The entire post is based on hypothesis that models like “Bread and Peace” hold widely in most modern representative democracies. It would be delightful confirmation of my theory if it turned out it holds in successful ones (like Western Europe), and doesn’t in unsuccessful ones (like Latin America).
As for the problems you mention. Even though president cannot run for third term, his VP or someone else from his party is likely to continue his policies, so the mechanism still works. As far as I can tell, presidential elections and national party preferences in congressional elections follow the same patterns, so if “Bread and Peace” holds for one, it should hold for the other. Incumbency preferences might weaken the signal, but as long as incumbents from successful parties have significantly higher changes than incumbents from unsuccessful parties, the mechanism works. Even if it only holds in swing districts, as long as safe districts are equally distributed between two parties.
California constitutional amendments are not really constitutional amendments in traditional sense, just a way to pass legislation by popular referendum. In theory requiring supermajority for referenda would be a source of a massive status quo bias, what would be extremely undemocratic.
California constitutional amendments are not really constitutional amendments in traditional sense, just a way to pass legislation by popular referendum. In theory requiring supermajority for referenda would be a source of a massive status quo bias, what would be extremely undemocratic.
California has a system for passing legislation by popular referendum. At least in the case of Prop 8, the use of the amendment process instead was to bypass challenges to the legislation’s constitutionality. If we required a supermajority for amendments, but not ordinary referendums, it could stop the abuse of the amendment process to pass what should be ordinary legislation, subject to constitutional limitations.
I may be mistaken, but making it a constitutional amendment also makes it much, much harder for the legislature to alter it. If there’s a thing called a “constitution,” especially in the US, it’s generally both different and superior to mere legislation. The point of constitutions is to ensure status quo bias; there’s something undesirable about changing fundamental parts of your government when public opinion shifts by a few percentage points, as is likely to be the case with an amendment to repeal prop 8 in the next few years.
The entire post is based on hypothesis that models like “Bread and Peace” hold widely in most modern representative democracies. It would be delightful confirmation of my theory if it turned out it holds in successful ones (like Western Europe), and doesn’t in unsuccessful ones (like Latin America).
As for the problems you mention. Even though president cannot run for third term, his VP or someone else from his party is likely to continue his policies, so the mechanism still works. As far as I can tell, presidential elections and national party preferences in congressional elections follow the same patterns, so if “Bread and Peace” holds for one, it should hold for the other. Incumbency preferences might weaken the signal, but as long as incumbents from successful parties have significantly higher changes than incumbents from unsuccessful parties, the mechanism works. Even if it only holds in swing districts, as long as safe districts are equally distributed between two parties.
California constitutional amendments are not really constitutional amendments in traditional sense, just a way to pass legislation by popular referendum. In theory requiring supermajority for referenda would be a source of a massive status quo bias, what would be extremely undemocratic.
California has a system for passing legislation by popular referendum. At least in the case of Prop 8, the use of the amendment process instead was to bypass challenges to the legislation’s constitutionality. If we required a supermajority for amendments, but not ordinary referendums, it could stop the abuse of the amendment process to pass what should be ordinary legislation, subject to constitutional limitations.
I may be mistaken, but making it a constitutional amendment also makes it much, much harder for the legislature to alter it. If there’s a thing called a “constitution,” especially in the US, it’s generally both different and superior to mere legislation. The point of constitutions is to ensure status quo bias; there’s something undesirable about changing fundamental parts of your government when public opinion shifts by a few percentage points, as is likely to be the case with an amendment to repeal prop 8 in the next few years.