Would you support switching to a Unicameral legislature?

Edit; Ignore that. My brain has gone to sleep on me. @-@

edited 22nd Sep '11 5:07:13 PM by AceofSpades

^^ That was the point of Article I and the bicameral Legislature. At the time (1787) small states like Rhode Island would NOT ratify the Constitution (which would have doomed the whole thing from the start) without a compromise allowing the small states to have a say. Thus the Senate.

I know. Great Compromise, yadda yadda, States' Rights, yadda yadda.

In this case, something that is actually necessary...

So then, how about state level unicamerals, Tom?

Let the states decide.

I think she's looking for something a little more substantial than "let the states decide". Like, whether or not you actually think it's a good idea for your state.

I can see this passing in Alaska with relative ease, considering they only have a legislature with sixty people. Bigger states, like Texas, well, that's a lot more people to convince.

It would have a major problem in Colorado. Outside a small handful of communities (though mostly Pueblo) along the Arkansas River and the Denver-Ft. Collins-People's Republic of Boulder area the state is pretty solidly conservative. A unicameral statehouse would be a nightmare because well over half the area of the state would be given either insufficient representation or stuck opposing Denverites' idiocy.

Just a minor correction, but I'm a dude.

Remember, Nebraska's pretty conservative (except for the Omaha area which makes up a very large portion of our population), too, and we made it work. Then again, the state senate is nonpartisan, so that might help.

edited 22nd Sep '11 6:10:06 PM by Balmung

Just give me proportional voting for members of the house and I'm happy. The winner-take-all system is bullshit.

Hmm... Nebraska's legislature is non-partisan, yes? What about enacting that change as well at the congressional level?

Proportional representation, you mean based on party votes instead of regions within the state?

That might be tough to do at the federal level.

edited 22nd Sep '11 6:29:52 PM by abstractematics

...

How do they have a non-partisan legislature? That's a fucking contradiction of terms.

And, no, bad idea is bad. Horrible, horrible model for national government.

It's non-partisan in the sense that each senator in the Unicam is elected by top-two instead of via partisan primary.

edited 22nd Sep '11 6:18:56 PM by abstractematics

USAF, I read the link about Nebraska's legislature. It basically means they're not allowed to talk about their party when running, or run on a party ticket. Something like that. They're still party members.

Edit; I'm not too sure what proportional representation means when picking out people. I know it means each party gets a number of seats, but how they're picked has largely escaped me.

edited 22nd Sep '11 6:20:38 PM by AceofSpades

Eh, its only technically non-partisan. The Other Wiki shows the affiliations of the members, so they still hang with the big dogs, unfortunately but inevitably.

What I mean by proportional votes is that when they vote for a state's reps, said reps reflect the party percentage voted for during the election(which would give a third party a chance to send one or two guys to go along with the red and blue blocs).

That's rather strange. I wonder how well it works.

x3 Basically, by winner-take-all I assume it means a single-member district. Each district gets one seat, and you have to win that seat. This is obviously the case for governor (one governor per state), but it's also used to, for instance, select representatives to the House and Senate (one representative per congressional district, two senators per state). It encourages gerrymandering (creating states with a party majority so that the seat is less contested).

Proportional representation, on the other hand, collects votes throughout the whole state and distributes seats proportionally based on the results. If 40% of the votes got Democrat, 30% Republican, and 20% another party, then 4/10 seats go to Democratic candidates, 3/10 to Republican candidates, and 2/10 to candidates of the third party.

edited 22nd Sep '11 6:25:15 PM by abstractematics

This. Explained it better than me.

I can only imagine massive, massive resistance to proportional representation in that case, as both parties have a lot to lose in that case. (This does explain a lot about multi-party legislatures in Europe to me, though.)

Now, I'm not against it, but it would take a lot to change to that system.

Except how do we decide which politicians get those seats?

The parties do, if I recall.

I'm not sure, but once a party gets a certain number of seats, it can decide for itself. I don't remember how they allocate them.

Link

Single-member districts are quite biased. You have to fight for your district or region or whatever, and if you lose, then you're not represented.

This isn't exactly the topic though. I think even if we have current election system, the voters' direct legislative powers would balance it out. That's why such states should be unicameral. States like CA essentially have tricameralism.

edited 22nd Sep '11 6:35:39 PM by abstractematics

Well, that's idiotic. I sure as hell don't trust the parties to decide who gets the seat. We might as well throw out all those other voting reform laws we did, since we'd right back to the fucking Gilded Age.

Granted, that's not quite how it was done back then, but I'd rather not let the parties do by law what they used to have to copiously bribe people to accomplish...

Single-member districts are inherently party-based, too. A party first nominate one candidate in a primary election to represent the party, and then competes against other parties.

Proportional representation better represents state statistics instead of the majority party of each component hog that region.

If you want we can make a new thread for this topic.

CA runs on tricameralism? I was just kidding when I was wondering if anyone actually did that...

What's the third house they got?