[SSJPython]

There needs to be public funding of elections. That would go a long way.

If we really want reform, the system should be changed from a first-past-the-post presidential system to a parliamentary system with party-list proportional representation. Neither system is perfect, but the latter captures a wider range of views within society.

Germany is a stable constitutional federal republic with proportional representation and power vested in the Bundestag. No reason why the US can't have the same.

[BobaFloutist]

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has been systematically attacking all attempts to limit private campaign finance, including public funding.

In 2011, in Arizona Free Enterprise v. Bennett, they ruled that a program that Arizona established which would give campaigns that opted out of private financing public financing matching their competitors financing infringed on the First Amendment speech rights of the privately financed campaign.

That's right, matching private campaign spending with public funding violates the free speech of the privately funded campaign, because it removes their advantage.

The solution to campaign finance needs to start and end with court reform, or it's DOA.

[giantg2]

Exactly what reforms do you want? If you want first amendment restrictions you can look into passing another amendment. That's really how that's supposed to work. The logic behind the ruling is fine if you actually dig into it - funding is speech, government funding of some candidates and not others dilutes the speech of some citizens and effectively compels speech from other citizens through the government. A better approach would be restricting all political advertising to some government provided platform. This would avoid the wasteful government matching.

[everforward]

That line of logic is utterly insane even at a glance because it argues that citizens cannot be taxed for something they don’t support.

Shall we ask the DEA when they’ll be issuing refunds?

“Diluting” speech is equally incoherent. The presidents state of the nation address drags people away from my Twitter feed, so the government is diluting my speech. If the argument is just that the government can’t do anything that would make a citizen less heard, the government ceases to function because practically everything they do is more consequential than any citizens opinion.

The First Amendment doesn’t even say anything about being heard. It is a right to speak, not a right to be heard. Funding a candidate does not remove the right or ability for other candidates to speak.

> A better approach would be restricting all political advertising to some government provided platform.

This is not even close to passing even a cursory First Amendment analysis. Telling people they can’t advertise on Facebook/Google/etc is absolutely a First Amendment issue. It is literal speech, and the right to express it is abridged by location. This will never happen without an amendment.

[giantg2]

"This will never happen without an amendment."

When did I ever argue that it should?

The main flaw with the funding match is that campaign spending is already very wasteful and we shouldn't be trying to match that waste with tax dollars.

But you could go read Davis and the other case history about the undue restrictions and how a candidates own speech is constrained by matching schemes.

[everforward]

> When did I ever argue that it should?

You didn’t, but I would also presume that reason dictates solutions be practical. Modifying the First Amendment is so far out of the Overton Window that I struggle to even call it a potential solution.

> But you could go read Davis and the other case history about the undue restrictions and how a candidates own speech is constrained by matching schemes.

That is not what Davis says; I would encourage you to re-read it or perhaps read it for the first time. Davis doesn’t even have to do with matching schemes, it has to do with differing contribution limits from third parties depending on a candidates own spending.

It’s still profoundly dumb, to the point where I feel worse off for having read it. Apparently a candidate being wealthy enough to bankroll orders of magnitude more funding than an opponent does not create “an appearance of corruption”, despite magnitudes of evidence on how effective advertising is. Alito was either an idiot or corrupt; probably the latter given his rank.

[giantg2]

"Modifying the First Amendment is so far out of the Overton Window that I struggle to even call it a potential solution."

So too with the court reform suggestion.

"Davis doesn’t even have to do with matching schemes,"

No, but it is the case law that the appeals court felt compelled to follow with respect to matching schemes and later upheld in the combined appeal.

"Apparently a candidate being wealthy enough to bankroll orders of magnitude more funding than an opponent does not create “an appearance of corruption”, despite magnitudes of evidence on how effective advertising is."

If it's that effective and leading to poor outcomes, then regulate it like tobacco ads instead of forcing additional funding to a broken system. The majority of the political ads are intentionally deceptive anyways. We shouldn't be figuring how we can equitably fund the continuation of this shit, but how to reduce it overall.

[ETH_start]

The better solution is to continue respecting the First Amendment and not trying to restrict in any way, political speech, and instead reforming the electoral system so that the volume of speech one is able to output through the expenditure of financial resources does not have an impact on election outcomes.

[giantg2]

How so, and how is that different than my proposal in other comments?

[ETH_start]

Restricting political advertising to one platform would be a massive abrogation of the right to engage in political speech.

[giantg2]

The right as it is defined now, yes. The ability to restrict or redefine that right is still an option. See tobacco advertising and other harmful advertising that has been restricted.

Again, what are those electoral changes you believe will fix the issue?

[samatman]

That was a good decision, because the rule creates a negative responsiveness paradox. Spending money to support your preferred candidate should not make opposing candidates stronger.

That was the effect of Arizona's rule: money spent to promote a candidate was matched by free public money, which the opposing candidate did not have exert any effort to obtain.

Good voting systems minimize this effect. The US first-past-the-post system is not a good voting system, but that's no excuse for making it worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_responsiveness_parado...

[cbsks]

Why should money be involved in supporting a candidate? Doesn’t the democratic action of voting do that?

[pc86]

Yard signs, phone calls, websites, GOTV operations, consultants, debates, mailers, all of these things cost money. The current system requires you to appeal to donors with a winning message to get contributions to pay for these.

Who decides which candidates get limited public funds? Are you just going to split it equally between whoever runs? Why should the public pay for fringe campaigns that won't get any votes?

[kelipso]

Usually you do a poll and set a threshold for funding, like 5% or something, to avoid funding fringe candidates.

[ETH_start]

The Supreme Court is defending the First Amendment, and "court reform" is a euphemism for eliminating the independence of the judiciary in order to dismantle those First Amendment protections.

[SauciestGNU]

Supreme Court justices are taking bribes to deliver outcomes their cronies want, and "court reform" is a euphemism for holding justices selling our country accountable.

[ETH_start]

There is zero evidence of any bribery. This is just more salacious defamation by those who want to destroy the independence of the judiciary.

[defrost]

Sure.

Harlan Crow just loves to sprinkle robust black men in gowns with money, six star vacations, and RV's as much as he loves painting by Adolf Hitler and Nazi memorabilia.

We shouldn't kink shame or say that he expects any quo to his quids.

> those who want to destroy the independence of the judiciary.

Bit late to whine about that fait accompli.

It'll take decades to wind back Mitch McConnell's two decade deep tainting of the US justice system with Federalist Society stooges.

[ETH_start]

He might love to shower his friends with gifts, and might find friendship with exactly the kind of minds that are bright enough to become Supreme Court justices.

>It'll take decades to wind back Mitch McConnell's two decade deep tainting of the US justice system with Federalist Society stooges.

Appointing justices when a space opens up is the standard way of doing it, and federalist judges adhere to the Constitution, so outside of a certain ideological camp, there is nothing wrong with appointing them.

The lifetime tenure gives the Supreme Court justices a degree of independence that would vanish should every congress and president be able to totally capture the court in a single four year cycle by adding any arbitrary number of new justices to out vote the sitting justices.

[consteval]

I think even the most conservative of conservatives couldn't really argue our Supreme Court is defending the First Amendment. There's no speech restriction here - rather it's an attempt to further enrich the establishment by ensuring only career politicians and the ultra-rich can campaign. If anything, this is a speech restriction, because I do not have the ability to have my own campaign speech.

[ETH_start]

There is a very obvious argument that restricting the right to pay for political advertisements violates the First Amendment. You can read the argument here:

https://www.fec.gov/resources/legal-resources/litigation/cu_...

[consteval]

Yes, there is an argument, that doesn't mean I agree with the argument or that's it's even reasonable. You can make an argument for anything, certainly we've made arguments for eugenics in the past.

In my opinion, corporations are fundamentally different than individuals and only the naivest reading of the constitution would extend such rights to them.

In addition, even if you can argue it, you still have to face the reality that this is harmful. Just because you're able to play an "erm, akchually!" game doesn't mean you can ignore consequences. There are many things which are technically correct but in practice are awful.

Exhibit A: you could argue the second amendment extends to fully automatic miniature machine guns. And we allowed those for a long time. In practice, there's virtually no benevolent use for such weapons and outlawing them is a no-brainer. Outlawing such weapons was a large factor in dismantling the American mafias of the past. Now nobody really cares, and we've all moved on - obviously, it was not such an important right in the first place.

[ETH_start]

You haven't actually contended with the legal reasoning provided for this position — that corporations are entitled First Amendment protections — by the courts. So you're just assuming they're wrong, without any kind of substantiation. Your reaction is entirely politically motivated as opposed to motivated by careful and objective study of the law.

[pc86]

SCOTUS doesn't "attack" anything. They issue a ruling based on law. It's funny that any time there's a judicial ruling we like, it's fair and impartial, and any time there's a judicial ruling we don't like, it's judicial activism.

The other reply already makes it pretty clear why this Arizona's law violated 1A. If you want to make a legal argument that donating money to a political campaign isn't political speech, go for it. But right now it's considered protected political speech so this ruling makes perfect sense.

"Court reform" is a funny way of phrasing "ignoring the Constitution."

This isn't even a partisan issue. Harris has been on the ballot 4 months and her campaign has raised approximately 3x the amount of money Trump's has. Moneyed interests are absolutely on the side of Harris this time around.

[zaptheimpaler]

The Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade 2 years ago and the Chevron doctrine recently.

Do you think these judgements were both supported by the constitution when they were made and also not supported by the same constitution when overturned? Which one was the "ruling based on law"?

If there was a straight deterministic line from the laws to the rulings the court make, we would need far less courts or lawyers or highly trained judges. The fact is there are a million laws and precedents with 100 applying to any given situation in slightly different ways with many interpretations. Laws are written vaguely to keep them somewhat future-proof and leave room for interpretation/evolution. The courts do have a lot of power here.

[pc86]

It was Chevron deference that was overturned and it's a very important distinction. The only thing that changed was that courts were required to give deference to the agency interpretation of a statute. Now the agency needs to prove they're not misinterpreting the statute. That seems like a good change, no? Having to prove you're right in court instead of the judge being required to just assume you're right unless they're overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

[zaptheimpaler]

No, it seems to severely undercut the efficiency and power of regulatory agencies to me. Court cases are extremely slow & expensive and having to wait 5-10 years to act is almost as good as not being able to act. I think this might be good in a world where senate could quickly make/amend laws and courts could quickly decide on them, but that's far from where we are..

But that's besides the point, now we're arguing about which is better, but the point is neither is unambiguously correct or following/ignoring the constitution as you earlier claimed. It's simply the court using their authority to take a political stance.

The courts are not directly answerable to the public and hence should not make political decisions in a democracy, yet they made a decision that goes against what the majority [1] of the country wanted.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/07/06/majority-of-...

[consteval]

It seems like a good change if you're a Helen Keller impersonator. To anyone not blind and deaf, we understand the intention of that ruling is to cripple the agencies as much as possible.

That is, and has been, conservative political policy. If you're conservative and ideologically opposed to the notion of the bureaucracy in general then it's a good change, because now they are much weaker.

The fatal flaw you're making here is that courts are impartial. No, the intention of this overturning is such that rules which are obviously correct can still be challenged, delayed, and even killed by conservative courts. It takes even a cursory glance at the courts in Texas to understand this is the case.

There're two aspects to law: what it says, and how it's practiced. What it says is that overstepping agencies must now prove they are following the laws as set by Congress. In practice, this means agencies will be blocked by extremely ungenerous conservative interpretations of law such that they cannot enforce common-sense regulations, with the intention of further empowering the private sector.

[ETH_start]

Later rulings supersede previous ones because later rulings review their precedents and will correct mistakes that they identify in their precedents, so if a later ruling found those earlier rulings incorrect in their application of the law, we assume there was in fact a misjudgment in those older rulings. The justices provided legal reasoning in overturning Roe vs Wade and the Chevron doctrine, and unless you find some glaring mistake in that reasoning, the default assumption should be that the rulings to overturn these doctrines were legally sound.

[consteval]

This completely ignores the political motivations for rulings. In my opinion, a person who does not at least try to address the obvious partisanism of our current court is not worth listening to.

Please keep in mind some justices have gone as far as recommending revisiting rulings on same-sex marriage and interracial marriage. We cannot continue to play stupid.

[ETH_start]

There is no obvious political motivation. You're simply assuming that a ruling that is favored by the political camp you identify with could only be overruled due to political motivations, which is not sound reasoning, and only reveals your own political motivations.

[zaptheimpaler]

This is again assuming that there is a binary right or wrong in how the law is applied. This is an ideal of the law, where there is precisely one law that applies to any given situation, describing exactly what is legal or not, with no ambiguity or contradiction. Speak to any lawyer or read about it, and you will find this is not true.

Here's a random article i came across today speaking about the ambiguity in the law applied to a particular case - https://archive.is/Z6V2Q . Just something I came across randomly, this is not uncommon. A quote:

> “I know it seems kind of strange that there isn’t a definitive answer to this, but that’s because the rule is based on a principle that can be applied in lots of different contexts, and it just happens that it hasn’t often been applied in this context before,” she said.

Here is a quote directly from the ruling overturning Chevron:

> Finally, the view that interpretation of ambiguous statutory provi- sions amounts to policymaking suited for political actors rather than courts is especially mistaken because it rests on a profound misconcep- tion of the judicial role. Resolution of statutory ambiguities involves legal interpretation, and that task does not suddenly become policy- making just because a court has an “agency to fall back on.” Kisor, 588 U. S., at 575. Courts interpret statutes, no matter the context, based on the traditional tools of statutory construction, not individual policy preferences.

In other words, the court directly saying that it is their job to resolve legal ambiguities.

The logic you provide to uphold the overturning of Roe vs. Wade should apply just as well to the original Roe vs. Wade too. There was not any "glaring mistake" in the reasoning, there's just a lot of room for subjectivity.

[ETH_start]

The assumption of judicial law is that there is an objective correct answer and that later rulings are more likely to arrive at it than their precedents.

The passage you quote does not contradict this. Note it states that court interpretation is

"based on the traditional tools of statutory construction, not individual policy preferences"

The ambiguity means that the correctness is a matter of probability, which implies that the probability of making a correct ruling increases with the amount of precedent a ruling has to fall back on.

[adamc]

Great! And after we pack the court full of liberals, I'm sure you'll be on-board with every ruling.

[ETH_start]

The whole point of winning presidencies is to appoint justices when one retires or passes away.

Packing the court, i.e. expanding the court to obviate the need to wait for a justice to retire or die in order to appoint a new one, on the other hand, effectively eliminates the independence of the judiciary, by nullifying the independence that Supreme Court justices obtain as a result of their lifetime tenure.

[gottorf]

> It's funny that any time there's a judicial ruling we like, it's fair and impartial, and any time there's a judicial ruling we don't like, it's judicial activism.

It is funny, but at the same time I absolutely believe that in many cases it's possible to distinguish between judgments of the activist kind and those that aren't.

Critics of SCOTUS should keep in mind that they agree unanimously more often than one might think. In fact, it's the modal outcome over all terms, with roughly third of all cases decided unanimously. IIRC 7-2 or more one-sided rulings (meaning more concurrence between all justices) occur roughly four-fifths of the time.

[jgalt212]

Truth.

The courts have become more / too important as Congress has become more ineffectual.

[potato3732842]

Congress wouldn't matter as much if the feds hadn't spend 200yr usurping so much power from the states.

[dingnuts]

well the states really kind of blew it when they chose slavery as the hill to literally die on, didn't they?

it's not like this is all on Congress..

[potato3732842]

I was thinking more recent stuff, like fed income tax and then "giving" that money back with strings resulting in the current "we'll fund your state level EPA and DOT agencies but only if they goose step in line with us" status quo. Said status quo means that every stupid nitpick of federal law winds up getting fought tooth and nail over.

[adamc]

It wasn't even slavery that caused the war, but secession. (I am not arguing that slavery didn't cause secession -- it did -- but that wasn't what created support in the north for fighting a war over it.)

[gottorf]

That states' rights were used to fight for the right to maintain slavery does not mean that the concept of states' rights is wrong. It is slavery that is wrong.

[adamc]

That is such a distorted fantasy I don't really know what to say.

[mullingitover]

> No reason why the US can't have the same.

There's one big reason the US can't have the same: the ruling class don't want it.

This isn't some gordian knot. We could have it tomorrow if the ruling class had their feet held to the fire. The fact that we don't is a result of the system working exactly as intended.

The richest person in the world is out in broad daylight shoveling bribes to voters as fast as he can transfer the money, and not only is he not getting arrested, he never will be. It's a dark subsection of a very dark chapter.

[ryandrake]

A person who can't even legally own a gun due to his status as a felon is about to become commander and chief of the military. "Dark subsection" is pretty mild.

[nomel]

This could be seen as protection for candidates against lawfare, which is widely used in tyrannical governments.

[krapp]

I mean, of all the reasons to oppose Trump being commander in chief, much less President, that seems the least relevant.

[gottorf]

The commander-in-chief isn't leading a charge at the front lines, so whether or not he can legally own a gun has no bearing; otherwise, we'd have to demand that every elected official has direct, hands-on experience in everything that they legislate, regulate, or judge. Well, perhaps that wouldn't be so horrible, after all...

I personally find the way he came to be a felon to be a darker subsection, but your mileage may vary, of course.

[anigbrowl]

What you are missing about the analogy is that the US military is effectively the largest gun on the planet.

[gottorf]

I assume your point is that a felony conviction is evidence of an unsound mind that justifies prohibiting someone from owning a firearm, and that this translates to leading our military.

The analogy falls apart if said felony conviction is unjust or otherwise has no bearing on one's ability to lead the military. By and large, American voters think so, with two-thirds of those polled thinking that what he was convicted of is a nothingburger[0].

[0]: https://apnews.com/article/trump-trial-indictment-hush-money...

[ryandrake]

The analogy only falls apart if you are applying a double standard.

You might say "Certain kinds of felonies don't indicate a person is unfit to wield a weapon/the military, and certain kinds do." I'm a supporter of the 2A and I'd listen to that. As long as you intend to apply that across the population.

But if you're saying "A bunch of people don't like this particular conviction against this particular person, so we should have a separate standard for him," well that not how the rule of law works.

[rat87]

I think it would be very difficult to present an honest nonpartisan case arguing that Trump is not guilty of

1. The case he has been convicted of 2. The cases that are still in progress 3. Many things he hasn't been charged with yet.

But if you want to do so I'll try to listen. The case you listed isn't even the case he has been convicted of so far. But I don't blame you for the mixup there's so many crimes people may have trouble confusing them.

[janalsncm]

> the ruling class don't want it

Too cynical and defeatist for my taste. The difference between the “ruling class” and you is that politicians know what it takes to get support from large donors. A typical Senator spends most of their day figuring that out in fact.

But at the end of the day politicians still need votes, not dollars. One way to swing the balance back would be to make support contingent on support for (and accomplishment of) popular goals.

[pc86]

As long as people see their chosen political party as their hometown sports team and the other political party as a bunch of demonic goblins looking to murder and imprison them and their families, that will never happen.

If you're not willing to vote for either political party to achieve your supported goals, you're part of the problem and a big part of why the country is the way it is.

[janalsncm]

We don’t have to let perfect be the enemy of the good. The majority of Americans are non-partisan and just want results.

[adamc]

Statistically, current voting patterns do not -- AT ALL -- support that contention.

[janalsncm]

What statistics are those?

[SllX]

> There needs to be public funding of elections. That would go a long way.

I’m going to push back on this.

Not a single dollar of public money should be spent helping anyone at all acquire a seat in an office of power. This includes running primaries through State election apparatuses and laws governing primary selection processes.

I’d be okay with zeroing out contributions to individual candidates and limiting political contributions exclusively to political parties to dole out to their members as they see fit, even if that required a constitutional amendment, but not with public money. You’re effectively subsidizing the acquisition of power by interested parties with taxpayer money, while simultaneously cementing an additional incumbent advantage for those already seated and able to write the rules for the public funding of elections.

[kelseyfrog]

I'm going to push back on this pushback. Not a single dollar of private money should be spent on helping anyone acquire a seat of power. Dollars represent disproportional ability to influence who has power.

We already have a fair mechanism to signal - voting. Attempts to nudge candidates ability to win are antithetical to our value of egalitarianism. If we're willing to let dollars donated swing a politicians chances, we've already lost. Let's just close up shop and vote with dollars like we shop for shoes. It's a mockery of decency.

[zajio1am]

Voting is just passive a passive part of politics, but there is active part of politics, like political activism, and that is as important as voting.

People that are good at public relations and communications can directly do political activism, while people bad at that and good at something else can use money generated from what they are good at to hire or support someone to do political activism for them.

So forbidding money in political activism is just gatekeeping political activism to people good at public relations.

[SllX]

> Dollars represent disproportional ability to influence who has power.

People with a lot of money already possess both, which is why I am perfectly content with people who have money to spend their own money.

> Attempts to nudge candidates ability to win are antithetical to our value of egalitarianism.

In that case, would you also support prohibiting people from spending their private time or using their public speech to influence election outcomes? No more volunteers, only paid workers funded by the State?

The influence of dollars alone on the outcome of an election is already overvalued. Michael Bloomberg already engaged in the grandest experiment to prove that money really can’t buy political office and depending on your point of view here, either succeeded fantastically in that goal or failed miserably in his own goal in what was fundamentally an own goal.

It’s also utterly naïve to think that by attempting to resource constrain elections by funneling money through the State to redistribute to campaigns that you will succeed in capping the real economy around election campaigns and prevent the State from giving the ultimate incumbent advantage and using its own official functions to influence the outcome of elections. More than likely you would just be hiding most of the activity around a campaign inside the State itself.

The game doesn’t change just because you’re spending public or private money: your goal is to get people to fill out their ballots and submit them in your favor. What changes is whether it is private individuals, from small dollar donors to billionaires deciding how to spend their money (as is their right in all areas of life!) or the State deciding how they are going to spend other peoples money for them, which you know, speaking of, that is a mockery of decency.

> Let's just close up shop and vote with dollars like we shop for shoes.

So let’s not and say we didn’t. The cost of converting dollars into real votes is high and plateaus. The actual spending is an entire economy supporting the salaries of campaign staff and paying contractors and advertising firms which I am okay with. I’m even okay with putting additional constraints on who can raise money and in the case of local elections, Senate and House seats, from where locking out foreigners and interstate donations entirely changing the shape of that entire economy (provided an appropriate Constitutional amendment is agreed upon and passed), but not one red cent should be coming from a local, State or the Federal Treasury. That’s money to support the functions of the State and the excess should go back to its rightful owners instead.

[maxerickson]

There probably shouldn't be privileged ballot access where well established organizations have a lower bar than a newcomer.

[SllX]

Outsiders like Donald Trump in 2016 and Bernie Sanders on multiple occasions also shouldn’t be able to come in an effectively (in the case of Trump) or nearly take over an existing political machine and transform it in their image at the low low cost of changing their party registration on a form with their home state.

You can do it too! In the State of California where yours truly is domiciled, changing your party registration is easier than changing your underwear so if there’s a particular party whose primary you want to vote in for whatever reason, that’s a thing you can just do with absolutely no cost to you whatsoever. You don’t need any buy-in. If political parties are going to be a thing, and we’ve accepted that they’re just going to be a thing for over 200 years and counting, then there needs to be some buy-in for people running under their banner and proportionate institutional influence from the leaders and rank-and-file of the organization flying that banner. Given freedom of association is a thing, parties are not going to go away no matter what you try and do to constrain them, so I’m okay with them also being a focal point around which people qualify for the ballot and secure donations and staffed time to run for office since that is what they are there for.

Real party turnover used to be higher. Parties would either fall out of favor and die and be replaced, or they would face credible risks from smaller parties and work to absorb them into their ranks by taking in the issues that energized them. Right now they’re functionally just an identity group, and that makes them both fragile and dangerous since their name still means something to voters, but their party functions do not command the premium they used to.

[maxerickson]

I don't care about what the organizations decide to do, that's their private business. The states shouldn't be offering them the ability to put up a candidate using a separate mechanism.

So for instance, in that scenario, the backup strategy is for there to be several candidates aligned with the organization that seek ballot access, and then the organization can endorse one of them to try to concentrate votes. Versus the situation now where the organization can name their candidate later in the process and ensure that votes are concentrated.

This would of course make things worse for 2024 Harris, but probably not to the extent that they would have for 2016 Trump.

[SllX]

Just so I understand because I think I might be misunderstanding you, are you against the States executing primaries on behalf of the parties, or are you against the parties gating candidates from also being on the general ticket under their name, or both?

[maxerickson]

There shouldn't be ballot access for a party nominee. I would be fine with the party endorsement of a given candidate still appearing on the ballot.

It's not a gate, it's privileged access, where organizations that pass some rule play by different rules than other candidates.

[gottorf]

> You’re effectively subsidizing the acquisition of power by interested parties with taxpayer money, while simultaneously cementing an additional incumbent advantage for those already seated and able to write the rules for the public funding of elections.

This is a very good point. And if we can generalize: it's very difficult to regulate something in a way that does not eventually advantage those already inside over those on the outside looking to come in; industry regulations, rent control, minimum wage, etc.

[cco]

> Germany is a stable constitutional federal republic with proportional representation and power vested in the Bundestag. No reason why the US can't have the same.

The government of the United States is both far older than Germany's Bundestag and has been far more stable over that time.

I'm not explicitly arguing one way or the other here, just calling out that I think it is a little early to say that Germany's Bundestag is a stable republic when it is so young.

[Animats]

We have public funding of presidential elections in the US.[1] The last year in which a major candidate accepted it was 2008, because it comes with limits on fund-raising.

[1] https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/understand...

[citrin_ru]

Proportional representation is prone to a grid lock and fragmentation. A ranked choice looks like a good option in the situation when you don't like both major candidates (or parties) and would like to vote for 3rd one but with first-past-the-post you vote will be wasted unless you will vote for one of two the most popular candidates.

[aldonius]

Most of the issue with PR is when your assembly has to select an executive.

But the US has a very powerful executive (the President) which sidesteps the problem. The US House of Reps could be multi party PR without any big issues (well, they might need to switch to a "last year's budget is this year's budge unless we vote to change it" model).

[giantg2]

"No reason why the US can't have the same."

The reason that won't work here currently is because the two party system has people currently picking the lessor of two evils. The spectrum of stances within a single party is extremely wide since all cobinations of views must fit within two parties. For example, compare a NYC Democrat candidate vs a WV Democrat candidate. Or a republican candidate from TX vs one from NJ.

"There needs to be public funding of elections. That would go a long way."

I sort of agree. Instead of all these commercials and flyers, it would be much better if every candidate gets a page on a government website where they can advertise their views and platform. It would be similar to how specimen ballots are available online today. Restrictions like that would remove much of the influence of money.

[gottorf]

> Neither system is perfect, but the latter captures a wider range of views within society.

In the FPTP system in the US, you end up with two "big tent" parties with broadly opposing views. What makes you suggest that this model does not sufficiently capture the width of views within society?

> Germany is a stable constitutional federal republic with proportional representation and power vested in the Bundestag. No reason why the US can't have the same.

There is a lot to admire about Germany, but that vaunted stable constitutional federal republic just about committed economic suicide via an over-reliance on cheap Russian gas and zealous persecution of domestic nuclear. It now has the weakest prospects among its peer nations. Their governing model isn't a guarantee of good decisions.

[jltsiren]

It doesn't capture the width of views precisely because of the "big tent" parties. When a political party is united and effective, it functions as a weighted average of its representatives. When it's not, it loses power and makes other parties stronger.

If your opinions are outside the mainstream of any party, you will not have genuine representation in any democratic system, where political parties are allowed to form. Some outlier representative may speak in favor of policies you support, but they would be equally effective as an extra-parliamentary activist.

[Amezarak]

> Germany is a stable constitutional federal republic with proportional representation and power vested in the Bundestag. No reason why the US can't have the same.

Germany's second most popular party is labeled a "suspected extremist group", there are discussions of banning it altogether, and the entire rest of the political establishment unites to ensure they are kept out of actual power.

When you even have a second-most-popular party that can be labeled an extremist group, I'm not going to call you a "stable" country. In general, the feature of parliamentary democracies where the "wrong" election runner-up is totally shut out also makes it seem not any different in practice than the US system. It's nice that the "right" runner-ups will be a part of a governing coalition, but this is also already effectively the way the US works, as party discipline is not nearly as strong.

Democratic institutions are a problem throughout the west right now, and I would definitely not be looking at Germany as a model. Not sure who would be. People say good things about Swiss governance, but I don't know enough of the situation there.

[gamblor956]

There is public funding of elections in the U.S. You can even check a box on your tax return to have part of your tax go toward funding elections. (This affects where $3 of the tax associated with you is budgeted by the federal government; it doesn't affect your tax liability/refund.)

According to the IRS, fewer than 4% of people check this box.

[adamc]

Proportional representation will lead to a different kind of gridlock and unstable coalitions. Not sure I want to replicate that.

[timbit42]

There are at least 8 types of PR and you can create more. Create one that doesn't cause gridlock.

[keybored]

Sortition.

[giardini]

Fascinating! I've never hear of sortition.

Likely zero chance of implementation in USA but also surprising that the founding fathers of the the USA apparently avoided serious consideration. Seems they may have dropped the ball on this problem:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/iw1t1h/did_t...

[ETH_start]

Germany affords no Freedom of Speech and makes major policy blunders, like shutting off all of its nuclear power plants. It's not a country for the US to emulate.

[doctorpangloss]

Ah yes, Germany, the most stable, fair, well run and well represented government in history.

[ianeigorndua]

Lol, Germany was bought and paid for decades ago and the party with the most political power is the Hells Angels. They even got their rivals federally banned, even though they are not!

[pc86]

This comment reads like LLM-generated text, but like... a pretty old version where it's basically MCMC text generation.

[ianeigorndua]

You read like a HAMC damage control bot. I am sick of being lorded over by criminals hiding in plain sight, it is why the economy sucks. They are sucking on it like leeches.

[pc86]

What is HAMC in this context?

[ianeigorndua]

Google it