<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2011/11/17 David L Wetzell <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:wetzelld@gmail.com">wetzelld@gmail.com</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 12:01 PM, Jameson Quinn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jameson.quinn@gmail.com" target="_blank">jameson.quinn@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
JQ:Unfortunately, I think it's hard to build a national or even a local movement for a complicated, multi-step reform plan. You have to be able to say what you want in about four words, tops.</blockquote><div><br></div>
<div>dlw: It helps if you use alliteration or variations on existing slogans...God Bless(We Need) American Proportional Representation(PR)! </div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div></div>
<div>Plan A:</div>
<div>1. Local elections using PR. ("But I don't care about local elections...")</div></blockquote><div>Re: that's cuz they're (almost) never competitive. </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>
Really? You think the only reason that people spend more time talking about the president than the city council is that the presidential election is more competitive?</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="gmail_quote"><div>The reason why is because we don't use PR. </div>
<div>If we use PR, it will make them competitive, which will make us care about them and it will help in lots of ways.... (increased local activism, where we're more effective....and so on...)</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>2. Increases power of third parties ("But I don't care about third parties...")</div></blockquote><div>Alternatives: (start with) Handicap major party rivalry (End Incentive for Grid-Lock) </div></div>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div>People are very good at asking "cui bono".</div><div>Reformer: "End gridlock incentive" (good slogan, by the way)</div><div>Person: "How?"</div><div>Reformer: "By giving you a third choice."</div>
<div>Person: "Oh, you're one of those third-party freaks. Greens are dirty hippies, libertarians are unrealistic Ayn Rand cultists or antisemitic conspiracy theorists [I know, that's actually Larouche, but people get confused]. I would never want to elect those people."</div>
<div><br></div><div>I know, this is a hurdle for any election reform path. But the longer the path, the less you can convince people to keep their eye on the prize and jump the hurdles.</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="gmail_quote"><div>or Give third parties a role/part-to-play/chance or "Let us Play Coy (Politically)"</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>3. More spoiled or near-spoiled elections increase pressure for single-winner reform ("Huh?")</div>
</blockquote><div>Alternative: Meaningful Multi-seat elections mean More Voices. More voices means more reforms, including electoral reforms. </div></div></blockquote><div>This argument goes both ways - from PR to single-winner, or vice versa. </div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="gmail_quote"><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>4. Single-winner reform implemented ("But IRV was the wrong reform, we should have gone for system X")</div></blockquote><div>Re: With IRV, there'll be room for more than one electoral reform at a time!</div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>???</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="gmail_quote">
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>[JQ]6. One day, we have a competitive, more-than-two-way race for representative, senator, president, or mayor</div>
<div>7. Corruption withers.</div><div><br></div><div>See how many people you lose before you get to steps 6 and 7?[/JQ]</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>dlw: Not as many as you all tend to lose when you talk about your alphabet soups of characteristics of single-winner election rules. </div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>That's when we're talking to each other.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><br></div><div>JQ:I think this works better:</div><div>Plan B:</div><div>1. Empower a commission (like the one in Rhode Island now... which hasn't been constituted yet although it was supposed to start working in September) to pick a good single-winner system.</div>
</blockquote><div>[/endquote]</div><div><br></div><div>how is this commission "empowered" and how do they pick the criterion that is decisive for picking a good single-winner system? </div></div></blockquote>
<div><br></div><div>As in Rhode Island, by the state legislature. Or by some legislature at another level - congress, municipal, whatever. How do they choose? As reasonable people - like the New Zealand commission did.</div>
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<div> </div></blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>2. Use that system at all levels.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>dlw:That's 6 words.</div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>OK, "No more plurality elections".</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div><div>dlw: But one election rule doesn't fit all elections so this undercuts the deeper need for electoral pluralism! And it's too damn easy to get some smart person who understands electoral analytics to find something to make any election rule look bad. </div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>3a. Increases pressure for PR reform</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>dlw:You gotta get folks first to swallow the super-rule. There is precedent for election reforms getting reversed, and not just with IRV!!! </div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Including PR. In fact, each seat that PR gives to a third party is a seat with a dispersed constituency, and all the major parties need to do to take it back is repeal. With single-winner reform, there's a better chance that the winner has the political strength to defend the system - or to defend themselves as an incumbent without the system, which makes repeal less tempting.</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="gmail_quote">
<div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div>3b. All races more competitive</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>dlw: Start at the top, after changing every election, and then PR? But the whole point is that the partial/strategic use of PR gives us more bang than some mythical single-winner reform that has yet to be tried out much in political elections. </div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>More bang per election, but fewer elections. I'd take one mayor over three city councilmembers.</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="gmail_quote"><div> </div>
<div>dlw: I may not my idea packaged [yet] for general consumption, but that doesn't mean I'm not generally right...</div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>4. Corruption withers</div></blockquote><div>dlw:Age of Aquarius begins. </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Sure, you never really reach the end of the road, but it's still worth setting your sights on it. And that makes straight roads easier to walk than twisty ones. Or, if you're in the wilderness, "follow the drinking gourd."</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div><br></div><div>JQ:My point is not that single-winner reform is more important or easier than PR reform, but that if either one will lead to the other, we should start with the one that can apply to all races initially, not the one which is limited in scope. It appeals to people who only care about the top of the ticket, and it does not lead to the disruptive and temporarily-counterproductive step 3 of plan A.</div>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div>dlw:"if" either one will lead to the other. </div><div>Experience has not suggested that we're going to agree on one election rule as inherently superior so that it should be implemented in all elections. I for one would argue against such, saying that election rules are like screw-driver, no one works well for all elections. But even if we did somehow come to agreement, we'd still need to make the change one election at a time, rather than to all elections at once. That's political science fiction. </div>
</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I wasn't suggesting you do it all at once. It's a lot of little struggles, just like anything else. But you can state the goal in four words, and that makes it easier to tie those struggles together.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="gmail_quote"><div> There's precedent in the US for getting PR adopted in "more local" elections, as there's precedent for stalwarts using smoke and mirrors to subvert electoral reform. </div>
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<div><br></div><div>JQ:Anyway, that's why I prefer something like plan B. Obviously on the whole what we need are different people starting out with different plans, and also ready to support any plan that starts working. So I'm not telling anyone to stop doing what they're doing, just giving my own thoughts.</div>
</blockquote><div><br></div><div>dlw: The push for American forms of PR is going to begin soon, it's a good time to get prepared to make it a success! </div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Great. And you get ready to make my website a success, too. The age of Aquarius is nigh.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Jameson</div><div><br></div></div>