jb2000

Much of the talk about Third Parties revolves around the race for President. Let's face it, even with equal access, the potential for a Third Party President is remote. Even in pluralistic democracies around the world, the Head of Government position is usually contested between only the two main parties (or held by the dominant one). The exceptions are usually young democracies where the parties haven't stabilized yet or strange cases of bizarre events.

What is realistic however, is representation in the US Congress. About 1-3% of votes cast for US Rep are cast for Libertarian candidates (perhaps a Libertarian expert can help me verify or narrow down that figure). This ideally should mean about 10 seats in the House, on a percentage basis. Of course, they have none though. I'm no Libertarian, but still this is not right.

I am proposing a hybrid system of appointing House Representatives that would make the composition of the House reflective of the nationwide breakdown of votes for Representative:

- Of the 435 Representative seats, a small number (20?) are reserved as At-Large seats. The remainder are delegated to the states as normal and sub-divided into Congressional Districts. The impact to states would be about the same as a normal census cycle, where districts are re-drawn. For states like Texas, who seem to not have a problem with re-districting on a whim, this should pose no problem at all.

- Election of the 415 Districts proceeds as normal, with no change in format for candidates or voters.

- Upon completion of vote-counting, the total votes cast in all House races are tallied by party. This is calculated out to determine how many seats each party is entitled to, and the 20 at-large seats are then awarded to the parties as appropriate to balance the overall seats to match the election returns.

- Candidates who ran for US House but did not win their District election are eligible for these at-large seats, and are awarded on the basis of votes cast for them in their district. For example, let's say that Party A had five at-large seats awarded to them, the five candidates who had the most votes for them in their district elections, but did not win their district election, would be appointed to the seats.

I see this system as having several benefits as a way of improving our representation at the Federal level:

1) No change in the process of District elections means that our American traditions of voting for individiuals remains, and that those that best serve their districts will still see the greatest support.

2) Parties will be encouraged to compete more broadly to serve districts, as opposed to the kind of 'safe seat' approach that is currently in vogue.

3) This is not unlike the system already in use by many party precinct and distict conventions to select delegates to their state convention and such.

4) The structured method of assigning at-large seats doesn't open the door to party or other corruption of the assingments. The quantities are mathematically determined, and the order of appointment based on votes cast in district elections.

I am aware that obviously there will need to be an Amendment to the Constitution to enact these procedural changes, but other than that, I am eager to hear input on people's perceptions, comments, objections, etc. on this one.

This is my first thread start, so forgive me if it is too heavy.

djtestudo

I really don't like the idea of someone who doesn't win their election being appointed to the same position.

If you can't bring a majority of the voters to believe enough in what you have to say to win, you shouldn't win.

__________________
"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun

RAGEAngel9

The problem with electing by party is if you don't like everyone in a particular party.
For instance, I like many Republican ideas, but I hate Bush and god help us all if Keyes was ever elected for anything.

jb2000

Interesting point, although I guess I don't think of elections as a sporting event If two candidates are seperated by only a few votes, it doesn't mean that the people are really any less desirous of the second place finisher. Naturally, we have to pick one, so we pick the one with the most. However, you could consider a sports analogy, that being the Wild Card choice for the playoffs, in that the team with the best results that didn't win their division gets awarded the wild card spot.

I had figured an alternative would be for the voter to first vote for the District race, and then have the option to cast a vote for a slate of candidates for the at-large seats. Each party would build their list and it would be much like the way we vote for electors for President.

The advantages of the alternative would be people who are say Republican, and generally want Republican candidates, but say in Obama v. Keyes, would vote for Obama, can vote for the Democrat, but have their vote count as Republican for the at-large seats. (Although, my idea would be only for teh House, not the Senate).

Would this go some way towards addressing your concerns?

djtestudo

Not really, because I didn't mention my other problem with it, which is that it takes away representation from specific states, which would go about as against the constitution as you could.

I just think that unless something is broken, it doesn't need to be fixed. There are more pressing constitutional issues (electoral college, etc.) that should be fixed before we try and change other things.

I do think you have an interesting idea, so don't take this in a different way. I just don't think we should be worrying about it right now

__________________
"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun

jb2000

That is interesting, because I guess I don't see the electoral college as being as big a problem seem to make it out to be. It was the EC's fault that the whole Florida debacle happened. Perhaps the only thing I would see as an improvement for it would be to better balance the quantity of EVs per state based on population, not the size of their congressional delegation.

Perhaps you are correct that with the election and all in full swing, there are other things that have a higher profile at the moment, but I wouldn't agree that it isn't broken. 2-3% of the country vote consistently Libertarian, but they have zero representation nationally. I see that as broken.

I do understand the concerns about taking away representation from specific states, but I guess my only way to address that in my plan was to minimize it--by making it only a few seats, the overall reduction is less than 5%, which is about the change that states often see during reapportionment anyway.

Thanks for the input though, and no I don't take it badly at all. I am continuing to work for a way for those folks who don't fit the views of either of our two monolithic parties, to have an opportunity to have representation at the Federal Level.