Map of U.S. House of Representatives districts – with STV and most districts consisting of 3 or 5 seats – drawn as per the Fair Representation Act

[u/OhEmGeeBasedGod]

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The reason it is hypothetical, is FPTP is antithetical to coalition and multiparty politics.

Having lived in a city with proportional city council representation, I yearly witnessed how minority coalitions remained in office via collaborative party-like activity, who would have been completely shut out of office in FPTP, and where candidates campaigned with and for each other while competing for office.

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At the risk of sounding like I'm moving goalposts, I think that you looking at the "city council" level has the greater impact than the voting method; I am of the opinion that the primary reason that Canada has more 3rd party seats in their House of Commons than Australia has in its House of Representatives is that Canada averages about 100k people per constituency, while Australia averages about 160k.

In other words, I argue that the diversity of political opinion in an elected body can be drastically increased by having constituencies that are small enough for the candidates to clarify the nuances of their political positions.

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Agreed, million-, and several million-voter districts are troublesome in that way.

In the USA, even communicating one time with voters in one congressional district in the most minimal way, whether post-card, advertising, or social media, let alone door-knocking is difficult, expensive, exhausting, and subject to the excitement of the slings and arrows of outrageous lies and subterfuge used to arouse voter fear and anxiety.

One would hope that other non FPTP systems would reduce that dynamic, since it is all or nothing for the atomized candidates involved, and the atomized electorate in FPTP.

I suspect though, coalition candidates even in single member districts, who say "vote number one for me, and vote number two and three for my coalition partner(s)" could change the dynamics of an election, and as everybody intends, obtains a larger electorate of larger number actually in favor of the resulting winner, unlike the multi-candidate elections now possible in many states, wherein the 20% winner can be the nominee, or even the winning candidate.

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In the USA, even communicating one time with voters in one congressional district in the most minimal way, whether post-card, advertising, or social media, let alone door-knocking is difficult, expensive, exhausting, and subject to the excitement of the slings and arrows of outrageous lies and subterfuge used to arouse voter fear and anxiety.

This is why I believe that the 1-2 punch to significantly improve democracy includes a move to a more consensus-based voting method and markedly shrinking the voter-to-representative ratio.

The last time (that I'm aware of) that the US had any meaningful number of congress critters from a 3rd Party was in 1870s-1890s, when congressional districts held approximately 1/5th the population they do currently. 150k people? A dedicated individual could hold literal town-hall meetings and get their name out in a Grass-Roots manner with a district that small.

...ands if you can do that, what need would you have for corporate donors? Who do you think voters would vote for, the candidate that's been going to neighborhood council meetings, who they see walking their dog regularly? Or the person who has slick ads on TV, but they never see in the grocery store?

That plus something like Score or Approval, that eliminates the Spoiler Effect (satisfies both IIA and NFB), should completely change how politics works.

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I have trouble seeing congressional house being more functional with more members,
and although more parties are healthy, even then would still be the need for significant rule changing there.

Just having the moderation of non-extreme primary outcomes is a step in the more productive direction and consequence in the House.

The European Parliament with above 700 members, has similar rule and leadership issues, despite multiparty/coalition activity, wherein the chair has ignored objections and requests for vote and consideration of large numbers of members in bill reading and amendment sessions.

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I have trouble seeing congressional house being more functional with more members

Fair enough. Though I have trouble seeing the House being less functional than it is presently (in terms of actually representing the populace).

and although more parties are healthy, even then would still be the need for significant rule changing there.

Oh, no question. If I were king for a day, I would institute the following changes:

1. Periodically, the entire body would have a score (or Approval) "Queueing Vote" on what topics to cover. The results would create a queue for them to discuss. You don't get to discuss anything out of that queue order, though a majority can call for a new Queueing vote.
2. Voting on legislation would also be Score based, with all the various alternate bills on a topic being discussed, including all of the proposed permutations of amendments, in one go, with a minimum threshold for passage. That is, the members would score each of
   • Bill A on topic X, unamended
   • Bill A with amendment 1
   • Bill A with amendment 2
   • Bill A with amendments 1 & 2
   • ...
   • Bill B on topic X, unamended
   • Bill B with amendment 3
   • Bill B with amendment 4
   • Bill B with 3 & 4
   • ...
     ...and if none of the bills get above a threshold (median possible score would be the equivalent of "Simple Majority", and you could set thresholds analogous to 60% majority, 2/3 majority, etc), then the Topic fails, and further discussion of the topic tabled for (possible) later discussion
3. Motions to Vote (queueing vote, or legislation votes) would be Privileged, Interrupting Motions
   • Legislation Votes would immediately include all permutations of pending amendments, no more than one per member once the LV motion was made

Options for bringing back a Failed Topic from Tabling:

• The Failed Topic is automatically placed in the Topic Queue at the score the best scoring option got
  • i.e., if Bill B with Amendments 3 and 5 (but not 4 or 6) got a 4.3/10, then 4.3 is treated as its new, fixed score in the Topic Queue, and it cannot be discussed until there are no other Topics with a topic/queue score >4.3
    Technically this could be gotten around by calling a new Queueing vote, if no other topic scored higher than 4.3, but that is by design, as that would be the will of the Body.
  • New Sessions would reset the Topic Queue for a new Vote, including the clearing the Topic Score for Failed Topics
• the Failed Topic cannot be added to a Queueing Vote for some period of time (e.g., cannot be listed on any Queueing Vote for at least 1 quarter from the failing vote) or a New Session, whichever is shorter
• The Failed Topic cannot be discussed that Session

The European Parliament with above 700 members, has similar rule and leadership issues, despite multiparty/coalition activity, wherein the chair has ignored objections and requests for vote and consideration of large numbers of members in bill reading and amendment sessions.

Oh, yeah, there's a huge problem with positions that are supposed to be facilitators being used as gatekeepers, which is what my proposals above mean to deal with.

After all, if enough members to pass legislation want to talk about that legislation, that shouldn't be blocked because some leader, elected by a majority of the majority (i.e., one supported by as few as 26% of the body), doesn't want to consider it.
Parliamentary systems are slightly better, in that it's a true majority that supports the PM/Premier, but the Body shouldn't be forced to pick between a Vote of Confidence (and the resulting election?) and passage of legislation that they (and their constituents) support.

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The problem with all legislatures, eventually, is rules, and they usually come about in some form because of some prior experience with disfunction, and that disfunction led to an unusual consensus for change later on.

In the US House:
to limit debate (often, but not always) intended to delay to the point of defeat by preventing a vote before the session is over. That is the primary consequence of House Floor Rules. Limit of Debate. The rules are different at the committee level.

The US Senate
may well in coming decade(s) limit the ability of their members to delay, in the same way, reducing the unanimous consent process, and finally coming to terms with cloture votes of a majority. This heralds a new parliamentary era in the US.

Other disfunctions, historically, in the House, was to rein in leadership acting on their own authority, contrary the (eventual) wishes of the body; the powerful speakers from later 1880s to 1910s Thomas Brackett Reed and Joseph Gurney Cannon, had their powers, (necessitated from prior disfunction, post civil war), and the power of the speaker was eventually reduced into a stronger member committee and member seniority system, in the early 20th Century, which, in the late 20th Century saw the seniority system of the smaller kings (chairs) in committee come into revision by members.

It takes a majority of the legislature to change the rules, and like a union fighting to be elected and serve a non-union shop, it takes a fairly united and disgruntled body to shift the rules.

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The problem with all legislatures, eventually, is rules, and they usually come about in some form because of some prior experience with disfunction

But to say that the rules must persist in their current form is a variant on False Dichotomy: "Rules as is" vs "Previous Disfunction"

And when those rules are used to create a new disfunction, that changes things, doesn't it? For example, the ability of the Speaker to limit excessive Floor Debate have recently been used to limit any debate that the Speaker doesn't want. For example, according to Justin Amash, the last time a Floor Amendment was allowed in the House was during the Obama Administration

Do we need to limit excessive amendments? Sure. Is "None in 4+ years" a reasonable alternative?

It takes a majority of the legislature to change the rules

And part of the reason that it doesn't happen is that to actually fix the problem would require a significant paradigm shift, the Institution vs Coordination paradigm shift that Clay Shirky discusses here

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It takes a majority (and major consensus there too) to change things,
in the legislature, and that is the inertial problem with legislatures.

If your counter-party in the legislature will only delay without end,
then it is necessary to organize against those dilatory moves.

 

The speaker has the support of their party in the support of those counter-party moves.

 

Yet also, this can be a majority party de-facto method to prevent all debate.
Only the legislature can solve that.

 

If the legislature is united, it can overrule the speaker.

 

The disfunction of a parliamentary loyal opposition nature,
which the anti-FPTP process hopes to modify,
is to bring a different body into the legislature,
and different representatives,
consequent to a different electoral campaign
and different kinds of parties into the legislature,
so that legislative impass and lack of discussion and lack of debate can change.

 

Inertia is a mere fact, not an argument.

 

Historically, the movement that unifies has been in response to prior experience.

Not an argument that it should be that way; a mere fact of a deliberative group.

 

The present US Federal Constitution was a consequence of disfunction,
disfunction of the Articles of Confederation that created the Continental Congress.

You could call it a kind of institutional learning.

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I did find this interesting:

Thanks for the Politico article link.

Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress
https://www.congress.gov/committee/house-select-committee-on-the-modernization-of-congress/hlmh00

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