[EM] Majority Winners (was Ventura)

[Adam Tarr]

>D- I mention the obvious.
>
>A legislative body can elect/ appoint (by a majority vote) any officer who
>fails to get 50 percent plus 1 of the votes for the office from the voters.

Demorep, you advocate this sort of thing a lot, but frankly I don't think 
it's a good idea to throw things to the legislature in the case of a 
divided/unsatisfied electorate.  This seems like just an additional level 
of "indirectness" to me.  Maybe the legislature will do a better job 
sometimes, but I'd rather go with the best candidate among whatever slim 
pickings the public was presented with.

One solution (I've heard Rob L mention it; surely he's not the first on 
this list to do so) is to shorten the term of the official if they fail to 
win an approval majority.  Say, cut the president's term down to two years 
or something.  This is a very significant penalty, but more to the point it 
gives the people a chance to look at a better candidate more quickly.

Now I bet that Demorep thinks two years is two too many for a minority 
approved candidate.  But do we have any assurances that the legislature 
won't pick somebody WORSE?  We don't, really.  In times of severe 
factionalism, the best you can hope to do is elect the candidate with the 
broadest support, and hope that a more popular candidate emerges 
soon.  Otherwise, you risk turning the entire election procedure into a 
farce during periods like this.

-Adam

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