A Proposal for the 28th Amendment

by · February 14, 2022

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James K

James is a government policy analyst, and lives in Wellington, New Zealand. His interests including wargaming, computer gaming (especially RPGs and strategy games), Dungeons & Dragons and scepticism. No part of any of his posts or comments should be construed as the position of any part of the New Zealand government, or indeed any agency he may be associated with.

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51 Responses

  1. InMD says:
    February 14, 2022 at 8:39 am

    I opened this post ready to hate it but after reading I want to commend you on a job well done. Maybe it takes someone at a good safe distance to propose constitutional changes not obviously designed to advance a particular (and oh just be coincidence, timely) policy agenda.

    If anything I think this understates the role the presidency has in perpetuating a broad, cross partisan sense of disenfranchisement. While Congress could theoretically reign it in under the existing system there are too many countervailing forces, and too much gamesmanship in the opportunity to capture the office. A soft reset placing the presidency in a more ministerial role would hopefully take some of the wind out of the sails of perpetual crisis every time the office changes hands. It may even be more in line with original intent than what the office has grown into over the last century. Of course it will never happen.Report

  2. Philip H says:
    February 14, 2022 at 9:21 am

    If your objective was to make America into a UK style parliamentary democracy, then your proposal would be interesting. But we aren’t – for good reason, and thus your proposal fails on a number of levels. Rather then push back on the language, I think that we can have a better discussion on your reasoning, and command of how the US government works (Or not):

    As of the 2020 apportionment, Wyoming has 3.8 times as many electors per voter as California.

    Which is precisely why this will never fly in the US – the rural states don’t want and will never accept the more urban states dictating policy to them. We have seen that in where, when and how resistance sprang up to mask and vaccine mandates.

    Also, I’m hoping that proportional representation puts nomination more into the hands of the party leadership than voters. Ranking candidates would be hard to do with a primary system, so hopefully that will increase the power of party bosses.

    You have been paying attention to all the state and national party bosses censuring Republican politicians for not towing the Trump line haven’t you? Good, solid, moderate conservatives are being drummer out of the Republican Party left and right by the Party, through its support of ever more hard core candidates in the primaries. The Party is serving the voters the candidates it wants, and voters (at least in the primaries) are not bucking that service.

    Section 4 is where I make bigger changes. This is where I eliminate Presidential Elections. I think the evidence is pretty clear that parliamentary systems (where the Executive branch is explicitly subordinate to the legislature) have held up better than Presidential systems.

    Hard pass. Parliamentary systems aren’t all that and two bags of chips (American or British). They gave the UK both David Cameron and Boris Johnson, neither of whom has covered themselves in political or economic glory over BREXIT (or Covid parties). It’s a different system, but its not better.

    The Founders couldn’t have seen the modern administrative state coming, but it’s here nevertheless and a system that entrusts the President with diplomacy, the Navy and the Post Office has different requirements than one where the Federal Government is intimately involved in the daily affairs of every resident of the country.

    Some form of administrative state has to exist, in order to “Take care that the laws shall be administered.” The UK has quite the administrative state too, and at least according to the punditry it doesn’t function any better. Its what is required of any government in a modern, multi-cultural democracy.

    Section 5 puts federal territories on par with states in a similar manner to Washington DC, but adjusted for the new apportionment formula.

    In terms of representation, territories and DC are on equal footing already – they are represented in the House by non-voting Delegates who are allowed to sit on and chair House Committees. Unlike DC, however, territories are not presently governed directly by the House, though DC has some limited home rule thanks to legislation in the late 1980’s. Frankly I’d rather we simply allow those territories that wish to to become independent nations.

    I would expect that Presidents would be routinely removed if Congress changed sufficiently mid-term, and I consider that acceptable.

    Most of America’s oligarchy wouldn’t in as much as this would create massive economic instability. And frankly, from inside the permanent civil service, we’d get even less done then we do now, because we’d be spending most of our time retraining yet another Administration, instead of providing the services Congress mandates through federal statute. That constant retraining would certainly constitute waste . . .Report

    • James K in reply to Philip H says:
      February 14, 2022 at 2:51 pm

      Which is precisely why this will never fly in the US

      Oh, I know.

      You have been paying attention to all the state and national party bosses censuring Republican politicians for not towing the Trump line haven’t you?

      Indeed I have, but why are they doing that? My suggestion is that Trump has whipped up the voting base to the point where the leadership needs to be pro-Trump to keep getting voted in. Consider than when Mike Pence refused to throw the election to Trump it was the Republican base and not its leadership that threatened him. I think Trumpism is a bottom-up problem, not a top-down one in the Republican party.

      Hard pass. Parliamentary systems aren’t all that and two bags of chips (American or British).

      If the US and UK were the only two countries in the world you might have a good point. Parliamentary systems not only include the other Anglosphere countries (New Zealand, Canada and Australia), but also The Nordic Countries, The Netherlands, Japan and Germany. Basically all of the highest-functioning democracies in the world are Parliamentary. By contrast, which other Presidential system countries are we calling successes here? France?

      the administrative state … is required of any government in a modern, multi-cultural democracy.

      Sure, that’s not my point. My point is that the executive branch of a modern government has a massive amount of power and Presidential system concentrates all that power in one person while crippling the ability of the legislature to rein them in. Presidential systems are dictatorship bait. Fixing your civil service is an entirely different question that is likely beyond the scope of constitutional reform.

      Frankly I’d rather we simply allow those territories that wish to to become independent nations.

      I agree, but so long as they are territories, they should have some say in who the President is.

      Most of America’s oligarchy wouldn’t in as much as this would create massive economic instability.

      t’s possible, but I don’t think it too likely – other countries manage to make this system work just fine, better in fact than yours.Report

      • Philip H in reply to James K says:
        February 14, 2022 at 2:57 pm

        My point is that the executive branch of a modern government has a massive amount of power and Presidential system concentrates all that power in one person while crippling the ability of the legislature to rein them in.

        Disagree. The lack of will to rein in the Executive does not constitute the lack of ability. Congress can severely constrain what the president does by what and where it appropriates, as but one example. That Congress chooses not to do this is regrettable, but not anything addressed by your proposal.Report

        • James K in reply to Philip H says:
          February 14, 2022 at 3:34 pm

          The lack of will is a product of the fact that partisan divisions make it nearly impossible to assemble an anti-President coalition in the legislature. Plus there is the issue of legitimacy. You can see it in the way Pelosi and some of the other Democratic Congressional leaders acted when considering impeaching Trump. They see the Presidency (though not Trump specifically) as superior to them, and I believe the US public see it that way too. That will make it very hard for Congress to win any constitutional conflict with the President.Report

  3. Saul Degraw says:
    February 14, 2022 at 9:22 am

    The issue is the Senate. The Senate needs more reform than the House.Report

    • Philip H in reply to Saul Degraw says:
      February 14, 2022 at 11:45 am

      The Senate needs realistic rules. And states need a way to recall senators. Beyond that there is not much else that could be reformed if we are going to keep two per state.Report

      • Saul Degraw in reply to Philip H says:
        February 14, 2022 at 12:21 pm

        That is my big point, it should not be two per a state. Otherwise, you are correct, there need to be rules that prevent a minority or even one Senator from slow walking/defeating everything. I do not agree on recall, that is what elections are for.Report

    • Pinky in reply to Saul Degraw says:
      February 14, 2022 at 1:34 pm

      I’d support repealing the Seventeenth. The power should belong in the states. The state legislators should elect the senators. The Senate should have considerable power to block legislation.Report

      • Michael Cain in reply to Pinky says:
        February 14, 2022 at 1:50 pm

        Is there any reason to believe that the problems that motivated the 17th wouldn’t arise this time? Recall that when the 17th finally got through the Senate and sent to the states, a large majority of the states were already doing some sort of end-run for direct election and we were within a small number of states of calling a convention to address the issue. IIRC, the fear in the Senate that finally got them on board was that anything that came out of a convention would not only call for direct election, but would probably strip the Senate of quite a lot of its power.

        Objections to the Senate being an obstruction to change is not a new thing.Report

        • Oscar Gordon in reply to Michael Cain says:
          February 14, 2022 at 2:01 pm

          This. As much as I agree that senators should represent the state government/state as a whole, there was a reason the 17th passed. Unless there is a plan to overcome those issues, I don’t see direct election of senators going anywhere. Of course, that sets up the question of why we bother with a senate at all, and maybe we should have just one house of congress.Report

    • James K in reply to Saul Degraw says:
      February 14, 2022 at 1:43 pm

      Section 1 is less about the house than it is limiting the Senate’s effect on the Electoral College. The one big problem I think the house has is gerrymandering, and that what section 2 is about.

      It seems to me the big change the Senate needs is re-apportionment, but since that’s the one thing that can’t be amended in the US Constitution, I’m not sure what exactly to do about the Senate. The only thing I could think of was to prevent the Senate from shutting down the legislature entirely.Report

  4. Oscar Gordon says:
    February 14, 2022 at 11:04 am

    Overall I think it’s pretty good, especially given my disdain for our unitary executive. My quibble is the power given to party bosses, but that may be because we have 2 parties right now, one effectively nonfunctional, and the other only marginally so. I’d almost want to include something to limit party power so that we get more parties on the field.Report

  5. Marchmaine says:
    February 14, 2022 at 11:25 am

    Interesting thought experiment… a few comments

    1. Don’t hard code the number in the constitution? Make it a variable on something else… I’ve heard cube root, smallest state population and other calculations that make sense.

    2. I’d back proportional representation… not a proverbial silver bullet… more like a simple bullet that kills one problem so that other problems may grow and thrive. I can live with the other problems.

    3. Interesting, but would need additional time constraints… like can’t bring up the same bill (that fails) more than once in 12-month period. Else you invite circumventing the senate by voting just prior-to and after an election. While elections *can* be volatile we also have a long history of parties running the house over multiple cycles.

    4. Eeep. Not until we see how #2 has gone. Would not support in same amendment.

    5. No, we should discourage Federal Territories, period. They should be temporary or become states. If not states, then fare thee well. This is part and parcel with our Empire schizophrenia.

    6. As with #4 I get that you’re trying to back into a parliamentary system; I don’t think you can make the President a Ministerial position the way this does while maintaining a National Vote on an Executive. Swapping Obama in 2014 for a Republican? Majority Congress votes no confidence, Majority of Electors replaces with one of their own? Just not the same as the Leader of a Party forming a government for which they are the first Minister with Exec Powers.

    Alternate 6: French Run-off style election. Basically an ‘open primary’ where all candidates run and top-two are selected for the election 2-/4-weeks later. See also #2 where RCV is used either in Primary (to show actual strength of other parties/coalition members) or just as the election itself. No 3rd party spoilers… every president ends up with 50%+1 of the vote.Report

    • Marchmaine in reply to Marchmaine says:
      February 14, 2022 at 11:46 am

      I missed the Defenders Notes where #4 *is* the election… not so much that they are an Electoral College but *the* Electoral College.

      Changes some of my notions on #6, but I think my original thought on #4 still stands that I wouldn’t make substantial changes to voting/representation for Congress -and- the Executive at the same time. Might have confounding/compounding effects.Report

      • PD Shaw in reply to Marchmaine says:
        February 14, 2022 at 3:08 pm

        I am not certain that the President’s power stems from the election process. The U.S. has a written Constitution which gives the President sole “executive power,” which is not defined. I think in other Constitutional systems, powers are codified or built upon a long historical tradition.

        The U.S. has a strong judiciary which has interpreted the scope of the executive Power, often on separation of powers principles, i.e. that the power is structurally sound given legislative checks. Some executive Power escapes judicial review because of limitations of the judiciary (case and controversy requirement or mootness for example) Overall, my concern would be that systematically combining separate powers with this historical background would simply mean unchecked power.

        OTOH, the President would not appear to have any power to enforce party discipline by calling elections or taking the whip from rebel members. That could lead to its own kind of paralysis.Report

        • InMD in reply to PD Shaw says:
          February 14, 2022 at 3:29 pm

          I think the concern though is that the executive has, for a combination of reasons, become an unchecked and maybe uncheck-able policy making branch in ways that are both constitutionally murky and tough to check. While we have a stronger judiciary in certain ways compared to other countries I think it’s also fair to say that it has been willing to fill-in-the-blanks in ways that bolster the imperial presidency.Report

          • InMD in reply to InMD says:
            February 14, 2022 at 3:42 pm

            *Not tough to check, tough to correct.Report

          • Michael Cain in reply to InMD says:
            February 14, 2022 at 3:47 pm

            Feb 28 is oral arguments for West Virginia v. EPA and three other consolidated cases. Speculation is that the five conservative justices (those to the right of CJ Roberts) will use those cases to broadly role back the authority that Congress has delegated and/or can delegate to the executive.Report

            • InMD in reply to Michael Cain says:
              February 14, 2022 at 4:26 pm

              It’s certainly possible that we’re going to see a bit of a correction on the administrative state. However I wouldn’t expect a revolution.Report

            • PD Shaw in reply to Michael Cain says:
              February 14, 2022 at 7:11 pm

              Technically, that raises the issue of limits on Congress delegating “legislative power” to an executive agency. And Congress makes that delegation subject to judicial review, so there are checks against Presidential overreach built into law.Report

              • Michael Cain in reply to PD Shaw says:
                February 14, 2022 at 8:09 pm

                For the first time in a very long time, there are members of the SCOTUS bringing up the “delegation doctrine”. Which powers can Congress delegate, and which not? How explicit does statute have to be in the delegation?

                The fundamental decision on climate change cases is Massachusetts v. EPA, where four liberal justices and Anthony Kennedy found that the Clean Air Act not only allowed regulation of greenhouse gases, but required it. (This is one of the cases where I expected Kennedy’s vote to not reflect conservative vs liberal, but that at heart he’s a California boy.) Followed by a large amount of text arguing the meaning of the word “otherwise” to determine scope.

                I expect Massachusetts to be overturned on technical grounds. The serious pessimists expect Chevron to get tossed as well.Report

          • Philip H in reply to InMD says:
            February 14, 2022 at 4:46 pm

            I think the concern though is that the executive has, for a combination of reasons, become an unchecked and maybe uncheck-able policy making branch in ways that are both constitutionally murky and tough to check.

            Hardly. Take immigration – Presidents form Bush the Elder to Trump have said they want immigration reform. The Senate ahs steadfastly refused to take up the cause. The House has introduced and passed immigration reform in nearly every Congress during that period. But because it always dies in the Senate, the President has to make policy because he has been told to do by the Constitution. He has no option to NOT act. You can’t change that situation by watering down the President’s authorities because as soon as you do, he will be back in the political hotseat for failing to act.Report

            • InMD in reply to Philip H says:
              February 14, 2022 at 5:27 pm

              I agree executive overreach is in certain respects a symptom of a dysfunctional Congress. However I don’t think the solution to that is an ever stronger presidency.Report

              • Philip H in reply to InMD says:
                February 14, 2022 at 5:48 pm

                Well until Congress get’s it sh!t together an ever stronger president will occur because someone has to do something, or all the previous statutes and Constitutional articles and amendments say. Shredding the Constitution to cram down presidential power under the current dynamic doesn’t change Congresses approach – in fact it probably makes it worse.Report

        • Marchmaine in reply to PD Shaw says:
          February 14, 2022 at 5:36 pm

          Right, #4 is the most radical thing.

          It is the back-door move to make the President a figure selected and elected by the Congress. There’s no National Vote… and no Presidential Mandate separate from the approval of the Majority of both houses of Congress. Essentially a Prime Minister.

          I missed it the first time – just thought that Congress would vote according to their State/District in lieu of separate electors (which I still think is fraught for *other* reasons). But really the point is that the Executive is a creature of the Legislature.

          It certainly introduces a sort of check on the Exec, or possibly supercharges the combined Exec/Legislature — which tbf is kinda what a parliamentary system already is… an elected term dictatorship (with as long as you don’t fracture your majority).Report

    • James K in reply to Marchmaine says:
      February 14, 2022 at 3:47 pm

      That’s a fair point on 1, perhaps change to set an initial number, but allow it to be changed by legislation, subject to a minimum based on the population of the smallest state?Report

      • Marchmaine in reply to James K says:
        February 14, 2022 at 7:09 pm

        Yeah, still wouldn’t specify any number, just the method, first date and then align with constitutionally mandated census. Last time we legislated a number we left it alone for a century.

        So… cube root is the method; first reapportionment is 2024 and thereafter with every 10-yr census. [blue sky proposal, we also determine the algorithm for creating congressional districts, so every 10-yrs we get a new number for Congress plus new districts according to pre-agreed upon metrics].

        Smallest state and cube root are very close at the moment… but now that I think on it, we could see some weird dynamics on the smallest state issue – imagine a natural disaster that denudes Wyoming of population or some such. Unless we also add some sort of minimum requirement for statehood… at which point we’re moving from easily achievable legislation (no amendment needed) into let’s start from scratch danger zone.Report

  6. Pinky says:
    February 14, 2022 at 11:30 am

    It’s a bit like the proposal to fix baseball by having the teams move an oval ball down a long field in a series of downs. Your Section 4 would cause a civil war.Report

  7. Saul Degraw says:
    February 14, 2022 at 12:25 pm

    My pie in the sky reform would be to replace Congress with a Parliamentary system with proportional representation. One legislature of about 600-800 seats with a prime minister and cabinet positions coming from the MPs or whatever you want to call them. The electoral college is eliminated The power of the Federal Judiciary needs to be overhauled so you don’t get venue shopping from organizations looking for nationwide injunctions when convenient for them. The powers of the houses will be melded into one in this system. The legislature will still have the ability and power to ratify treaties.Report

    • Marchmaine in reply to Saul Degraw says:
      February 14, 2022 at 12:37 pm

      Yeah, I could see re-evaluating the regime structure in a calm, cool and collected way.

      The convention required to write an entirely new constitution to get there? I guaranty we end up with at least two, maybe three countries.

      And I might be fine with that too.

      [plus, note how I didn’t use the Oxford comma? Please clap. This is a rare situation where it’s appropriate to leave off]Report

  8. PD Shaw says:
    February 14, 2022 at 12:38 pm

    2. Congressional districts are not in the Constitution. The first Congress used multi-member districts, but most states moved to single-member districts and then Congress passed a statute in 1842 requiring multi-member districts. That suggests to me something that became popular in the various states was subsequently made obligatory for all, a common dynamic and I wonder how easy it would be to reverse. But the first step I think would be repeal the statute.Report

  9. dhex says:
    February 14, 2022 at 3:55 pm

    this was an interesting read, Mr. K! i’m mostly intrigued by #4 and how that would get pitched to voters. i’m trying to imagine it in play. (unsuccessfully)Report

    • James K in reply to dhex says:
      February 14, 2022 at 6:03 pm

      I’ll admit pitching things to people isn’t my strong suit. When New Zealand adopted MMP in the 1990s, two big arguments for it were that successful countries like Germany used it and it would help protect from a single person from gaining too much power.

      I don’t know if either argument would succeed in the US.Report

    • Michael Cain in reply to dhex says:
      February 14, 2022 at 6:49 pm

      Not voters. Amendments submitted to the states are to be approved by either the legislatures or state-level conventions called for the purpose. I believe that the choice of which method is used is up to whoever submits the amendment, either Congress or a national convention. The Founders really, really distrusted the common citizenry. (Well, nothing stops a legislature from submitting the question to voters, but nothing requires it either.)

      If the 17th is a guidepost, one of the signs that this might be feasible is states adopting proportional representation on their own.Report

  10. Burt Likko says:
    February 15, 2022 at 9:32 pm

    I played with a few numbers on this on my spreadsheet. The actual shift in influence from state to state that would manifest is quite low!

    If this system had been in place in 2020, the House would consist of 669 Democrats, 636 Republicans, and 19 members of third parties (8 of which come from New York, 3 from Texas). So Democrats would have a slim but absolute majority in the House and would not need to form any coalitions.

    Puerto Rico would have got 15 Electoral College votes, D.C. 5, and Guam 3. And I notice we’ve done nothing at all about the Senate in this proposal.

    Which would mean that the Democrats’ 669 votes would put them in the pole position to pick the President in the Electoral College, but they’d have needed 7 votes from third parties (Sanders and King might not be caucusing with the Democrats in this system!), the territories, or defecting Republicans in order to do it. Someone would have to change the name of the website to “724 to win.” And perhaps more interesting, Republicans could haved picked the President with 38 votes, which would have required inducing between 17 to 19 Democrats to defect — which seems like a lot to ask in a system like this but doesn’t seem totally out of reach. If you’re really good at making deals, anyway.

    These numbers are from 2020, considered a good year for Democrats. Query how much stability would be in place over time. There is still an emphasis on winning state by state, rather than nationally. But also notice that in a proportional system, there is generally greater incentive for third parties to either form out of smaller blocs or to defect away from larger parties over [reasons]. So over time, it’s possible that third parties might grow stronger and play larger parts in policy creation in the House and in picking Presidents. As states like Florida and California (especially California with its jungle March primary and November two-candidate runoff general election) changed their own election systems to match, it’s likely those larger states would send third parties to Congress too.

    I’d predict that for the foreseeable future, it’d be very hard to get a President thrown out on a no-confidence vote because both recent history (Trump and Clinton) demonstrate that even in the presence of overwhelming evidence, partisanship is very hard to overcome — hell, Nixon still enjoyed something like 60% of Republican support on the day he resigned. And I don’t know if we have any working examples of a parliamentary system with a built-in prime-minister-in-waiting in the event of a no-confidence vote. Certainly creates some interesting scenarios for an unfaithful number two!

    All this for the price of institutionalizing parties in the Constitution. The Framers wouldn’t be happy about it at all, but they are dead and we need to decide for ourselves what would work best for us. This system presents some distinct advantages over the status quo if what you care about is getting things done. All it takes is for the Democrats to get their acts together and unify… oh, wait.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Burt Likko says:
      February 15, 2022 at 9:49 pm

      Maybe, if we had a strong executive, she could install these changes on our behalf.Report

      • Michael Cain in reply to Jaybird says:
        February 16, 2022 at 12:05 pm

        I don’t know about that, but would like to suggest that posts about US Constitutional amendments would be much more interesting if the authors suggested reasons that 38 states might support the amendment.Report

        • James K in reply to Michael Cain says:
          February 16, 2022 at 1:46 pm

          If I wrote an Amendment that I thought could actually pass, it would have been a lot less interesting because it would have been a blank post.Report

          • Michael Cain in reply to James K says:
            February 16, 2022 at 7:22 pm

            If I take care of myself, I have 20-25 years left. I’d like to see progress towards the improved system before I go. Hence my interest in “How would you get your amendment ratified?” rather than “What would be the best amendment?”Report

            • James K in reply to Michael Cain says:
              February 17, 2022 at 2:08 am

              I can understand that, unfortunately I’m not sure that reform of your system is even possible any more. For one thing, while every developed country has been overtaken by institutional sclerosis, the US is the most heavily affected. For another, a significant minority of your country seems to want to destroy its democracy outright.

              I don’t know how to fix that, or even if it can be. For 20-25 years things will probably be fine, by my long-term recommendation is find somewhere to run to, and hope that when the US falls it doesn’t take the whole world with it.Report

    • James K in reply to Burt Likko says:
      February 16, 2022 at 1:45 pm

      Thanks for running the numbers Burt, is this based on votes cast for President or votes cast for Congress? In either case, based on New Zealand’s history, I would expect voting patterns to change a lot under this system – third parties will attract more interest and you might see an increase in turnout in the bluest and reddest states since their votes would matter more now.

      In my experience, Parliamentary systems are more inclined to remove leaders than Presidential ones are (indeed mere unpopularity is often reason enough) and I think part of the reason is that elected presidents have a source of public legitimacy independent from the legislature, while Prime Ministers do not.

      Honestly, I think the Founding Fathers’ refusal to acknowledge parties was one of their major blind spots. Parties has already formed in Parliament by that point, and the idea that factions wouldn’t form was stubborn naiveté. In any case political parties are already baked into your electoral law, so I’d say that ship has sailed.Report

      • Burt Likko in reply to James K says:
        February 16, 2022 at 3:22 pm

        Numbers were based on a state-by-state aggregate vote for members of the House of Representatives. (E.g., Texas voters who voted for ANY House election voted for a Republican candidate 53.42% of the time, a Democratic candidate 44.14% of the time,* and a third party candidate 2.44% of the time.) These are available readily enough, but not in any single place that I could find. So it was rather more work than I thought it would be when I began the project.

        One other thing I suspect we’d find in the USA is that the two major parties could easily become *more* ideologically rigid than they already are. Whip mechanisms are built right into the Constitution under this proposal — if you deviate from the party line (at least, on something the party cares about) you’re off the list next time around, bub. Good luck in the private sector.

        * I no longer believe Texas is “about to turn blue.” 2020 was a good year for Democrats and they came in nine points down in what amounts to a party preference vote in a lot of districts. The most I will concede is that Texas is blue enough that if the Republicans have a very bad candidate who must be voted on statewide, a Democrat might, in the foreseeable future although not quite right now, have at least a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. N.b., this is improvement for the Democrats in Texas. But it ain’t anywhere near “Governor Beto O’Rourke.”Report

        • James K in reply to Burt Likko says:
          February 17, 2022 at 1:59 am

          The parties would be more ideologically coherent (due to the power of the whip), but possibly less rigid. Right now the ideological position of each party is driven by the primary voters – with my amendment I would expect that power to move tot he party leadership, making it easier for a party to steer itself to better appeal to the median voter.Report

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