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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Solipsist: The things you're thinking would happen require organizational reforms, I'm pretty sure, which is very much not on anyone's radar here. I'm not sure why you're thinking we'd suddenly end up with a parliamentary system in this election. Or even why it's better. From what I can tell you'd end up merging the legislative and the executive in this instance.
Unless you simply adapt it to what we have now, and it decides the Speaker and such rather than a prime minister. Because that seems like a terrible way to elect a president.
I'm not taking Bloomberg's statements about running seriously at all, and neither Sanders nor Clinton seem like the type to run independent if the other one gets the nomination. They know what's at stake.
edited 26th Feb '16 11:45:51 AM by AceofSpades
Saying "We're overdue" in no way implies I believe it'll happen anytime soon, nor that I haven't considered the logistics for reform required.
However, the Ranked Choice Voting Act is current legislation that would do exactly that:
The Ranked Choice Voting Act is the only comprehensive solution to gerrymandering. It creates a level playing field for candidates and parties and an equal voice for voters, while mitigating apportionment inequalities by reducing the number of districts and making more votes count. It could change Congress from a place where more than a third of Americans are represented by someone whose party they strongly oppose to one where every race would be meaningfully contested and nearly everyone would have a representative who reflects at least some of their values.
There are trade-offs, to be sure: Districts would grow larger, and we would need to get used to new forms of constituent service. But such reforms represent a giant step toward voter equality. After the dust from Evenwel settles, we should see whether our political process lives up to the ideal of government “of, by and for the people.”
October 23, 2015: Let’s move beyond winner-take-all elections
edited 26th Feb '16 11:52:42 AM by SolipsistOwl
Yeah, I don't think the term "parliamentary" is being used correctly.
We might end up with a multi-party government, which would be interesting. But we have no rule requiring there to be a majority coalition because the legislature doesn't elect the head of state.
Also, the House of Representatives only elects the President if there is an electoral college tie. There is no rule saying that the President can only be elected with 50% or more of the vote; they just need more than any other candidate. Hence the term "first past the post". Whoever finishes in the lead wins, even if they have only one more vote than the second-place finisher and even if they don't have a majority of all votes.
edited 26th Feb '16 11:48:27 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I belive the president does need over 50% of the electoral college vote, though is it pure FPTP for the house picking the president?
Edit: Never mind, explanation edited in.
edited 26th Feb '16 11:56:04 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranIf Sanders wins the primary and Bloomberg actually tries to go through with his threat, I expect both Sanders and Clinton to say "ARE YOU INSANE"? and work in concert to get rid of him. Establishment donors may hate Sanders enough to endorse Bloomberg, but dems aren't stupid enough to let him run.
edited 26th Feb '16 12:14:45 PM by Medinoc
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."Interestingly, seems to get on fairly well with The BBC.
Keep Rolling OnBloomberg would only have to divest his interest in his enterprise if he were elected. He can turn over operational control to someone else if he runs, with the caveat that his media empire could not "coordinate" with his campaign or give it favors that it does not extend to other candidates.
At least, I think that's how it works.
edited 26th Feb '16 12:49:52 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The race going to the house is harder now that electors are more uniform. Before, like in the case of 1824, the idea was that electors had a lot more autonomy, similar to delegates to the party conventions today, and that while they were pledged to a candidate first-round, that wasn't a hard pledge and they were allowed to vote as they pleased when it came down to it. Even as early as 1912, it was the case where winner-take-all plus a more rigid view of what was acceptable for electors meant that first-past-the-post came into play, and that a three-way race meant it was *more* likely for one candidate to score a crushing victory (since in a 3-way race the one who gets 34% of a state gets all of the EC votes). Nowadays a third party candidate is bad news for one party and good news for the other, so long as said candidate draws more from one side or the other.
Ross Perot was the odd exception there, and even he seemed to lean more towards the Trump-ite "both sides are bad but i lean conservative" types, and sapped Bush more than Clinton. Otherwise Bush could have probably eked out a win.
But there it is. Bernie goes third party, President Trump's a lock. Trump goes third party, President Clinton's a lock, without anything ever going to the House of Representatives.
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And if both go third party? (I don't believe Sanders would, except maybe in a situation like "Sanders wins most 'normal' delegates but supers give the nomination to Clinton")
edited 26th Feb '16 1:35:34 PM by IFwanderer
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KVNot sure if it's been mentioned already, but Sanders had the best retort regarding funding a fix for the Flint crisis - “If we can rebuild villages in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can damn well rebuild Flint, Michigan,”
Report: The media aren’t telling you about ties of pro-Hillary Clinton pundits
Conservative group calls on Clinton to release Wall Street transcripts
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/1087194/carolyn-curiel-speechwriter.pdf
Before Super Tuesday!
State Department says to complete release of Clinton emails by Monday

And the stakes are considerably higher now, which means that a four or even three-way race could destroy absolutely everything.