WI: the US had a semi-presidential system?

Suppose the founding fathers had invented the semi-presidential system, closely emulating the British system, but as a Republic; and the concept of party lists from a single multi-member constituency was made the method of electing parliament as an amendment to the constitution sometime in early 1900s.

As the government stands: parliament is divided into two houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate; as previously stated the House is elected via party lists with the entire country acting as a single multi-member constituency; and the Senate is elected OTL constitution originally had, appointed by the states. The Prime Minister can be from either house, but in practice is almost always from the House; the cabinet works the same way; but the president has a reserve power (which has never been used) to allow him to appoint a Prime Minister contrary to the will of parliament.

The president takes an active role in government; routinely refuses executive assent (vetos) to acts of parliament; and has most of the reserve powers the British monarch has, but is not as tightly bound to the wishes of the cabinet, due to the fact that he is popularly elected and is constitutionally only responsible to the people.

The supreme court is similar, though it is called the Constitutional Court and has been confined to powers solely in the interpretation of the constitution. The Senate has a power similar to the British House of Lords as a court of last resort...

What is politics like today, assuming as few butterflies happened as possible? Who were the American presidents and Prime Ministers? How would having a parliamentary system helped in recent history? How would it have hurt?
 
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Articles of Confederation:
An Alternate United States

POD 1777: The Articles of Confederation are somewhat different, most importantly allowing for amendments if ten out of thirteen states ratified.


1787-88: Agreeing with the proposal by Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, representatives of the thirteen states meet in Philadelphia to draft amendments to the Articles that would correct the most grievous of governmental problems.

The proposals are ratified by ten of the states with the following effects:
The President is elected by the Congress in a four-round process, serves for a three year term and can serve twice consecutively, and is given constitutional executive authorities to enforce Congressional acts upon the States through the appointment of Executive offices.
The Congress gets the power of taxation and moderate authority over domestic and foreign commerce, and a few other powers.
A Supreme Court is created along with an efficiently structured federal court system

alt-historical events irrelevant to this thread... ;)


1842: Another Constitutional Convention is called in response to widespread dissatisfaction with the non-representative United States Congress. The amendments to the Articles of Confederation virtually recreate the whole government system, but are accepted by 3/4 of the states.

The amendments enact the following changes:
Presidential terms are extended to six years, but consecutive terms are not allowed.
A new legislative body is created entitled the Popular Assembly; it consists of single-seat constituencies apportioned among the states and proportional seats equaling one half the number of constituencies. Political parties are apportioned based on their overall performance; a threshold of five constituency seats or five percent of party seats is established and elections for the whole body are held every three years.
The old congress is renamed the Senate; its members are all elected for single-consecutive six-year terms, staggered so that half of the Senate is up for election every three years; Senators are elected through preference voting by the voting population of the individual states...



This was my take on a similar idea for a different [better] evolution of the election system in the US. I think that with either yours or mine, you would see as a common occurrence three or four major parties following different strands of American political ideology: Classical Liberalism, Radical Liberalism, and [later] Social Liberalism, with the occasional appearance of a vaguely regionalist or implicitly racist minor party. One thing to consider is whether or not the "Imperial Presidency" and the overly independent Intelligence agencies would evolve if there was a more effective democracy in play.
 
My thought was that you would get five major parties (using their OTL names here):

Constitution ('Far-Right')
Republicans ('Centre Right')
Libertarians (Libertarian)
Democrats ('Centre Left')
Green ('Far left')

My thought is a situation similar to the UK, two huge parties, and a single (though actually relevant) third party. The GOP and DNC are the only ones who can possibly form a government without help; though in practice they need to court their more extreme counter part on their own side of the isle for a coalition. The Libertarians are the only ones with room to float, though they don't really have much (due to the whole leftists opposing the free market thing.).

In practice, you have two groups, which at any given time form the Government or opposition: Constitution-Republican-Libertarian and Democratic-Green. Smaller parties really don't matter, though even the Communists and weird Nazi groups will get a single seat sometimes; but it really won't mess up parliament being based around those five.
 

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My thought was that you would get five major parties (using their OTL names here):

Constitution ('Far-Right')
Republicans ('Centre Right')
Libertarians (Libertarian)
Democrats ('Centre Left')
Green ('Far left')

My thought is a situation similar to the UK, two huge parties, and a single (though actually relevant) third party. The GOP and DNC are the only ones who can possibly form a government without help; though in practice they need to court their more extreme counter part on their own side of the isle for a coalition. The Libertarians are the only ones with room to float, though they don't really have much (due to the whole leftists opposing the free market thing.).


In practice, you have two groups, which at any given time form the Government or opposition: Constitution-Republican-Libertarian and Democratic-Green. Smaller parties really don't matter, though even the Communists and weird Nazi groups will get a single seat sometimes; but it really won't mess up parliament being based around those five.

No Progressives????
 
Yes, but you'd need a quite late POD to get the Democratic Party to be as Social Liberal they are today.

I did specify that I was using their OTL names... Constitution might have a name like 'Nationalist' or something like that; and the Democrats might have a name like 'Progressives' or 'Social Democracy'; really the only party I am certain would still have its OTL name is Libertarians.
 
What is a "Progressive"?

I really hate that term, btw. It prejudges the argument.

Eh, today it does. Mostly because liberal activists adopted the term "progressive" to mean "social democratic" because their previous use of "liberal" to mean "social democratic" had been hammered by the Republicans and the activists apparently didn't care that much to reclaim "liberal".

In historical terms a "progressive" is more or less a good government liberal-ish populist that went with the Republicans because the Democratic Party was Southern/racist (particularly once Wilson was President).

(Of course, in the broader sweep of progressive history it's far more complex, but the above will suffice for this thread.)
 
Can someone explain in lay terms how the House would work? I don't understand how the elections would go.
 

Basically the whole country is a Congressional District At-Large.

At the polls, the list to choose from are the names of parties instead of candidates. The percentage of votes the party gets, say 50% for the Republicans, is 50% of the number of seats the house has. So, if there are 100 seats in the House, then the Republicans have 50 seats.
 
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