No.

No... you can't imagine it?

I think it would greatly depend on how people were elected to the 3 houses.

No, I cannot imagine it. Zero is a difficult amount to imagine.

One of the stupider things you're ever said. Even parrots can imagine zero.

Semck wants to bring back the Estates-General. Maybe the clerics of his church du jour would be the First Estate, and Republican princelings would be the Second Estate. The Tea Partiers would then be the Third Estate. It would have all the excitement of a Young Creationist convention.

Every third thing I say is deemed one of the "stupider things I've ever said" by you, Mr. Cheerful. You're such a ray of sunshine in my life.

"(I don't suggest this for prudential reasons -- just political spectator motivations)."

I think he's just doing a thought experiment, and one where the only factor is how exciting it would be to watch a tricameral system. Not exactly a call to reinstate feudalism.

"Even parrots can imagine zero."

Really, what does zero look like? While you're at it what does infinity look like?

0 and ∞

Let's assume one is like the irish senate (which i get to vote to abolish next friday) where two universities get 3 seats each, and every graduate gets an equal vote (even if one has ~50,000 undergraduates while the other only has 11,000) And then 5 panels of experts are appointed by votes from relevant bodies (Admin panel - nominated by public sector, social services, and voluntary sector; Agricultural panel - by the farmer's association; Cultural and Education panel - by teachers, 'artists' etc; Industrial/Commercial panel - by bussiness owners/CEOs; Labour panel - by labour union)

One elected directly.

And One elected in a X-factor style based on popularity contest - with seats for life, and hunger games-esque elimination rounds...

"I think he's just doing a thought experiment"

I know what he's getting at, Cliff Notes. My comment was clearly tongue-in-cheek. Go do something useful like predict the imminent end of the world or write an essay about why kittens are not cute. Get off my back.

It would depend more on, as stated earlier, the model which the representatives get in. A Demarchy based would be vastly different than a Parliamentary based house.

Those are symbols, not actual things. That's like saying a tree looks like the letters "t.r.e.e".

I know what you're getting at, Cliff Notes. My comment was clearly tongue-in-cheek. Go do something useful like predict the imminent end of the world or write an essay about why kittens are not cute. Get off my back.

"I know what you're getting at, Cliff Notes"

I doubt it.

True. I think to make it interesting, it should be a full-on House of Commons, with proportional representation (while the other two would remain first past the post). This, I think, would lead to the maximal chaos.

What would distinguish these three legislative bodies? In the U.S. the "upper house" the members represent the state, in the "lower house" the members represent approximately X people, and in the third house you're proposing, the members represent... what? WE LEARN FROM YOUR WORDS

Upper house for states, lower house for people, middle house for celebrities!

You need to go back and take a civics class. The Constitution was amended. The people now choose their senators and thus the Senate doesn't really replect the will of the states. If it did, senators would be from the same party as the majority state legislators and things would look quite different from Harry Reid's perspective.

They still represent the state in the sense of "proportional representation" - 1 state, 2 senators, regardless of state population. Anyway such details can be disregarded as needless pedantry considering the proposal is so ridiculous in so many other ways. You start your lecture on civics in *this* thread focusing on *that* detail? If you ever have a chance to save the world, try not to focus on someone's untied shoe.

So... what's the third house?

@tredmote I never said they didn't represent the state, I said they didn't represent the state's will.
I love splitting hairs with bald people.

Oh, sorry then. I thought your correction was directed at my statement that the "upper house" represents the state.

The state governments represent the state's will? These kinds of statements are always amusing to me when they come from people who supposedly distrust government.

"If it did, senators would be from the same party as the majority state legislators and things would look quite different from Harry Reid's perspective."

Assuming that a bigger fight wouldn't be put up for GOP gerrymandering and other shenanigans at the state level. I live in the second most Democratic area of my state and it's represented by 3 Republicans. "Will of the state", indeed.

Both parties gerrymand like crazy where state law allows it. Look at what the Democrats did to Illinois after the 2010 census. It's not a partisan problem at all, but rather a result of the district-drawing process as a whole. Republicans just happened to be particularly well placed to benefit from it all after they dominated state legislative races three years ago.

For what it's worth, I think districts should be drawn by a non-partisan committee in each state and have to follow county and municipal lines.

Fine, just don't give me this nonsense about the state governments representing the will of the states when the GOP was outvoted by 1 million votes and we have to deal with Boehner and the Tea Party running the House because of the state legislatures.

Incidentally, California, that much maligned state with a Democratic state legislature, implemented a non-partisan commission with parity between the parties on the commission. Another example of Democrats refusing to fight fire with fire.

Well, you're talking about two different things. State governments obviously represent the will of the people as much as elected representatives can.

As for the Republicans keeping the House after losing the popular vote nationally, some of that has to do with gerrymandering, of course. Like in Pennsylvania. But a big part is also the fact that huge numbers turned out for Obama in already deep blue districts, such as in the cities. If a Democrat incumbents get a padded majority because of Obama turnout but Republicans still hold on to a majority of seats due to many factors like gerrymandering and just different states (the biggest gerrymandered districts of them all) being different then that's how the cookie crumbles.

Again, I'd rather it were different. But if there's one thing that will never change it's this.

Putin33, that's a bi-partisan commission. The effect of something like that is to cement incumbents in power. I'd want like stats professors to do it or something.

There are four non-partisan members of the commission. It's clearly giving the Democrats less advantage than if they insisted on the state legislature carrying it out, or a majority Democrat commission. Considering how huge California is for electoral purposes, that's a big concession, when the Republicans are happily translating minor majorities in Ohio and Pennsylvania into permanent seat advantages in the legislature and House of Representatives.

Well those are different states. It's not really up to the California legislature to think about how Ohio does things. And again, look at Illinois. Democrats do do things lik you're saying.

Republicans are much better at thinking about how other states are doing things. Which is why we got union busting bills in multiple states across the midwest at the same time, as we did heartbeat bills and trans vaginal ultrasound bills.

"Union busting" bills were the result of Republican governors who campaigned on those issues winning election in those states. It may not be a policy you like, but that's how politics is supposed to work. You say you'll do something, you win, and then you do it. As for the anti-abortion bills, these ideas were proposed by politicians who won on a pro-life platform.

And that's policy, not nuts and bolts government stuff like how Congressional lines are drawn. It's not so unreasonable for states to pay no attention to how other ones run things. That's why the lowest courts in New York are called Supreme Courts and lieutenant governors have widely varying powers or may not exist at all.

As for the anti-abortion bills, these ideas were proposed by politicians who won on a pro-life platform. And, you'll recall, did not end up passing due to lack of support from even other Republicans and failures in referendums.

That got cut off somehow.

The point is somehow all of these state-level politicos ended up pushing very hard for the very same policies in different states.

Anyway, I imagine if we had an electoral system where 10 urban Republican voters = 1 rural Democratic voter, as we effectively have now (except flip the parties) because any division into electoral districts automatically benefits rural voters and undermines the 1 man, 1 vote principle, then we wouldn't be having Republicans telling us "that's the way the cookie crumbles" or barmy ideas like the state legislatures representing the will of the states.

Well, I don't see why people with similar ideologies wouldn't push for similar policies in different states.


And again, you're talking about two different things: Congressional gerrymandering and state legislatures representing the will of the people of the states. Just because legislatures controlled by both parties draw outrageous districts doesn't mean those parties hold power in the statehouse illegitimately. It's a completely separate issue.

What you really seem to have a problem with is representative government with geographically-based constituencies. Talk about tilting at windmills...

It's simple math Invictus. If you're elected with a minority of the vote you don't represent the will of the people, no matter how you spin it.

"What you really seem to have a problem with is representative government with geographically-based constituencies. Talk about tilting at windmills..."

Yes, I do. It's the only way Republicans can compete. If the system were actually democratic where everyone's vote counted equally the GOP would go the way of the dodo bird. But as it is they hope and pray for depressed turnout in gerrymandered districts so they can take over the states and then wreak havoc for 10 years with impunity even though their policies are opposed by the public.

"Well, I don't see why people with similar ideologies wouldn't push for similar policies in different states."

At the exact same time? Yeah I'm sure it's just a coincidence. They all get money from the same out of state source I'm sure their patrons didn't have an agenda like wiping out the biggest source of campaign funding for their opponents under the conditions of Citizens United.

Why do you think state legislatures are elected by a minority of the vote? I'm not talking about the House after 2012, but the 99 chambers in the states. What basis do you have to say what you do?


Well, Bush would still have won 2004 without the electoral college. Republicans would still have won the House in 2010 if we had pure PR. The GOP isn't in the best place ever, but it's not holding on by its fingernails like you say. Some of that may be because of the electoral system at large, but a lot if it's also because, well, lots and lots of people are not liberals and never will be. But regardless, geographically-based constituencies are as much a part of the American political tradition as republicanism itself. You'll have every other wild reform on God's green Earth before something so basic as that is changed.


You may not know this, but there are these things called the telephone and the internet. They allow information to be spread across the country instantly. So things can happen at the same time now, since people can communicate with allies all over in the blink of an eye. Also American states are not countries. There's nothing wrong with Americans from another state trying to influence events in another. If voters in that state don't like it they can punish the politicians who do it at the ballot box.


But what's the point? This thread is really all just you whinign about how people don't agree with you.

"There are four non-partisan members of the commission."

At least two of whom turned out to be secret Democratic party loyalists, and the districts the committee drew gave the Democrats their 2/3 supermajority in the state legislature. The only redistricting in California that was fair and balanced (if you'll excuse the phrase) was in 1990, when the legislature's plan was so ridiculously gerrymandered that the state supreme court stepped in and had a panel of retired judges redraw the districts instead.

I support tricornism