An Idea to encourage compromise in the U.S. House of Representatives

[Huin]

It may be a goofy idea and not at all realistic.
But please don't throw it out by a cutting response, but please respond with positive criticism.
Let's have a thread of discussion to develop this idea. Raise objections to it and I shall answer them if I can or admit defeat.
But please consider and respond to my answers.
The idea is to realign the number of voting deligates in the U.S. House of Representatives which are elected each State. One-third of each voting seats may not be filled by party-associated candidates. Those one-third of seats for each state shall be filled by non-party affiliated candidates elected state-wide like a senator based on each candidtate's personal platform of preference of political issues. In a State with more than three seats up for election, each voter in each District votes for one party-affiliated candidate of their choice and for all other non-affiliated candidates of the State. I realize that a State with less than three seats in the House needs to be handled differently. But that we can develop in this game if we find members to play it by responding.
So this is my basic proposal in a nutshell. Anybody willing to play the game?

[Walleye]

1. I'm afraid that these days unaffiliated means republican

It seems a little bit unconstitutional as well

[Huin]

4. For unaffilieated we need to develop how the candidates are picked

The reason I posted this here is because I believe Democrats are in the majority and would have home court advantage.
As to unconstitutional, I believe it isn't and it would just take passing a law to get it going. But all States except with only one seat in the house would need to re- district. That's why it cannot be implemented immediately. But the law could mandate that.

Suggestion to your point 1. An organization, like the NCC in Philadelphia could be commissioned to conduct a survey of registered voters in each State to determine their priority of all political issues in order from most to least important. Candidates apply through the organization and those with best matches to the voters are placed on the ballot.

One way to save the Democracy is to get the voters involved. These candidates will have a website and a printed resume which is distributed to the electorate. The candidate explains how he proposes to solve these problems. Candidates may not debate with political candidates. And other than their resume and website there is no campaign or its cost. One does not have to be a millionaire to get on the ballot, all is needed the will to address most pressing issues. That's why I believe Democrats have the edge in this.

As to constitutionality, do you know there is no mention of parties in the Constiitution. Each candidate should weigh any proposal and give his vote accordingly, not what is dictated by the party. I believe party politics had not been contemplated under the Constitution.

[FreepFryer]

2. How would requiring 1/3rd of the House reps per state be "free agents" encourage compromise

i see it introducing fractal insanity and legislative paralysis.

[Huin]

5. These candidates when elected have a mandate to those who elected them

2. An organization, like the NCC in Philadelphia could be commissioned to conduct a survey of registered voters in each State to determine their priority of all political issues in order from most to least important. Candidates apply through the organization and those with best matches to the voters are placed on the ballot.

These candidates represent the most prevalent views on critical issues as perceived by the electorate. They have a mission that is shared by the majority of the people in their state. Neither party would have a majority, thus compromise would be needed.

Isn't compromise the essence in a democracy? Our Constitution did not contemplate a single stance imposed by a leader and a majority party goose-stepping behind, as we may have witnessed in one of our more recent administrations.

[FreepFryer]

8. so a survey company will set the political agenda ?

what about during matters of crisis? will Congress need to engage the polling company in order for 1/3 of its members to know how they “must“ vote?

as the reality of such a proposed change is contemplated, the idea makes less and less sense tbh.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

3. Destroying the two party system is not a way to fix anything

We need to defeat the MAGA elements of the GOP so that sane members of the GOP take control. This make take a couple of cycles. I strongly disagree with concept that destroying the two-party system is needed.

Your proposal would require a constitutional amendment that has no chance of passing.

My solution would be to get rid of the filibuster and adopt the provisions of the John Lewis Act that eliminates partisan gerrymandering. If we have fair elections that are not heavily gerrymandered, we can fix the current system.

[Huin]

6. Who is talking about destroying a two-party system?

There shall be two parties and each voter will have a choice of voting for the selected candidate of his party, whether Democratic or Republican. The only thing different is that the majority of the voters will also be able to vote for candidates who have no ties or obligations to political donors but share the same sentiments as they do.

And may I suggest that nowhere in the Constitution is there a mention of a party. Shouldn't Representatives be chosen because of what they believe is right. Democracy is a miracle of many facets.

I went through the Constitution very carefully. If you find any clause in the Constitution that would prevent a simple law from being enacted to establish what is suggested, I would appreciate to have that pointed out. I do agree, however, if a law were passed to enact a change in electing Representatives to the House, it could not become functional until after all States except any with only one seat in the House have been re-districted. That would require one intervening election. However, that could be provided for in the bill.

I do agree with your comment of a constitutional amendment as far as the Senate is concerned. But the Senate could be left untouched.

I also agree with you to get rid of the filibuster, and that might improve the efficiency of the Senate. Also, I don't know but my thought was that by reducing the number of Districts in each State, gerrymandering might become more complicated. And, as I said, redistricting would in States with more than one seat would be required.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. Are you kidding? The premise of your plan is to destroy the two party system

I got the high grades in my section in constitutional law and the local government classes in law school. The US Constitution does not mention political parties, but political parties have become an important part of our system of government in the real world. I am an old fart and was a high school and college debater. My senior year in high school, the non-Cross EX debate topic for that year was reforming the political process and some teams ran a case based on abolishing political parties. These teams did not do well in that political parties serve an important function in the real world. In the debate world, one could use a debate concept called "fiat" to magically adopt a proposed plan. That concept does not work in the real world and even if your plan made any sense, such plan would not have a chance of being adopted in the real world.

The premise of your proposal is based on the destruction of the two-party system with unworkable and poorly conceived concept of having non-party members make up a third of the government. Again, I live in the real world and your plan could never be implemented in the real world even if this plan made sense. Your plan is totally unworkable in the real world. There is no way to monitor or provide for unaffiliated candidates in the real world. You do realize that congress is based on a committee system and unaffiliated candidates who won their "non-partisan" races would have to affiliate with a party to be able to work in the committee structure in the real world.

Texas county and municipal races used to be non-partisan, but the parties have taken over these races. The same thing would happen under your system. In the real world, truly non-affiliated candidates would have to appeal to partisan groups to raise money. It takes money to run for office and your plan ignores this simple fact. While still technically non-partisan, all county and municipal races in Texas now days are partisan. Now each party gets someone who is part of the party structure as a nominee and these races are now totally partisan. In Harris County. Texas, the democrats have Lina Hidalgo running against a MAGA nut cases who is running on a Trumpian platform. The TFG clone running against Lina Hidalgo sounds a great deal like a female TFG and is being supported by the local republicans.

The closest thing that could work in the real world is ranked choice voting like the Alaskan system. Like California, candidates run in a jungle primary, and the four top candidates advance to the general election where votes of the losing candidates are reallocated to the top candidates. The rank choice voting system in effect doomed Sarah Palin in the recent special election to replace Don Young because she was too extreme for the non-hard core GOP voters. I was pleased to see this system work in Alaska this cycle for the special election. Palin is asking the other GOP candidate to drop out for the general election because she fears that this system would work again in the general. It will be interesting to see what happens in the regular election in Alaska. The lady who beat Palin is very moderate which is a good thing.

In the alternative, the Californian system is far better than your proposal where all candidates run in a jungle primary and the top two advance to the general election. This system works in the real world even if the result is that two Democrats end up running against each other in the general.

One of the key portions of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act is to outlaw partisan gerrymandering. The GOP has gone so far to the right because of extreme partisan gerrymandering where right wing candidates do not have to worry about general elections. In heavily gerrymandered districts, GOP candidates only have to worry about the GOP primary which results in extreme candidates. Elimination of partisan gerrymanders will encourage less hardline candidates on both sides of the aisle. The banning of partisan gerrymandering would allow more mainstream candidates to run. There are interesting formulas for getting rid of partisan gerrymanders that were discussed before the SCOTUS ruled that partisan gerrymanders were okay. We had a couple of interesting CLE courses on the various ways to eliminate partisan gerrymandering. I like math and these systems to eliminate partisan gerrymandering are really interesting. If the Democrats pick up two or more senate seats and old the House, the John Lewis Act should be adopted, and partisan gerrymandering will be outlawed.

Again, I live in the real world and your plan makes no sense to me and could never worked in the real world. High School and college debate was fun but the real world works differently. There is also no way to adopt your plan in the real world.

[Huin]

12. I need to disagree. I do not want to destroy but strengthen our two party system.

Please tell me how a two-party system is destroyed when national election ballots offer the choice to vote for either a democratic or a republican candidate. That stays the same. The only change is that you can also vote for a candidate for the House with a mission of fighting to correct problems you always wanted to correct.

When you voted for the candidate of your party, you did that because you hoped that he might fight to correct those problems and with your vote for the non-affiliated candidate, should he win his seat, he would support and strengthen the fight of your chosen candidate.

So where does the destroying come in?

You refer to your age. We live in a new century. In a world with computers and tabulations unheard of in the olden days. We can bank and buy, make appointments, hold meetings, and do all sorts of things, never getting up from our chair. My suggestion includes to use these modern technologies to simplify the election of candidates for a fraction of the current cost to allow visionanries of all walks of life, not just millionaires, to get a chance to represent those with common visions to fight for a better America. And all of that without destroying our two party system.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

15. I am amused that you do not understand the concepts

I am also sad that you really want to destroy the Congressional Black Caucus by eliminating minority majority districts. Your plan eliminated the only districts that these candidates can win in just to elect some "unaffiliated" congresscritters. That is not a trade that I would make

I am sorry that you live in a deep red congressional district. I have also lived in such a district, but I have still fought to change things. In the old days, all of the judges in Harris County were republicans and an asshole named Steve Hotze used to run slates of religious nut jobs for judges. I had a case on appeal from a good republican female judge who was targeted by Hotze (his candidate ran on the platform that females should have no dominion over males). I actually voted in the GOP primary for this judge (who won) and for McCain against W. Luckily that female republican judge was on the bench when my case came back from appeals, and we were able to get a great settlement.

Now, all of the judges in Harris County are democrats and most of the judges in my county are Democrats (sadly the party was not able to recruit and run candidates in all judicial races in 2018). Things can change if you work at it. Democrats should pick up the rest of the judges in my county and strengthen control of the courts of appeal. As for changing voting methods, one of the members of the group of Democratic lawyers that I work with was county election administrator for Harris County in 2020 and he adopted some great innovations to deal with COVID such as 24-hour voting and drive through voting. These innovations were then outlawed by the Texas GOP the next session of the Texas legis. There are things that can be done to make voting easier but it takes hard work to make changes.

Have fun with your silly proposal. This proposal would not work in the real world and luckily no one in the real world would consider this to be a serious proposal. This is the sort of silly plan that people used to run in high school debate where the real world did not matter. Have fun in your world and I will continue to work in the real world.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

9. BTW, your silly plan would kill the Congressional Black Caucus

Your plan is so bad and has so many major flaws that I forgot to mention to me a major issue. I personally like the Congressional Black Caucus. In my area, Sheila Jackson Lee, Al Green and Sylvia Garcia are in minority majority congressional districts that would be abolished under your amusing but poorly thought-out plan. Do you really want to eliminate most of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus?

Again, I like living in the real world.

[Huin]

10. The "Why" of this should be explained

I live in a district where I can vote or stay home. The outcome is the same. I can petition and be laughed at because I just wasted my time. But I am interested in an explanation of why my so silly plan would kill the Congressional Black Caucus. My so silly plan would offer the silent majority, those in the middle, to vote for representatives who represent their interests. That is the silliness of my plan.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

11. Your plan would eliminate minority majority congressional districts

Last edited Wed Sep 28, 2022, 02:13 PM - Edit history (1)

As I understand it, your plan eliminates minority majority congressional districts by having congresscritters elected statewide. Without these minority majority congressional districts, minority candidates could not get elected. I am friends with three congresscritters in minority majority congressional districts and would hate to see them lose their seats due to a rather dumb plan that would not work in the real world

Again, your amusing plan is an academic exercise that would not work in the real world. I used to debate similar plans back when I was a debater. the non-CX debate topic my senior year in high school had people advocating to get rid of parties. I really think that your plan would not work. Luckily, there is zero chance that your plan could be adopted in the real world and if adopted it would not work

I live in Tom Delay’s old district that we neatly flipped in 2020. The Texas GOP had to gerrymander the heck to keep this Distict safe in 2022. I will still be voting in 2022 for other candidates even though my congressional districts is a safe red seat. We flipped my county blue and should be picking up additional judicial seats this cycle. Democrats already control the county wide offices in my county.

I am hopeful that we can adopt the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and outlaw partisan gerrymanders

[Huin]

13. But not the ability to run for the same seat without affiliation.

My plan would create a system of non adversary candidacy for all who want to contribute.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

14. Which would never work in the real world

I am sad that you want to eliminate the jobs of Sheila Jackson Lee, Al Green, Sylvia Garcia and other minorities who are holding offices in order to adopt a rather silly plan that would not work in the real world. These minority candidates would stand no chance of being elected in a statewide race which is why minority majority congressional districts are so important in the real world. Luckily no one would take your plan to be a serious plan in the real world and there is no chance that it could or would be adopted. As a former debater, I was amused to look at your amusing plan and it was clear to me that this plan made no sense.

Again, in Texas county and municipal elections are non-partisan but that does not stop the parties from backing their preferred candidate. The current mayor of Houston is a former Democratic state representative who ran against a candidate endorsed by TFG in the last mayor's race. A number of democrats are lining up to replace Mayor Turner including a Democratic state Senator, a Democratic state representative and other democrats on the city council. There is one former biglaw partner who is running that may fit your criterion, but I doubt that he has a chance. I know about these candidates because I am on their contribution lists (you do not want to see my email box). Your plan simply would not work in the real world and would really hurt groups

Have fun but I will be working on turning Texas blue and fighting GOP voter suppression laws.

[Huin]

16. So we part and go our ways

I must give you credit for being an excellent debater. I suppose debaters learn to win by intimidation and innuendos to bring down their opponents. Thank you for portraying me as someone I know I am not. Then maybe, you may be wrong in other ways.

I wish you luck in your endeavors.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

17. You have clearly not interacted with many lawyers.

I am amused that you think that I was mean. You would not like to deal with some of the litigators I have worked with. Again, if you want to advance a new method of voting you need to understand how the system works in the real world. Your plan could never be adopted ni the real world and would have destroyed the Congressional Black caucus.

One of the alternatives that I discussed in this thread is ranked choice voting. Here is an article that will explain this concept and how it may solve some of your problems.

I was amused and pleased to see that Rank Choice Voting caused Sarah Palin to lose the special election to replace Don Young. Rank Choice Voting encourages more participation and favors moderate candidate. Palin is currently asking/demanding that the other GOP candidate who will be on the ballot for the November general election drop out because Palin fears a repeat of the special election. This is really a great endorsement of the Alaskan system of rank choice voting.

Link to tweet

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-ranked-choice-voting-engagement-democracy-20220929-qvfxhwql2rb3pgc74pnjc6paye-story.html

At its essence, voters in a ranked choice contest can rank as many — or as few — candidates as they wish, rather than voting solely for one candidate. Once polls close, votes are counted, and a candidate wins only if they receive a majority of the vote. This differs from the current voting model in which candidates can win even if they don’t receive a majority of votes or a runoff ends up being required to determine the winner, an expensive, time-consuming process.

And if no candidate obtains a majority of votes initially, then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and voters’ second choices are redistributed among the remaining field. This process repeats until either one candidate receives a majority of votes or two candidates remain.

Ranked choice voting is straightforward and gaining momentum. The results from the use of ranked choice voting suggest it could be crucial in transforming democracy for the better without creating new political parties......

Adopting ranked choice voting also leads to more diverse people running and holding positions of power. In places that use ranked choice voting, nearly half of all mayors and city council members are women. Further, in cities with ranked choice voting, more candidates of color run for office. By ensuring candidates — no matter their background — must reach as many voters as possible,

Ranked choice voting levels the playing field and fundamentally shifts the landscape of who runs for and ultimately wins elected office.

The combination of increased civility, engagement from campaigns and representation under a ranked choice voting model leads to the most important outcome: people turning out to vote. For instance, ranked choice voting in mayoral elections has led to a 10% average increase in turnout in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Young people are also more likely to vote where ranked choice voting is used.

[Huin]

18. Thank you for your reply

I was disappointed and had unsubscribed to the group.
My post gave just a few hints of what I had envisioned. I thought I would get some positive comments, re-directing yet building on the basiic idea. I felt that all replies I had gotten were non-supportive. My thought was to improve democracy in our existing two-party system, not destroy.
The ranked choice contest comes close to what I had in my mind. Different but not inconsistent with what I had originally proposed. The ranked choice voting system seems to be actually a step beyond what I had thought. What if you combined the rank choice system with the initial computerized selection system according to correspondence of the candidates' views with the outcome of the surveys. Then you could select by rank choice twice the number of cancidates as there are available seats and allow in an election the electorate to choose the final wiinners for the available seats. Would that not be democracy in action?

But then again, let's not dwell on it since it is indeed a hypothetical model which will never come about. Not worth for elderly people like me and maybe you to get their blood pressure raised. It's not worth it.
But thank you for your final contribution to this thread.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

19. Your hatred of political parties doomed your concept

Political parties are important part of the system and rigging a system to favor non-affiliated persons makes no sense and would never be adopted in the real world. The California top two system sort of ignores political parties by allowing the top two candidates to advance to the general election but this does not really matter since California has largely become a Blue state. Many elections involve two Democratic party members running against each other.

The Alaska top four system with rank choice voting is interesting. The defeat of Sarah Palin amused me and Palin is worried about the general election.

Political parties are part of the system, and these parties are NOT going to go away. Your concept "of the initial computerized selection system according to correspondence of the candidates' views with the outcome of the surveys" makes no sense to me and there are too many games. Let the voters decide and attempts to lessen the influence of political parties make no sense to me

Again, in Texas county and municipal elections used to be non-partisan. That has changed and now in Harris County we have a TFG supporter backed by a ton of GOP donor money going after Lina Hidalgo. These non-partisan races are now very partisan.

I have been involved in the Democratic Party in Texas for a very long time. We are making progress and I have training next week for voter protection efforts. I do not believe in getting rid of or lessening the influence of political parties.

Have fun