Challenge: Parliamentary government in a US state

Technically it could happen. A US state is allowed to set up any form of government that it wants so long as it is "a Republican Form of Government" (Article 4, Section 4, Clause 1 of the US Constitution). In OTL, these governments have all been virtually the same: a governor with a bicameral legislature (Nebraska is the odd duck with a unicameral legislature). No state has ever wanted to do anything radical, so they basically set up state governments that mirror the federal government. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is with a POD after the Constitution was ratified, make at least one US state adopt a parliamentary form of government.
 
Well, their have been times before some other things were tried, including PR, but the Dem-Reps basically destroyed it in the courts because it threatened their dominance.
 
Pennsylvania did not have a governor before 1790.

How were early state governors elected? Directly or by legislature?

How plausible would it be for a State of US to adopt a constitution where the Governor is not only elected by legislature, but can be replaced by legislature at any time?
 
I hate to be a sucker for my own state, but Rhode Island could easily fit the bill, with some tweaks. The reason for that is that "parliamentary language" - the language more conducive to a Parliamentary government - was never really removed from the State Constitution, which was descended from the old Royal Charter. So it could work. However, the problem with Rhode Island's implementation was that if you tried applying separation of powers to it (which the current Governor has tried), things can get pretty messy - other than the fact that the current system is as much of a pork/corruption-filled machine as one can get. Still, it could work.

Now, for me, I would prefer to improve on it to make it really work, virtually all of this post-POD. So what could happen is the following:

*Within the General Assembly, over time, the House gains more power than the Senate - that is relatively easy since the trend is pretty much in that direction anyway in OTL
*The Governor becomes an essentially ceremonial figure, though he does wield lots of power
*In the 19th century, during those periods when there was a backlash against corruption (which there would be a lot of them due to butterflies), Rhode Island manages to implement several steps, one by one, to make things more "clean" - i.e. turning the state's Electoral College designation into a de facto electoral commission and an independent electoral boundary commission is set up, the invention of the constructive vote of no confidence and the secret ballot, total abolition of the counties, earlier universal suffrage, and other steps like that.

These steps, and others, would turn Rhode Island into a semi-presidential parliamentary "republic" within the Union, as a mix of both Westminster and (West) German models, and hence fulfill the OP. All whilst essentially retaining FPTP at first (indeed, in the case of Rhode Island, if the electoral boundaries are drawn right, then FPTP would result in de facto PR :D). Maybe someone could try going for AV+ (which is essentially mixed-member majoritarian, or MMM) later on, but that's a different story.
 
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How were early state governors elected? Directly or by legislature?

Probably depends on the state.

How plausible would it be for a State of US to adopt a constitution where the Governor is not only elected by legislature, but can be replaced by legislature at any time?

You can have a parliamentary democracy where the Head of State is popularly-elected (indirect or not) instead of being elected by a legislature.
 
You can have a parliamentary democracy where the Head of State is popularly-elected (indirect or not) instead of being elected by a legislature.

Or indeed a parliamentary democracy where the Head of State is unelected and hereditary.

But what tends to make a government parliamentary is the ability of legislature to elect and remove the head of effective government.
 
Most early state constitutions (those written as a result of independence) had a governor elected from the legislature.
 
Or indeed a parliamentary democracy where the Head of State is unelected and hereditary.

But what tends to make a government parliamentary is the ability of legislature to elect and remove the head of effective government.

That is actually different from Head of State, which is more or less a ceremonial position. ;)

The Head of State would be the Governor. In a parliamentary system - unless we are going OTL post-1994 South Africa's route - the two positions of Head of State and Head of Government are kept separate. The majority party in the lower chamber of Parliament effectively forms the government - hence, in Rhode Island's case, the onus would be on the House Majority Leader (who is the Head of Government and which could be boosted to a near-PM-esque position) and less so the Governor (though a semi-presidential system could change things a bit).
 
Pennsylvania did not have a governor before 1790.

How were early state governors elected? Directly or by legislature?

How plausible would it be for a State of US to adopt a constitution where the Governor is not only elected by legislature, but can be replaced by legislature at any time?

Not only did we have no governor, we had a unicameral state legislature elected by a universal tax-payer's vote (if you paid taxes, you had a vote, no matter race or creed -- women were the only ones to lose out here).

I didn't end up working out that well.
 
New York City used PR for it's council for a few years, as did a number of other major cities. But the idea was ditched once Communists started getting elected. I'm not sure about states, though.

Cambridge, Massachusetts, still uses STV for City Council elections. :cool:
 
It's Massachusetts. They're all Communists.

You should really get with the times. [/sarcasm]

Actually, I've learned recently that MA isn't so crazy lefty as people think of it. It's not the San Fran of the East coast, rather what leftism it does have (big welfare state, basically) stems from the same old Puritanism that MA has always been run by.

On almost every other issue, you can find a reason for MA's proclivity in Puritan culture.
 
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