Complex unicamiralism
novel system for proportional representation I originally started thinking about this system as a refinement to an old proposal for a nationally-elected Senate in the US. Having opened that door, I realized that this system enables multiple different types of representatives all voting together in a single legislature. For example:
A unicameral US Congress
Choose senators nationally
Why have two geographically-determined sets of national representatives? Choose senators in a national election using this method. Everyone in the country votes, and the top candidates become the Senate.
Having made that change, how about just ten senators? That’s about the maximum number of people who can have an unstructured discussion.
This helps significant but thinly-distributed minorities. If 10% of the American population shares interests but don’t hold a majority in any particular state or district, they could still elect a senator.
Replace the House Of Representatives with county councilors
To address regional interests, instead of tangling with creating fair congressional districts, leverage the somewhat-organic boundaries of counties. Have each county elect five councilors using this method. This eliminates districting fairness problems: though different counties would have different populations, it would be OK because councilors would have different voting strengths in Congress, each voter represented with an equal contribution to their councilor’s power.
With 3000+ counties in the US, that would require over 15,000 councilors! Best to have them cast votes electronically from their home county rather than send them to DC, which would make them more available to constituents.
Different reps vote together
Rather than having the weird two-stage process of current American bicameralism, in this system the two types of reps would vote together, at the same time. The senators would not just get drowned out by the councilors because each senator (representing millions) exercises so much more strength than any councilor (representing thousands). A measure supported by a strong majority of senators could pass if it was a bit short of a majority of councilors, or vice versa.
Assemblors chosen by sortition
Since the system accomodates two types of congressional reps voting together, how about a third?
Add 50 assemblors: citizens randomly chosen by sortition like a jury. Each would vote in congress with the strength of ⅟50th of the voting population. That creates a big enough group to smooth out the bumps of weird individuals, but a small enough group that they could convene in a room together and build real relationships.
A new type of supermajority
Parliamentary systems typically require some kind of supermajority for particularly strong measures. F’rinstance, it currently takes a 2/3 majority in the Senate to ratify a treaty.
Under my proposal, requiring not just a majority vote of the Congress as a whole but a majority among each of the three types of congressional representatives creates another such threshold.
Distinct powers for different classes of representatives
There may be particular functions assigned to one set of Congressional reps or another. Perhaps only senators can introduce new legislation, or judicial appointments are approved by a vote of only the assemblors.
Intra-Congressional checks-and-balances
This structure presents opportunities to make each class of representatives accountable to the other classes.
Perhaps senators do not vote on impeachment proceedings against other senators; instead, impeachment requires a majority of both councilors and assemblors. Likewise impeaching an assemblor would require a majority of senators and councilors. (Since councilors are relatively small fry, they would need a different mechanism for accountability.)
This system also includes an implict check on assemblors. If they do their job well, fewer people might bother to vote for senate, giving assemblors a greater proportion of power in Congress, but if assemblors do badly, it would produce higher election turnout which enables the combined senators & councilors to outweigh the assemblors’ power.
Broader Constitutional implications
A Congress using these elements enable some other changes to constitutional order which I like to daydream about.
A parliamentary executive
Presidential systems have problems; the US got lucky for a long time, but it seems our luck has run out.
My proposal above goes nicely with a prime minister chosen by Congress as chief executive. I think that this kind of Congress picking a PM with ranked ballots would not be vulnerable to the deadlocks which prevent some parliamentary systems from forming a government. With the PM directly answerable to Congress, we might be able to do without Congressional approval of executive appointments.
A president, too?
Unlike countries with constitutional monarchies, in the US the presidency awkwardly combines the chief executive with the ceremonial head of state. Given the poetry of the presidency, it would be nice to keep it to serve as the latter, the kind of job that Ronald Reagan would have been great at and Donald Trump would have been relatively harmless at.
The president would have to be chosen with a national popular vote. For consistency, the presidency could have ranked ballots where voters can list anyone they like, just as they do for senators and councilors, though with a single victor they would have to be evaluated differently; given the much lower stakes, any method would do.
In their ceremonial function, the president would deliver an annual State Of The Union address, award medals, et cetera. I imagine putting the PM in the Old Executive Office Building and leaving the White House for the President. I like the idea of the president also having a discretionary budget of maybe 0.1% of the national budget, plus a bouquet of ombudsman-like powers — the pardon creates a conflict of interest in the hands of a chief executive but might be reasonable for this kind of president, and it might be actually useful if the president could compel Congress to vote on a question.
Stronger counties
Rather than having overlapping jurisdictional relationships between municipalties, counties, states, and the federal government, I imagine vesting power in just counties and the national government, grandfathering in municipal & state entities as elements of or agreements between counties which those counties may alter.
Americans tend to assume that members of the House Of Representatives also have power in their home districts. I propose that councilors would also govern the counties they represent; each local governing council would include those councilors plus local assemblors chosen by sortition who do not vote in the national Congress.
This would enable a distinct form of checks-and-balances if the system were unitary like the UK. The counties hold the powers delegated to them by the national government … but since the councilors also vote in the national Congress, they get a significant say in what those powers are.
Further, frustrated by the current American system which creates dramatic inequities in local resources like schools, I have been imagining that only the national government would be permitted to levy taxes, with each county funded out of the national budget at a rate per resident set in Congress. Since councilors vote in Congress, the national government would not starve the counties of funding, but senators & assemblors considering policy at the national scale would balance the assemblor’s appetite.
With the counties so important, I wonder about making it possible to split, merge, and otherwise re-draw their boundaries. Perhaps councils could propose changes and put them to a plebicite requiring majority approval in each region affected: both counties which want to merge, both regions which would be created with a split, et cetera.
Judiciary?
This system is compatible with any number of approaches to judicial reform I have seen. I have given this aspect much less thought.
Say, f’rinstance, that the Supreme Court works much the way it does now, but instead of our weird system of death and gerentocracy we appoint a new Justice each year and retire the longest-serving justice if that gives the Court more than nine (or however many) Justices. Much like now, the PM might propose appointments subject to approval by Congress … or perhaps that is a job for just the assemblors?
Anti-corruption measures
Any such surgery on the Constitution is a good time to get the money out of politics. There are familiar proposals like public funding of political campaigning. I have a radical proposal of my own.
I propose that any elected official, and perhaps also appointed officials above a certain threshold of authority, become Public Citizens subject to tightly constrained rules for their personal finances. They get a lifetime pension of twice the national median income … but are forbidden to take any other money from anyone. Expensive, and tricky to enforce, but it would make government service a very good deal for an ordinary person and a very bad deal for a rich person, which seems very dramatic to me.
More radical ideas
For now, I have just one more radical proposal:
Candidates for legislative office may pre-commit to specific votes. If legislation they have pre-committed on comes to a vote, they don’t get a choice, they must cast the vote they promised. To avoid shenanigans, this would have to be bound to very specific legislative language.
Related
re: Constitution
Another interestingly novel proposal for structuring an elected government.