[stretchwithme]

I'm not sure the voters can make a better choice.

In our winner-take-all electoral system, the voters are only given two viable choices, neither of which represents their own views. So our leaders are basically determined by who spends the most money in DC, with two options so life is simple for lobbyists and each party has competition. The system, quite accidentally, is designed for those who milk government, not those who pay the bills.

This system can be replaced, but given our Constitution, change is unlikely to happen to begin in DC. I think some sort of competing decision making system that is more trusted and uses proportional representation will have to be implemented that can then press for change.

Such a system would have no legal authority, but if highly trusted and transparent, it could have the moral authority to demand changes to the real electoral system. Especially if most people see the system consistently produce better decisions than Congress. That part's easy.

The trick is getting people to use such a system. Perhaps starting on the local or state level.

Any ideas?

[anigbrowl]

Well, consider the '3 strikes' law in California - commit three felony offenses, go to jail for life. Several other states have similar laws (Texas was the first in 1974) but California's was enacted via a ballot initiative, so the voters had a direct say on the matter.

It passed with a good majority: lots of politicians thought it would be a good idea, the police and prison officers unions supported it (surprise - more work for them, and they are very powerful lobbying groups in CA politics), and it seems like a nice neat solution to a complicated problem...but in practice it doesn't work very well. Now our prisons are so overcrowded that we have to ship people out of state and the conditions have been ruled unconstitutional, plus keeping all these people imprisoned costs us a fortune and our courts are so backlogged that people sometimes go free because we can't get them into court within the time required for a 'speedy trial'. Nor has the three strikes law had much effect on crime or recidivism that we can tell.

Voters have watered it down a little bit, allowing some people to go into drug treatment programs if their crimes are not violent. In the recent election, the Republican candidate for Attorney General ran on a platform of repealing the law, because it just doesn't work very well. He lost.

So it's not just congress or state representatives. This kind of thing will always be a problem. I was going to say '...until people are more aware civics and the law,' but somehow I don't think that's going to change much. We could spend more money on education and suchlike but most people vote with their hearts instead of their heads.

[stretchwithme]

You know, referendums sound great on paper, but there is so much subterfuge, you almost need a professional to figure out what many of them actually mean.

If only you could hire someone that agreed with your values and made it his career to effectively pursue your interests as you define them. Some sort of "representative"

Well, that was the whole point behind representative government. Except that in the US and many other places, the system works as if geography is the only thing that matters.

In a system using proportional representation that is not the case. You don't have to settle for someone who best pretends they agree with everyone in your area.

You can hire an expert to handle your legal matters, your health, your mechanical needs and hundreds of other things. And they do what you tell them to do. Why can't you have your chosen expert represent you in government?

Consider the power of this. If we had PR in the US Congress from the very beginning, African Americans could have had representatives in Congress the instant they got the vote, even if half their votes were never counted.

[anigbrowl]

I want to agree. But my home country (Ireland) has PR, and where I live (in the bay area) local elections are run with PR, and I've lived in 2 other countries that use different forms of it (NL and Spain). I think it's a good thing, but it's no silver bullet. You can still have corruption and bad policy, unfortunately.

[stretchwithme]

PR is not a silver bullet. It only gives you a choice, something we don't have at the moment. You still have to make good choices.

Even silver bullets won't kill the werewolf if you don't shoot straight.

[stretchwithme]

Leaving as many things as possible with the individual or at the local level is a good remedy for corruption.

Especially when people can actually leave a city or state for a different one or start their own. They have this is Switzerland, as well as the requirement that many actions of the legislature be approved of by referendum.

So it takes several things to prevent corruption.

Oh, I'm Irish too. My mom is from Clare. Got my passport too.

[lionhearted]

> Well, consider the '3 strikes' law in California - commit three felony offenses, go to jail for life.

Three strikes is one of the most misunderstood laws on the books. The first two offenses have to be deemed "serious" offenses - which, if memory serves, only includes a violent felony or child molesting.

If someone commits two violent crimes and then commits a third felony, they're probably not someone who was going to wise up. A guy who commits third degree murder once, gets out of jail seven years later, commits aggravated assault, gets out of jail five years later, and then commits a third felony just doesn't get it, and is obviously going to keep committing crimes.

There was a famous case people were outraged about where a guy got three-strikes life in jail for stealing a stereo system. What the newspapers didn't report enough was that he'd already mugged someone with a knife and stuck up a convenience store at gunpoint. I think there's a pretty reasonable case that that guy was going to keep doing stupid violent stuff until you locked him up forever...

(I did a little research into this - I was really against three strikes at first, until I actually learned more about it. It actually seems pretty sensible. The overcrowding problem at prisons is largely unrelated to three strikes, and has more to do with prison sentences on some offenses that you could probably just issue a fine and move on)

[anigbrowl]

Well, I wouldn't want anyone to draw a conclusion about it from my 8-word summary reference! And certainly, some people just don't get it - here's a case that just hit the news today: http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/three-strikes_opponen...

However, it's quite a bit more complex than you suggest here. Someone with two non-serious felony convictions who is then convicted of a serious felony, for example, can also get the full effect. Those servicing a second sentence can have their time doubled. And not everything that qualifies as a serious felony is the sort of violent crime most people imagine.

You might find these analyses from the Legislative Analyst's Office interesting - accessible non-partisan explanation of the effects and rules in the first one, and an update on how they're affecting state budgets in the second: http://www.lao.ca.gov/2005/3_strikes/3_strikes_102005.htm http://www.lao.ca.gov/analysis_2009/crim_justice/crimjust_an...

[lionhearted]

Interesting, interesting. Thanks for those links, I'll read them through next time I'm on a break.