WI: Parites in a US with PR?

The title really says it all. What if the United States adopts/adopted proportional representation? What type of political parties do we see spring up? Obviously the two-party system falls apart almost over night, as there's no longer any reason for big-tent politics.

How does this come about, when, and why? Who supports it, and who is against it?

What parties do we see continue on, and which ones come back from the grave? The Democratic and Republican parties fracture, but does a party (or parties) continue on using their name/legacy?

This is a cross-post with Future History.
 
Both parties would try to hold on, but the Republicans, at least, would go under. The Democrats would probably be more successful since Americans have an allergy to things with 'socialist' in the name.
If the Presidential electoral system weren't reformed, there would still likely be two major parties, though with lots of little ones in Congress.
My guesses as to the represented parties, if elections were this year:
Left Default Coalition:
Democratic Party (middle class liberals)
American Worker's Party (labor union types)
Liberals (civil libertarians, intellectuals)
Green Party (self explanatory)

Right Default Coalition:
Conservative Party (fiscal responsibility types)
Tea Party List (tea-partyers)
Constitution Party (christian identity folks)
Libertarian Party (self-explanatory)
American National Party (neocons and such)

The right-wing parties win a majority of seats, but are unable to form a government because of their differences. A grand coalition administration is formed, and congress still can't get anything done.
 
It really depends on when it's introduced. If we're talking about, say, tomorrow, you probably get something like this:

- Republican Party (Social Conservatism)
- Democratic Party (Neoliberalism)
- Progressive Party (Social Democracy)
- Green Party (Green politics)
- Socialist Party (Democratic Socialism)

The Republicans become the default conservative party and probably drift back towards the center, at least on economic issues, to become more of a Christian Democratic party, while the left of the Democratic Party splits from the party to found a 'Progressive Party', causing the DLC Democrats to reorient the party towards social liberalism and fiscal conservatism. The left-wing break down will really be on the degree of leftism perceived as needed, with the Progressives replacing the Democrats as the nation's second party and the Democrats allying themselves with the Republicans on fiscal issues.

Party coalitions would be interesting. I expect the Republicans to hold on to the church going types and expand their influence on rural America, while possibly making inroads into other demographic areas if it becomes more of a Christian Democratic party. The Democrats will probably take the Republicans' wealthy voter base as well as the socially liberal upper middle class, and dominate in very wealthy regions of the country.

The Progressives will become the default center-left party, taking it's support from union members and low-wage workers in general. The Greens will probably be the party of the upper middle class left, and have strong support in some (mostly urban) areas, while the Socialists can be seen as the bonafide, actual Socialist types who would probably only win big in New York City, Madison, Seattle, etc.
 
Unless PR is somehow introduced into the presidential election process it isn't going to change squat.

What you're all failing to understand is that PR works in systems where the votes of fringe parties actually matter; i.e. where the legislature either directly elects the government's chief executive or the biggest legislative coalition appoints the government's chief executive.

A PR balkanized Congress would pretty much look like the two "big tent" party Congress we have now. Democrats and Republicans routinely "cross the aisle" to cast votes on bills in variance with their party chiefs. That might be a little more pandering for specific votes, although that already happens more than the casual observers would like to think. There are GOP members and Democrat members who are completely at odds with their supposed leadership, but who get continually re-elected almost solely due to local concerns. Tell me, how is that actually any different from PR?

If a few Greens ask for too much from the Dems for a vote on a certain bill, are they really going to vote with the GOP? And if the Greens are asking for too much, what will stop the Dems from canvassing another fringe group? And if the Greens can't produce the "pork" those voting for them expect, how long are they going to stay in office.

Sooner or later, the fringe parties will either be voted out of office because they accomplish nothing or devolve into "automatic" votes for either of the "real" parties much like the Congressional Black Caucus.
 
You cannot elect a single official by PR. You can however use instant run off, or even an ordinary run off to ensure said official has support of 50% of voters. Either option allows smaller parties to put up candidates in the first stage
 
Unless PR is somehow introduced into the presidential election process it isn't going to change squat.

What you're all failing to understand is that PR works in systems where the votes of fringe parties actually matter; i.e. where the legislature either directly elects the government's chief executive or the biggest legislative coalition appoints the government's chief executive.

A PR balkanized Congress would pretty much look like the two "big tent" party Congress we have now. Democrats and Republicans routinely "cross the aisle" to cast votes on bills in variance with their party chiefs. That might be a little more pandering for specific votes, although that already happens more than the casual observers would like to think. There are GOP members and Democrat members who are completely at odds with their supposed leadership, but who get continually re-elected almost solely due to local concerns. Tell me, how is that actually any different from PR?

If a few Greens ask for too much from the Dems for a vote on a certain bill, are they really going to vote with the GOP? And if the Greens are asking for too much, what will stop the Dems from canvassing another fringe group? And if the Greens can't produce the "pork" those voting for them expect, how long are they going to stay in office.

Sooner or later, the fringe parties will either be voted out of office because they accomplish nothing or devolve into "automatic" votes for either of the "real" parties much like the Congressional Black Caucus.

Actually, changing to PR would change things quit a bit. Legally, no, not when it comes to Presidential elections. However, politically it would have massive consequences. Bear in mind that Presidential campaigns get a veritable s--- ton of cash from their party for the election. If there are more parties, and each of them are smaller, than there's simply going to be less money for Presidential candidates to throw around. This will have a de facto affect of forcing candidates to run more on their merits, and will hopefully produce a higher level of presidential candidate in the United States.
 
Both parties would try to hold on, but the Republicans, at least, would go under. The Democrats would probably be more successful since Americans have an allergy to things with 'socialist' in the name.

Eh? The Republicans are generally more united than the Democrats, though there could be a fissure in libertarians from the social conservatives and could see the North Eastern RINO's joining just the 'blue dogs' would feel driven from the proper Democrat Party. Definitely agree that nothing outright 'socialist' would ever get popular here, but the Greens could siphon off a small amount of the most extreme economic and social left base.

Right Coalition:

Republican (Reagan-style fiscal conservative, socially moderate - Gingrich, etc)
Tea Party (Social conservative and economic conservative - Palin, etc)
Libertarian (Economic conservative and social liberal - Ron Paul, etc)
Main Street Partners (aka NE RINO. Economic moderate and social liberal - Snowe, etc)



Left Coalition:


Democrats: DLC types like the Clintons. Economic moderates and social liberal
Progressive: Economic and social liberals like Pelosi, etc.
Blue Dog (Economic moderate and social conservative - you'd think they were endagered)
Ethnic Caucus: economic and social liberal. Congressional Black Caucus and some of the Latino

A grand coalition administration is formed, and congress still can't get anything done.

You say that like it's a bad thing. :p Especially with one party rule, they unfortunately get TOO MUCH done. The best results happen with one party controlling Congress and the other the White House (Reagan with Democrat Congresses in the 80s, Clinton with Republican Congresses in the 90s), since that's the only check on a President from controlling his party, even when it's at variance with the party's normal tendencies (Bush in 2000s).

Best way to make smaller parties more relevant (if not encouraging their splitting instead of the 'big tent' approach) is to repeal the 12th Amendment. Winner is President, 2nd place is VP. The money for POTUS candidates comes largely from their party, as wolf_brother points out... I really like the idea of in addition to repeal of the 12th, to giving the VP a permanent vote in the Senate (rather than just the rare tie-breaker) for his term and he would almost always be in political opposition to the POTUS...
 
What sort of nonsense is this proportional representation? I think we'll just stick with majority voting, thank you very much. I don't think this proportional thing would catch on here, since Americans have a long standing tradition of voting for the individual (or at least pretending to). Could you imagine how much more would not get done in that other Washington, if each Congressional district send a proportional delegation instead of one Rep? And what happens to the Presidency? Or Congress is one of these coalitions fall apart? Are they just going to try and have a new election, and not even on an election year? Instead of forming coalitions to pass laws, why not just put the bill together then put it up to a vote. If a majority of the legislature approves it, then it passes, if not, then it doesn't.Bah! Too much thinking about politics before I go to work... now I'm going to be grumpy all day.
 

cumbria

Banned
I would think if the House of Representatives was elected by PR it would most likely have 5 parties elected to it.

Democratic party
Republican party
Green party
Libertarian party
Constitution party.
 
What sort of nonsense is this proportional representation? I think we'll just stick with majority voting, thank you very much. I don't think this proportional thing would catch on here, since Americans have a long standing tradition of voting for the individual (or at least pretending to). Could you imagine how much more would not get done in that other Washington, if each Congressional district send a proportional delegation instead of one Rep? And what happens to the Presidency? Or Congress is one of these coalitions fall apart? Are they just going to try and have a new election, and not even on an election year? Instead of forming coalitions to pass laws, why not just put the bill together then put it up to a vote. If a majority of the legislature approves it, then it passes, if not, then it doesn't.Bah! Too much thinking about politics before I go to work... now I'm going to be grumpy all day.

Under STV you do vote for individuals rather than parties but fairness betwen parties and other groups can be achieved
 

Teleology

Banned
As on the other thread, I thought that third party wise it would go into something like this:

The Tea Party becoming a lean mean small government, libertarian, plutocratic machine by ditching the ultra-nationalists/ultra-fundamentalists/ultra-nativists, who would then go to the Right Party

And on the Left, the Greens getting overrun with New Party/Progressive/Naderite/Left Democrat types

And the Communist Party of the USA getting overrun by every radical denomination in the country and getting a name change and a face lift (suggestions for a new name?)
 
I don't think you guys are realizing how limited Proportional Representation would be in the U.S. political system, without changes to the constitution.

President - obviously couldn't be elected via proportional representation. The best you could hope for was Instant Runoff Voting. In theory, this should allow more options, but it would probably take a few decades for someone besides a Democrat or a Republican to win.

Senate - I believe there is some clause within the constitution which effectively prohibits senators from being elected via proportional representation. It doesn't matter practically though, because with staggered six-year terms, you run into the same problem as the president - you can't have PR with only one open position being voted on.

House - The house could be elected by PR without an amendment, as nothing but statute passed in the 50s bars it. But there are a few hoops to jump through. First, even if the law was never passed, or was repealed, it would be up to each state individually to abolish congressional districts and have representatives elected at large. Even if all states did so, it wouldn't matter in most places due to the federal structure of the U.S. States with only one rep (AK, DE, MT, ND, SD, VT & WY), would behave just the same as now (indeed, it would be better in those cases to have IRV). In states with two reps (HI, ID, ME, NH, and RI) the end result would almost always be one Republican and one Democrat. Initially, I think only really big states, like CA, NY, and TX would really be guaranteed to send some third-party reps to congress.

Essentially, the Republicans and Democrats would remain the largest parties, due to their continued dominance of the presidency and the Senate. minor parties would be involved in the House, but we'd be lucky to see them clear 50 seats. Actually, the effective system would be sort of similar to Canada or Britain, a "two-and-some-change" party system.

Actually, there is one way things could get much more interesting. Given PR would have to be done by state, it would make sense for both major and third parties to operate similar to the Canadian provincial parties, which only have tenuous connections with one another. What I mean is, since the Republicans for example will be running a party list in both New York and Texas, for example, it makes sense to have different platforms in both states, in order to cater to local voters as closely as possible. Over a few decades, this could drift so that the New York and Texas Congressional Republican parties are very different ideologically, with a governing majority eventually formed including one but not the other. Interestingly, this would probably take U.S. politics, at least in the House, back closer to what the founders wanted, with people more identifying with their state than a national political movement.
 
Following up, I was bored, so cracked out a spreadsheet to see how PR would work in the U.S.

First, I took a look at the latest information on ideology by state. I used it to create a simple model, where in each state there was a Conservative, Moderate, and Liberal party. The end result, correcting for rounding errors, was:

173 Conservatives
166 Moderates
96 Liberals.

A lot of odd results came out of this due to vote thresholds however. For example, virtually all states with three congressmen would have on as a liberal, even in conservative states like Utah, as it was a smaller step to round up the "Liberal" vote to one than the "Conservative" vote to two. I also wasn't pleased because ideological self-identification isn't the best measure of voting patterns - more conservatives always vote for Democrats, for example, than liberals vote for Republican - up to a third of African-Americans, for example, identify as conservative despite they clearly don't have conservative voting patterns.

So I worked out a more complex model, with a five-party system. The parties draw as follows:

Democrats - Center-left - 25% of liberals, 35% of moderates, 15% of conservatives.
Republicans - Center-right - 5% of liberals, 30% of moderates, 30% of conservatives.
Progressives - Left - 60% of liberals, 15% of moderates, 5% of conservatives.
Constitution - Right - 0% of liberals, 5% of moderates, 35% of conservatives.
Libertarian - 10% of liberals, 15% of moderates, 15% of conservatives.

Running the numbers across the many states, I came up with the following congressional apportionment:

109 Democrats
111 Republicans
93 Progressives
68 Constitution
54 Libertarians

Assuming this is a quasi-parliamentarian system, the Republicans will get the first shot at forming a government. With the Constitution party and the Libertarians, they can form a coalition of the right, with 233 seats. Alternately, they could form a bare coalition of the center with the Democrats, or form a broader, neoliberal coalition by bringing in the Libertarians as well.
 
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I don't think you guys are realizing how limited Proportional Representation would be in the U.S. political system, without changes to the constitution.

President - obviously couldn't be elected via proportional representation. The best you could hope for was Instant Runoff Voting. In theory, this should allow more options, but it would probably take a few decades for someone besides a Democrat or a Republican to win.

Senate - I believe there is some clause within the constitution which effectively prohibits senators from being elected via proportional representation. It doesn't matter practically though, because with staggered six-year terms, you run into the same problem as the president - you can't have PR with only one open position being voted on.

House - The house could be elected by PR without an amendment, as nothing but statute passed in the 50s bars it. But there are a few hoops to jump through. First, even if the law was never passed, or was repealed, it would be up to each state individually to abolish congressional districts and have representatives elected at large. Even if all states did so, it wouldn't matter in most places due to the federal structure of the U.S. States with only one rep (AK, DE, MT, ND, SD, VT & WY), would behave just the same as now (indeed, it would be better in those cases to have IRV). In states with two reps (HI, ID, ME, NH, and RI) the end result would almost always be one Republican and one Democrat. Initially, I think only really big states, like CA, NY, and TX would really be guaranteed to send some third-party reps to congress.

Essentially, the Republicans and Democrats would remain the largest parties, due to their continued dominance of the presidency and the Senate. minor parties would be involved in the House, but we'd be lucky to see them clear 50 seats. Actually, the effective system would be sort of similar to Canada or Britain, a "two-and-some-change" party system.

Actually, there is one way things could get much more interesting. Given PR would have to be done by state, it would make sense for both major and third parties to operate similar to the Canadian provincial parties, which only have tenuous connections with one another. What I mean is, since the Republicans for example will be running a party list in both New York and Texas, for example, it makes sense to have different platforms in both states, in order to cater to local voters as closely as possible. Over a few decades, this could drift so that the New York and Texas Congressional Republican parties are very different ideologically, with a governing majority eventually formed including one but not the other. Interestingly, this would probably take U.S. politics, at least in the House, back closer to what the founders wanted, with people more identifying with their state than a national political movement.

Mostly agree but differ on a few specifics.

First, while I agree the changes wouldn't be quite so dramatic, a "two-and-some-change" party system would probably make third parties *slightly* more viable for the presidency. Sure, 9 times out of 10, one of the two major parties would win, but when the occasional major third-party bid occurs - as they do even under the present system - they might have a firmer base and more credible candidates.

Second, I think you're mistaking the Canadian party system. There are separate provincial and federal parties, which are loosely-associated but legally separate. However, only the federal parties contest federal elections, with state-based parties limited to state politics. That means that people of the same party running for the federal parliament ARE in the same party.

If the U.S. system were similar, what this would mean would be that New York State Republicans wouldn't necessarily be affiliated with the National Republicans, so how this would work in practice would be that someone who served as a Republican governor in New York might actually cross-register and run for the Senate as a Democrat. If New York DID send a (National) Republican to Congress, however, they WOULD caucus with the Texas Republicans.
 
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