Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by zakum1 2339 days ago
South Africa has a proportional representation system for similar reasons - to recognise plurality. It has some significant downsides. It weakens the ties between a representative and a specific district / constituency. In exchange it strengthens the hands of party decision makers who are the final brokers of how seats are apportioned.

Having grown up in South Africa and having spent a reasonable amount of time in the USA, I admire the local civic mindedness of American communities and the accountability of the political representatives. I am also appalled by the partisanship. I worry that proportional representation could make it worse.
2 comments
dbingham 2339 days ago
Propotional representation is not with out its problems, but I think given that our current system has a bicameral legislature where one body (the Senate) basically just represents entrenched power interests and is badly divorced from the will of the people, and grossly unrepresentative (since it's 2 per state where states have differing populations), I think we could gain a lot by making that body proportional.

Would it be perfect? Nah. Would it be -a lot- better than what we have? Yes.

With the Senate proportional party, and the House still geographically representative, and then if you add in ranked choice voting, you could break the two party system and have a much, much more representative government.

link
pessimizer 2339 days ago
This the easiest and most realistic step in my opinion; the people lobbying heavily to preserve the current Senate system would just be entrenched local tyrants. I think the vast bulk of Americans would be swayed by the idea of having at least one Senator who almost completely shares their politics.

If the result is that the Senate becomes the most interesting and representative body, gradually shift the bulk of power there on whatever issues it's best at. If the result is that the Senate becomes a disaster, abolish the entire body.

link
iguy 2339 days ago
Right, always easy to see the good sides of other systems, but much harder to anticipate their failure modes. Besides the one you mention (of politicians being pawns of a party boss -- they owe their local seat only to their place on his list) proportional systems also have a habit of handing undue power to small, often extreme, parties when they have a tie-breaking vote.
link