A new Democratic Polity

[SagaLore]

So the founding fathers came up with the great compromise - a house with equal representation of states, and a house with near-equal representation of people.

During elections, the politician wins through a majority of votes. During legislation, a bill passes through a majority of votes by those politicians. And so on.

But I think we have a major flaw to how this "majority" is represented. When you look at how lobbyists are able to push stuff through, and how politicians never seem to fully do what they promised their constituents...

The flaw is that we're basing all our legislation on the republic representation of majority "popularity", not majority "ideas". There may be a 100 different things that Candidate A takes a stance on, but as a voter I only care about maybe 10 of those, and out of those 10 I agree with maybe 6. So I pick that candidate over the other. So in reality, the person that is voted in may do some good for a handful of topics, but may do a lot of harm for a lot more.

And then what happens? Over a couple of years, some of that harm shows up, as a voter I get upset, and vote for someone new. Rinse and repeat.

I propose a better form of democracy. Its still democracy, its still a republic. The only person who should be voted in based on a majority popular vote is the President, because the President's primary duty is to represent the nation, to be a figurehead. That is where popularity is important, because we're using that person to be the "image" of the rest of us. But for our legislators - they should not represent states or people.

Our legislators should represent ideas.

Consider this - instead of Congress and the House of Representatives, we would have a dozen or so Houses, each focused on a specific realm of government.

For example,

- House of Health & Well-being
- House of Education
- House of Energy
- House of Transportation
- House of Defense
- House of Foreign Affairs
- House of Goods and Tax

etc.

So as part of our elections, we vote representatives in based on the house they're running for. So then the voters' majority for that idea elects in the best candidate to represent that idea. No one is good at everything, but lots of people are good at something. Besides bills, each house works on their own budget.

As a tribute to the great compromise, we can still have state representation. Rather than a dedicated Senate who are voted in then lose touch with their state - the Governors cast votes. Governors can veto with a 2/3rds vote (they do this remotely), and then finally to the President to veto or not.

 

[chucky2]

So how would this work? Lets take the House of Energy:

Elections are up for the House of Energy. How many seats in the HoE? Who can run for them? Who can vote for those running? If someone in CA runs for a seat on the HoE, can I in IL vote for that person?

Chuck

 

[SagaLore]

So how would this work? Lets take the House of Energy:

Elections are up for the House of Energy. How many seats in the HoE? Who can run for them? Who can vote for those running? If someone in CA runs for a seat on the HoE, can I in IL vote for that person?

Chuck

There are different ways to go. The easiest is to just have 1 house rep per State. So every house has 50 reps. A little more complicated but a better representation of population is to divide the US into regions so multiple states share a rep, or in some cases, half a state can belong to 1 region and the other half belongs to another region (texas, california).

 

[sao123]

this is a great idea, as you then are not stuck to the rigidity of the 2 party-3candidate system. I like his energy policy, but not his defense policy... etc.

the question becomes how to accomplish this without having the entire structure get too large.
28 houses instead of 2 is by definition "big government".

 

[cwjerome]

I have to admit it's a fairly interesting idea on the surface, but would take a major re-working of the Constitution, so the idea is unattainable.

 

[dmcowen674]

I have to admit it's a fairly interesting idea on the surface, but would take a major re-working of the Constitution, so the idea is unattainable.

Not to mention it sounds like even bigger government and even more government spending.

Does the OP work in Government?

 

[soccerballtux]

hm interesting idea. Can someone condense this into TLDR form?

 

[nonlnear]

hm interesting idea. Can someone condense this into TLDR form?

For the TLDR impaired:
SagaLore proposed a separate legislature for each major government department.

 

[chucky2]

There are different ways to go. The easiest is to just have 1 house rep per State. So every house has 50 reps. A little more complicated but a better representation of population is to divide the US into regions so multiple states share a rep, or in some cases, half a state can belong to 1 region and the other half belongs to another region (texas, california).

That is certainly an interesting idea, and it would certainly free up people from being so invested in 'their side'. For example I am pro-2nd Amend but pro-UHC (a proper UHC, I'm thinking tiered). Along with pro-military, pro-ending Illegal Invasion, but pro-choice. This really puts me at major odds with both parties (or, at least, the fundi's that control the majority of their respective parties).

This would also allow people to run for these positions who are actually qualified and capable for these houses, without needing to worry about having to deal with the BS from the other areas.

Another question: Who is going to control the Fed funding that is allocated to these Houses? You can't have every House creating their own budget, else we'll be spending sh1ttons more than we are even now.

This would seem to get back to what we have now, with someone needing to be elected as "head rep" for each state (now we have a couple of Senators, multi House members).

Chuck

 

[werepossum]

So the founding fathers came up with the great compromise - a house with equal representation of states, and a house with near-equal representation of people.

During elections, the politician wins through a majority of votes. During legislation, a bill passes through a majority of votes by those politicians. And so on.

But I think we have a major flaw to how this "majority" is represented. When you look at how lobbyists are able to push stuff through, and how politicians never seem to fully do what they promised their constituents...

The flaw is that we're basing all our legislation on the republic representation of majority "popularity", not majority "ideas". There may be a 100 different things that Candidate A takes a stance on, but as a voter I only care about maybe 10 of those, and out of those 10 I agree with maybe 6. So I pick that candidate over the other. So in reality, the person that is voted in may do some good for a handful of topics, but may do a lot of harm for a lot more.

And then what happens? Over a couple of years, some of that harm shows up, as a voter I get upset, and vote for someone new. Rinse and repeat.

I propose a better form of democracy. Its still democracy, its still a republic. The only person who should be voted in based on a majority popular vote is the President, because the President's primary duty is to represent the nation, to be a figurehead. That is where popularity is important, because we're using that person to be the "image" of the rest of us. But for our legislators - they should not represent states or people.

Our legislators should represent ideas.

Consider this - instead of Congress and the House of Representatives, we would have a dozen or so Houses, each focused on a specific realm of government.

For example,

- House of Health & Well-being
- House of Education
- House of Energy
- House of Transportation
- House of Defense
- House of Foreign Affairs
- House of Goods and Tax

etc.

So as part of our elections, we vote representatives in based on the house they're running for. So then the voters' majority for that idea elects in the best candidate to represent that idea. No one is good at everything, but lots of people are good at something. Besides bills, each house works on their own budgets.

As a tribute to the great compromise, we can still have state representation. Rather than a dedicated Senate who are voted in then lose touch with their state - the Governors cast votes. Governors can veto with a 2/3rds vote (they do this remotely), and then finally to the President to veto or not.

The more I think about this, the more I like it. I think we'd have to keep the HOR though to set the actual budget. And I suspect that returning Senators to their original mandate (selected by the states at their own discretion to represent the states' individual interests) would work better than replacing them directly with the governors; government today is so big and so intrusive that it's really a full time job keeping up with the bills and nominees, and adding that work to governors would likely reduce it to even more of a knee-jerk political reaction.

That is certainly an interesting idea, and it would certainly free up people from being so invested in 'their side'. For example I am pro-2nd Amend but pro-UHC (a proper UHC, I'm thinking tiered). Along with pro-military, pro-ending Illegal Invasion, but pro-choice. This really puts me at major odds with both parties (or, at least, the fundi's that control the majority of their respective parties).

This would also allow people to run for these positions who are actually qualified and capable for these houses, without needing to worry about having to deal with the BS from the other areas.

Another question: Who is going to control the Fed funding that is allocated to these Houses? You can't have every House creating their own budget, else we'll be spending sh1ttons more than we are even now.

This would seem to get back to what we have now, with someone needing to be elected as "head rep" for each state (now we have a couple of Senators, multi House members).

Chuck

Every thinking person should be at major odds with both parties, as well as with the minor parties.