[EM] Proxy - bicameral

[Adam H Tarr]

First, some etymological junk: I don't think "parliament" is a good name for the 
proxy assembly, since parliament implies parlay, i.e. debate, and that body will 
have lots of members who don't discuss their vote with anyone.  Then again, 
"house" implies a physical location as well.  Perhaps "assembly" is the best 
term.  The elected body could be called the senate or the parliament; both are 
accurate enough.  Legislature is really a term that should apply to the two 
together, not either individually.

So from here on out, all call the proxy branch the "assembly", and the PR 
elected branch the "parliament".

Ernie P wrote:

>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?).

True.  The idea here was that the assembly need not have any professional 
politicians in it.  But since it should be easy to get a bill out of parliament 
(due to the sub-majority required to pass a bill), the assembly should have a 
chance to pick its favorite from a few drafted options.

>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.   

I think this could evolve naturally.  It's likely that certain proxies would 
grow quite powerful, representing millions of voters.  Such a proxy would surely 
get into all sorts of meetings with parliament members and would let them know 
what sorts of bills he or she would vote for or against.

None of this would need to be in the rules of debate; it would just happen 
naturally.  Note that there's nothing in the Constitution about conference 
committees, or about committees at all.

It's also possible that members of parliament would themselves be powerful 
proxies, unless that was specifically forbidden by law.

>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.

Some method of allowing the assembly to sort through options easily would be 
nice.  But it's not really crucial, since (again) it should be relatively easy 
for multiple options to get out of parliament.  But it would be nice to tie 
mutually exclusive options (like the three above) into one package, to 
streamline the voting process.