Tag: elections

Would [a Constitutional amendment for campaign finance reform] be a good idea on a public policy level? I’d be shocked if someone could convince me that it was. As near as I can tell, just about every campaign finance reform measure of the modern era has either (a) had no real effect, or (b) backfired, making things objectively worse. The idea that we can predict the effect of yet another proposal well enough to set it in stone in the Constitution strikes me as extremely unlikely.

Kevin Drum.
I’d tend to agree, were it not for ideas like Lawrence Lessig’s 28th Amendment: it’s partly targeted at stripping corporations of their status as individuals party to all the protections afforded to “regular” citizens. To me, just that section would go a long, long way towards fixing big-money politics without actually ever mentioning money in politics. That his proposal also includes public financing of campaigns is icing on the cake.
None of it is ever going to happen, but a man can dream.
Source: Mother Jones

Chait’s Venetian Blind Alley

Jon Chait unleashes the snark over a suggestion that we have a seperate Super Committee tasked only with “[encouraging] the new supercommittee to ‘go big, or go home.’”

What if we determined the membership of the meta-committee via some non-political selection method – perhaps through the creation of a new group containing, Republicans and Democrats, dedicated to finding the right mix of politicians of both parties, who would be tasked with coming up with a bipartisan plan to lobby the bipartisan supercommission to come up with a bipartisan plan to reduce the deficit?

Actually, the loyal Lemkin reader will realize we covered this one, er, one year ago:

Thirty electors were chosen by lot, and then a second lottery reduced them to nine, who nominated forty candidates in all, each of whom had to be approved by at least seven electors in order to pass to the next stage. The forty were pruned by lot to twelve, who nominated a total of twenty-five, who needed at least nine nominations each. The twenty-five were culled to nine, who picked an electoral college of forty-five, each with at least seven nominations. The forty-five became eleven, who chose a final college of forty-one. Each member proposed one candidate, all of whom were discussed and, if necessary, examined in person, whereupon each elector cast a vote for every candidate of whom he approved. The candidate with the most approvals was the winner, provided he had been endorsed by at least twenty-five of the forty-one.

We’ll Always Have Venice

Anthony Gottleib reports on the electoral process of the Venetian Republic:

Thirty electors were chosen by lot, and then a second lottery reduced them to nine, who nominated forty candidates in all, each of whom had to be approved by at least seven electors in order to pass to the next stage. The forty were pruned by lot to twelve, who nominated a total of twenty-five, who needed at least nine nominations each. The twenty-five were culled to nine, who picked an electoral college of forty-five, each with at least seven nominations. The forty-five became eleven, who chose a final college of forty-one. Each member proposed one candidate, all of whom were discussed and, if necessary, examined in person, whereupon each elector cast a vote for every candidate of whom he approved. The candidate with the most approvals was the winner, provided he had been endorsed by at least twenty-five of the forty-one.

And yet I feel like that would still work better than today’s Senate.