Not technically to your way of thinking. We don't have a prime minister who's elected by the parliament (congress). However, the constitution provides that each house (house of representatives, senate) runs by rules they are free to create. The speaker of the house is an elected position - elected by the members of the house of representatives. The senate is led by the vice president, who is elected by the people. We have two independents in the senate (not of either party). For all intents and purposes, they're democrats though. When it comes to getting legislation passed, there is a sort of coalition sometimes involved. During the health care debate, the democrats sought to get a small number of liberal leaning republicans to go along. Heck, they had to vote to end the House session for the year and it was a squeaker of a vote (210-209). That might be considered a coalition of republicans and a pretty big bloc of democrats. The coalitions that are formed tend to be for one bit of legislation only, though. And they're more motivated by electoral concerns than anything else. Democrats gained the majority in the house by winning a lot of seats in places that are heavily republican in nature (more registered republican voters there, republicans had won those seats most of the time over the past X years). If those democrats want to get re-elected, they can't be so radical they turn off the voters. Make sense?
It would help. BTW if you have zombies on your mind, check out a wacky website called Shelf Reliance that sells 25-year rations to survivalists.
Yeah I was just curious that if you did eventually get more than two parties if post-election coalitions could call for a re-vote.
The elected representatives and senators could be recalled by the voters, but that's incredibly rare. The house or senate can expel a member for serious wrongdoing, but that is also rare. Our elections are like clockwork. House members are up for election every 2 years and serve for 2 years. Senators serve for 6 year terms and 1/3 of the senate is up for election every 2 years. The presidential elections are every 4 years, and no president can serve more than two terms. The States are individually responsible for electing the senators. Each state gets two. If you live in one state, you cannot vote in another state (for their senate race). Some states have rules that require a run-off election if there is not 50% vote for the winner of the first vote. But there's no re-votes. Our system is so highly oriented towards being a republic that even the president is elected by representatives of the people. In the presidential elections, we're actually voting for electors who represent us at a special kind of parliament called the electoral college. The members of the electoral college meet once and vote for president and then the college is disbanded. There are 535 electors divided among the states by population, and a few extra for the US territories (like Puerto Rico). California has the most population so it has the most electors at 54. So like Obama was elected president by 53% of the voters overall. But it was his wins, state by state, that determined the electors that actually voted him president. Obama won 365 of the electoral votes. 270 are needed to win. It is possible to lose the popular vote and win the electoral vote to become president, which is how GW Bush won in 2000.
We have a census every 10 years that is used to reapportion the electoral votes. California has 55 now.
But someone else does?? The fact is, the only group out there right now with a chance at being a third party is the Tea Party, and yet Friedman didn't mention it.
Thanks for the info, DC. Takes me back to Mrs. Donofrio's 11th grade US History. Spent most of that class watching A&E Biography and the movie Glory. There's four major parties in Canada and in recent years minority governments have been the norm, even with the PM making an election call in 08 when it seemed like good timing for the Conservative Party (they were beaten 165-143 seats but the other parties are reluctant to form a coalition resulting in a minority Conservative gov't again). Had the Liberals, Democrats, and BlocQ decided to band together they would've formed the majority and taken the election but the are unwilling to compromise with each other. A LibDem party alone might've taken enough votes from the Bloc to beat the "small-c" Conservatives but no bones to that, either. I'm trying to imagine how a multi-party system would work in the US considering even majority governments seem extremely contentious since, shit, Nixon I guess. Long before my time.
Aw, how cute! But really, I used that exact pic in another thread and clicked on this one right after. Bricks were shat.
We rarely have majority governments. Bush was president for 8 years, 2 of them with congress run by the other party. Clinton was president for 8 years, 2 of them with his party in control of congress. GHW Bush had opposition party in control of congress his 4 years. Reagan had opposition house for 8 years, opposition senate for 2. Jimmy Carter had 4 years with his party in control of it all. We actually seem to do a lot better with divided govt. - one party controls congress the other the presidency - and that's quite unlike a parliamentary system. How would 3 parties rule together? On each and every bit of legislation, some combination of people from the three parties would have to form a majority (enough votes) to pass it. When it comes to who gets to be speaker of the house or the various committee chairmen, they'd surely come to some sort of arrangement (2 of the parties gang up on the other). It all boils down to something that's in common with democracies everywhere. Count your votes, and don't hold a vote unless you're sure you have enough.
I think he was saying that at least two third parties are forming, one from west coast, one from east coast. I suppose the one formed second would be the fourth party. Like being the fourth marxist brother.
I'll take your word for it. I only skimmed the article on an airplane. Seems like a weird thesis though. Maybe I better go read the piece. The fourth one gets all the girls. barfo
