Alternate forms/developments of the US government

So for the past few weeks, my friends and I have been having a series of discussions on the nature of the US government and in particular our election process and also our views on social services provided by the government, brought on of course by the circus that the 2016 presidential election has turned into.

I've been kicking around ideas with them, and so I thought I'd bring this up here and see what comes up.

Are their any realistic points, either during the 1787 convention or after, that the US could have seen some major alternative developments in how it is governed, specifically some of the following possibilities:
- Westminster-style parliamentary democracy nationally
- Proportional party representation instead of First Past the Post (FPTP) elections
- Some individual states breaking with the national trend to have either westminster-style democracy in their states, and/or proportional elections locally
- regional administrative zones (the concept here came about from a conversation where we discussed how the US is really too big to effectively pull off some of the social programs so common in Europe, and the idea came up that we set up multi-state admin regions to manage social services like health, education, police, etc.)

Open to other possibilities as well. Just curious what other ideas people might have.
 
During the Constitutional Convention, Alexander Hamilton proposed a very interesting(though probably unrealistic) plan with a much stronger central government.

Hamilton_Plan.png
 
hmm. took me a minute to make sense of everything going on here. Interesting, but I agree that it was probably unrealistic. Very Hamiltonian though.
 
For many of those to come about you need to make your POD much farther back than the ARW, you'd have to have a PoD in one or more of the original colonies and decades before the ARW; and preferably either Virginia or Massachussets as those two states will have the biggest influence on the US federal structure and on "daughter" states (Kentucky was destined to be the same type of structure as Virginia right down to calling themselves a Commonwealth; and Michigan derives their local govt structure from the NY example which was heavily influenced by New England).
 
So for the past few weeks, my friends and I have been having a series of discussions on the nature of the US government and in particular our election process and also our views on social services provided by the government, brought on of course by the circus that the 2016 presidential election has turned into.

I've been kicking around ideas with them, and so I thought I'd bring this up here and see what comes up.

Are their any realistic points, either during the 1787 convention or after, that the US could have seen some major alternative developments in how it is governed, specifically some of the following possibilities:
- Westminster-style parliamentary democracy nationally
- Proportional party representation instead of First Past the Post (FPTP) elections
- Some individual states breaking with the national trend to have either westminster-style democracy in their states, and/or proportional elections locally
- regional administrative zones (the concept here came about from a conversation where we discussed how the US is really too big to effectively pull off some of the social programs so common in Europe, and the idea came up that we set up multi-state admin regions to manage social services like health, education, police, etc.)

Open to other possibilities as well. Just curious what other ideas people might have.

It would require an amendment to allow states to have Westminster-style parliament or proportional, it's unconstitutional the way the US Constitution is written and has been interpreted. The courts would intervene and before about oh... 1880 or so, the Federal govt probably wouldn't consider it to be a "republican form of government" and would trigger the Constitutional requirement that the US govt "guarantee" of such to each state and that state would be slapped down with force to conform, after 1880 the Federal judiciary including SCOTUS would simply say no even today. It's impossible under the US Constitution, you'd have to have a PoD during the Convention not after. Regional administrative zones? Oh, no state would go for that. You'd have to have a PoD where the Dominion of New England wasn't a failure and highly hated would be a start; interstate compacts are tricky and need Congressional approval along with approval of each state (look up the dairy compact).
 
For many of those to come about you need to make your POD much farther back than the ARW, you'd have to have a PoD in one or more of the original colonies and decades before the ARW; and preferably either Virginia or Massachussets as those two states will have the biggest influence on the US federal structure and on "daughter" states (Kentucky was destined to be the same type of structure as Virginia right down to calling themselves a Commonwealth; and Michigan derives their local govt structure from the NY example which was heavily influenced by New England).

It would require an amendment to allow states to have Westminster-style parliament or proportional, it's unconstitutional the way the US Constitution is written and has been interpreted.

Probably accurate, about needing the individual colonies/states having vastly different forms of governance. Variation before the constitution would allow for variation after.

As for proportional government being unconstitutional....I'm not sure where? I could get Westminster-style government being considered "un-republican" and therefore unconstitutional. But proportional elections? The constitution leaves the exact election of the representatives up to the state governments as long as they meat the age/citizenship requirements.
So what would prevent states from not having congressional districts, and instead electing all of their representatives to congress based on state-wide proportional elections?
 
Regional administrative zones? Oh, no state would go for that. You'd have to have a PoD where the Dominion of New England wasn't a failure and highly hated would be a start; interstate compacts are tricky and need Congressional approval along with approval of each state (look up the dairy compact).

I agree, this is definitely likely. This was more of an idea to figure out how to fix a problem as opposed to what is/was most plausible.
 
Probably accurate, about needing the individual colonies/states having vastly different forms of governance. Variation before the constitution would allow for variation after.

As for proportional government being unconstitutional....I'm not sure where? I could get Westminster-style government being considered "un-republican" and therefore unconstitutional. But proportional elections? The constitution leaves the exact election of the representatives up to the state governments as long as they meat the age/citizenship requirements.
So what would prevent states from not having congressional districts, and instead electing all of their representatives to congress based on state-wide proportional elections?

It would violate the Constitutional principle of one man=one vote which applies to every level of government and all houses of each state legislature except the US Senate which is specifically exempted by the Constitution. Since SCOTUS refuses to deal with hypotheticals I can't find a case that shows that proportional elections would violate that principle, but my interpretation and personal opinion steers me to think it would.
 
It would violate the Constitutional principle of one man=one vote which applies to every level of government and all houses of each state legislature except the US Senate which is specifically exempted by the Constitution. Since SCOTUS refuses to deal with hypotheticals I can't find a case that shows that proportional elections would violate that principle, but my interpretation and personal opinion steers me to think it would.

I don't think nationwide proportional representation would be viable (too big). But at the state level I think the argument could have been made then (or for that matter now), that it is fairer than FPTP winner takes all.

And I think you hit a good point, that there is no precedent in the US for it one way or another so it's currently up to conjecture and interpretation.
 
I can think of one butterfly that would be huge: have George Washington run again for President in 1796. If there is no two-term precedent, U.S. history will be very, very different, with power likely concentrating in the hands of the executive much sooner and more dramatically.
 
I can think of one butterfly that would be huge: have George Washington run again for President in 1796. If there is no two-term precedent, U.S. history will be very, very different, with power likely concentrating in the hands of the executive much sooner and more dramatically.

Interesting.

So, I found a proposal written by Thomas Jefferson for the Virginia constitution. It's worth a look. Had Jefferson proposed some of this, and had it gotten into our national constitution, we would have a very different system as well.

http://vagovernmentmatters.org/archive/files/draftvaconstitution1776_0be98353c9.pdf
 
I can think of one butterfly that would be huge: have George Washington run again for President in 1796. If there is no two-term precedent, U.S. history will be very, very different, with power likely concentrating in the hands of the executive much sooner and more dramatically.

Or you have Washington die in 1790 as he almost did in OTL.
 
I can think of one butterfly that would be huge: have George Washington run again for President in 1796. If there is no two-term precedent, U.S. history will be very, very different, with power likely concentrating in the hands of the executive much sooner and more dramatically.

Opposite of that is that Washington had considered doing only one term, Jefferson and Adams both believed that if Washington did not serve a second term that the Union would splinter and fail; even though each saw themselves as the natural successor to be the next president after Washington. So if those two very narcissistic guys didn't think they could pull off keeping the union successful then probably they couldn't at that point! What if Washington gets sick, doesn't run, and we have an election like 1800 in 1792 in which there's a tie or even worse an election like 1824 which certainly would split the Union.

Even if the US doesn't split and is held together, what about a precedent for time as president? Really, only one term? I'm sure some would say it was only because of Washington's age and health. Adams if elected surely tries for two, Jefferson certainly does.
 
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