On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 08:55:36 -0800,

Mark K. Bilbo schreef:

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 04:53:22 -0800,

Mark K. Bilbo schreef:

On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 09:40:33 -0800,

Syd M. schreef:

Looks like the Rethuglions might get majority control of the Senate
after all.


S.D. Sen. Johnson in critical condition

WASHINGTON - Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson (news, bio, voting record)
was in critical condition Thursday after late-night brain surgery,
creating political drama about which party will control the Senate next
month if he is unable to continue in office.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061214/ap_on_go_co/johnson


PDW, posting this from work..

I don't understand,
If the Dem's control the senate with Johnson and te Rep's control it
without Johnson,
that logic requires one party to have half a Senator more.

Sort of. In the case of a tie in the Senate (which is always an even
number), the Vice President casts the deciding vote. It's the only time
the VP votes in the Senate.

Right now, the Democrats have 51 to the Republicans 49. If Johnson dies,
the governor of his state (South Dakota) will appoint someone to finish
out Johnson's term. And the governor of SD is Republican. Obviously, he's
not going to appoint a Democrat.

That would put the Senate in a 50-50 split between the parties. So
anything voted on party lines gives the Republicans 51 to 50 because the
Vice President (a Republican) will break the tie.

Sounds - again - the system is not as democratic as it should be.
Many of the US rules were complety logical at the time thy were made
(hardly any US party-line, and voters only knowing their local
candicates)
but a little silly in these modern days (only big federal parties and
national cadidates being well known from TV many times better know then
the locals)

Oh, I don't know. The idea of the bicameral legislature here is that one
body represents each state equally (two Senators each) and one represents
people based on population (the House).

Two of anything is going to lead to "tie" votes sometimes. You have to do
something with that.

Is this the same in congress?

Not sure what you mean.

"Congress" is both the House and the Senate together. Or you could say the
Congress is divided into a House of Representatives and a Senate.

Why!
From the Ditch media always got the impression that Congress was what
you call "the House"
Appearantly there is a mix up here.

Ah, that would do it. No, the House of Representatives is one house *of
Congress. You'll sometimes hear references to "both houses." The Senate
is, technically, a "house" of Congress.

Either way, it was compromise because the Union was a federation of
independent states. Such as the EU is working toward. And, in fact, during
the work on the EU Constitution (the one that failed), there was concern
by the smaller nations that they would be overwhelmed by the larger
nations if representation was purely by population. I thought at the time
a bicameral EU legislature was something they should have considered.

I think as a temporary solutions that would have been a good Idea.
however as a permantent solution, it has disadvantages too.
As people start voting for or against Bush rather than for the special
interest of the state,
the fact that connecticut has as many senators as California,
starts to become a bit unfair.

Depends on how you look at it. The system here evolved because the union
is of formerly independent states. Which is why I find some parallel with
the modern EU. In a system based solely on population, the small states
are swamped. In a system of states having equal representation, the
populous states are reduced. So the founders here decided to split
Congress into two houses. One represents the states equally, the other
represents the public based on population.

Not perfect but an interesting solution when you're trying to unify
independent states.

The interesting aspect being that *both houses must agree on legislation.
So you end up with something of a balance of interests. A compromise.

As in, it may not seem to be "fair" that Connecticut has as many Senators
as California in the Senate but the California delegation in the House is
massively bigger than the Connecticut delegation.

If we only had the House, California and other populous states could steer
the federal government in their interests and the small states would be,
essentially, without representation.

Think about Louisiana. The state's entire population is around that of the
city of Los Angeles California. Just LA. Not counting suburbs. The
population of LA county is at *least twice as big as the entire state of
Louisiana. If we only had the House, would anybody ever pay any attention
to the needs of Louisiana?

As it is, both houses have to agree on legislation and Louisiana is on
equal footing with California in the Senate.

Despite the screwy way the US is acting now, I think the basic idea was a
good one. It's just that no matter how good your car is, if you get drunk
and run it into a tree, it's gonna break. <g>

But somehow I fear, politicians do not care much for such thoughts,
they only care for their particulart interest.
(that is how many seats can my party get this way)

In the Netherlands, parliament is elected by all the parties making a
list of candidates,
The number of seats is decided by the number of votes for the whole
list.
Candidates get picked, fist by having enough votes for their own
person, to get half a seat. - in order of the number of votes of course
- then the remaining candidates get in by the place on the list their
party had given them.
When somebody steps down for any reason (s)he is replaced by the same
system.

Apparently one of the big differences between our system and the fairly
common parliamentary system in Europe is our system is more tilted toward
voting for the individual than the party and European systems are more the
other way round.

In some ways, I prefer the parliamentary system because it seems to
produce parties that actually have *positions. If people are voting more
for the party than the individual(s), the party has to stand for
something. Here, the parties are vague amalgamation of all kinds of
opinions and groups and it's getting to the point that they stand for
"good things" and against "bad things."

I can see what our Founders were up to. They didn't *want parties. They
wanted individuals with ideas to meet and debate and hash out some kind of
consensus. But almost *immediately, parties formed. I suspect they were
being too idealistic.

On the other hand, it is partisanship that's causing our system to break
down now.

And the system the founders chose, is making that permanent, I fear.
Without changing the system. it is bound to be a two-horse race every
time.

I'd be curious, in the abstract, how a multiparty system of
representatives in one house (modeled on the parliamentary system that is)
would work with a second house representing all the EU nations on equal
footing. It could be an interesting balance.

I often think we should change the House here to something more like
European systems so it would open the doors to smaller parties. But leave
the Senate intact. The Senate, for all its flaws, is a good "drag" on the
system. A slower, more deliberative body (well, until the Republicans
turned the whole thing into a rubber stamp for Bush) that slows the rush
the public can get into.

I mean, the public really can get riled up about silly things and want to
pass laws willy-nilly. A brake on the system helps moderate passion. If
the subject is worth dealing with nationally, it survives. If it's a
passing frenzy, it dies.

Like our "flag burning" frenzy. The whole country got up in arms about
a court ruling that burning the US flag was protected speech under our
bill of rights. The country went a little nuts for a while but the
built in "drag" of the system slowed things until the frenzy passed.

People were ready to pass all kinds of whacky laws to protect a piece of
cloth. The whole thing was silly.

I am not sure about our senate though. It's not as important as in
the USA, so we tend to forget about it. Mostly it accepts anything
the other body has approved of.
It's elected by the members of the provincial (13 provinces)
parliament.

Our Senators used to be selected by state legislatures. That was
changed some years ago to allow a direct vote by the public.

I've always been ambivalent about that one. You end up with a situation
where the constituency of the two Senators is a ridiculously huge
number of people. Such as the Senators of California represent some 45
million people. How is anybody's voice going to get through that noise?

In the old system, they were accountable to a state legislature. A
group small enough a legislator could grab them by the collar and say,
"Look, my constituents..."

But we went through a populist phase in which more "direct" democracy
was all the rage...

I think you have a good point again.
Direct democracy and the Senate don't mix. It's either one or the
other.'

Totally "direct" democracy gives me the willies. The public really *does
get its knickers in a twist about goofy things. There really is a "madness
of the crowds."

It's not that the people shouldn't have their say, it's that the momentary
passions shouldn't rule the day. Every year, thousands of laws are
introduced. Some are quite nutty. Some nutty enough to be destructive.
Something needs to put the brakes on "fads."

The mess we've gotten into lately is the result of a public whipped into a
frenzy over an imaginary threat. The trauma of 9/11 swamped the system and
it did, in this case, fail. We're weren't slowed long enough to start
asking questions.

But can you imagine if Iraq style fiascoes were just "normal"?

Ah, well, just thinking aloud here.