United States Politics Thread 46

[Travis B.]

Thing is, I don't see the problem with legislators being lawyers by training - after all, legislators ought to be able to understand the law and the legislation they produce. Yes, this may not be representative of the population as a whole, but there are far worse people I can picture making law than trained lawyers.

[Ares Land]

Thing is, I don't see the problem with legislators being lawyers by training - after all, legislators ought to be able to understand the law and the legislation they produce. Yes, this may not be representative of the population as a whole, but there are far worse people I can picture making law than trained lawyers.

There are several problems with that I think. First, lawyers are likely to produce legislation that will please other lawyers. The likely result is legislation that is hard to understand or simply counter-intuitive. Another is unchecked assumptions. Lawyers are going to take some legal principles as granted, and work from there. If there is an issue in these legal principles themselves, they're not likely to spot it. Third, lawyers are generally pretty well-off -- rightly so, but even then they're likely to be simply unaware of many issues.
Finally, what kind of lawyers? I don't know about the US, but here lawyer that go into politics are likely to be business lawyers, with a profitable sideline in tax evasion.

To avoid contemporary politics altogether... Consider the French Revolution and the various regimes that followed -- the legislators were mostly lawyers. They honestly did a great job; the law codes were beautiful and a model to follow.
They also passed regressive property laws that were probably worse for tenants than Ancien Régime law, family law that was incredibly harsh to women even by feudal standards, outlawed trade union while they were at it. And that awful story about the Haitian national debt.
Now, realistically, there really was no way women, plantation slaves and subsistence farmers could have been members of the Convention in 1789... But in 2023 we could afford not to make the same mistake.

[Travis B.]

Thing is, I don't see the problem with legislators being lawyers by training - after all, legislators ought to be able to understand the law and the legislation they produce. Yes, this may not be representative of the population as a whole, but there are far worse people I can picture making law than trained lawyers.

There are several problems with that I think. First, lawyers are likely to produce legislation that will please other lawyers. The likely result is legislation that is hard to understand or simply counter-intuitive. Another is unchecked assumptions. Lawyers are going to take some legal principles as granted, and work from there. If there is an issue in these legal principles themselves, they're not likely to spot it. Third, lawyers are generally pretty well-off -- rightly so, but even then they're likely to be simply unaware of many issues.
Finally, what kind of lawyers? I don't know about the US, but here lawyer that go into politics are likely to be business lawyers, with a profitable sideline in tax evasion.

To avoid contemporary politics altogether... Consider the French Revolution and the various regimes that followed -- the legislators were mostly lawyers. They honestly did a great job; the law codes were beautiful and a model to follow.
They also passed regressive property laws that were probably worse for tenants than Ancien Régime law, family law that was incredibly harsh to women even by feudal standards, outlawed trade union while they were at it. And that awful story about the Haitian national debt.
Now, realistically, there really was no way women, plantation slaves and subsistence farmers could have been members of the Convention in 1789... But in 2023 we could afford not to make the same mistake.

Would having people unqualified in law be any better? Sure, they might not produce as much convoluted legislation or legislation that favors lawyers, yes - but would they understand the implications of the law they would, as legislators, be creating? Also, I would not necessarily assume that just because someone is a lawyer they must somehow be the enemy - for instance, I have a good friend who is a lawyer who works for the US gov't in consumer protection, and they are anything but what one might assume a lawyer to be here.

[Ares Land]

Would having people unqualified in law be any better? Sure, they might not produce as much convoluted legislation or legislation that favors lawyers, yes - but would they understand the implications of the law they would, as legislators, be creating? Also, I would not necessarily assume that just because someone is a lawyer they must somehow be the enemy - for instance, I have a good friend who is a lawyer who works for the US gov't in consumer protection, and they are anything but what one might assume a lawyer to be here.

I think I inadvertently ran into different cultural expectations Unlike in the US, we don't really have a bad view of lawyers here. (In any case I don't.)

I may have phrased this awkwardly; the problem isn't specifically lawyers. (As rulers, you could do worse anyway. Obama - constitutional lawyer - or Clinton -- attorney general I believe -- were vastly preferable to the businessmen or the Hollywood has-been) Any profession has its biases. That's why I think some extra representativity would help. (Again, I don't think we should expect a perfect mirror of society, nor would it be desirable.)

[Raphael]

I'm starting to think that it might be serious malpractice for Democrats not to make N**k Fu****s one of the main issues in the next election. Thoughts?

[Raphael]

Some of them aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.

ohsure.jpg (160.29 KiB) Viewed 702 times

[Ares Land]

Another bit of proof that goes to show the far right is a scam.
Ah, and if only I had a little bit less of a conscience... You can make a fortune ripping these guys off, and you know, they're so morally repulsive I'm not even sure it's morally wrong to scam them.

[Raphael]

Ah, and if only I had a little bit less of a conscience...

I know how you feel.

[rotting bones]

What bothers me is that legislatures and political parties (at least at the top level) are not even close to being representative of the population they're supposed to, well, represent.
When there are only a handful of working-class people in the legislature, or just a handful of these -- as is the case in all representative democracies -- working-class issues will be ignored.
And then we don't have much of a representative democracy, do we?

I don't expect the legislature to be a perfect mirror of society -- but some effort in that direction would be nice.

Once representatives are placed in an aristocratic position, won't they have to play the aristocratic money game to stay there? I feel like nothing short of direct democracy will solve this problem.

[Travis B.]

What bothers me is that legislatures and political parties (at least at the top level) are not even close to being representative of the population they're supposed to, well, represent.
When there are only a handful of working-class people in the legislature, or just a handful of these -- as is the case in all representative democracies -- working-class issues will be ignored.
And then we don't have much of a representative democracy, do we?

I don't expect the legislature to be a perfect mirror of society -- but some effort in that direction would be nice.

Once representatives are placed in an aristocratic position, won't they have to play the aristocratic money game to stay there? I feel like nothing short of direct democracy will solve this problem.

This is why I am for workers' councils where delegates have to be elected from amongst those they are delegates for (and are arbitrarily and immediately recallable by the same), and also where delegates are regularly rotated.

[Ares Land]

Once representatives are placed in an aristocratic position, won't they have to play the aristocratic money game to stay there? I feel like nothing short of direct democracy will solve this problem.

Probably. It'd still be better than no representativity at all. Even a small imperfect step helps -- we don't really have to solve the problem definitely, alleviating it a little is better than nothing at all.

Direct democracy is a venue to explore -- though it has issues of its own; I like the concept of liquid democracy/proxy voting as well.
Another idea would be imperative mandates. An old idea that has been rejected in all political systems -- but I think it should be revisited. Provisions for recall would be good as well.

Generally it'd be nice if politics wasn't a full-time job. Term limits are a start, but I also think something should be done at the party level.

[hwhatting]

Generally it'd be nice if politics wasn't a full-time job. Term limits are a start, but I also think something should be done at the party level.

We live in a complicated world, with division of labour as a general principle. Some part of politics will always be professionalised. Call me cynical, but having short-term, frequently rotated representatives will probably only shift the advantage even more to the executive and the bureaucracy. And with shorter election periods or the constant threat of recalls, you will have more grandstanding and reps being in constant campaign mode. IMO, part of the toxicity of American politics has to do with primaries and the 2-year election cycle - reps have to pander to the base all the time.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I remember talking with somebody about this ages ago, and I think we concluded that the term of the House should be increased to 4 years, but that there should be a 12-year term limit (and a similar limit for the Senate and Supreme Court).

[Vardelm]

Generally it'd be nice if politics wasn't a full-time job. Term limits are a start, but I also think something should be done at the party level.

We live in a complicated world, with division of labour as a general principle. Some part of politics will always be professionalised. Call me cynical, but having short-term, frequently rotated representatives will probably only shift the advantage even more to the executive and the bureaucracy.

I'm not a fan of term limits. It's good to have representatives who have been around for a while, know the process, and know the issues. I agree this would hand more power to bureaucrats (the "Deep State"???) which may or may not be a good thing.

And with shorter election periods or the constant threat of recalls, you will have more grandstanding and reps being in constant campaign mode. IMO, part of the toxicity of American politics has to do with primaries and the 2-year election cycle - reps have to pander to the base all the time.

The 2-year cycle plays a part, but this lies much more in the "1st past the pole" election process we have. If we moved to election reform that included ranked-choice/instant run-off mechanics, the tendency to choose more & more extreme candidates in the primaries would be mitigated.

[Ares Land]

Generally it'd be nice if politics wasn't a full-time job. Term limits are a start, but I also think something should be done at the party level.

We live in a complicated world, with division of labour as a general principle. Some part of politics will always be professionalised. Call me cynical, but having short-term, frequently rotated representatives will probably only shift the advantage even more to the executive and the bureaucracy. And with shorter election periods or the constant threat of recalls, you will have more grandstanding and reps being in constant campaign mode. IMO, part of the toxicity of American politics has to do with primaries and the 2-year election cycle - reps have to pander to the base all the time.

Nah, 4-5 years term limits, with further limits on reconduction are fine. I don't think anything more drastic is called for (though it'd be interesting to see it tried, as an experiment.)
But I'd like to see more of this in political parties too. In Western democracies it often feels like party big shots are there forever.

Division of labour is a good principle, but I think dangerous when it comes to government. There's something a little bothersome about having a professional ruling class.

Switzerland has the interesting notion of a 'militia parliament': Swiss MPs are expected to have another job on the side. One issue is that being an MP takes time, resources and money.
We do have this problem in other representative democracies -- our handful of working-class MPs or MPs with small children
report having a hard time with the heavy schedule demanded of them. (Well, they used to complain about it; they were laughed at, I think unfairly.) Paying representatives handsomely doesn't really solve the issue -- voters strongly object to it, plus I think it'd just attract the money hungry.
So maybe power should be broken up into more manageable chunks. Decentralization would help -- moving a lot of the decision-making to local assemblies and as per the subsidiarity principle bringing on issues at the national level only when they can't be handled locally. Another idea would be to break up the legislature into distinct specialized bodies, each with its own sphere of responsabilities (what about one body handling environmental questions, another handling welfare, another ? why should the same guy or lady be ultimately responsible for both healthcare and foreign policy?)
But I'm moving away from realistic politics and into conworlding

When it comes to realistic politics, incremental, little steps are perhaps best.
Making politics a little less professional is up to the parties -- and to the voters. Two constitutional changes I'd like to see tried somewhere is imperative mandates and recall procedures though. The incentive to pander to the base would be far weaker, I think, if elected officials were bound by their campaign promises. Not to mention recalls -- if the voters aren't even remotely happy with an elected official, on what grounds do they stay?

[Raphael]

Two constitutional changes I'd like to see tried somewhere is imperative mandates and recall procedures though. The incentive to pander to the base would be far weaker, I think, if elected officials were bound by their campaign promises. Not to mention recalls -- if the voters aren't even remotely happy with an elected official, on what grounds do they stay?

I'd say recall elections increase the power of the most, err, "passionate" partisans, because they are the ones who still show up in low-turnout elections, and recall elections generally have lower turnouts than regular elections. Besides, isn't there a contradiction between wanting longer terms of office, but also wanting constant recall elections?

[Ares Land]

Two constitutional changes I'd like to see tried somewhere is imperative mandates and recall procedures though. The incentive to pander to the base would be far weaker, I think, if elected officials were bound by their campaign promises. Not to mention recalls -- if the voters aren't even remotely happy with an elected official, on what grounds do they stay?

I'd say recall elections increase the power of the most, err, "passionate" partisans, because they are the ones who still show up in low-turnout elections, and recall elections generally have lower turnouts than regular elections. Besides, isn't there a contradiction between wanting longer terms of office, but also wanting constant recall elections?

I don't feel so -- two years is way too long for an incompetent representative, and too short for a competent one

As for your first point, eh, I don't know if it's really a problem. If a representative, senator, or even a president loses their seat because not enough of their voters cared enough... would it be such a bad thing?

[Travis B.]

Two constitutional changes I'd like to see tried somewhere is imperative mandates and recall procedures though. The incentive to pander to the base would be far weaker, I think, if elected officials were bound by their campaign promises. Not to mention recalls -- if the voters aren't even remotely happy with an elected official, on what grounds do they stay?

I'd say recall elections increase the power of the most, err, "passionate" partisans, because they are the ones who still show up in low-turnout elections, and recall elections generally have lower turnouts than regular elections. Besides, isn't there a contradiction between wanting longer terms of office, but also wanting constant recall elections?

A simple solution that is to make every non-vote in a recall election an automatic no-vote, so to recall someone one would need to get 50+% of the total registered voting population and not just those who happened to actually vote.

[hwhatting]

Division of labour is a good principle, but I think dangerous when it comes to government. There's something a little bothersome about having a professional ruling class.

There is. But I also don't want an unprofessional ruling class

Switzerland has the interesting notion of a 'militia parliament': Swiss MPs are expected to have another job on the side. One issue is that being an MP takes time, resources and money.

Which then raises the issue of conflicts of interest, especially if that job is in business.

We do have this problem in other representative democracies -- our handful of working-class MPs or MPs with small children
report having a hard time with the heavy schedule demanded of them.

In Germany (and that's true for most Western national parliaments, I think) the main issue for employees in the private sector (white collar as well as workers) is not the time in parliament itself (although, as you say, that is in issue for MPs with young children) - they get generous salaries and allowances and can make it a full-time job while they are there. It's getting the time for political activity and campaingning before you are elected - and that includes not only the actual campaining during campaign season, but also the engagement in parties and building the connections that form the base for being nominated, which can take years of intensive work. And then there's the question of returning - in the private sector, it's note even sure that your old job will still be there, not talking about the missed career growth. In Germany, there are laws about getting free time for campaining (but AFAIK that only covers the actual campaining season) and getting back your job, but especially in smaller companies, the cost to standing with management and colleagues and to career opportunities can be high nevertheless. That's why the Bundestag is so full of public employees.

So maybe power should be broken up into more manageable chunks. Decentralization would help -- moving a lot of the decision-making to local assemblies and as per the subsidiarity principle bringing on issues at the national level only when they can't be handled locally.

That is what Switzerland does, AFAIK. But that also leads to a patchwork of local rules, which can be a disadvantage economically. And when you move all the stuff that is required for the economy to work frictionless upwards, then you again end with a lot of the most important issues not being solved locally.

Another idea would be to break up the legislature into distinct specialized bodies, each with its own sphere of responsabilities (what about one body handling environmental questions, another handling welfare, another ? why should the same guy or lady be ultimately responsible for both healthcare and foreign policy?)

That creates silos; we seem to have enough problems with ministries in a government answering to one body working at cross-purposes (see the current brouhaha about phasing out combustion engines in cars); this would be even worse if we had different elected bodies being responsible. But having specific bodies may work for narrow technical issues. Or there seem to be some good experiences with special deliberative assemblies that are convocated temporarily to work on specific topics; that needs a framework that makes sure both that their conclusions aren't simply ignored, but also that the conclusions find the approval of the citizens.

When it comes to realistic politics, incremental, little steps are perhaps best.

I agree in principle, because it's also easier to undo them when they turn out not to fulfill their promise. A problem here is of course that sometimes you need a critical mass of change or changes in many different areas to solve a problem. Depends on the issue.

Two constitutional changes I'd like to see tried somewhere is imperative mandates and recall procedures though. The incentive to pander to the base would be far weaker, I think, if elected officials were bound by their campaign promises. Not to mention recalls -- if the voters aren't even remotely happy with an elected official, on what grounds do they stay?

1) Recalls and imperative mandates only work in systems with directly elected representatives. In systems with party lists, you would have to recall the entire parliament. (Maybe not a bad idea sometimes.)
2) This goes against the idea that in democracy, you need to compromise, i.e. that you have to give up some of your campaign promises to get others fulfilled. The threat of recalls and imperative mandates will diminish the readiness to cooperate and compromise. It will make parties and representatives cling even more to shit ideas they promised (like the Bavarian CSU forced the failed highway toll system on the rest of Germany, costing the taxpayer millions, just because Bavarian voters were pisssed at Austrians using German highways for free while charging tolls for the use of their own highways.)

[Travis B.]

Fundamentally the problem with recalls in representative systems is that they are typically not representative of the whole body of people who voted the representatives in, but rather of just the extreme portions thereof, actually making them undemocratic. Of course, this can be solved by counting every registered voter as having voted, whether they actually vote or not, on recalls, and only going through with the recall if at least a majority of all registered voters vote for it, not just of those who actually voted (i.e. a non-vote is a no-vote).