After the ballots were cast

Little less than a week ago the US had their midterm elections. The majority of candidates for positions in the federal government were for the House of Representatives and the Senate. The post is going to explore one way to reduce a common thread that has been evolving in our electorate, extreme partisan candidates on both sides of the aisle. Two simple changes in the way congress worked would reduce this problem without major changes in the constitution. It also would lead to both major parties working together better and independents would have a greater voice.

What I propose is the elimination of current seniority rules in both houses of congress. Specifically, the way committee members are selected. These vital positions are automatically given to the most senior party members from the majority party without any input from rest of congress. This gives quite a bit of power to ranking majority members over very important issues like military, social spending and law writing. Bills that were good for the US often died in these committees before making it to the main floor where it may have passed.

Why is this a problem? It has to do with how the most senior members being reelected year after year. In the case of the House, the jurisdictions are picked by a state's government. If a state leans towards one ideological direction, i.e. Texas to Republican or California to Democrat, the districts are setup so the majority of Representatives will come from the stat's dominant party. This is often referred to gerrymandering if blatant or is against Civil Rights laws. It occurs regularly even with the laws and I do not know of a way to eliminate the issue. The Senate has less of this issue due to the fact the entire state elects the position, but it is still a problem. The result is certain districts will elect a member from the same party over and over again. This is further exacerbated by reelecting incumbents since they become more senior in their own party and have greater ability to bring home pork spending projects to their home state. The voters know this instinctively. Vote for the incumbent because they will bring home the bacon. It is in the voter's favor to do so. The candidates also know this. Candidates respond by following the party line and not putting forth any ideas that may hurt their chance for reelection. This is another disincentive for congress members to break party line for the benefit our country. The final result is often political polarization.

Proposal #1: Bring committee members to full chamber majority vote

Instead of allowing the majority party full control over vital committee members, the rules should be changed to reflect the Speaker of the House. The Speaker of the House is nominated by the majority party and is picked through an election of the full House chamber. The elections often filter out the extreme members to a limited degree unless the chamber has a vast majority. To further filter out partisan hacks, I suggest all leadership positions (including the Speaker) and committee members come to full chamber vote and each member requires a 2/3 majority to be seated. This results in two outcomes. First, even if a party wins the majority it forces them to make some concessions when congress convenes. It forces a limited bipartisanship immediately. Second, it will prevent the extreme elements of a party from dominating the committees. Voters would also be less inclined to rubber stamp the incumbents if bringing home the bacon is a little more difficult. Congress members would have to work a little harder for their reelections.

Proposal #2: Eliminate congressional primary elections

Primary elections developed out of the 1960's as a more populist way to pick candidates. The daunting problem is the low key elections bring out the most fired up voters which are often the most partisan in nature. This leads to the most partisan and extreme candidates running later in November. The other problem is the extra money required to run in the early election. This forces a candidate to either be rich or depend heavily on wealthy contributions. This could potentially lead to elections being bought. We can return to the system in place before the 1960's, let the local parties directly pick their candidates for the election without opening the polls.