[EM] Why bicameralism ?

[Brian Olson]

On Sep 1, 2004, at 6:18 AM, Stephane Rouillon wrote:

> Towns, cities and every geographical organisation already have 
> representatives
> at a local level:
> mayors and city councils.

Different scope of issues ...

> Let them do the work, if not by themself by electing
> representatives
> to go defend the town interests in front of other decisional stands.

It used to be that state legislators elected the 2 state senators to 
the US congress. We moved away from that to direct election of 
senators. Was that a mistake? Was the indirect method better? (The last 
150 years have also moved us closer to direct election of the 
President.)

> Stop internal behind-the-scene
> deals and start an open and neutral decisional process that would 
> encourage
> politicians to take decisions that benefit the most to get reelected.

You're going to have to justify that more. I'm not sure why one system 
or another minimizes "behind-the-scene deals". As far as I can tell, 
the best fix is a responsive participatory democracy where people at 
whatever level (voter, representative) are paying some attention to 
what goes on in the parts they have a vote over and they vote the bums 
out as needed.

Brian Olson
http://bolson.org/