The U.S. Government - How Does it Work?

^ well one reason would be that by refusing to even bring it up for a vote the Senate can effectively steal seats on the Supreme Court the way they did to Obama. But I don't think they should get through automatically, either. Just think of the clowns Trump would have appointed if that were the case.

Requiring Senate approval for judicial appointees isn't the problem. The problem is that Senate procedural rules give far too much power to the Senate Majority Leader in terms of controlling what does and does not come up for a vote, and Mitch McConnell is very, very good at abusing that power.

I do think the idea of nominating 1 judge to the Supreme Court per X amount of time (2 years or whatever) has some merit, though you'd still have cases of people dying or retiring before the end of their terms, and so some Presidents would get to make more appointments than others.

Neither the President nor the Senate should have any part in choosing Supreme Court justices, that goes against the separation of powers which is so vital to democracy. Lawyers in other Western democracies find it weird that the US talks about liberal and conservative justices, they should be impartial, that's the point of them. Judges shouldn't be elected either.

I agree with the 18 year terms. I think there should be 13 justices in the Supreme Court, one for each of the federal circuits. The Senate should still have to confirm the judges, but the seat has to be filled within two months of it being vacated, so if a party decides to obstruct in the Senate, the president could get around the Senate and one party wouldn't be able to hold everything up.

excellent. thanks!

There is no requirement in the Constitution that the electors are elected by popular vote. The electors are elected as directed by the state legislatures. South Carolina did not allow popular elections for the electoral college until 1868 (i.e., after its government was forcibly removed by the Civil War.

so what? Since when is winning the popular vote, but not getting a majority of all votes, not grounds for saying that you won the popular vote but lost the election? Why would you even think that that was relevant? Donald Trump lost the election by nearly 3 million votes. So what if Gary Johnson was running? He didn't get a single electoral vote. Republicans have only won the popular vote once since 1990, and this is the only reason why they've been trying to convince everyone that it's important to keep it in place.

Very well written tbolt. Thank you!

Making sure that states with lower population still matter to the election process was a good thing, but there's also a good argument to be made that the pendulum has swung too far in that direction. When you calculate the ratio of voters to electoral votes in each state, voters in some of those more rural states have FAR more voting power than people in more populated states, and that's not fair either. "Tyranny of the majority" can indeed be a problem, but "tyranny of the minority" is not the correct solution.

@tbolt what would be the problem with deciding presidential elections by popular vote, given that everyone in the country is voting on the same thing? Why should states, whether they are California, New York or Illinois, or Wyoming, Alaska or North Dakota, get a say or get involved at all? Surely it should just be the electors.

tbolt yeah that's the BS conservative media have programmed you to recite when anyone brings this up. Good job. We have moved past the notion that we are a union of different independent states with competing interests. We are one nation of 300+ million citizens, not a collection of states. There's no good reason why someone voting in Wyoming should have more than 3 1/2 x more voting power than someone voting in New York or California.

I understand the numerous advantages of representative democracy. People can vote for representatives to make more complex decisions that most people don't care about for them. The presidential election is not a complex decision that most people don't care about. If the whole country is literally voting on the same one issue, and the majority vote in one way, and what they voted for doesn't get passed, it really raises the question of what the point of the separate election was.

tbolt: if I called you what you are I would immediately get censored. I doubt this reply will even stay up. But whatever. My level of expectations for moderation on this site is through the floor right now.

But, meteorologicalwolverine, although what you say may be true, is that necessarily that important a dimension of the election system (electoral college vs popular vote) to articulate?

I'm not saying I disagree with The Electoral College being the decision-maker, but there HAVE been times when the candidate who wins the *PLURALITY* of the popular vote by no small margin still failed to win the Electoral College. That is not an unimportant distinction.

kalbahamut, (1 of 3 posts) I have to chime in with many of the others in this sub-thread. I have historically been as Democrat-voting as it gets and have historically favored the Democratic party's platform hook-line-and-sinker. I'm a gay man who has been in a relationship with a Muslim from India and immigrated to Canada to keep the relationship legal (this was before Same-Sex marriage gained nationwide legal acceptance). So in addition to my issues on sexuality and aligning with those who might not be white, American, or Christian, I also have Socialist sympathies and have seen first-hand how that works well in Canada and how we could stand to learn from it in this country. I support a woman's right to choose, etc.

BUT although Republicans might have come out ahead in the popular vote only 1 time since 1990, they have still won only 3 of 8 of the Presidential elections since then. Also...

Kalbahamut (post 2 of 3), Also, the biggest division in this country along voting lines isn't so much regional or age-based, it's URBAN vs RURAL. If the popular vote ALWAYS decided things, Urban voters would pretty much always win, especially in a strict two-party system. If one were to support that, then one would also not support the concept of "Limited Democracy", which *certainly* is something that people on the Left should hold dear, especially considering the composition of the Democratic party, as opposed to the Republican party.

People who live in Rural areas might actually understand things that those who live in Urban areas actually don't, generally speaking. They are more likely to be connected to the Earth and perhaps even more conservation-minded and more knowledgeable about wildlife and agriculture.

More...

Kalbahamut, (post 3 of 3)

Hopefully this is my last response.

Believe me, the system needs fixing. And Covid is happening because there is so much wrong with the system. So many people don't get it.

BUT this country could ALWAYS be worse and could ALWAYS have been worse.

Again, I'm not thrilled with the way a lot of things are, but as I've gotten older, I've come to a sort of understanding that this country's REAL history still hasn't really been told. There is something to be said for this country, the USA, being an *EXPERIMENT*. The way I see it, it is an experiment that still has yet to really be borne unto its fruition. When that happens...a lot of people's opinions may change.

Will it happen in my lifetime? (I am 47). I honestly don't know. But I kind of get the feeling that we will start to get more clarity on just what the experiment is about within my lifetime - in the next 10 or 20 years.

We really just might see a much more united country within that time.

kapulani3, since I just tried to balance things out with kabulhamut, I will try to do so with you.

Yeah, I've heard California is nuts these days. Its population only grows because of immigration from other countries. Otherwise, its population is a net loss to other states and would probably be net loss without immigration because of a lower birth rate because of the loss of many middle-class emigres.

However, your whole contrasting Socialism vs Free is rather simplistic. I'm a dual citizen (born and raised in the USA, yet immigrated to Canada for where I lived for 5 years), and honestly, there's a lot that many Americans have to learn.

They pay only about half as much per capita for health care and still live slightly longer with comparable rates of disease survival. Their crime is FAR lower, especially violent crime, because their class gap isn't as wide. Their numbers have gotten more like ours (falling) as a result of increased economic integration with us post-NAFTA.

kapulani3,

If you really want to educate yourself on this matter, try looking at the statistics. They're pretty obvious, unless you are allergic to United Nations Data. Also try talking to actual Canadians - not just ones that are in your same social circles or professional interests, and not just so many of the "Snowbirds" in Southern and Central Florida ("Snowbird" is actually a pejorative term to a number of year-round Canadians). And not all "Snowbirds" are the same, either.

I am all for Americans' right to choose whatever system they (we) want. But I also think that Americans' choices should be informed ones, and I can tell you from personal experience that this is definitely often not the case.

The electoral college, to an outsider, seems insane in this day and age.

It's not surprising that those who rely on it as their only way of winning power in the absence of being able to convince a majority of US citizens to vote for them see it as wise and fair and necessary though...

But why do you get special points for being rural though? Who cares? Our system should be majority rules and minority rights. Rural people are already overrepresented in the Senate. When Trump was in office, the Senate and the Executive--and, as a consequence, the Judiciary, based on Trump's picks--were *all* controlled by people elected by a minority of voters. This is totally idiotic. It has nothing to do with liberal vs. conservative. That is a supremely dumb system, and the majority of us who voted in opposition had to live with and will continue to have to live with the consequences. Citing "the founders" is no kind of argument. A system is good or it isn't. The Electoral College, in the 21st century, makes absolutely no sense.

So are you saying that all the urban people should be able to control everything that happens in the rural parts of the country because they have the majority of population? Yes, I can see where you might not think any of your tax dollars should be given to the needs of Podunk, America, to all us hick rubes. However, if your desires came to pass I don't believe any money would ever find its way to rural areas. You would always take the money for your own infrastructure, business needs, etc. Why not, you ask? Because it is only in the areas of low population that your food can be grown, raw goods such as wood and metals ca be provided, and most of the energy is produced. If you continually choke those regions of the money for their needs, eventually it will come back and harm you. How many of you would vote for representatives who run on a pledge to maintain a strong farming, mining, or timber business in another state? Those of us in rural communities already have to fight...

for every dollar we get. We have poorer health care and broadband is a joke. My urban daughters talk about download speeds of 200 or 400 while mine is 3. So why should you care? Because we hick farmers have to produce and market in the same world as you. For example, we need daily access to market information, production forecasts, weather, all sorts of information to make our yearly planting decisions. If enough of us get it wrong, some of you in the cities might not have enough food, and that's a mistake that cannot be corrected until the next year. Another example, if the rural areas had little representation, and there was a shortage of water in the cities, their reps might be willing to pass laws to divert water used to irrigate crops, in favor of direct use to residents. (These might be oversimplifications, but I hope you understand how complicated it might be if it was always majority population ruling.) Having three branches...

...of government always gives one extra chance that the needs of the few won't be completely trampled on by those who have no idea what those needs are, or simply don't care as long as they get everything they want for themselves. Our founding fathers believed that government served best when laws were changed slowly and deliberately. The House of Representatives balances the vote among population - California has 53 representatives, while states like Wyoming have one, and they serve for two years and thus move legislation more quickly. There are two senators from each state who serve 6 years and move leg. more slowly. We have one president elected every four years who can issue exec. orders daily. The electoral college means that every prez candidate must speak to the entire nation, rather than just the population centers. If we do away with it, what's next? The Senate? Why not eliminate all national borders and move to rule by world population? Hmm, who would then be in charge?

Congress can give an Authorization for Use of Military Force without making an official declaration of war. For all practical purposes it seems to be a purely semantic distinction, but that's how it is that the US military is perpetually fighting all over the globe despite Congress not officially declaring war in well over half a century. This all comes from the War Powers Resolution of 1973, if you want to look into it a little further.

less free to discriminate, restrict, and disenfranchise. That's typically what "states rights" advocates have always wanted the freedom to do.

Hear, hear. So few people understand the concept of "Limited Democracy", much less actually use that term in conversation.

Nice.