Realistically, if a couple large blue states converted, the GOP would have little motivation to give up the lock on power it would then have.
Part of the point of getting rid of gerrymandering is to make it less possible for anyone to _have_ a lock on power--or at least to make it less certain. Anyway, in all seriousness, how many California (for example) House seats would you expect to swing Republican?
The same principle applies to dismantling the winner-take-all system for electoral votes. It'll happen all at once, or not at all.
Which would be a more convincing analogy if Maine and Nebraska weren't already using proportional distribution. :) (Personally I'd be more in favor of shooting the Electoral College through the head, although it's possible there might be fixes I'd accept.)
As for "nonviolent resistance" -- that only works if the people you're resisting have a certain level of decency, as when Gandhi resisted the British. Making a gesture of trust to the current batch of Republicans is stupid. Lying and cheating is their standard operating procedure. They lie even to their own allies.
I think that applies to the current Republican _leadership_--much of which is in serious trouble at the moment--more than it does to the general run of Republican representatives.
As for multipartisanship, well, that calls for Approval, or a Condorcet-compliant ranked system such as Definite Majority Choice.
Oh, I know. I've been agitating for Approval or some Condorcet variant for years. Not sure that would totally fix the problem, though; part of the problem is that political parties themselves have taken on a definite role in the infrastructure of elections, rather than simply providing a means for delivering a coherent message. I think that massive campaign finance reform might, overall, be more helpful in that regard.
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branchandroot
Re: not much to say
Date: 11 November 2005 19:21 (UTC)Part of the point of getting rid of gerrymandering is to make it less possible for anyone to _have_ a lock on power--or at least to make it less certain. Anyway, in all seriousness, how many California (for example) House seats would you expect to swing Republican?
The same principle applies to dismantling the winner-take-all system for electoral votes. It'll happen all at once, or not at all.
Which would be a more convincing analogy if Maine and Nebraska weren't already using proportional distribution. :) (Personally I'd be more in favor of shooting the Electoral College through the head, although it's possible there might be fixes I'd accept.)
As for "nonviolent resistance" -- that only works if the people you're resisting have a certain level of decency, as when Gandhi resisted the British. Making a gesture of trust to the current batch of Republicans is stupid. Lying and cheating is their standard operating procedure. They lie even to their own allies.
I think that applies to the current Republican _leadership_--much of which is in serious trouble at the moment--more than it does to the general run of Republican representatives.
As for multipartisanship, well, that calls for Approval, or a Condorcet-compliant ranked system such as Definite Majority Choice.
Oh, I know. I've been agitating for Approval or some Condorcet variant for years. Not sure that would totally fix the problem, though; part of the problem is that political parties themselves have taken on a definite role in the infrastructure of elections, rather than simply providing a means for delivering a coherent message. I think that massive campaign finance reform might, overall, be more helpful in that regard.