[EM] Clean Government Alliance

[Kristofer Munsterhjelm]

On 01/14/2013 03:27 AM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:
> At 01:53 PM 1/13/2013, Kristofer Munsterhjelm wrote:
>> I think term limits, at least for actual political positions (as
>> opposed to party positions), have a real purpose, and that they would
>> still have a purpose under a better voting system.
>
> I'm not going to argue for "no real purpose," that would be silly.
>
> However, term limits can represent a fundamental rejection of a basic
> democratic principle, the sovereignty of the *present* citizenry. It
> represents the past binding the present. However, it's possible to have
> term limits *and* preserve the right of the citizens to elect whom they
> wish.
>
> And the Mayor of Long Beach did it. The term limit law did not prevent
> her from being elected mayor again, and, properly, it's up to the
> voters, right?
>
> However, it did limit her access to the ballot. She wasn't eligible to
> *register as a candidate to be on the ballot.*
>
> She ran as a write-in, and she had a plurality in the election. A
> majority was required, this was top-two runoff, so when the runoff was
> held, she won that as well. She was not allowed to be on the runoff
> ballot either (that was going to far, I'd say, once she won the primary,
> she should at least have been on the runoff ballot, or even if she
> placed in the top two.) There was another write-in, and her total was
> still less than a majority, but, as I recall, close.

Alright. That may be a reasonable compromise, since it takes 
considerable more effort to have a candidate pass as a write-in. I don't 
see a particular use for it, but hey, that's what compromise is for :)

By the way, do you disagree with the logic of my "right-wing president 
going further and further to the right" example? Do you think there may 
be situations where the system would either err short (populist) or long 
(keeping someone in power while he overshoots) where therefore, some 
correction (one way or the other) would make the system better?

> Politics becomes more about fighting than about cooperation, as the
> media portrayal becomes ever-more caricatured for simplicity of
> presentation. The Good Guys and the Bad Guys. The *whole society*
> becomes polarized. The "Other Side" is out to destroy Everything Good on
> the planet. And all issues become polarized and linked. If you believe
> in Right to Life, you must be for the Right to Bear Arms, and against
> Gay Marriage. Or you are just Not Welcome at the Party.

 From over here, that seems extreme. There has been a tendency in this 
direction with the "two-coalition system" of late, but still, I think 
multipartyism will cure a lot of those ills on its own.

Though we don't have term limits, there are multiparty countries with 
term limits that aren't nearly as polarized as the US. For that matter, 
US politics has had its share of polarization, even before FDR (before 
which there were no presidential term limits, to my knowledge).

> Asset Voting, folks.

Or PR.

But if Asset Voting simulates parliamentarism, it may be an easier way 
to get something almost-parliamentary than having to do costly legal 
changes to get parliamentarism itself.