On 11/29/2012 09:02 PM, Raph Frank wrote:
On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 9:16 PM, Kristofer Munsterhjelm
However, if you need supermajority support for decisions, then you have to
have something to put in place when the supermajority support isn't there.
One option is to select 2 PMs. That is what they do in Northern Ireland.
The cabinet is decided by the d'Hondt method (so proportional) and
there is 1 PM (actually first minister) from each community.
So, the vote would work something like
- vote for PM (including cabinet) combination
-- if a candidate gets 60%, he is appointed PM, finish
- Round 2
-- Anyone with more than 1/3 of the vote gets nominated as joint PM
-- Keep voting until 2 get 1/3 or more
-- If that fails, then if 1 gets 1/3, he can take office, as half a PM
(maybe have previous PM as other one)
-- Each PM appoints half of the office
--- The PM who got the most votes has to option to go first or second
--- Each picks a department alternatively
-- Department of finance might be different
You could have more departments than cabinet positions. Each PM gets
to appoint half the seats to anyone he likes, and then can assign any
departments he picked any way he likes.
The more departments, the more even the balance of power between the 2 PMs.
You could also split them based on the relative support of the 2 PMs,
but that would mean constant adjustment as support goes up an down.
Each PM would require 1/3 support to stay in office (voting for both
would count as 1/2 a vote each)
It might also be required that both submit their cabinet member
choices and if either can't get 1/3 support, they are considered to
have lost confidence.
I see. That's a third option, then: you distill, to use such a term, the
lines of disagreement or representation blocs into the executive, so
that the executive has to find consensus rather than having to wait on
the legislature to do so.
That might work in combination with the idea of Simmons. You could have
a vote where you ask the members of the assembly for their favorite as
well as their consensus choice. If the consensus candidate gets more
than the threshold (say 60%), he gets the task of appointing the other
ministers, otherwise some PR method is used to elect a small number
(perhaps only two) "joint PMs".
That sounds better than having a PM chosen by random ballot when the
consensus choice fails; but the PR method would have to be probabilistic
to be strategy-proof, I think.
So a supermajority requirement upon forming the government and a minority
for a vote of no confidence would be a recipe for instability (and probably
rule by the bureaucracy).
I was thinking 50% to form after an election and 60% to vote no confidence.
Yes. I'm just saying that 60% to form and <=50% for no confidence would
definitely not work.
Another option is that if no government is formed by 60%, the old one
stays in power and a new election is automatically triggered within 30
days.
After that election, if nobody has 60%, then 50% is sufficient, but
maybe if that happens the term is reduced by 50%.
No matter how the government is picked, 60% would be required to
replace it with a different one.
That would provide an incentive for the slight majority to hold out for
an election, so that they can reaffirm their slight majority and then
get through on a 50%. I do see the point, though, because a very slight
majority couldn't be sure they would stay a majority after the election.
1/3: new election
2/3: Each legislator nominates a candidate and then a random
legislator is picked and his choice wins[*]
[*] could use something like IRV to eliminate very small options (say< 20%)
Perhaps something like multistage Hay voting (
http://www.panix.com/~tehom/essays/hay-extended.html ) could be used to
remove clones while keeping the method strategy-proof, also.
The mathematics is a little too tough for me, so I don't know if one
could remove very small options in multistage Hay without upsetting the
resistance to strategy.
The problem with requiring 60% to take down the government, means you
have to swing 20% of the house to cause a collapse. That is a shift
of power to the executive.
And secondarily, to the faction that managed to get their government
through, yes. In more general terms: a 60% barrier to no-confidence
favors the status quo because the status quo can survive on less (40%)
than any of the alternatives.
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