A proposal to fix California’s Government - Part 3

The Assembly:
Most of the power of the State government would reside in the Assembly. We can keep it at the current number of members (80) to start. The members would not have single member districts but rather would be elected on a proportional basis. That means if the Democrats receive 54% of the popular vote in the election, they would have 54% of the seats. This would increase the power of the political party because it is only through a political party can a person be elected. The party will decide and disclose in a list who the members of the Assembly would be.

How does that work??? Example. Before the election, each party (Libertarian in this example), would list 80 people who are running for the Assembly. Lets say they receive 10% of the vote so would be entitled to seat 8 members in the Assembly. On their list, people 1 – 8 would be elected to the Assembly while 9 – 80 would not be. So we, the voters would know who we are voting for. The party will decide who will run for their slate of candidates and which position they would be listed in. So, the most senior party members would be in position 1, 2, 3 etc. Every party that receives at least 7.5% of the popular vote would have people elected to the Assembly. The part that has the most votes or can form a coalition of over 50% of the members of the Assembly, would form the government. The leader of the largest party would be Governor and all the other offices would be allocated according to how they see fit.

Why would this bring more accountability to the government? Well, look at our current situation, everybody is mad at the Governor and the Assembly isn’t thought of too highly as a whole, but people still like their individual Assembly person. So when they run for re-election next year, most of them will be re-elected and we will still have the same problems in Sacramento. However, if we had a proportional system of Government, then its easier to vote the rascals out and put in a new party who can try something.

In our current situation, the Greens, Libertarians, Republican’s etc. would be hammering the Democrats over the state budget (or lack there of) and in the next election, the voters would be more likely to vote for ANYBODY other then the Democrats so they would suffer and a new group would take power. As it is now, because of the way the districts are drawn, the next election will not change the Assembly too much.

This would also force the parties to come up with specific and identifiable policies they can sell to the voters and so giving the voters reasons to vote for them. Voting for a 3rd party would no longer be a waste and people would feel their vote will count more.

The next main objection is this system of Government would lead to more instability, where small parties would hold the balance of power like in Israel. In Israel the small religious parties that want to turn the country into a Jewish theocracy are often brought into the ruling coalition to gain 50% of their parliament. But Israel’s problem of the micro parties can be avoided because in this model each party must receive 7.5% of the vote before they receive any seats. In Israel the rule is 1%.

In addition to the objection above, is the charge it would be easier for the Nazi or Communist parties to gain power. Well my answer to that is if they can get enough people to vote for them, they should be allowed into the Assembly and all the citizens can see what they want to do. The shock of some extreme party getting in might also help convince the voters their vote does matter so they have a vested interest in the government and they need to vote.