[EM] Choosing leaders in a legislature

[Jameson Quinn]

Why not just use approval voting (or MJ) within the legislature? The
problem with the "nominate 16 and we'll pick one" idea (and the like) is
that it gives a strong incentive to nominate candidates that, for whatever
reason, everyone knows are unsuitable.

To me, the basic way that the approval voting could go wrong is if voting
outside your caucus were a punishable betrayal. So, I think you'd need to
have a secret ballot. That's unfortunate for ordinary voters, who generally
should have the right to know what their representatives are doing in their
name. But other than that, I think that the incentives are pretty good, and
it would settle on a capable near-median candidate.

Jameson

2012/11/11 Andy Jennings <elections at jenningsstory.com>

> What would be the ideal way to choose leaders in a legislature?
>
> In the Arizona house and senate, for example, once our legislators are
> elected, the majority party caucuses to choose the leadership.  Assuming
> the Hotelling model, let's say they end up choosing the median legislator
> on their half of the political spectrum.  It follows that the legislature
> will be led by someone from about the 25th percentile on the political
> spectrum.  Then, if the other party gains control, the leadership will
> swing to the 75th percentile on the political spectrum.  Wouldn't it be
> much better we could force the leadership to be near the median of elected
> legislators?
>
> In the Arizona senate, for example, which has thirty members, the majority
> party may have as few as seventeen members and the caucus could be
> controlled by nine, or thirty percent of the senate.  I'm not sure, but I
> have to imagine that this is common.
>
> Here are some ways to force the leadership near the median (assume a
> legislative body of 31 members and just two parties, for now):
>
> 1. "The majority party shall nominate 16 senators for president and the
> minority party shall choose among them."
>
> 2. "The minority party shall nominate 16 senators for president and the
> majority party shall choose among them."
>
> I think either of those would tend to choose a president near the median.
>  Is one better than the other?  Is it possible to extend to multiple
> parties?  Without forcing them to form a majority coalition first?
>
> Say there are three parties.  Should each party, in turn, eliminate ten
> people?  Does the largest party or the smallest go first?
>
> Or should the first party eliminate 15 and then the other parties choose
> among the remaining 16 via approval voting or something?
>
> Other ideas?
>
> ~ Andy
>
> ----
> Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.electorama.com/pipermail/election-methods-electorama.com/attachments/20121112/0ece38b4/attachment-0004.htm>