| > Are there any examples of states or countries that handle this the right way? Can this be applied to NYC? New York State is the source of the problem, not New York City (although the city government is affected by these as well). The problem is that the two political parties have passed a series of laws that empowers the party leadership and ensures that voters have essentially zero influence in the so-called democratic process. Party leadership, not voters, is able to nominate the candidates that they want to represent the party in each race[0]. The parties have a gentleman's agreement not to compete with each other in the other party's claimed districts[1], so the general election is almost always uncontested. Due to fusion voting, third parties are pressured to endorse first-party candidates in order to maintain ballot access, so you'll almost always see the same candidate running (oftentimes uncontested) on multiple party lines. The only "choice" you have is in choosing which party to use to vote for the all-but-guaranteed victorious candidate. Party registration is fixed as well, so it's impossible to switch between parties in order to influence party direction. The deadline to change parties for the 2018 cycle passed in October. If you submitted a change of registration on October 13, 2017, it won't' take effect until 2019. Yes, you read that right. And the party leadership is controlled by a series of local clubs (yes, they literally call them clubs). For example, the dominant party in my district is the Democratic party, and my local Democratic club is run by the son and daughter of the last Irish mob boss in Manhattan[2]. The son, incidentally, openly jokes about how similar the system is to Tammany Hall when violating election laws[3]. If I wanted to have any influence in local politics, I'd have to influence the Democratic party, and if I wanted to influence the Democratic party, I'd have to pay the steep membership fees to join this club, and then hope that this dynastic family listened to what I have to say. Any initiatives to change this have to go through the New York State legislature, and any bills have to be approved by the top three ranking members of the government, who are coincidentally the most powerful members of the two parties[4]. Unsurprisingly, they have little incentive to reduce their own power. Unlike other states, New York doesn't have a ballot initiative process, so we can't bypass the legislature. Any statewide ballot initiatives have to be first approved by the legislature. [0] https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/18/nyregion/new-york-poli... [1] Think of the way Comcast and Time Warner Cable (Spectrum) don't compete with each other. [2] You can't make this up [3] You really can't make this up: https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/10/mcmanus-member... [4] This is known as "three men in a room" https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/nyregion/us-attorney-pree... |