Are American Politics Broken?

[OzzyKP]

The source of the cash is a critical distinction. Are the politico's beholden to GM, the UAW or the citizens (and sorry, despite your absurd SCOTUS ruling, GM is not a person...)?

What does it mean to be beholden to the citizens? To stick your finger in the air and vote whichever way opinion polls indicate you should?

[Wezil]

SOPA.

Need I say more?

[giblets]

What does it mean to be beholden to the citizens? To stick your finger in the air and vote whichever way opinion polls indicate you should?

They shouldn't disregard opinion polls unless the public is badly uninformed.

[C0ckney]

What constitutes a "good local MP"? I'm not trying to be confrontational, I really am interested in what you see in these people that puts them above the rest.

i would say that it's someone with good links to the area that he/she represents, that works hard for their constituency (raising issues of local importance in parliament and dealing with constituent's complaints against government bodies effectively) and votes with their conscience and/or interests of their constituency rather than with the party line. there's probably some more, but those are the main ones as far as i'm concerned.

[Al B. Sure!]

I can't be the only one who went to gribbler's link and was 'what the **** am I reading?' so I'll post this clarification on what that DW-NOMINATE scores are from wikipedia so people understand what the hell it is:

Ideal points can be recovered from observing choices, with individuals exhibiting similar preferences placed more closely than those behaving dissimilarly. It is helpful to compare this procedure to producing maps based on driving distances between cities. For example, Los Angeles is about 1,800 miles from St. Louis; St. Louis is about 1,200 miles from Miami; and Miami is about 2,700 miles from Los Angeles. From this (dis)similarities data, any map of these three cities should place Miami far from Los Angeles, with St. Louis somewhere in between (though a bit closer to Miami than Los Angeles). Just as cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco would be clustered on a map, NOMINATE places ideologically similar legislators (e.g., liberal Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.)) closer to each other, and farther from dissimilar legislators (e.g., conservative Senator Tom Coburn (R-Okla.)) based on the degree of agreement between their roll call voting records. At the heart of the NOMINATE procedures (and other multidimensional scaling methods, such as Poole's Optimal Classification method[5]) are algorithms they utilize to arrange individuals and choices in low dimensional (usually two-dimensional) space. Thus, NOMINATE scores provide "maps" of legislatures.[6]

The DW- portion is the version that allows comparison over time.

[C0ckney]

The solution to the problem of party power over MPs is not to give parties more power over MPs.

I would not be opposed to a number of MPs being chosen proportionally, or transferable ballots.

I am very much opposed to eliminating direct representation.

my point is that we would give parties slightly more power in exchange for solving the problems i listed. as i said, it depends on what you consider important, i consider the things i listed to be far more important than the, overstated and often non-existant, independence of MPs.

PR would of course mean more parties as well.

[OzzyKP]

i would say that it's someone with good links to the area that he/she represents, that works hard for their constituency (raising issues of local importance in parliament and dealing with constituent's complaints against government bodies effectively) and votes with their conscience and/or interests of their constituency rather than with the party line. there's probably some more, but those are the main ones as far as i'm concerned.

American politicians are great at that. Though "raising issues of local importance" (i.e. pork) is one of the things people complain about the most when it comes to politics.

[Wezil]

Cockney -

Perhaps your system is more forgiving than ours.

It doesn't matter what local issues our MP raises if it is in conflict with the Party position. I will grant there may be some area to raise voice to concerns (if they don't rub the Party the wrong way - if they do rub the wrong way the MP is politically scuppered) but virtually no power to enact change.

Any MP that votes their conscience against the party line will (except in rare situations) find themselves either booted from the party or ignored until the next election when the party will see to it they don't get to run under the banner again. It's political suicide in view of the Party's power to control nominees.

The link I attached earlier demonstrates this power over MPs. The man clearly knows his Party is wrong and is told the same by his constituents but he will vote with his Party anyway. Iirc the article mentioned John Nunziata as a brave MP that once voted his conscience to the delight of his constituents without electoral punishment. Not entirely true...

On April 21, 1996, Nunziata was expelled from the Liberal caucus after he voted against the government's budget in protest over the government breaking a promise to rescind the Goods and Services Tax.

Despite the difficulties of winning a seat as an independent, Nunziata ran and won re-election in the 1997 general election without the support of any party. He defeated Toronto councillor Judy Sgro by 4,431 votes to retain his riding, and so became the only independent member elected to the new parliament.

In the 2000 election, he was defeated by Liberal Alan Tonks.

The Party got him.

Our MPs will deliver your Passport application to Ottawa for you (saving you a stamp). Otherwise their presence in the capital isn't really necessary.

[Wezil]

my point is that we would give parties slightly more power in exchange for solving the problems i listed. as i said, it depends on what you consider important, i consider the things i listed to be far more important than the, overstated and often non-existant, independence of MPs.

PR would of course mean more parties as well.

Unlike NYE, I acknowledge the power of the Parties over the MPs and am arguing against the charade we currently have. If our "local" MP is going to put party over constituents anyway then I would prefer a PR system that doesn't reward false majorities (and allows more diversity as you point out).

[giblets]

The source of the cash is a critical distinction. Are the politico's beholden to GM, the UAW or the citizens (and sorry, despite your absurd SCOTUS ruling, GM is not a person...)?

How do Canadian politicians get cash?

[notyoueither]

my point is that we would give parties slightly more power in exchange for solving the problems i listed. as i said, it depends on what you consider important, i consider the things i listed to be far more important than the, overstated and often non-existant, independence of MPs.

PR would of course mean more parties as well.

The crucial issue is representation. Having a representative that is directly responsible to local residents. That they be more independent than less is desirable, but not the most important issue.

How an MP votes is just one example of representation. There is also how that MP presses concerns in caucus, which is something we rarely if ever hear about.

I don't consider having 100% participation in a faulty system to be preferable to 50% participation in a sound system.

[notyoueither]

How do Canadian politicians get cash?

Federally, by private donations which are capped at a smallish number (~$1000) are the lion's share.

[C0ckney]

wezil - in the UK there are a number of MPs who often vote against their parties on various issues. sometimes parties invoke a three line whip which is meant to force MPs to vote with party's position. the majority fall in line, but there are some who 'lose the whip' for a time. it's very rare for an MP to be kicked out by a party for not towing the line.

there have been cases where a party has deselected a popular local MP in an attempt to impose a centrally chosen candidate. this sometimes backfires. i remember one case where labour deselected a welsh MP and imposed a candidate. the deselected guy won a thumping majority as an independent at the next election.

[C0ckney]

Unlike NYE, I acknowledge the power of the Parties over the MPs and am arguing against the charade we currently have. If our "local" MP is going to put party over constituents anyway then I would prefer a PR system that doesn't reward false majorities (and allows more diversity as you point out).

yeah i think we're in agreement. the differences on the MPs are probably down to the differences between canada and the UK.

[C0ckney]

The crucial issue is representation. Having a representative that is directly responsible to local residents. That they be more independent than less is desirable, but not the most important issue.

How an MP votes is just one example of representation. There is also how that MP presses concerns in caucus, which is something we rarely if ever hear about.

I don't consider having 100% participation in a faulty system to be preferable to 50% participation in a sound system.

i think it's silly to call one system faulty and another system sound. each system has its positives and negatives, and while i have acknowledged the negatives which come with PR, you have not said a word about the problems with FPTP.

and what is 'representation'? from what wezil says, it seems that your MPs represent their parties first and the local people distant second.