Split Congress?

[redeye]

Arendt and sweetheart (has anyone seen them lately, btw?) have several times voiced an idea meant to increase participation in the political process, and more importantly, give people more control over their elected representatives. In a nutshell, the idea is to retain a central Congress, but also create a few tens of specialized legislatures (SL's), each of which has legislative jurisdiction in one particular field. For example, the legislature for crime will deal with issues of criminal code and reducing crime rates; the legislature for the environment will deal with EPA regulations, gas mileage requirements for cars, etc.; and so on. Congress will still have the ability to overrule the laws of the SL's, just like the Supreme Court can overturn a decision of a Court of Appeals, but in reality it just won't have time to deal with everything, while the SL's will be able to delve much more deeply into their respective fields.

Now, voters won't be able to vote for all such legislatures, but only for 5 or 6 they choose. I might choose the SL's for the environment, religion, education, civil liberties, and scientific research. Clearly, there will be more "sexy" SL's, like defense and crime, and less sexy ones like international trade and scientific research. However, people will have an incentive of power to vote in less sexy SL's because the smaller the number of people who vote in a contest is, the more the influence of a single voter is.

I think that SL's will solve several problems that plague modern democracies and especially the USA:

- Gerrymandering, as the SL's will have to be elected without districts (i.e. there'll have to be proportional representation)
- The two-party system, as proportional representation will create a multi-party system inside each SL
- Lack of interest in elections, as voters rather than politicians will choose the issues they vote for
- Over-centralization, as each SL can be based in a different city, with the advent of mass communication and especially the Internet
- Hasty legislation, as SL members will be preoccupied with only one issue each, thus enabling them to be more familiar with it (would the Fascist Act pass so hastily in a legislature concerned solely with homeland security and thus with only a small portion of the work of Congress?)
- Too high voters-per-representative ratio, as the current 1/230,000 ratio in the House will be supplemented by legislatures with far better ratios (assuming 200 members per SL, 50 SL's, 5 SL's per voter, and 150 million voters, we get 1/75,000)

[redeye]

1. Kick

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[Lost4words]

2. Hi redeye! very interesting concept.

sure sounds better than what we have now. I suspect that many are worried about present day failings rather than what would make the system work better. Kind of like when you are bailing water from a boat with a hole in it, fighting to stay above the water line, not the time most are thinking of a double hull design.

SL's could solve many problems and put the people who are dedicated to an issue where they could do the most good. I think its a solid concept.

did your move go OK?

jim :hi:

[redeye]

3. You're right about the ship analogy...

...and I don't think that SL's will solve all of the USA's problems. However, I do think that the analogy makes the finding of a replacement seem harder than it is; if there is enoguh material on the ship to quickly build a double hull, then by all means it should be done.

And yes, my move went okay, apart from the fact that it took the bastards at the cable company 4 damn weeks to connect me to the net :mad:. Thanks for asking, anyway :hi:.

[rhite5]

4. Fascinating to think about, redeye ...

Imagine being able to elect people who are experts in a particular field to debate the merits of proposed legislation as it affects that field! <G>

I think we all realize that Congressmen and Senators are constantly having to vote on issues about which they know far too little. We know they try to depend on staff to do the research and try to keep them abreast, but there is no way they can keep up. So then they depend on lobbyists to teach them -- not a good solution -- lobbyists by definition have a single axe to grind.

Few of our elected representatives have ANY time to do independent research or explore new ideas with others who are "in the know." They certainly don't have time to read constituent mail for valuable ideas, at least not in a timely manner.

Most obvious example currently facing us is the electronic voting vulnerabiities and exposure to fraudulent reported results. Most of these guys and gals are not computer gurus, so these exposures were not immediately obvious. The loudest voices they heard happened to come from the machine/software vendors. So maybe its no wonder they decided throwing money into still MORE electronics would solve the voter problems.

• I love the citizen participation aspect of your idea. A voter gets to pick out subjects he/she has special interest in -- just might stimulate still more interest in following what's going on in Congress on those issues. That can't be a bad thing.

• Looks like it breaks up the one-party stranglehold on committee chairmanships and agenda-setting.

• Opens up more possibilities for people to serve in Congress which means more chances for third party people to get a voice in the process. I think most Democrats, if voting for 5-6 different representatives, might give a vote to a Green or a Socialist or even a Libertarian for one of those 5 or 6 seats. Most would never do so if they were only allowed to vote for one Congressman. (as the case is now).

[redeye]

5. Right...

Another advantage I forgot to mention is that the cost of paying salaries of thousands of legislators will be offset by lowered costs of smaller staffs.

The voting machines example is a damn good one. Congress is full of lawyers, businessmen, sons of politicians - how many Congressmen have a degree in computer science or mathematics? I have a strange feeling that the number is composed of a single digit that looks very similar to the letter O (correct me if I'm wrnog, though, because I may well be). A specialized legislature dealing with elections will have people who are experts in fields that have more to do with elections and less with appealing to lobbies - logistics and business administration on the administrative side and mathematics and computer science on the systematic side.

One note about your last point, though: there will be a huge problem with electing representatives using current systems. It's impossible to district a legislature when you don't know who's voting for it and where until after the election, and individual candidate systems like http://www.fairvote.org/factshts/choice1.htm">Single Transferable Vote/Choice Vote are problematic when you have to rank tens or even hundreds of candidates. The SL's will probably have to use some party system - for example, open list whereby you vote for one party (with parties having a number of representatives proportional to their vote total) and one candidate inside the party (with a party with X representatives having its X candidates with the highest vote totals winning).

That, however, doesn't mean people won't vote for different parties. If I oppose gun control but support tight economic regulations then I can vote libertarian for the gun control legislature and Green or socialist for the industrial regulations/fiscal policy/whatever legislature.

[redeye]

6. Kick...

...again...