[EM] Proxy - bicameral

[Dr. Ernie Prabhakar]

Hi Adam,

On May 15, 2004, at 6:59 PM, Adam Tarr wrote:
> How about this:
>
> - Bicameral legislature.  I'll call the two houses "senate" and 
> "house" but this is just for identification purposes.
>
> - The "senate" is elected by a PR method.  The "senate" would act like 
> a normal legislative body, meeting in committees, drafting 
> legislation, and voting to pass it.  The only "tweak" would be that it 
> would be unusually easy to pass legislation - maybe only requiring 35% 
> or 40% of the vote.
>
> - the "house" would be a direct democracy using a proxy system.  The 
> House would not debate or draft legislation - it would only vote on 
> legislation (requiring the usual majority to pass).  If there is an 
> executive veto, only the house needs to vote to override it.  (Or 
> perhaps a 2/3 vote is considered "veto-proof".)
>
> Basically, I'd put professional politicians in the senate in charge of 
> drafting laws, but the real up-and-down decisions are made by the 
> people (the "house") in as direct a fashion as possible.  To me, this 
> seems like the best of both worlds.

Very nice, and certainly an elegant solution.

However, to me it seems a candidate for gridlock.   Even today, a lot 
of really interesting things get resolved in Conference Committee - 
where the House and Senate have to reconcile their bills.  Your 
bicameral approach solves the first order problem (getting people in a 
room to *draft* legislation), but not the second order problem (how to 
-revise- unacceptable legislation, in a way highly likely to ensure 
passage).

Since the 'house' (parliament?) doesn't have authority -- or the 
structure -- to write or rewrite legislation, they'd be at the mercy of 
the 'senate' (legislature?).

I suppose one could add a third tier -- leadership of the 'house' 
empowered to negotiate with the 'senate'.   One would have to find some 
way to force the house proxies to select a small, yet representative 
group to act as their meta-proxies with the senate.   If one assumes 
(how big an assumption?) that such a group would end up mirroring the 
PR nature of the senate, then presumably reconciliation is 
straightforward.

Another aspect that I think would be most helpful is if your 'senate' 
would prepare -- not a single idea - but a rank-ordered list of 
options.   That is, rather than amendments being inextricably woven 
into the bill, other factions of the senate could append  individual 
'diffs'.  Then, the 'house' would have some Condorcet-style (or perhaps 
Approval) method of ranking which amendments they'd want.   The 
combinatorics get messy, but I'm sure the people on this list could 
figure something out.

That way, even a minority party in the 'senate' could submit an 
interesting amendment, which the 'assembly' could prioritize up.   So, 
for example (to use everyone's favorite topic), I could vote for 
something like:
1:  Military funding with accountability constraints
2:   No military funding
3:  Military funding without constraints

Right now, decisions are typically a force between options 2 and 3, 
excluding the 'radical middle' option.

-- Ernie P. 
-----------
Ernest N. Prabhakar, Ph.D. <DrErnie at RadicalCentrism.org>
RadicalCentrism.org is an anti-partisan think tank near Sacramento, 
California, dedicated to developing and promoting the ideals of 
Reality, Character, Community and Humility as expressed in our Radical 
Centrist Manifesto: Ground Rules of Civil Society 
<http://RadicalCentrism.org/manifesto.html>