I didn’t remember a book this morning, so I had little to distract me at lunch. Somehow, my mind tracked onto politics and the legislature. I thought a bit about some IRV suggestion’s I’d heard and it cross pollinated with some Clean Elections stuff I’d been considering. Below is what came to mind.
Keep the current system in the assembly; 80 (or 100, some relatively large number) representative of their districts. At the moment, the win all system means that the composition of this body will be almost strictly Democrats and Republicans, as it is now.
For the State Senate, however, increase the number of members (probably to 100). Instead of voting for a candidate, as we do now, instead vote for a party. Each percent of the vote that a party picks up is a member it can name to the Senate. (I had wonkish ideas for partial candidates and the like).
The big advantage to this system, it seems to me, is that it encourages parties to adopt specific and coherent platforms. It also encourages some splintering– if you really want a local, you’ll need to vote for the local party’s list– not the statewide version of the group. It’ll also dramatically increase third party representation– after all, third party votes are currently “throw aways”, but if you can get your party to 1% of the votes, you’d get a representative. Suddenly your vote has more influence on the composition of the Senate– which, unfortunately, is the primary way we’re currently influencing politics.
A huge advantage to the system is that the individuals elected to the Senate wouldn’t be campaigning, so they shouldn’t be (directly) beholded to special interests. I had to add the (directly), because many parties are also beholden to those interests– and they’d nominate members who won’t piss off the major donors that give the parties their power.
So, that’s my v0.01. I wonder if this is something I’ll return to…