I think that there is much to favor this proposal. I also think that there are benefits from voting for individuals, rather than platforms.
First, if votes are for platforms, I don't see that the individuals have any electoral mandate to do anything other than the action items on the platform -- and completely lack a mandate to compromise or reconsider items on the platform. Such compromise would seem to be a flat betrayal of the basis of election if the platform, not the person, was elected.
However, compromise in the RA is critical. Even with two parties, I think that it is fair to say that the RA is successful to the extent its members work out compromises -- even if those compromise take them beyond (or even move contrary to) their party platforms. This need for compromise will be greaty increased in a three or four party RA.
That said, I think that there is also a benefit from impersonal, party-specific voting. I think that we should not lose this benefit.
I also think that there are real benefits from local representation in the RA, and we should work to get such representation. IRL politics, local issues are paramount. Tip O'Neill, one of the greatest American Speakers of the House, had the slogan "all politics is local." At present, with only two sims, there is no distinction or disconnection between local and national politics, but that this an accident of our small size -- and we should not create or maintain institutions based on that fortunate, but temporary, accident.
I also agree that having separate chambers, both of which have the same function -- passing legislation -- would be unnecessarily complicated and unnecessarily duplicative. Therefore, I think that whatever we consider, we should base our decisions on our existing institutions, rather than adding new ones -- so we should reform the RA not add a new chamber.
However, I think we can have local and national, and personal and partisan, representation simultaneously and in a single chamber. There is no Constitutional need that requires that members of the RA represent the same things or that members of the RA be elected in the same way.
Therefore, I would propose two reforms. First, each sim (or each sim with that meets minimum population standards) should have 1 representative, who stands for election personally. This person should be able to run as a nonpartisan -- addressing Dianne's concerns about the full enfranchisement of people who want to be in a "faction of one." However, if local candidates are aligned with a party, the party should be able to support them -- so there should still be good reason to join a faction. These local candidates would be elected personally -- based on personal mandate -- and would therefore be able to campaign "off-platform" and, when elected, vote "off-platform." The CSDF STV proposal is an excellent voting model for these local elections.
The remaining seats on the RA could be elected in at-large elections, voting for party, not for person. This would maintain the historical power of factions in the CDS. Further, if my calculations are correct, we can expect a majority of seats in the RA to continue to be at-large seats. This should be more than sufficient to maintain the utility and power of factions.
However, to broaden the franchise, I would propose an additional change to our election process. I would continue to require candidates for at-large seats to associate with a faction. However, I would allow unaffiliated voters to vote for their favored faction's candidates even if the voter is not a pre-election member of the faction. That is, I would allow voters to vote (or not vote if they would rather not vote) for the individual candidates of the faction they placed first on their ballot.
Pat expresses a concern that this might create two classes of RA members. I don't see that as likely. All RA members would have the same power and function once elected. This perfect duplication of power and function should be more than enough to ward off any stigma from the different ways of seeking election. Further, even if we compare the "bragging rights" of the two categories of RA members -- we find roughly balanced "bragging rights." The at-large members would represent a larger area (the entire CDS). However, the local representatives would be individually selected.
Further, this proposal would preserve the goals of the factions and allow for full compromise within the RA without betraying the faction platform. Local representatives would have great freedom to move from their party's platform -- as they are representing primarily local, not factional, interests. At-large representatives would have great freedom to move from local interests -- as they are representing their party's platform. This increases the number of potential compromise combinations, increasing the flexibility of issue-specific coalition formation within the RA.
Beathan
Let's keep things simple enough to be fair, substantive enough to be effective, and insightful enough to be good.
