<span style>---------- Forwarded message ----------</span><br style><span style>From: Raph Frank <<a href="mailto:raphfrk@gmail.com">raphfrk@gmail.com</a>></span><br style><span style>To: <a href="mailto:election-methods@lists.electorama.com">election-methods@lists.electorama.com</a></span><br style>
<span style>Cc: </span><br style><span style>Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2012 10:29:07 +0000</span><br style><span style>Subject: Re: [EM] Re Raph Frank wrt 3-seat LR Hare and RV for US Senators by proxy.</span><br style><span style>On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 1:40 AM, David L Wetzell <</span><a href="mailto:wetzelld@gmail.com" style>wetzelld@gmail.com</a><span style>> wrote:</span><br style>
<span style>> dlw: There are ways to increase intra-party discipline for major parties to</span><br style><span style>> prevent their fragmentation and</span><br style><span style>> help them to coordinate the making of serious needed changes that perhaps</span><br style>
<span style>> were spotlighted by 3rd parties.</span><br style><br style><span style>I think if there is PR, then there will be more than just 2 parties.</span><div><br></div><div>dlw:I argue that a "less-is-more" PR will more importantly prevent one party from dominating a state/nat'l politics. </div>
<div><br></div><div><span style>RF:I am not sure how things would go if there is PR for one house and a 2</span><br style><span style>party system for the other.</span></div><div><br></div><div>dlw: Contested duopoly? <br style>
<br style><span style>RF: In Australia, there seems to be exactly that. Smaller parties do get</span><br style><span style>elected to the Senate. However, it is the IRV (2 party) House that</span><br style><span style>has the power to elect the PM.</span><div>
<br></div><div>dlw: The diff here is that I'm advocating for the use of PR in the more popular legislative body, where too often single-winner elections are not competitive and for the use of single-winner elections in the "Senate" where the elections are more often competitive so that the use of PR would likely reduce the number of elections. <br style>
<br style><span style>It is less clear how it would work if they shared power in a</span><br style><span style>presidential system.</span></div><div><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font color="#222222" face="arial, sans-serif">dlw: I argue that the strength of the US presidency and regular presidential elections has the effect of building up our two-party system. <br>
</font><div>This is why I take as a given that there tend to be 2 bigger major parties and not as many serious candidates in "single-winner elections". This in turn tends to </div><div>reduce the import of the diffs among the wide variety of single-winner elections. </div>
<div><br style><span style>> dlw: I think it's a states' rights matter and people shd insist that most of</span><br style><span style>> it get decided in the more proportional state legislative branch.</span><br style>
<br style><span style>The constitution says that the State Legislature decides, so</span><br style><span style>restricting it to one house by State law might not be acceptable.</span><br style><br style><span style>However, having State law specify the procedure is probably OK (though</span><br style>
<span style>having a house agree with less than a majority might not be).</span><br style><br style><span style>A rule that has the legislature meet as a single house for making the</span><br style><span style>decision should have no problem. That gets mostly the same result if</span><br style>
<span style>the more representative house is larger.</span><br style><br style><span style>Ofc, I am not a lawyer, and that is just what I think would be a</span><br style><span style>reasonable interpretation.</span><br style>
</div></div></div><div><span style><br></span></div><div><span style>dlw: I think state legislature cd apply to one branch more so and the other less so...</span></div><div><span style>but that's not crucial and we're obviously a ways a way from something like that. </span></div>
<div><span style><br></span></div><div><span style>I could pose the question to an Election Law site I'm on at LinkedIn, however....</span></div><div><span style>dlw</span></div>