Midterm elections are a major problem with American democracy

[SonOfDaedalus]

Every 4 years we have a major presidential election. This is always such a major event that it encourages many people to go out and vote. The winning presidential candidate also helps Congressional and Senate candidates to get elected. Obama won and had a Senate and House majority. Turmp won and had a Senate and House majority.

Then two years later we have some midterm elections. The party that lost the presidential election is usually more motivated to vote in the midterms because they're unhappy about the results of the presidential election. Then the president loses one chamber and can't get anything passed.

This is a dumb system. Why can't Congressional and Senate terms be 4 years and elections happen every 4 years? Congressional terms are way too short at just 2 years. It means they spend all their time campaigning.

We have a system designed for gridlock.

 

[jamesrage]

Every 4 years we have a major presidential election. This is always such a major event that it encourages many people to go out and vote. The winning presidential candidate also helps Congressional and Senate candidates to get elected. Obama won and had a Senate and House majority. Turmp won and had a Senate and House majority.

Then two years later we have some midterm elections. The party that lost the presidential election is usually more motivated to vote in the midterms because they're unhappy about the results of the presidential election. Then the president loses one chamber and can't get anything passed.

This is a dumb system. Why can't Congressional and Senate terms be 4 years and elections happen every 4 years? Congressional terms are way too short at just 2 years. It means they spend all their time campaigning.

We have a system designed for gridlock.

Our founders made it that way on purpose. Its to slow down any chance of something dramatic happening to our democratic republic.

 

[Chillfolks]

I kind of agree but would structure terms different. President is 6 years only one term. Senate is 4 years maximum of 2 terms. House 3 years maximum of 2 terms. No one person can serve in federally elected office for more than 16 years.

 

[AtlantaAdonis]

One simple fix...mandatory and free online voting.

 

[trouble13]

Every 4 years we have a major presidential election. This is always such a major event that it encourages many people to go out and vote. The winning presidential candidate also helps Congressional and Senate candidates to get elected. Obama won and had a Senate and House majority. Turmp won and had a Senate and House majority.

Then two years later we have some midterm elections. The party that lost the presidential election is usually more motivated to vote in the midterms because they're unhappy about the results of the presidential election. Then the president loses one chamber and can't get anything passed.

This is a dumb system. Why can't Congressional and Senate terms be 4 years and elections happen every 4 years? Congressional terms are way too short at just 2 years. It means they spend all their time campaigning.

We have a system designed for gridlock.

Thats exactly what the founders wanted was gridlock. They didnt want the country moving to far to fast. Theres pros and cons to it but mske no mistake it is the way that it is by design.

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[trouble13]

One simple fix...mandatory and free online voting.

If it van be done securely i would support online voting but i dont think we are there yet.

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[Carjosse]

Our founders made it that way on purpose. Its to slow down any chance of something dramatic happening to our democratic republic.

Certainly effective governance is more important than some half measure to control the pace of change?

 

[aociswundumho]

We have a system designed for gridlock.

Great! I wish the gridlock was perpetual.

 

[trouble13]

I kind of agree but would structure terms different. President is 6 years only one term. Senate is 4 years maximum of 2 terms. House 3 years maximum of 2 terms. No one person can serve in federally elected office for more than 16 years.

Term limits would not fix the problem. The reality is the politicisns are mostly figure heads who are controlled by the policy wonks in the background telling them how to vote. Term limits will change the faces but not the problem.

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[jamesrage]

One simple fix...mandatory and free online voting.

We already have people who are ignorant when it comes to politics voting. We don't need to force more politically ignorant people to vote. Also voting is a right.A right implies you are not forced to do it if you don't want to just like you are not forced to join a church or protest nor are you forced to buy a gun.

 

[AtlantaAdonis]

We already have people who are ignorant when it comes to politics voting. We don't need to force more politically ignorant people to vote. Also voting is a right.A right implies you are not forced to do it if you don't want to just like you are not forced to join a church or protest nor are you forced to buy a gun.

Why am I not surprised that a wrong-winger thinks fewer people voting is a good thing.

 

[Linc]

I kind of agree but would structure terms different. President is 6 years only one term. Senate is 4 years maximum of 2 terms. House 3 years maximum of 2 terms. No one person can serve in federally elected office for more than 16 years.

I agree with a lot of what you say. I like the alternating one-term for governor in your state, and would extend it to a single 6-year potus term. They can’t be worried with the next election at this time in history.

I like the 3-year term for the House, but would keep the Senate at 6 years. You then have a perfect denominator of 6. If you play out Federal elections for 12 years, we currently have 6 elections. With the House up every 3 years, and the potus and Senate up every 6 years, we’d only have four.

This of course excludes the state elections on both odd years right now, including your two state delegations this year, along with your governor in 2021. We need to condense on the federal level with the times. Otherwise, we’ll continue to get nothing done.

18 years seems to be a good number for either the House or Senate. I would allow them to do both for a total of 36 years. If they’re good, we need them. Alternating terms would have to be discussed. With the way things are now, I doubt very seriously whether we would have approved our Constitution.

 

[OrphanSlug]

Every 4 years we have a major presidential election. This is always such a major event that it encourages many people to go out and vote. The winning presidential candidate also helps Congressional and Senate candidates to get elected. Obama won and had a Senate and House majority. Turmp won and had a Senate and House majority.

Then two years later we have some midterm elections. The party that lost the presidential election is usually more motivated to vote in the midterms because they're unhappy about the results of the presidential election. Then the president loses one chamber and can't get anything passed.

This is a dumb system. Why can't Congressional and Senate terms be 4 years and elections happen every 4 years? Congressional terms are way too short at just 2 years. It means they spend all their time campaigning.

We have a system designed for gridlock.

I understand the sentiment behind the argument, but that is not really what is happening.

The issue at hand is each Congress is a 2 year term by design, lines up with House Representatives serving a 2 year term up to reelection every even year but Senators are staggered so that only roughly a third of them are up for reelection with each passing Congress. You call it gridlock, but the intention was means and balance with the onus being on our legislative branch to face the voter after each term of Congress (even if most in the Senate get to stay.)

Ultimately no one wanted tyranny of the majority, but that is your argument anyway.

Even though it could be argued well that our two party dominant political system ends up with gridlock anyway (as defined by split power no matter if President vs. Congress, or House vs. Senate, or worse in some cases) you are literally arguing for that majority to have a free pass upped to 4 years of shielding from the voter having the opportunity to change things. If already gridlocked, leave them there longer. Did you think about this at all? Throwing midterm headaches to 4 year universal terms does not end what you claim it will.

Worse, you are also arguing for political aristocracy as the intentions by your plan are to secure just enough Congressional seats and hold the Presidency to do whatever you feel for a longer term by marginalization of who you politically oppose for a longer period.

To top it all off your basis for all this is saying "unhappy about the results" means targeting the voter as to tell them they mean less and should have less input into their own representation. You are admitting the voter could be unhappy with the results but turn around an restrict that voter not caring at all about why the voter may be unhappy.

"You are unhappy, who cares... government should be able to continue longer anyway" is your argument.

BTW, you just by default lost any and all future arguments about voter's rights in any context.

 

[Harshaw]

Certainly effective governance is more important than some half measure to control the pace of change?

It's not a "half-measure"; it's a carefully-designed system, and keeping the pace of change slow is precisely the point. It is an effective bulwark against tyranny and mob rule.

It's not a hindrance to "effective governance."

 

[Chillfolks]

Why am I not surprised that a wrong-winger thinks fewer people voting is a good thing.

People should be allowed to choose not to vote if they don't want to. The same way people can choose not to exercise their free speech rights or decide they don't want to own a firearm.

Personally I would like to see more people exercise their rights, but recognize their freedom not to.

 

[Carjosse]

It's not a "half-measure"; it's a carefully-designed system, and keeping the pace of change slow is precisely the point. It is an effective bulwark against tyranny and mob rule.

It's not a hindrance to "effective governance."

I would call the inability of a government to pass legislation a failure to effectively govern.

 

[SonOfDaedalus]

Thats exactly what the founders wanted was gridlock. They didnt want the country moving to far to fast. Theres pros and cons to it but mske no mistake it is the way that it is by design.

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They didn't want gridlock. They thought people would vote in midterms but the reality is they don't.

Gridlock is how Germany ended up with Hitler. At some point people get tired for dysfunctional democracy and are willing to accept an effective autocrat instead.

 

[SonOfDaedalus]

I kind of agree but would structure terms different. President is 6 years only one term. Senate is 4 years maximum of 2 terms. House 3 years maximum of 2 terms. No one person can serve in federally elected office for more than 16 years.

I don't like term limits. Clinton should have had a chance at winning a third term. The same is true of Obama.

Obama had to leave because of term limits and then we were forced to choose the lesser of two evils in Hillary and Trump.

 

[Harshaw]

I would call the inability of a government to pass legislation a failure to effectively govern.

It's perfectly able to pass legislation. It's just less able to do so too quickly and without deliberation. Legislation passed through consensus and compromise, which is the point, is likely to be better legislation than that which simply sails through unimpeded.

 

[AmNat]

Our founders made it that way on purpose. Its to slow down any chance of something dramatic happening to our democratic republic.

That's a noble goal. The problem is that *someone* always has to make decisions, and if elected leaders are unable to, unelected (and unaccountable) bureaucrats and judges will.

 

[Carjosse]

It's perfectly able to pass legislation. It's just less able to do so too quickly and without deliberation. Legislation passed through consensus and compromise, which is the point, is likely to be better legislation than that which simply sails through unimpeded.

It is a failure in the Westminster system for a reason. If a government cannot pass important legislation clearly that government has lost the confidence of their ability to govern.

 

[AmNat]

At some point people get tired for dysfunctional democracy and are willing to accept an effective autocrat instead.

Democracies inevitably become dysfunctional because they have perverse incentive structures. It only works as long as the moral foundations of society are strong enough to resist bad incentives. But moral foundations are like runflat tires, they can only carry on for so long before they fall apart.

 

[Chillfolks]

I don't like term limits. Clinton should have had a chance at winning a third term. The same is true of Obama.

Obama had to leave because of term limits and then we were forced to choose the lesser of two evils in Hillary and Trump.

You just pointed to two reasons why term limits are a good thing IMO. It wasn't term limits that forced us to choose between dumb and dumb, there were 16 other Republicans and 4 or 5 Democrats to choose from.

I also support a national primary day when all states get to vote on the nomination allowing more and better choices to choose from.

 

[SonOfDaedalus]

I understand the sentiment behind the argument, but that is not really what is happening.

The issue at hand is each Congress is a 2 year term by design, lines up with House Representatives serving a 2 year term up to reelection every even year but Senators are staggered so that only roughly a third of them are up for reelection with each passing Congress. You call it gridlock, but the intention was means and balance with the onus being on our legislative branch to face the voter after each term of Congress (even if most in the Senate get to stay.)

Ultimately no one wanted tyranny of the majority, but that is your argument anyway.

Even though it could be argued well that our two party dominant political system ends up with gridlock anyway (as defined by split power no matter if President vs. Congress, or House vs. Senate, or worse in some cases) you are literally arguing for that majority to have a free pass upped to 4 years of shielding from the voter having the opportunity to change things. If already gridlocked, leave them there longer. Did you think about this at all? Throwing midterm headaches to 4 year universal terms does not end what you claim it will.

Worse, you are also arguing for political aristocracy as the intentions by your plan are to secure just enough Congressional seats and hold the Presidency to do whatever you feel for a longer term by marginalization of who you politically oppose for a longer period.

To top it all off your basis for all this is saying "unhappy about the results" means targeting the voter as to tell them they mean less and should have less input into their own representation. You are admitting the voter could be unhappy with the results but turn around an restrict that voter not caring at all about why the voter may be unhappy.

"You are unhappy, who cares... government should be able to continue longer anyway" is your argument.

BTW, you just by default lost any and all future arguments about voter's rights in any context.

The midterm turnout is not the same as the turnout we have for presidential elections. The lower turnout at midterms means the election results don't truly represent the will of the people.

You're right that this means that it takes 4 years before voters can voice an opinion. But that could be addressed with recall elections. And governments officials are forced to resign all the time due to protests.

It doesn't make sense to have elected officials who are in office only because of low voter turnout. Moreover, the current situation is an ineffective government. Our system doesn't work.

 

[OrphanSlug]

The midterm turnout is not the same as the turnout we have for presidential elections. The lower turnout at midterms means the election results don't truly represent the will of the people.

You're right that this means that it takes 4 years before voters can voice an opinion. But that could be addressed with recall elections. And governments officials are forced to resign all the time due to protests.

It doesn't make sense to have elected officials who are in office only because of low voter turnout. Moreover, the current situation is an ineffective government. Our system doesn't work.

Now you are determining that the midterm turn out means their voice, and will to participate more, somehow means less.

You cannot force voter turn out even if your argument is to force voter marginalization.

Again, all you are arguing for is further removal of the voter just because they tend to get upset with the results from the last term of Congress.