2008 Thought Exercise - How to disarm the "one party rule" is bad theme

[fob]

I can't recall how many times I heard our fellow Democrats on the TV or radio say that "one party rule is bad, we need change, etc". Now I understand the reason for saying it, it's fucking TRUE, FOR bush*republicks!

Every time I heard it I would scream NOOOOO! Don't say "one party rule is bad", say the "republicks obviously cannot handle power with only their party in control", or "republick party total rule is bad because (insert any 3 of 1000 reasons here)", or "you know there have been instances of one party rule where the one party was the Democratic Party and it got us (insert any 3 of 1000 good things it got us)".

You get the point.

Anyway I bring this up because now with the control of the House and Senate, our 2008 Nominee is going to have to also have a GREAT explanation for why people should once again vote for ONE PARTY CONTROL!

Set thinking cap to ON...

Thanks in advance for participating,


fob

[Ian David]

1. This is why we need maintain an independent judiciary

So that even if one party gains a huge advantage, the Judicial Branch makes sure they still obey the rule of law.

Of course, when the Republickers had a one-party rule, they immediately started to attack this.

[kenny blankenship]

2. One party rule and the objections raised to it

had to do with changes to traditional House rules which had long existed to bring majority and minority together in compromise, thus avoiding extremist Reigns of Error. Under the Delay-Hastert phase of Republicans, Democrats were denied usual participation in committees allowed to the minority party, couldn't call their own witnesses, forced to vote on proposals they hadn't even seen, etc.--it's a topic worth some time for you to research.

It's just more technical than you're talking about. It also extends to other fronts like the K-Street project of former Rep. Tom Delay--a purge of lobbying firms and corporate liaison offices to ensure only Republicans were employed to lobby Congress, thus shutting down flows of campaign contributions to Democrats.

On top of that, you don't have One Party Gov't when the Congress is held by one party and the Executive is held by another. But even if that were the case, the objection isn't to voters voting to have a Republican President and a Republican House and Senate, but to changes in rules by the party in power to make All Of Washington DC, hostile and forbidding to non-party members, considering lobbying and legal firms together with the superstructure of elected offices as one organism. When a party breaks down the rules established to encourage multi party democracy in order to permanently monopolize power for itself, that's a One Party System, like Nazi Germany or various Banana Republics throughout history, and that's what was objected to.

[fob]

4. You bring up the obvious more highly-technical aspects of "one-party rule"

and you are correct, it is much more than I am talking about but all that part that is "much more" is lost in our soundbyte world and in the context of the situation in which it was brought up by Dems in the media. Their context wasn't the highly technical aspects, although it was discussed and in some cases (the pukular option) actually highly debated, but it was more a quick linie to get the point to the public, "you need to vote for Dems, because the repukes control all branches and it's bad for one party to have that much power".

I'm not saying we'll have one party government when the Dems take the reigns of congress and the head repuke still stains the Oval Office, what I'm saying is if we are going to want a Democratic President in 2008 that puts us head on course with a "Dems said one party rule is bad, better elect either a republick pretzeldent or republick congresscritter" in 2008. That's the issue. This Dem congress has 2 years to show they can handle the power, do good and not piss all over the rulebook, so there is a way to say, "one party rule isn't bad if it's Democrats who want, can and will make government WORK and WORK WELL.

[Stinky The Clown]

3. You raise an excellent point ......

..... and I have long had an idea about how it could work. And maybe with a majority in Congress, we can see it happen.

Actually, in one form or another, it used to exist.

The notion is VERY simple.

Allow the minority party to have their (reasonable, non-entrapment, 'gotcha') bills brought to the floor for votes. In other words, in a cautious, contolled way, share some degree of power.