The Roots of the Government Shutdown

I don't see how anything could be passed that goes away from the current system; it would be attacked as curtailing freedom in one way or another (remember who we're dealing with here...) The only solution I see is encouraging the non ideological portion of the general public to start participating in elections. I fear that's a tall order though.

The real solution isn't to change how we select candidates for what amounts to a "choose one of two options" general election, the solution is abandoning election methods which make the general election into a "choose one of two options" elections.

For legislative elections, replacing single-member districts with 3-5 member multimember districts and using a candidate-centered (not party list) election method using preference ballots that tends to produce proportional results (Single Transferrable Vote or something like it would be the obvious choice) would be ideal.

For state-level executive elections where there is a constitutional designated successor (e.g., Governor and Lt. Governor), electing both from the same ballot, using a preference voting system -- pretty much any sane single-winner preference voting system, including Instant Runoff, though a Condorcet method would probably be preferable -- where the normal winner is elected to the top slot and the winner from the same ballots with the first winner eliminated is elected to the second spot would be an improvement (preference voting minimizes the incentive to vote tactically among parties, having two offices to fill from the same ballot encourages each party to provide more than one candidate.)

For elections that must be single winner without a designated successor (such as, I dunno, State Insurance Commissioner), using the same single-winner preference-ballot system as for executive with designated successor -- in its straight, one winner form -- is probably the best available choice. OTOH, as these are often executive officers, it may be better (with a decent election system for chief executives) to eliminate separately-elected executive officers so as to minimize split attention and focus accountability.

For all elections, using partisan primaries but using a preference ballot system that selects the appropriate number of candidates for the election (rather than FPTP) would be the best choice. While you'll inevitably always have a bias toward the more engaged in non-general election, preference ballots minimize the influence of the most pure faction within the most engaged subgroup that votes in primaries, and fixing choice problems in the general election mean that there are more parties whose primaries matter.

Presidential elections, assuming that the electoral college is retained -- and that's the hardest change to make since it requires a Constitutional change, while most of the others do not -- are the hardest fix. Changing to preference ballots with a sane single winner system for primaries would help choice issues, but would probably end up turning actual candidate selection back over to party insiders at conventions, since it would make it much harder for a single candidate to get a majority of delegates through the primary process.

Changing primaries to preference ballots and using a system that outputs a complete preference ranking of candidates by state -- such as iterating a single-winner system eliminating the winner after each round until a complete preference ordering is achieved -- and having convention delegates vote preference ballots (that are, in the initial ballot, required, for regular state delegates, to be cast in accordance with the outcome of the state primary on the first ballot) would be one alternative which would both mitigate the power of extremist factions and preserve popular rather than insider selection.

Anything that weakens the parties strengthens the money. "Nonpartisan" is anything but.

In Washington State, there are now fewer choices and the cost of races have sky rocketed. The Top Two primary has become another form of incumbency protection.

If you had proposed actual election reform, like approval voting or proportional representation, sign me up. Ditto campaign finance reform, like restoring the Fairness Doctrine or public financing of campaigns.

For example, Jefferson's set of ideals was roughly:

- Decentralized government, so people can rule themselves at a local level.

- Universal literacy and civic knowledge, through free public education, so a civil society would exist and have the knowledge to govern itself wisely.

- Relatively good economic equality, as it was envisioned as primarily a nation of independent individuals who own their own tools and/or land, trading with each other of their own free will: yeoman farmers, tradesmen, shopkeepers, etc. (excluding slaves, it must be said...).

It's not clear what his alternative proposal would be if those conditions didn't all hold. For example on #3, Jefferson viewed the social tensions produced by industrialization in Britain with alarm, but thought the U.S., with its large amount of free land and different culture, could avoid them just by just avoiding centralizing, factory-based industrialization. Instead he hoped machines would be introduced in a more decentralized manner, with farmers and tradesmen owning a few machines here and there, as was the case with the printing presses. That would avoid the problem of poor masses of urban workers and be consistent with the ideal of decentralized free men governing themselves. But of course, he was wrong on that, and the U.S. got mass industrialization anyway, just a bit later than Britain.

I'd say that "checks and balances" were more important to them than the inability for the government to do things in the first place. Unfortunately, the forces described in the OP have compromised many congressional districts to the point where they have to be unthinking, uncompromising ideologues in order to stay in office.

Campaign finance reform, as commonly understood as you describe, is anathema to the fundamental right of free speech. Any attempts to regulate, limit, and document facilitation of free speech will be subverted. Better to go the other way, ensuring nothing and nobody actively hinders anyone's political speech: small players aren't stymied by high costs of compliance, loophole tunneling, or short-run big-cost campaigns. And again, what constitutes "fairness" in the badly-termed "fairness doctrine"? a lofty-sounding regulation, it empowers someone biased to decide how much of which view is promoted by what outlet - to wit, telling speakers what they can say when. "Freedom of the press" is a fundamental principle: you may buy a printing press (however broadly defined) and you may use it to facilitate whatever speech you choose at whatever cost you can raise money to fund it with; don't subvert that, or we'll have to repeat what enumerated that right in the first place.

Party primaries were the answer to closed party candidate selection methods. Those smoke filled rooms. It was considered in the public interest to increase participation. Which is why govts now pay to administer those elections.

This way there are still two major parties but a candidate must get support from the lesser parties to succeed.

"Electoral fusion is an arrangement where two or more political parties on a ballot list the same candidate, pooling the votes for that candidate."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fusion

It's a partial step towards approval voting. I support it.

That's one factor, sure, but you have to consider that tenured politicians are both a force in their political seat as well as a force in the "organized factions", so they magnify the power of those factions and reduce the need for those factions to expend effort. Once a faction owns a candidate, the candidate helps them maintain power so the faction can gather more candidates with less marginal cost.

At least with term limits, there are chances for citizen legislators to attain office. Organized factions have to expend much more effort to keep their candidates elected and in check.

Besides, term limits are just one problem. Dealing with the organized factions is another one.

I believe that cable news broadcasts, where many Americans get their version of the news, do a poor job of informing the populous.

Instead, these broadcasts provide politically-slanted editorialized coverage of issues that may do well in ratings, but likely do little to advance the awareness of Americans about what's actually happening in their world. News agencies are afforded capabilities and access to the nation's political leadership that other Americans do not have, but I feel they're mis-using these rights in-exchange for ratings - what ultimately sells commercials. I don't watch cable news anymore - but when I did, it was full of guests talking over one-another, interrupting one-another, or waiting for the other person to stop so they could ignore whatever the other person had said so they could get their speaking points across. All the while, the host is cutting everyone short in order to say their 24-hour news network is just about out of time. And somehow a 6 minute segment split between two guests yelling at each-other, jammed between a commercial for a pill designed to make your penis harder, and a commercial telling us how much a too-big-to-fail bank cares about the families of this nation, is supposed to leave us with an informed nation capable of understanding why they're voting for the politician they're voting for next time they step into a voting booth.

I wish the news was less editorialized, and more factual ... but it's essentially been divided into two versions of the facts, and you choose which channel you want to watch for the version you'd like to receive. I realize there's other outlets to receive news - and I personally believe those hold the most hope for the future.

I'm reading "Whitey: The Life of America's Most Notorious Mob Boss", and I'm almost underwhelmed. Bulger managed to capture the Boston FBI and had informants in all the other police services and a brother in the state legislature and all it was good for was a handful of murders and control of some very profitable local rackets. That seems like small peanuts compared to the developing world and even much of the developed world. Someone with Whitey's skillset could have become the richest man in a very large number of countries and wound up running the whole country.

Conservatives don't in general, only for some minor social issues like abortion. But Republicans generally do. There is no classically conservative party in American politics now. Hasn't been since the Bush administration's response to 9/11. Both major parties now stand for expanding state power as much as they possibly can.

edit: child comment is correct, I misread "state" as any government. As for actual states, my perception is that neither party cares about state power vs federal power. Republicans occasionally make noise about it, but only because they're not in power federally at the moment. The next time the presidency goes Republican, the GOP will be fully on the federal side.

But when all laws are federal, the stakes are higher for everyone, so drastic measures will be taken.

Seems like a concept that most Americans can get behind, but the rubber doesn't meet the road until you ask which rights of which individuals need protecting.

Is abortion law about the rights of the mother or the rights of the fetus? Is campaign finance law about the rights of the rich person or the poor person? Is business regulation about the rights of the employer or the employee? Etc.

Different people will answer these questions in different ways, so if everyone just sticks to their principles, nothing will ever change or get done.