenda vests very little power in them at the national level, even though the Swiss nation is pretty small both in number and geographical extent.

[AdrienIer]

I said the Scottish highlands, not Scotland as a whole. And as you said, Siberia doesn't hold half the seats. So no to both then.
The question is not whether some areas will have a small overrepresentation, that's a given because of how difficult districting would be otherwise. I'm also not talking about the upper chamber, which is definitely going to be skewed towards the countryside. The question is whether the three main elected bodies, president + both parliaments should be skewed in the same direction. Land does not and should not vote. Only people get to be represented. In France and Russia, there's an upper chamber that is clearly skewed, a lower chamber that will be slightly skewed in some directions (which won't always be in favor of rural areas) and the presidency is 100% fair.

In countries with less elected bodies that becomes more of an issue. But as you will notice the house of commons has always gone to the party with the more votes. They're doing something right that the US isn't doing.

[Bacchus]

I assumed 'half the seats' for Siberia was an exaggeration that stood in for much weaker principle. Siberia does not have 47% of the population, which was the number referenced as indiciative of the original problem im US. I was also talking about a 90k to a 100k split in my hypothetical example. By contrast, Siberia has less than 10% of Russia's population and the Highlands have less than half of a percent of UK's and about 2% of London's. If you think that grotesquely exaggerated examples make your point.... OK. The fact remains that the countries you referenced actually have overrepresentation of rural districts similar to that in the US.

The idea that the party with most votes always won the house of Commons is simply wrong. Harold Wilson's Labour most recently I think, but about once every 20 years over the course of the 20th century.

[Bacchus]

Actually, not Wilson, John Major won 42% of seats and formed a minority govenrment with just 31% of the vote, and that was a classic rural-urban split.

Right the first time, should.trust instincts — fact checking whilst in security queue is an enterprise destined to fail.

[AdrienIer]

I can't find the trace of Wilson's victory against the popular vote, but either way that's 50 years ago. So while it's true that I shouldn't have used the word always that's still a really long time without such an event.

[Mardoc]

In countries with less elected bodies that becomes more of an issue. But as you will notice the house of commons has always gone to the party with the more votes. They're doing something right that the US isn't doing.

Can you tell me the error in these graphs and calculations?

http://bruegel.org/2014/05/how-unequal-i...sentation/

They seem to be claiming that just about every country has a varying 'vote power' and that France is actually less equal than the US. And that the EU is much much worse still. They do claim that Germany is uniquely balanced across representatives/voter.

Maybe it's just more noticeable in the US because we typically come very close to 50/50 and we have the eyes of the world on us.

[scooter]

If I were able to change something about the US government, it would be to decrease the overall authority given to the majority, not to better measure the majority.  Why do I care if 48% or 51% of the country is required to approve to violate my rights?  Why is it better that 51% was enough for Brexit?  The mere fact of majority doesn't appear to be making anyone any happier about Brexit, even though it was a literal directly-measured majority.  It certainly doesn't make me happier to know that the only reason the NSA isn't reading my e-mail is that I'm neither important nor sexy, even though I'm pretty sure 60%+ of the country would approve of the NSA having that power (because, well, it's been public for decades and they still have the power)

I think this is the backwards way of looking at it. The goal instead should be to get past 48% or 51% to higher levels of consensus. FPTP actively pushes the left and right further away from the center. For example, something like ranked-order transferrable votes can do a vastly better job, because it shifts the goals from "what candidate do a smaller amount of people love the most" versus "what candidate are a lot of people generally okay with" which is a fundamentally different thing. You don't even need to throw out the US's balance of power to implement something like that.

The argument over what degree of power the slim majority should have is kind of a false choice. The argument should be over how we can increase the majority so that when that power is exercised, it feels much more fair to more people. FPTP is a direct barrier to that in that it encourages you to lock in a group that supports you via wedge issues rather than build consensus through compromise.

Note: I'm not defending 50% majority vote referendums used to decide massive and complicated policy issues like Brexit or any other referendum really. That's sheer lunacy.

[AdrienIer]

In countries with less elected bodies that becomes more of an issue. But as you will notice the house of commons has always gone to the party with the more votes. They're doing something right that the US isn't doing.

Can you tell me the error in these graphs and calculations?

http://bruegel.org/2014/05/how-unequal-i...sentation/

They seem to be claiming that just about every country has a varying 'vote power' and that France is actually less equal than the US. And that the EU is much much worse still. They do claim that Germany is uniquely balanced across representatives/voter.

Maybe it's just more noticeable in the US because we typically come very close to 50/50 and we have the eyes of the world on us.

The French parliament is a complicated topic. As I said the senate is not balanced, but it doesn't matter too much because the house has the last say. And while the house, as a legislative body, is very important, the house elections have not mattered since the beginning of the 5th republic (except to determine the balance of power between the right and the center right in 74 and 79). Since 2002 the house election happens 6 weeks after the presidential election and the voters have always given the president's party a majority of seats. Before that a newly elected president dissolved the parliament upon getting elected, and called for new house election (that he'd win everytime). Which means that the political direction of the country is given by the votes in the presidential election, where citizen have the same voting power. So I disagree that voter representation is worse in France : our voter power discrepancy has very small effects, and additionally is not only a rural vs urban thing but also a byproduct of overrepresentation of our overseas territories

The problem comes from the fact that the US is the only country where president, house and senate are all skewed in the same direction, and that this distortion is made even stronger by gerrymandering.

I don't get this tyranny of the majority thing. It's much worse when the people who are fewer get "violate the rights" of the majority. Any elected body could violate the rights of its non-electors, it's not only a product of popular vote systems.