Preamble We are in the midst of a Gerrymandering war, and it seems to me that the simple solution would be to switch from FPTP to Proportional. Current politicians should want it because they wouldn’t have to survive primaries anymore and be able to keep their seats in the party or be influential in the new party structure. Citizens should want it because it would break apart the 2 party system, make every vote count, and finally make us represented.

The Amendment

Section 1- The legislatures of the several states shall be unicameral and elected therein by a system of proportionality where the number of seats a political party gets in the legislature is equal to the proportional share of the votes. All local councils wherein the total number of residents is greater than or equal to One-Hundred-Thousand, or where the number of elected legislative officials is equal to or greater to Twenty-Five shall also be required to have proportional elections.

Section 2- The election of the House of Representatives in the United States federal government shall no longer have seats be apportioned to each state on account of population, the house will henceforth be starting during the next election be elected via a single vote where eligible voters will vote for a party and the parties will get the total number of seats proportional to the total number of votes received. The total number of seats for the house will be set at One-Thousand.

Section 3- Each of the state legislatures shall hold an election amongst themselves where members of the state legislature who are Thirty years of age or older may put their name in contention for election to the senate, each member of the state legislature will then cast a ballot where they rank each candidate from most to least preferred, if no person wins a majority of first preference votes then the candidate with the least number of first preference votes will be out of the running and the second preference of their votes will be added to the total, so on and so forth until one candidate reaches a majority. In the event of deadlock the Governor of the state will break the tie.

Section 4- Each state shall be required to register every citizen over the age of 18 to vote automatically and shall provide free of charge a voter identification card is identification is required to vote by state law, and no person shall be removed from the voter rolls unless proof of death, change in residency or revocation of citizenship.

  • HubertManne@piefed.socialEnglish
    3·
    4 months ago

    I actually felt the parliamentary system is sorta nice and wish we were a bit more like it. Honestly I wish the executive was a tribunal with an executive for internal, external, and judicial affairs with a body enderpinning each. It would be nice to have this for the senate say and the party has to select people who have won direct elections in the house or a state legislature.

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    4 months ago

    There are lots of things to consider here. I will start with just a few:

    • State governments have their own Sovereignty, apart from the Federal Government. Each State has its own Constitution, and any power in the Federal Constitution not explicitly given to the Federal Government goes to the States (and to the People). So what you are proposing here requires changes at the State level as well. And not every state may sign on.

    • you are definitely on to something by increasing the size of Congress. Congress used to increase every 10 years due to the population increase in the census. Then, roughly 100 years ago, they couldn’t agree on how to increase it and left it static. This has many repercussions : the average district has 760k people in it, which is a huge number. But the largest district is almost 1 million, while the smallest is 542k. So there is a much larger variety in representation that we all think. If Congress had 1000 members, we could split everything up more equitably.

    • Sackeshi@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      4 months ago

      75% of States would have to approve the amendment. Most of the constitutions don’t have the type of election system in them. Switching to only one chamber would be the biggest change but most are redundant

      • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        4 months ago

        No, you don’t get my point. 49 states already have bicameral state legislatures in their own Constitutions (one state is unicameral). So this idea, as written, can’t progress unless those 49 States Constitutions are amended.

        Since the federal government already gave that power to the States, it can’t claw it back without their consent.

        • Sackeshi@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          1·
          4 months ago

          The only part of the constitution that requires unanimous consent to repeal is the US senate, the states give up power to the federal government not the otherway around. There is no functional difference between a unicameral legislature and bicameral legislature that is elected in the same way.

          If the constitution is amended and it goes against a state constitution then the state constitution automatically changes as its inferior to the national constitution.

  • cymbal_king@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    4 months ago

    I could see proportional representation working better at the state level. As in divide up the seats by party from say Texas proportional to the state wide vote. Would work better if the number of seats increased and if we recognized say DC and Puerto Rico as states as well. Primaries are still helpful in proportional systems though, because there still has to be some way to determine the order of who in a party gets a seat.