I long for gridlock. Wish there was a lot more of it. Seem the only time the branches of gov. can agree is when their taking our right or our money.

All the people that collect social security, or are employed by the federal government, or rely on PEL grants and FASFA to go to college, would certainly not appreciate gridlock.

Is this even a feature of supermajorities? The condition of gridlock is no different with a simple majority if the participants are sufficiently evenly divided.

This kind of gridlock is a feature of too small a sample size making decisions, which is in effect a feature of our representative democracy.

Supermajorities don’t create gridlock they just empower the minority.

Comment #1 was not very inclusive, was it? Eh, we all have our moments I guess.

Or more concisely, you’re way less likely to have gridlock when the deciding vote doesn’t know it’s going to be the deciding vote in advance and is only one vote among thousands or millions of others.

You don’t see gridlock in popular initiatives, but they’re a regular feature of representative legislatures.

Supermajorities don’t create gridlock they just empower the minority.

I agree with that, but the net effect is “super-powering” the minority indeed creates gridlock.

Supermajorities don’t create gridlock they just empower the minority.
I’m not sure what you mean. Can you expand on that, please?

“making politics safe for moderates”? Barf.

Only in so far as simple-majorities create gridlock. You’re no less gridlocked stuck at 50/50 in a simple-majority requirement than you are stuck at 66/34 in a super-majority (or whatever the breakdown).

I like to believe that a key piece of the true liberal mindset is consideration of others when taking a stand on an issue, or forming an opinion.

the conditions are different if you have 101 people and you force them to choose A or B one of them most get a majority, but it is possible neither would get a super majority.

I feel the same, and think that representative democracy is the main problem in this country. We need an enforcement mechanism that forces those representatives to vote the will of their constituents, not their “conscience” or “the party line”.

We need to add a Senator! And do away with the Super-majority requirements wherever they apply. I agree with your general point that a simple majority should be sufficient in a democracy.

I would have thought that California’s repetitive gridlock over funding ordinary state programs, brought about by its 2/3 vote requirement to impose tax increases, would have made making your point moot. That gridlock has caused the quality of all state services to plummet. Obviously, nothing appeals to punditry like ignorance.

My wife was attending a community college on state BOG waivers when the CA gov got really stupid about a year and a half ago. It was all they could do to keep the damn school open. And money for books? Forget about it.

The Vice President is in effect the 101 senator voting on to break ties

This is still just a statement of empowering the minority. Neither has to get a super-majority, they only have to get a suitable minority to express their position on the intent to block the motion.

This is no different than the simple-majority. You just give the minority less power.

That you set the number at 101 is an argument in favor of requiring that the number of people voting not be evenly divisible by the majority requirements, so that there can be nothing that results in an outright tie.

That’s what the VP is for. The problem in the Senate is that procedural rules have been allowed to have different requirements (unanimous consent, filibuster, etc.) than what are required for passage. The rules should be uniform throughout.

They empower a unified vocal minority to block initiatives sought by a majority, but not a 2/3 majority, of legislators. That’s gridlock, an inability to obtain reasonable and customary financial resources, which lead to the inability to manage state government.

It also imposes gridlock on the passing of any legislation, regardless of how necessary or beneficial, particularly when the minority regards the majority as inherently illegitimate and is willing to block everything so as to prevent it from appearing to function well or adequately. Absent an adversarial press, that can look like ordinary politics, not ruthlessly partisan, sadistic and destructive behavior.

Baby, bathwater, toss, unless you’re wealthy enough to pay cash for all your wants and therefore don’t need state services.

Yes. Buuut, eliminating the super-majority and adding a single senator (representing DC, maybe?) would be a better solution, IMO.

But really, let’s get to the root of the matter; we have an un-democratic system. We have a System of the Republic.

A truly Democratic system would be unicameral, with 1 rep per say 250k voters, and no super-majority requirements for law making. If districts were “naturally” drawn, so to say [no gerrymandering], then all of the sudden the Country would act much much bluer, and much more fairly and progressively.

Lots of places have mechanisms like this. Recalls, referenda, etc. The problem is we have none of these accountability or citizen input mechanisms at that national level.

That ruination is happening across the board, in medical services, unemployment, local schools, California’s once vaunted UC system, policing dangerous behavior by big Ag, policing local water quality, you name it.

The only thing that seems immune, thanks to the feds, is more money and toys for local law enforcement, which is encouraged, encouraged, to participate in fusion centers, in fed-local partnerships, and in trying out new toys. One of them is sound detectors and related s/w that monitors city sounds for things like gunshots, and can triangulate their location. Thousands of cameras are, of course, de rigueur. Another, of course, is access to detailed digital histories on “persons of interest”, which might help the police with their inquiries.

Indeed.

There are a variety of mathematical models for divvying up geographic regions within the borders of each state to evenly distribute the population.

If we’re content to maintain a professional legislature, then doing that should be the bare minimum we require.

They’re just preparing for the inevitable.

You’d think that Arabic was their native language.

Naughty naughty! There is an interesting feature of Arabic grammar; counting and numbers.

Nouns are singular, dual, then plural. In other words it takes more than 2 to be truly plural. Verbs work the same way in terms of “person.” There is a certain exquisiteness to that way of thinking.

This is going to put a serious damper on my riding a bike through town firing live rounds into the night air and screaming lines from “Dude Where’s My Car?” at the top of my lungs.

The “Shot-spotter”, IIRC, is being used in Union City, right next door to my little city. Not a lick of worth to the system. People tend to flee the scene after they shoot someone, so it’s not an effective tool.

It might be interesting if progressives would introduce legislation to require a super-majority to CUT taxes.

We’ll all be hoping for gridlock if the asshole in the WH wins in 2012 with big R majorities in the Senate and House.

Nothing will be safe — including Pell grants.

the first vote in each new Congress would test the majority party’s ability to create the bipartisan coalitions that are integral to effective government.

So William Galston of the Brookings Institution and Elaine Kamarck of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government care more about harnessing the warm-and-fuzzy feeling of the word “bipartisan” than in thinking through how to make our government work better in practice.

Whatever the cause, the problem we have today is that one side – the insider, corporatist side – of the political spectrum wins all the political fights whether they’re in the minority or the majority.

Adding more super majority requirements won’t fix the cause of the problem, but would only make our government less able to get anything done.

Right. Only math imbeciles support super-majority requirements which basically destroys a government ability to function in a changing world (like this (US) despicable shithole nation of morons). If one loves this sack of shit the way it is as it circles the drain, then obviously they are for 100% super-majority requirements (aka do nothing).

Of course, super-majority requirements can and have been made to work when you have a despicable lying Kabuki Party like the DemoRats, because they always “cave” for the “greater good”, wink wink.

When you have a ineffective country with a worthless Crapstitution made unchangable by very high supermajority requirements, then eventually the country will crash and the worthless government will have to be overthrown.

Geographically defined “winner take all” representation with virtually guaranteed terms is (no accountablity, in my opinion, completely unacceptable. Yet what is the chance anything signficant will change within the system with the current high super-majority requirements?

…bipartisan coalitions that are integral to effective government.

What the fuck planet are these people on?

I thought you might like this way of phrasing the problem with the Senate, “The Senate is Constitutionally Gerrymandered.”

Oh good Lord. The Senate already has a tie-breaker vote (the Vice President). So no laws have to be changed, simply a matter of adjusting Senate rules, which can be done by majority vote. What you’re suggesting would require a constitutional amendment… which requires (speaking of supermajorities), two-thirds of both House and Senate to approve and then ratification by 3/4ths of the states.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with super-majority requirements (unless they’re not applied consistently like in CA). They’re just a statement on how much consensus you think should be required to make changes.

There’s nothing divinely rational or effective about simple-majorities.

Duh, of course supermajority requirements result in gridlock. That’s why they were thought of to begin with. Imagine the House and Senate requiring merely a simple majority for impeachment. Don’t know how many more impeachments there would have been in our history but can safely say there would’ve been more, and not less (or the same).

Our founders required supermajorities for that precisely because it results in more gridlock.

Commen sense applies. If you’re legislature has 200 votes to take in a session just to maintain the govt, such as confirming positions, passing annual spending bills, etc, the higher the supermajority requirement, the more gridlock you’ll get. If the requirement we a simple majority, maybe you’d get all 200 of those things done. If it was a 60% requirement, then maybe you’d get 150 of those things done. If it was a 70% requirement, then maybe you’d half of them done. And if you made the supermajority requirement 100%, then good luck getting anything done.

Supermajority not only equals gridlock, the level of supermajority requirement equals the level of gridlock you can expect.

…bipartisan coalitions that are integral to effective government.

What the fuck planet are these people on?

That’s just code for a system in which the oligarchs get to screw the people again and again and again with impunity.

Supermajority not only equals gridlock, the level of supermajority requirement equals the level of gridlock you can expect.

And the level of destruction of progressive programs and goals that can be expected to ensue.

Yes. At this point, nothing signals that a so-called wonk is not truly a progressive than his/her support for super majorities. These people are fucking idiots and need to be called out as either fatally dumb or sinfully duplicitous.

Its my opinion that the whole United States Government structure sucks. The idiotic “separation of powers” dogma and supermajority requirements just promotes unworkable gridlock that has been so far not caused collapse only due to luck and the lying Democratic Kabuki party. The gridlock is the prime force in causing the current downward path of the United States empire and see the gridlock as much more problematic than any “boogy-man” argument FOR the gridlock. I would get rid of the Presidency, Senate and the (dictators for life) Supreme Court. Basically a parlimentary system (with no supermajority requirements, duh!) Also the Constitution should be rewritten every 20 years or so, and not this insane never changing joke written by drunken clowns in the 18th century.

Oh good lord.

These people are fucking idiots and need to be called out as either fatally dumb or sinfully duplicitous.

This assertion applies equally well to Obama.

Some say he’s dumb, failing to understand how to get the things done that he promised to do.

Others say he’s duplicitous, succeeding in getting done exactly the shit he’s really wanted to get done all along.

Either way, he’s toast come 2012.

Coming late here and haven’t read all the comments, but…

All the people that collect social security, or are employed by the federal government, or rely on PEL grants and FASFA to go to college, would certainly not appreciate gridlock.

I think it depends on how you define gridlock. Gridlock in terms of being able to stop some of the more draconian laws and proposals of the fascist class? I’m all for that.

Gridlock in terms of not being able to keep the government running? Not good.

That’s the idjits in the sandbox. They haven’t learned anything yet, including how to play nicely with each other.

Definitely agree with that. Ain’t a-gonna happen, but agree on the principle of it.

Separation of powers is a good idea, as long as each branch is willing to do its job of keeping watch on the idiocies of the other branches.
Unfortunately, the legislative and judicial branches have decided they don’t need to actually work, they can just trust the executive branch to handle everything….

Lots of places have mechanisms like this. Recalls, referenda, etc. The problem is we have none of these accountability or citizen input mechanisms at that national level.

Boy, ain’t that the truth! Although I read someplace that there is legal theory (not yet court tested IIRC) that says some state constitutions appear to allow the recall of Congresscritters and Senators. IIRC, it has to do with wording about “all elected officials” without an expression limitation to state level or lower officials. Would love to see that tested! Can I nominated DiFi?

These people are fucking idiots and need to be called out as either fatally dumb or sinfully duplicitous.

There’s a nice symmetry to those two options. But what about “both”? Can I pick “Both”?

Requiring a super-majority for passage of legislation isn’t always a bad thing, as you well know. Only a handful of politicians, including Dennis Kucinich, bothered to read the USA PATRIOT Act. Had there been actual, rigorous debate, this police state bill that violates so many Constitutional amendments might not have passed.

Jon, is this simply a back door argument for getting rid of the filibuster? If so, then you’re wasting your breath because it’s not going anywhere.

Hey Jon, remember this entry?

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/01/20/if-you-run-on-republican-obstructionism-you-will-lose

Republicans never had 59 Senate seats, and that did not stop them from passing the legislation they wanted. Trying to explain to the American people how, despite controlling everything, Democrats cannot do anything, because a mean minority of 41 Republican senators won’t let them, is a message that will go over like a lead balloon. If you try to use that excuse, people will think elected Democrats are liars, wimps, idiots, or an ineffectual combination of all three.

So if the Republicans were able to pass almost everything they wanted without a filibuster-proof majority, then why is it the Democrats can’t, and why should we believe that the filibuster is some huge impediment to getting things done when you acknowledged that it hasn’t been for the GOP?