You sid it! My name is PAUL Rosenberg. There isn't a "C" anywhere in my name!
> Proportional representation may well have added diversity, but
> nothing you said makes me believe that it will
> reduce the power of the political party.
WHY is reducing the power of the political party so important to you? Why is it, in fact, an idee fixe?
The Nazis came to power in part as a result of weakening parties in Weimar Germany. The corporate special interests have come to unchallenged dominance in America in part as a result of weakening parties -- most visibly in the irrelevence of party endorsements in getting candidates elected.
I was primarily addressing the issue of grassroots vs. elite leadership power in promoting candidates as choice, PLUS the power of votes for 3rd parties to counter ideological drift toward the center. The purpose of my concerns is not to weaken parties, but to make them more accountable.
I believe in the power of the ideas I support, and I beleive in political reforms that will make ideas more important. Important for who? Important for the majority of the people, NOT the people with the majority of the dollars.
So, put simply, I reject your goal of weaken parties as an end in itself as counterproductive, even dangerous. Create even MORE of a power vacuum for the corporations to fill. Not my program, buddy!
> Let's get down to cases. I live
> in New Jersey. In national elections I vote for a congressional
> representative in my district (representing, what is it now, 400,000
> people 500,000?) and two senators. Senatorial elections would be
> essentially unaffected by proportional representation since there are only
> two elected per state.
Absolutely. The U.S. Senate is among the most undemocratic elected governing institutions in the world. (The enormous growth of unelected ones is a whole 'nother topic.) The only way we will ever get rid of it is to give people a deep experience of what real representative democracy feels like. First proportional represetnation, THEN the abolition of the Senate.
Well, not abolition exactly. We can keep the Senate, but we've GOT to get rid of its geographical basis. Representing land instead of people is CLEARLY anti-democratic.
> House elections would then have to be multi-district in
> order for a slate to work. That diminishes regional
> representation (Rhode Island might not be able to contain an entire
> slate), but let's leave that aside for a minute.
Regional representation may have made a lot of sense back in the 18th Century. It makes no sense today. This is the truly archaic nature of our system -- it represents LAND not people.
> What's to stop moneyed interests from simply flooding
> the slate and making the field more like the field in
> primaries?
(1) CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM, THAT'S WHAT! How many times do I have to say this, just because I think that proportional representation is VITAL does NOT mean that I'm a narrow-minded zealot who thinks it will single-handedly solve all problems. It won't. It's not a breath mint or a candy mint.
(2) But, even without campaign finance reform, you are inflating the threat. Under proportional representation you don't have to worry about people voting against you. You can focus on what you are FOR. This allows candidates to articulate a much more spepcific and intelligent position and go after just those voters they want to represent. Big bucks political advertising as usual, trying to sell politicians like soap, is relatively LESS effective in this kind of environment.
> Every hack is going to run anyway. The major
> parties have at least to answer to the local leadership.
And the answer is NO! <G>
C'mon, buddy, we all know better than that!
> Once a candidate knows he's not going to get the nod
> of his party, he simply falls into the hands of whoever
> can spend enough to get his message out for him.
This is already the way it works, and has worked for quite some time. Party structures are virtually irrelevent.
> Such campaign reform as would limit speech is not
> acceptable in America.
I"m talking about limiting MONEY, not speech. Maine has already done this.
What's more, proportional representation vastly INCREASES the effective freedom of speech.
> Therefore, you are talking about spending reform and
> a slate system specifically undermines spending reform.
No I am NOT. You haven't even read what I've written in my previous post. I favor STV, which allows voters to choose candidates regardless of party. I pointed out that EVEN a party list system can allow the voters to determine the order of election. You have not responded to ANYTHING that I've written. Instead you persist in combining a straw man argument against positions I haven't taken, mixed with whatever red herrings you can introduce.
> It encourages a major party hack to use the party for
> all he can and then jump ship to get on the ballot,
> thereby effectively double-dipping.
I'm sure you KNOW what you are talking about here, but I sure don't. You have a scenario in mind which bears no relation to anything I've said about proportional representation.
> Proportional representation for ballots meaning to elect
> congresspeople seems to me a certain way to perpetuate
> and increase the influence of parties and money.
It does to you because you are so obsessed with your hobby horse you can't even understand what I'm talking about. Try responding to the SPECIFIC things that I'VE said, rather than making up speculations about what would happen based on YOUR idea of how it would work.
> The only way I can see proportional representation working is for,
> perhaps, the Senate to become a purely national body, not representing the
> states at all. The senate, thereby, would simply become a hundred-member
> body chosen by a huge slate. It would make a certain amount of sense,
> especially in America, to have a body that is really a national
> legislature with no regional affiliation.
Sure. That's the next step.
P.S. In case you didn't notice, your state legislature is ALSO a grossly unrepresentative body, and proportional representation would vastly improve it as a representative body, too. The same goes for city and county legislative bodies. Our whole system of legislative elections in this country (with some scattered exceptions) is grossly unreperesentative, due in part to not using proportional representation.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"