[SSJPython]

There needs to be public funding of elections. That would go a long way.

If we really want reform, the system should be changed from a first-past-the-post presidential system to a parliamentary system with party-list proportional representation. Neither system is perfect, but the latter captures a wider range of views within society.

Germany is a stable constitutional federal republic with proportional representation and power vested in the Bundestag. No reason why the US can't have the same.

[BobaFloutist]

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has been systematically attacking all attempts to limit private campaign finance, including public funding.

In 2011, in Arizona Free Enterprise v. Bennett, they ruled that a program that Arizona established which would give campaigns that opted out of private financing public financing matching their competitors financing infringed on the First Amendment speech rights of the privately financed campaign.

That's right, matching private campaign spending with public funding violates the free speech of the privately funded campaign, because it removes their advantage.

The solution to campaign finance needs to start and end with court reform, or it's DOA.

[giantg2]

Exactly what reforms do you want? If you want first amendment restrictions you can look into passing another amendment. That's really how that's supposed to work. The logic behind the ruling is fine if you actually dig into it - funding is speech, government funding of some candidates and not others dilutes the speech of some citizens and effectively compels speech from other citizens through the government. A better approach would be restricting all political advertising to some government provided platform. This would avoid the wasteful government matching.

[samatman]

That was a good decision, because the rule creates a negative responsiveness paradox. Spending money to support your preferred candidate should not make opposing candidates stronger.

That was the effect of Arizona's rule: money spent to promote a candidate was matched by free public money, which the opposing candidate did not have exert any effort to obtain.

Good voting systems minimize this effect. The US first-past-the-post system is not a good voting system, but that's no excuse for making it worse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_responsiveness_parado...

[ETH_start]

The Supreme Court is defending the First Amendment, and "court reform" is a euphemism for eliminating the independence of the judiciary in order to dismantle those First Amendment protections.

[pc86]

SCOTUS doesn't "attack" anything. They issue a ruling based on law. It's funny that any time there's a judicial ruling we like, it's fair and impartial, and any time there's a judicial ruling we don't like, it's judicial activism.

The other reply already makes it pretty clear why this Arizona's law violated 1A. If you want to make a legal argument that donating money to a political campaign isn't political speech, go for it. But right now it's considered protected political speech so this ruling makes perfect sense.

"Court reform" is a funny way of phrasing "ignoring the Constitution."

This isn't even a partisan issue. Harris has been on the ballot 4 months and her campaign has raised approximately 3x the amount of money Trump's has. Moneyed interests are absolutely on the side of Harris this time around.

[mullingitover]

> No reason why the US can't have the same.

There's one big reason the US can't have the same: the ruling class don't want it.

This isn't some gordian knot. We could have it tomorrow if the ruling class had their feet held to the fire. The fact that we don't is a result of the system working exactly as intended.

The richest person in the world is out in broad daylight shoveling bribes to voters as fast as he can transfer the money, and not only is he not getting arrested, he never will be. It's a dark subsection of a very dark chapter.

[ryandrake]

A person who can't even legally own a gun due to his status as a felon is about to become commander and chief of the military. "Dark subsection" is pretty mild.

[janalsncm]

> the ruling class don't want it

Too cynical and defeatist for my taste. The difference between the “ruling class” and you is that politicians know what it takes to get support from large donors. A typical Senator spends most of their day figuring that out in fact.

But at the end of the day politicians still need votes, not dollars. One way to swing the balance back would be to make support contingent on support for (and accomplishment of) popular goals.

[SllX]

> There needs to be public funding of elections. That would go a long way.

I’m going to push back on this.

Not a single dollar of public money should be spent helping anyone at all acquire a seat in an office of power. This includes running primaries through State election apparatuses and laws governing primary selection processes.

I’d be okay with zeroing out contributions to individual candidates and limiting political contributions exclusively to political parties to dole out to their members as they see fit, even if that required a constitutional amendment, but not with public money. You’re effectively subsidizing the acquisition of power by interested parties with taxpayer money, while simultaneously cementing an additional incumbent advantage for those already seated and able to write the rules for the public funding of elections.

[kelseyfrog]

I'm going to push back on this pushback. Not a single dollar of private money should be spent on helping anyone acquire a seat of power. Dollars represent disproportional ability to influence who has power.

We already have a fair mechanism to signal - voting. Attempts to nudge candidates ability to win are antithetical to our value of egalitarianism. If we're willing to let dollars donated swing a politicians chances, we've already lost. Let's just close up shop and vote with dollars like we shop for shoes. It's a mockery of decency.

[maxerickson]

There probably shouldn't be privileged ballot access where well established organizations have a lower bar than a newcomer.

[gottorf]

> You’re effectively subsidizing the acquisition of power by interested parties with taxpayer money, while simultaneously cementing an additional incumbent advantage for those already seated and able to write the rules for the public funding of elections.

This is a very good point. And if we can generalize: it's very difficult to regulate something in a way that does not eventually advantage those already inside over those on the outside looking to come in; industry regulations, rent control, minimum wage, etc.

[cco]

> Germany is a stable constitutional federal republic with proportional representation and power vested in the Bundestag. No reason why the US can't have the same.

The government of the United States is both far older than Germany's Bundestag and has been far more stable over that time.

I'm not explicitly arguing one way or the other here, just calling out that I think it is a little early to say that Germany's Bundestag is a stable republic when it is so young.

[Animats]

We have public funding of presidential elections in the US.[1] The last year in which a major candidate accepted it was 2008, because it comes with limits on fund-raising.

[1] https://www.fec.gov/introduction-campaign-finance/understand...

[citrin_ru]

Proportional representation is prone to a grid lock and fragmentation. A ranked choice looks like a good option in the situation when you don't like both major candidates (or parties) and would like to vote for 3rd one but with first-past-the-post you vote will be wasted unless you will vote for one of two the most popular candidates.

[aldonius]

Most of the issue with PR is when your assembly has to select an executive.

But the US has a very powerful executive (the President) which sidesteps the problem. The US House of Reps could be multi party PR without any big issues (well, they might need to switch to a "last year's budget is this year's budge unless we vote to change it" model).

[giantg2]

"No reason why the US can't have the same."

The reason that won't work here currently is because the two party system has people currently picking the lessor of two evils. The spectrum of stances within a single party is extremely wide since all cobinations of views must fit within two parties. For example, compare a NYC Democrat candidate vs a WV Democrat candidate. Or a republican candidate from TX vs one from NJ.

"There needs to be public funding of elections. That would go a long way."

I sort of agree. Instead of all these commercials and flyers, it would be much better if every candidate gets a page on a government website where they can advertise their views and platform. It would be similar to how specimen ballots are available online today. Restrictions like that would remove much of the influence of money.

[gottorf]

> Neither system is perfect, but the latter captures a wider range of views within society.

In the FPTP system in the US, you end up with two "big tent" parties with broadly opposing views. What makes you suggest that this model does not sufficiently capture the width of views within society?

> Germany is a stable constitutional federal republic with proportional representation and power vested in the Bundestag. No reason why the US can't have the same.

There is a lot to admire about Germany, but that vaunted stable constitutional federal republic just about committed economic suicide via an over-reliance on cheap Russian gas and zealous persecution of domestic nuclear. It now has the weakest prospects among its peer nations. Their governing model isn't a guarantee of good decisions.

[jltsiren]

It doesn't capture the width of views precisely because of the "big tent" parties. When a political party is united and effective, it functions as a weighted average of its representatives. When it's not, it loses power and makes other parties stronger.

If your opinions are outside the mainstream of any party, you will not have genuine representation in any democratic system, where political parties are allowed to form. Some outlier representative may speak in favor of policies you support, but they would be equally effective as an extra-parliamentary activist.

[Amezarak]

> Germany is a stable constitutional federal republic with proportional representation and power vested in the Bundestag. No reason why the US can't have the same.

Germany's second most popular party is labeled a "suspected extremist group", there are discussions of banning it altogether, and the entire rest of the political establishment unites to ensure they are kept out of actual power.

When you even have a second-most-popular party that can be labeled an extremist group, I'm not going to call you a "stable" country. In general, the feature of parliamentary democracies where the "wrong" election runner-up is totally shut out also makes it seem not any different in practice than the US system. It's nice that the "right" runner-ups will be a part of a governing coalition, but this is also already effectively the way the US works, as party discipline is not nearly as strong.

Democratic institutions are a problem throughout the west right now, and I would definitely not be looking at Germany as a model. Not sure who would be. People say good things about Swiss governance, but I don't know enough of the situation there.

[gamblor956]

There is public funding of elections in the U.S. You can even check a box on your tax return to have part of your tax go toward funding elections. (This affects where $3 of the tax associated with you is budgeted by the federal government; it doesn't affect your tax liability/refund.)

According to the IRS, fewer than 4% of people check this box.

[adamc]

Proportional representation will lead to a different kind of gridlock and unstable coalitions. Not sure I want to replicate that.

[timbit42]

There are at least 8 types of PR and you can create more. Create one that doesn't cause gridlock.

[keybored]

Sortition.

[giardini]

Fascinating! I've never hear of sortition.

Likely zero chance of implementation in USA but also surprising that the founding fathers of the the USA apparently avoided serious consideration. Seems they may have dropped the ball on this problem:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/iw1t1h/did_t...

[ETH_start]

Germany affords no Freedom of Speech and makes major policy blunders, like shutting off all of its nuclear power plants. It's not a country for the US to emulate.

[doctorpangloss]

Ah yes, Germany, the most stable, fair, well run and well represented government in history.

[ianeigorndua]

Lol, Germany was bought and paid for decades ago and the party with the most political power is the Hells Angels. They even got their rivals federally banned, even though they are not!

[pc86]

This comment reads like LLM-generated text, but like... a pretty old version where it's basically MCMC text generation.