november 7 2006

[mkilly]

Dear Americans,

Vote! There's a lot of competitive races right now and your vote could be meaningful. Encourage friends and family to vote. In Idaho's 1st District, where Bush won in 2004 with 68% of the vote, the House race is competitive. The governor's race is competitive. In freaking Idaho! Anyway, I feel obligated to ask people to vote, being both a Democratic volunteer and a student of Political Science.

[fodroy]

nly vote for other anarchists or not at all...
dont blow your vote on "americans" they will enslave yor children...
with improper education...

[/poor june]

[Sober]

Tony Hawk's Project 8 is released on this day, so....

LOL CAN I VOET 4 OBAMA?

[Denyer]

I'll vote on the 25th.

[Paco Del Stinko]

Just hope that your ballot machine isn't rigged. Thanks Diebold!

[jimtyrrell]

MK: Thanks for the early reminder. Because if you'd said the same thing to me on the morning of the 7th, I probably wouldn't have voted. Why? Because an uneducated vote is potentially more damaging than no vote at all, in my opinion. Now I've at least got a week to get a sense of where I actually want my vote to go. Still an embarassingly short time, but I'll make the effort anyway.

[Caravan Ray]

Can somebody explain to me in simple terms what this election is all about?

Which houses are being elected - is it just bits of both? Is it possible you will have a Pres. who has no majority in either house? How does that work?

I don't understand American politics.

If anybody who understands the British/Australian parlimentary system could explain it to me in terms relating to that - that would be good.

[deshead]

Which houses are being elected - is it just bits of both?

All of the the House of Representatives (basically similar to our House of Commons.) Representatives serve 2 year terms.

Some of the Senate. Senators serve 6 year terms.

Some state governors. The length of a Governor's term varies by state.

Is it possible you will have a Pres. who has no majority in either house?

Ya, definitely. For most of Clinton's presidency, the republicans controlled both houses.

Grossly over-simplified, the system isn't that different from our parliament. (Canada is basically the same as Australia.) The main difference is that, in the U.S., the government's role is split between two entities, the Executive and Legislative branches. The president is in charge of the executive branch, which is (really basically) responsible for ensuring that the government actually does its job. The legislative branch, on the other hand, designs the laws that the government should be following (ostensibly by representing the nation's people.)

In our system, there's not so clear a delineation between the laws a government enacts, and the execution of those laws.

Marcus is a PoliSci student ... He should probably chime in here.

[roymond]

I hope for ammendments that basically ensures that one party can't control the executive and both houses of the legislative at the same time. The "checks and balances" concept simply doesn't work unless there is representation of an alternative party in place somewhere. Gotta write some letters to this effect...and I don't know how this would be implemented, just seems like a flaw.

In the meantime, the pendulum will swing yet again (well, hopefully) and this president will either learn to listen, or be a lame duck for the next couple years. I don't want that second option, as I didn't when Clinton was the same. Doesn't matter what the cause is, there's no reason a sitting President should have his hands tied. Our government needs to run at full steam every year, not just after big elections. The current tide of extreme polarity is useless.

[Lunkhead]

While we're on the topic of election day fun in America, I thought I would add a bit more about what some of us have to vote on. In addition to various people running for various offices and positions, many states and cities will have what are called "ballot initiatives", which are sort of like laws that citizens want to have passed. Rather than taking them to the state/city/federal legislative bodies, they've followed the necessary state/city procedures (usually just collecting a certain number of signatures from citizens) and gotten their laws up for a direct vote by the people.

(In my opinion, many of these initiatives are bad ideas, and generally it seems to me like whipping up your own laws and bypassing the usual (hopefully deliberative) legislative process isn't such a hot idea, but that's just my two cents.)

California in particular loves these initiatives, for some reason, even though it costs millions to have them in the election process. One of them, passed many years ago, called Proposition 13, has effectively crippled the state's ability to collect adequate property taxes from property owners whose property hasn't been resold, and has been hampering the state's ability to fund schools, libraries, firefighters and police, etc. ever since. Berkeley, too, seems to have a thing for these initiatives, so this year I've got over a dozen extra votes to make.

For those of you in California, Washington, Idaho, and Arizona, it's particularly important that you vote "no" on a particularly whacked out set of initiatives. These initiatives illustrate another flaw in the initiative system which is that one very rich person can basically pay to have them passed. In this case, a New York real estate tycoon is funding initiatives that would make it so that, "if you want to stop a corporation from dumping toxic waste into the river from which you get your drinking water, or stop them from venting dangerous chemicals into the air, then YOU have to PAY that company not to." More info here.

Anyway, I have to step off my soapbox for a minute so I can get back to reading the 80 pages of election related material I need to read in order to be an informed voter....

[Caravan Ray]

The main difference is that, in the U.S., the government's role is split between two entities, the Executive and Legislative branches. The president is in charge of the executive branch, which is (really basically) responsible for ensuring that the government actually does its job. The legislative branch, on the other hand, designs the laws that the government should be following (ostensibly by representing the nation's people.)

Thanks Des. Googling this leads to too much information and more confusion

Another thing that puzzles me a bit is the role of charachters such as Condi Rice, Rumsfeld etc. Am I right in deducing that these guys aren't elected - but apponted? ie. they are actually public servants, not polititians? (sort of the American equivalents of Sir Humphrey Appelby?)
Are these guys considered part of the executive in the way that (elected) Cabinet Ministers are in Aus/UK/Can?

[Caravan Ray]

I hope for ammendments that basically ensures that one party can't control the executive and both houses of the legislative at the same time. The "checks and balances" concept simply doesn't work unless there is representation of an alternative party in place somewhere.

The government I work for, the State of Queensland, has only one house of parliment. The party with the majority forms the government. There is no senate. That may be why Queensland from time to time resembles a third-world dictatorship (google Joh Bjelke-Peteresen).

[roymond]

Another thing that puzzles me a bit is the role of charachters such as Condi Rice, Rumsfeld etc. Am I right in deducing that these guys aren't elected - but apponted?
Are these guys considered part of the executive in the way that (elected) Cabinet Ministers are in Aus/UK/Can?

They are appointed, yes. The strength of a President is in his/her cabinet choices. Some are more inclusive in this respect. Some are less. (guess).

I can't comment on your Cabinet Ministers, but if they are elected (even by the same party?) then there's a big diference right there, although they may play the same role.

[Niveous]

I know that American Politics could be considered Monkey Business. Shouldn't this thread be nestled in the loving arms of Politics and Other Crap?

[mkilly]

Yeah, I meant to post it there but landed here on accident.

[roymond]

Thanks for the reminder, Marcus.

We just signed contracts that will have me back in Mexico on Monday, so this morning I went to my local board of elections office, where I filled out the application and got an absentee ballot that must be post-marked by the 6th. Or you can vote right then and there (well, I could have at mine).

Call the League of Woman Voters or your local board of elections for details.

This is important! If you're going to be away next week do this today or tomorow!!!

[Caravan Ray]

So - if the Democrats gain power in both houses - will the USA ratify the Kyoto Protocol?

Even out Liberal governemnt here is starting to realise that it will lose votes if it continues to remain the USA's lickspittle on this issue. (Admittedly - it must be very difficult for PM John Howard to know whether the climate is changing or not while he has his head jammed firmly up a Texan's anus)

[mkilly]

It may happen, but it would still require Bush's signature. Gore and Clinton are the ones who initially got it going on, both Democrats as I'm sure you're aware, but it's hard to say if there's any momentum now.

[Justincombustion]

I voted straight Democrat for the first time. Just getting sick of the crap and I know that I, at the very least, cancelled out the straight Republican votes from this mouth-breathing, Fox news moron at work. So that's worth it right there...

[deshead]

if the Democrats gain power in both houses - will the USA ratify the Kyoto Protocol?

I think, in the face of the Iraq war, warrantless wire taps, GOP sex scandals, and North Korean posturing, most folks in the U.S. have forgotten about Kyoto. Or at least dropped it somewhere beneath "a Mexican border fence" on the list of Things We Care About.

The election today is largely a referendum on Bush's foreign policy and domestic security policy, so any gains they manage tonight come with a pretty clear mandate for the Democrats: focus on Iraq.

Here's some partisan prognosticating on the matter:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms. ... ry_id=3622
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti ... 68/OPINION
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01586.html
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlene ... ml&src=rss
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N29286537.htm
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/n ... win04.html

[Caravan Ray]

if the Democrats gain power in both houses - will the USA ratify the Kyoto Protocol?

I think, in the face of the Iraq war, warrantless wire taps, GOP sex scandals, and North Korean posturing, most folks in the U.S. have forgotten about Kyoto. Or at least dropped it somewhere beneath "a Mexican border fence" on the list of Things We Care About.

It's good to see that the World's Second Worst Polluters Per Capita (after Australians) have their priorities in order.

[Caravan Ray]

It may happen, but it would still require Bush's signature.

Just a basic question about your system:

- does this mean the President can actually block legislation passed by both houses? I believe I read that the Prez has veto power - can he really use this with impunity?

If my memory serves me well, I believe that under the Westminister system, the Crown (the Queen, or in the case of Australia/Canada/NZ etc - the Govenors-General) gives assent to legislation, but cannot over-rule Parliment.

The differences between the 2 systems are very interesting. I like the American idea of having a Cabinet appointed by the President. It means that (in theory) you can occaisionally get people who actually know what they are doing, in important jobs. (eg people like Powell and Rice seem reasonably intelligent and capable - whereas we just get polititians in important jobs eg, Alexander Downer, Australian Foreign Minister is a complete dick who you would not trust to get your order right in a McDonalds drive-through).

However - our head-of-state, the Govenor-General is appointed by the Prime Minister, and not popularly elected. Hence, though the G-G has the power to dissolve Parliment and sack the Government (as happened in Aus in 1975) - the PM also has power to sack the G-G, and the G-G has no popular mandate to fall back on. I find the power that your Prez. has a bit of a worry. Especially your current Prez.