Anybody here like the idea of a 4-year House Term?

[liberalpragmatist]

It's an idea that I wish would receive more outing. It would require a constitutional amendment, though I read somewhere that one has been proposed -- anybody know who in the last few Congresses has sponsered it? For it to work, pair it with a comprehensive reform package that would ban gerrymandering and mandate districts drawn by nonpartisan panels of civil servants (even better, proportional representation...but I'm talking abt the minimum).

I think that if districts were truly competitive and if the House were elected to a 4-year term coinciding w/ the presidency, the parties could run NATIONAL campaigns that integrated the presidential race w/ the House races (plus Senate races). You'd vastly increase the effect of coattails and would get a House that really does changeover. Divided rule would become far less common -- a President would most often be elected w/ a friendly Congress on a common platform and there would be, for the most part, a 4-year window for enacting legislation and getting things done. The other big benefit would be to give House members double the time to acquaint themselves w/ constituents and rack up achievements and votes that they can run on. 2 years is an awfully short term to run on for anything -- virtually no other office in the country runs on 2 year terms, for even most states have 4-year terms for their legislators.

Midterm elections would still exist for 1/3 of the Senate and for the governorships, but Senate races as they are, are usually based more on local, state interests and are generally less influenced by national influences. Also, a Senate that's controlled by the opposition is still significantly less obstructionist b/c of the power of the minority and individual senators. All-in-all, the effect of a midterm on the Senate is likely to be less than in the House, and it's easier to work w/ an opposition Senate than an opposition House (in general).

I really think American politics would benefit from this.

[wrkclskid]

1. yes

As long as they staggered themso that not all elections were held at the same time. House members spend too much time campaigning, they should at leats have a free year to concentrate on doing their work.

[dansolo]

3. There is a problme with this

I like having it staggered, though the problem is that it would always be the same districts in the off year elections. What about staggered 3 year terms?

[liberalpragmatist]

5. I suppose you could try this...

It's not really what I want, but it may be better than what we have right now:

Divide the House into two classes: Class A and Class B, with alternating 2 and 4 year terms

Let's start in the year 2004 as an example...
2004: Class A and Class B elected
2006: Class A elected (Class B stays)
2008: Class A and Class B elected
2010: Class B elected (Class A stays)
2012: Class A and Class B elected...etc.

[JackSwift]

15. redistricting is a bitch if you stagger it

I wouldn't have an idea how to begin.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

19. Publicly funded elections would solve that.

Keep it at 2 years. Enact public financing for all federal elections.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. It would make the house less representational and responsive

It would make the house less representational and responsive. Divided rule would become less common, yet I don't neccesarily see that as a benefit. Look at what's going on right now with one party in power.

[liberalpragmatist]

4. Less representational?

I dont' really see that being the case. As it stands, were the House truly competitive then midterms would always reflect the current mood of the country.

The problem is in making the election every 2 years -- every other democracy in the world has at least 4 years (of course parliamentary systems can have elections called anytime w/in 5, but generally, 4 or 5 years is the term). The only way a government can really act and get things accomplished is if they have a good 4 years to get things accomplished -- 2 is too soon. Within 4 years there are bound to be mood swings and whatnot, but it's better to leave it alone for 4 years than have its record be judged at the end of a 4 year term when it can be assessed. 2 years is like stopping it in the middle of the government and suddenly asking one's opinion.

Just MHO.

[Ohio Dem]

6. I'm thinking three years.

It would be exactly half that of a senator. Plus, those odd-numbered elections would have a better turnout, affecting school levies, etc.

[TahitiNut]

7. I'd rather see ...

... a Federal law prohibiting any person holding an elective or appointed public office from having other employment (even speech honoraria) or engaging in any fund-raising activities whatsoever, even their own campaign financing which would be handed over to a regulated campaign committee. The candidate should be only permitted to know who contributed to the campaign to the same degree that information is shared with the general public, and no more.

It seems to me that this measure (an "employment agreement") would defuse both term limits (which are anti-democratic) and campaign finance abuse (which is anti-democratic).

Most corporations have such limits on the outside activities of key employees -- even for a year of more after they're employed. Do the People deserve less? I think not.

[Forkboy]

8. Nope

Term limits are un-democratic.If you dont like someone do your best to vote them out.

[Forkboy]

25. DOH!

My post is a shining example of why we shouldn't post when drinking :) I totally missed the point :spank:

[redeye]

27. That's unrelated but I agree

Besides, if there are federal recall provisions, then the terms can be extended even to 10 years for presidents and senators and 4 for representatives; if the people don't like the president, then they can recall him, but if the president is very popular then there's little need for an unnecessary election

[Yupster]

9. What difference would it make?

They all get reelected anyway -- I guess it would save on election costs.

[realFedUp]

10. 4 straight years of men like DeLay and Hastert?

Yeah, right.

[fabius]

12. It would make the house less representational and responsive. ???

So how representational and responsive it it now? Because of gerrymandering, most districts are "safe seats", reps stay there forever, and change is very slow.

How about 4-year terms for Democrats and 2-year for Repugs? ;)

[stevedeshazer]

11. No, I don't agree

Running the congressional campaigns in concert with the presidential campaign dilutes the system of checks and balances. It would grant even more power to the executive branch, something we definitely do not need.

Also, a four-year congressional cycle would eliminate the ability to make a midterm correction by voters. Although it didn't happen as we had hoped in 2002, midterm congressional elections afford an opportunity to keep the executive branch in check and change the course of an administration, such as that which happened in 1994.

Good topic, on that we can agree.

[fabius]

13. I'd rather see...

Complete and total public financing of campaigns.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

20. Bullseye!

[redeye]

24. That's beside the topic

Both can be implemented independently of each other.

[DagmarK]

14. I say for the foreseeable future: Don't Touch the Constitution........

Just anything having to do with the Constitution should be put on the backburner. If an issue is still important once our country is stabilized and the international arena is stabilized, then fine.......we can ratify a change. But in these insane times......we should just leave the constitution alone.

[redeye]

22. Why?

The Constitution gave us insufficient checks and balances that created the Patriot Act and that will create an amendment stating that the US is a Christian nation if only the Supreme Court refuses to yield to fundamentalist pressure.

Frankly, the original 7 articles are not worth the paper they are written on, and the amendments that don't need to be scrapped or changed (2, 12, and 21, for example, do need to be so changed) are very poorly phrased.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

16. How about six months.

How about six months. Six months. You can only serve for one term. You must have resided in the district at least 5 years.

[redeye]

17. I'm ambivalent

If the USA had a parliamentary system, then it should have 4-year House terms. However, I'm not sure given the current political system whereby the House doesn't need to have a fixed majority coalition.

But then again, you raise some interesting points. Proportional representation, national open list system - the electoral system I favor for the House - doesn't work very well with 2-year terms; parties need to field candidates every two years (it's easier than close list, though, in which parties also need to hold primary elections), and the House will be more radical in the off-year than in the presidential year because of lower voter turnout.

While my Constitution features 2-year House terms, I'm willing to reconsider that, especially in light of your post.

On edit: I corrected the link.

[liberalpragmatist]

21. I'm a big supporter of proportional representation

Although I differ slightly from you - I favor open list and single-transferrable vote done on a local level -- break down house seats by state and mandate multi-member districts where applicable. I think it'd be best to let them choose between STV and list voting, or even mixed-member if they have enough. It's also more easily passed, b/c such a change wouldn't require amending the constitution.

It may require an increase in the size of the House, however, since 435 would mean that many states would have too few representatives for it to be meaningful. Increase it to abt 645 or something like that, and give each state at least 2 representatives. Then mandate multimember districts and for states w/ at least 5 representatives, mandate districts w/ at least 5 seats.

The downside, of course, is that the regional nature of it could distort the overall vote -- Democrats could win a majority of the vote overall, but b/c of the regional breakdown, they may not get a majority. Still, it's much more democratic b/c on a local level it would allow people to fully express their views in voting.

[redeye]

23. Okay...

...the minimum House size required to give Wyoming 2 Representatives while retaining proportionality is a staggering 1,200.

Anyway, I have three concerns with your suggestion (neither of which, btw, makes it worse than the current mire of a system):

1. STV is very coarse; with 5-member districts, the Greens will not have a single representative, based on the 2000 presidential results, even though they have enough voters for 13 seats out of 435.

2. Like any system with a fixed number of representatives per area, STV punishes districts with high voter turnout. Should Maine and Hawaii have the same number of Representatives (their populations are almost identical) even though Maine's voter turnout is more than half again Hawaii's (67% in 2000 vs. 40%)?

3. STV conforms to state boundaries, even though they make little sense; Northern Virginia is closer in mindset to Baltimore and the rest of the Megalopolis but will be lumped with the rest of the state. This also means that STV has a greater chance of being passed, but this is still a dangerous double-edged sword.

BTW, my constitution link doesn't work because the last four characters of it are thml where they should be html - anyway, you can still use my sig link, which points to the same page.

[liberalpragmatist]

28. Wyoming isn't proportional as it is

It's over-represented already. I agree that giving it two would make it MORE overrepresented, but the truth is, that in a body of 645 members, it would by dwarfed by California's 79 (or thereabout) in the House. Plus, if each state elected their representatives largely proportionally, the effect of the Republican overrepresentation in Wyoming would be much smaller -- overall, the national results would be far closer to proportionality and that would undo a lot of the adverse affects of giving the smallest states an extra rep.

The other reason, of course, is I'm interested in seeing what can get passed. Ideally, Wyoming wouldn't get an extra representative, and we'd have a mixed-member system like Germany's, with half elected in single-member districts and the other half elected from a national list (similar to what you're advocating, though the half that's elected thru pr would probably have to be closed-list). However, it's unlikely that could get passed, and there are logistical problems that arise -- you'd probably have to decrease the number of single-member districts to at least 400, probably more like 300-350 in order to make a House that's reasonably-sized. More significantly, you'd have to amend the constitution -- while that's what I'm advocating on this thread w/ a 4-year house term (actually, not a HUGE issue w/ me, but one that I think should be looked at), constitutional amendments are VERY hard to get passed and so I think where you can avoid a constitutional amendment, you should.

The problem, in my view, w/ what you advocate is that while it's great in theory, as a practical matter it couldn't get passed -- many people have a lot of attachment to the idea of a state and I don't think they'd like the idea of disregarding state boundaries. Plus, w/ PR, state boundaries do sort of become meaningless, b/c each local region can elect who it wants to see elected. Grouping people into regions based on demographics is similar to gerrymandering - not as bad, sure, but the principle is somewhat similar. IMO, keeping district boundaries w/in a state isn't something I find to be a bad idea, b/c w/ no gerrymandering AND pr, the boundaries become meaningless and people can elect whoever they want anyway.

I'll let you have the last word if you wish to reply -- I love to debate, but I have other things I have to do and this thread won't last forever. Plus, we could go back and forth endlessly on the merits of this or that. Go ahead and have the last word if you wish.

[Nazgul35]

18. the laziness of the American public is amazing...

instead of focusing on the true reason why the system is failing...low interest in ALL ELECTIONS...we try the easy solution...amend the constitution cause we cant be bothered to pay attention every two years...

The US House is designed to be representative of the people...but since we don't vote in high numbers for state elected officials (you know...the people who determine what districts look like for state and federal offices)...we get partisan-safe districts in the House...

further...term limits have allowed incumbents at the federal level to be even safer in their seats...as state reps are forced to run for a seat that isn't open...which is the worst possible chance of winning...

you want to improve the system, get our collective butts down to the local party headquarters...volunteer to get people registered and out to vote on election day....for all elections at ALL LEVELS!!!!!

[aquart]

26. No. Next question.