| SamuelRSmith said: Some of my suggestions (for the USA): 1 - Completely separate the House from the Senate. ie, the House is fully decided at Federal level, Senate at State level. House membership sized increased massively (say, 1000 reps to start off with, increases as population does). House: Elections every 2 years, gerrymandering eliminated, alternative vote system (everybody gets primary and secondary vote, if the winner doesn't accumulate over 50% of primary votes, loser's secondary votes are counted until somebody reaches 50%), forced open primaries, low barriers to entering ballot, party names removed from ballot, universal suffrage (including felons, even those currently serving). Potentially extend voting rights to non-citizens, if they have perm. res. status. Senate: 100% controlled by the states. Term length, term limits, means of election (or appointment), controlled by the states, who can vote, etc. States can even say that their senator must defer votes to the state legislature for certain issues, etc. Senate requires double-qualified majority to pass (both 50% of Senators who represent 50% of population), control over Federal tax legislation. House requires simple 50% to pass, control over spending legislation. House requires 60% vote to veto Senate tax bill, Senate requires 60% double-qualified to veto House spending bill. Any other legislative matters handled in regular 50% fashion from both houses (still double-qualified for Senate). President may offer spending bills to the House, but not tax bills to the Senate. For Presidential elections, remove electoral college and term limits. No mandated open primary for party nominations, but low barriers to entry for others. Two rounds of voting: first is proportional representation across all candidates. If no one receives 50% of the national vote, second election 2 weeks later with the top four candidates with alternate vote counting system. With these reforms, lobbying just became a hell of a lot more expensive, and parties a hell of a lot less influential. More power to the people through the House, more power to the States through the Senate. |
This is a better thought, though ignores partisan realities (although knowing you, sam, you could be invoking this deliberately 
), it would lead to total gridlock, for the next 25 years a permanently democratic house and a permanently Republican senate.
I was reading a book recently that advocated the elimination of primary elections, actually. Primary voters are non-representative even of the political party as a whole (Republican primary voters more conservative than Republicans, and so on for the Dems). If the decision is left up to party leaders, they pick more marketable (e.g. mainstream) candidates who are less likely to produce gridlock.
Of course, again, if you yourself are outside the political mainstream, you'll see that as a terrible idea.
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
