[Epa095]

In the Norwegian parlament it's actually quite common that only part of the parlament is gathered for votes when it's clear who would win a complete vote. So in that sense it's actually very close to your 8 members.

It still matters who you vote on though, but mostly from the representatives ability to influence what gets discussed. And there is a lot of 'day-to-day' politics where the details gets formed by the representatives, while the 'big lines' are set by the party.

Finaly I can't help but notice that the American political culture is significantly less diverse than the Scandinavian one. Yes, you have the odd representative crossing party lines, but in practice it seems like all this possibility for diverse opinions ends up being lost when they get squashed into two big tents.