Would you support switching to a Unicameral legislature?

This is aimed mostly at other US tropers, but if you have a bicameral legislature in your country, this could apply as well. Basically, would you support switching to a one house legislature at either the state or national level?

On the upside it's more efficient and good bills can't be shot down in the the house that didn't start it. Also, if I understand right, it costs less to run a unicameral than a bicameral.

On the downside, bad bills can't get shot down in the other house if they make it past whichever house they started in and a lack of restraint on the majority (especially in parliamentary systems).

It seems to work pretty well here in Nebraska, though it might also help that out legislature is nonpartisan.

Alternatively, if wherever you live has a unicameral, would you support switching to a bicameral legislature?

Only if we got Proportional Representation to go along with it.

edited 22nd Sep '11 11:15:21 AM by SavageHeathen

Definite yes.

Now in the US Congress, I don't mind having bicameralism, since checks and balances is important to have in the whole nation. But maybe we could have more things each house can do on its own, because it's inefficient to have two separate houses and yet they both have to agree on every bill. There should be more power in the House of Representatives, since the Senate (which is proportionally unbalanced) gets to decide treaties and confirmations on its own. In any case, it's awfully hard to get rid of the Senate's equal state representation: the Constitution forbids any amendment from taking effect in a state without that state's consent if it changes equal representation in the Senate.

But what's the point of having bicameral state legislatures? First of all, the house represents the people and the senate represents the people (because of Reynolds v Sims). Secondly, state senates do not have as much power and distinction as the US Senate does. There's no treaty to confirm because the states can't enter treaties. Overall, the senate is supposed to be a group of delegates from sovereign republics, but that doesn't carry over to within state level. Many state affairs sent to a vote are done by popular referendum and not by a collection of components, as it's done in federal level.

With the rise of voters getting power via direct democracy, they've practically become the "lower house". We can have a bicameral legislative branch with a single house of legislators.

My vote overall is, unicameral legislature is enough for unitary states, but I see reason to have bicameral legislature in federal states.

edited 22nd Sep '11 12:16:39 PM by abstractematics

I'm a big fan of the unicameral system and wouldn't want to see it change any time soon in Britain. Unicameralism means that you don't get the sort of chaos that occurs when one party seizes one house and one seizes the other.

Checks and balances? Maintaining democratic rule is what a constitution and sane citizens is for.

I thought Britain was bicameral?

Only for one year.

Legislation can be blocked for a year by the upper house, but it can't actually be stopped.

Though the devolved houses of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are unicameral.

edited 22nd Sep '11 12:32:35 PM by GameChainsaw

Does Britain have a separate legislature from the whole UK? I understood it to have a bicameral legislature that US copied.

A source I consulted said that that's where the US inherited part of its inefficiency.

edited 22nd Sep '11 12:35:02 PM by abstractematics

No it doesn't, The UK system is technically bicameral but the House of Commons has unlimited power.

Right, rundown on the British political system. We've got a similar layout to the US system, a head of state, an upper house and a lower house. The difference is, while the upper and lower houses are roughly level in terms of power in the US, and all elements are elected, the House of Lords (upper) and Monarch (head of state) are unelected and have severely limited powers. The Monarch can't really do anything (technically she has the legal fact of being in absolute control, but she can't actually do anything or parliament would have her stripped of her powers in an instant) while the House of Lords is nerfed to the point of being only able to hold up legislation for one year; I get the impression its half a relic of an older age and half a quality-control service to make sure the House of Commons hasn't put anything blatantly unworkable in there. The House of Commons (lower) is the one that can actually legislate.

The Scottish Parliament, and Welsh and Irish assemblies, handle internal matters such as healthcare, infrastructure and education, and all have a unicameral system. This appears to be working rather well in Scotland...

More often than not, the Prime Minister will grant life peerages to individuals they would like to have in their cabinet without having to worry about the uncertainty of elections.

Other than that, when the government loses in the Lords it gets attention, which is something. A lot of the time, they'll amend the bill rather than try to enforce the Parliament Act (which is pretty controversial itself).

Proportional representation with bicameral national legislature and unicameral state legislatures sounds good to me.

....I wonder if anyone has ever tried tricameral, while we're on the subject...

I think getting into tricameral is just asking for a disaster.

Anyway, the reason we have two houses is because people had to find a compromise between having equal or proportional representation. One of the houses has members according to a state's population, and the other is just two per state. So far it hasn't completely fallen apart, and it's not impossible to get a bill passed in both houses. Otherwise we would not have as many amendments to our constitution as we have. As much as people have wanted reform for our government, I've never seen anyone seriously suggest we go unicameral. (Though I would support this on the state level. I don't even know why states have bicameral legislatures other than copying the federal system.)

The only way we'd ever switch is if you'd find a compromise everyone could agree on. A unicameral legislature with proportional representation as we currently use would put California and Texas firmly, firmly in power over the rest of the country. (Them having the biggest population, with California's being double Texas's, I think.) Straight up same number per state would likely piss off the states with the bigger populations.

When dealing with separated powers (like in the US and it's states), I think unicameralism makes more sense than under unity of powers because then all the power of government is in the hands of just one group. I'd favour unicameralism for the states as well (especially if combined with nonpartisan elections) and keeping the bicameral structure of the federal government as is.

As for tricameralism: It's been tried, but never really got anywhere in a national government. See here. Apparently unions like them, though.

Also, tetracameralism has been tried, though nobody uses it anymore. See here.

No, because the handful of large-population States will be the ones who decide everything.

We do need to change the structure of how bills pass, but the basic "one house is equal to all States and one is favorable to larger States at the expense of smaller States" is necessary and effective if done correctly.

It's just not being done correctly...

And what about the state governments?

State Governments are not my forte. I imagine that, without the population domination thing to fuck them over, it might work better, but the idea of counties and whatnot might make even that untrue...

Well, with Republicans complaining about money all the damn time, a unicameral legislature might be a good way to cut down on the cost of paying the politicians. (Theoretically, there would be less of them to pay, depending on how it was organized.)

There's already one state that's had a unicameral legislature from the start. Can't remember which one it is though. The problem with switching is that now we've got decades to hundreds of years of doing it this way. We're kind of used to it, and we think more in terms of voting out the bad politicians than in building something else from the ground up. (Which is essentially what we'd have to do.)

You speak of Nebraska.

Nebraska had a unicameral legislature since 1937, when the House was dissolved.

It shows that change is indeed possible.

We didn't have it from the start, we instituted the amendment calling fo a unicameral legislature in 1934 and it took effect in 1937, so we had decades of being a bicameral beforehand. It's also a very small legislature (only 49 members), and, once again, the nonpartisan part's also pretty nice. Here's a link to the Wikipedia article.

Also, in 2009, Maine came very close to switching to a unicameral, but their senate shot it down.

edited 22nd Sep '11 2:09:30 PM by Balmung

@OP: No. (And I'm assuming a constitutional amendment is propose to re-write Article I to allow this)

Why? History has shown repeatedly (even today!) that Parliamentary unicameral systems are heavily prone to periods of absolute power. Absolute political power is UNACCEPTABLE no matter the government.

It won't be absolute power because there are the states, the courts, and the presidency.

State level, there are governors, state courts, federal appeals, and people.

I'm not asking to also get rid of separation of powers. They'd still be checked and balanced by the executive and judicial branches. And once again, what about the state governments?

I would support it, but in Texas' case it would likely end up just as much dominated by the Republicans as it is right now, regardless of any "non-partisan" rhetoric. (though there may be a voter shift in favor of Democrats going on right now, I'm not so sure it will stick. And the Republican crony machine is firmly entrenched.)

I don't think this is a good idea, for the simple fact that if it's not done by population, the big States don't get good representation, and if it is done by population, the small States all get shafted.