Chicxulub
Banned
The same way legislatures of all sizes function...
Not at all.
China's legislature has 2,987 members, though China is a single-party Communist state, while that Russia is a multi-party state.
The same way legislatures of all sizes function...
Not at all.
How can a legislature that large actually function?
China's legislature has 2,987 members, though China is a single-party Communist state, while that Russia is a multi-party state.
That's a cool scenario! I'd be interested in seeing the next election, after the 2000 census reapportions the EVsFrom the same series as my previous post, the 1996 election. The issues remain largely the same, though things are starting to return to normal. The Republicans run a Dole/Buchanan ticket in a campaign that be described as a second "return to normalcy" as Harding did way back when, but Clinton's measures have been popular, and the conservative baggage brought on Buchanan hurts more than helps this cycle.
One interesting thing to note is a major lawsuit filed over whether or not Congressional districts should be redrawn to reflect the death toll or not. Not all states were hit equally. In a unanimous decision, however, the Supreme Court rules that using the outdated figures is inherently better than "eyeballing" adjustments, and while the figures are clearly not perfect, they are the most legal numbers.
President Bill Clinton (D-AR)/Vice President Jerry Brown (D-CA) - 303 EV/52.7% PV
Senator Bob Dole (R-KS)/Representative Pat Buchanan (R-VA) - 235 EV/46.8% PV
Welcome to the Federation of British Social Republics.
Nobody remembers quite what sparked the Revolution—perhaps the King (or was it Queen?) wished to assert their royal prerogatives and become an absolute monarch again, and the People responded. Perhaps Parliament, grown corrupt and bloated on the fruits of the workers’ labor, decided that it was time they stayed in power for good. Perhaps it was the lack of reform that caused the Revolution; perhaps it would have happened anyways.
Regardless of why, the Revolution occurred. Tens of thousands took to the streets. Workers threw bricks through windows and police, farmers dusted off long-forgotten hunting rifles and made use for them once more. Eventually, the soldiers themselves, perhaps frustrated at a withholding of pay from the panicking government, turned their bayonets on the bourgeoise and forced the King from his throne.
The question then, of course was one of kingship. Who would take the abandoned throne? Who would rule in Arthur’s place? It was decided (nobody knows by whom) that there would be no king, no queen. The People alone would determine the course of the Nation, and who better knew the will of the People than those who had been at the vanguard of its expression? Thus came to be the Social Republics, and the Federation, a socialist utopia under the watchful eye of the Party — the only Party.
The Federation is very quiet abroad—like its fraternal socialist comrades in the International, it espouses world revolution, but does not make any particular effort to make it a reality, unlike the Communalist French. Their main opponent is the Dominion of Canada, holding what remains of the Royal Family and often attempting to foment revolution in the Federation, which always fails, for they can never seem to quite find enough conspirators or garner enough support to finally replace the Party.
The Federation is also very quiet at home; too quiet, some might say. There is no agitation from liberal reformists wishing a new Britain, no conservatives quietly plotting a coup. Nobody is plotting anything. There is only planning, planning for the State and under the State’s direction. The State has its watchful eyes on you, always. Everything that you do in your life is for the benefit of the State, for the benefit of your fellow workers. You cannot change this. Planting a private garden? You must first acquire seeds from the State, after establishing a proper reason and motive for doing so, in triplicate. The People of the Federation resign themselves to carrying this burden, and do so with a fine British stiff lower back (upper lip was deemed too aristocratic). What else can they do?
To call the Federation and its Republics democratic would be highly misleading. Technically, yes, there are elected MFAs (Members of the Federal Assembly) and their Republic-level and local-level equivalents, but only Party members may vote, and only for Party members, and Party membership is extremely exclusive. There are factions within the Party such as the Syndicalists (in favor of a union-run state), the Greens (localists who advocate decentralization to the Republic level), the Marxists (hard-line communists who advocate a full dictatorship of the proletariat), and the Anarchist Coalition (anarchists of all stripes), but the mainstream of the Party, whose ideology is essentially just technocracy with socialist tendencies, has held a majority in the 500-member Federal Assembly since its inception, allowing it to govern permanently. Chancellors, chosen in the same manner as Prime Ministers used to be (it is assumed; nobody is quite sure), are effectively rulers-for-life, as the Party will never leave power, and very rarely takes a risk on a change.
The outside world knows little of the Federation—outsiders are rarely allowed access anywhere but the Federal District of London, and there it is still uncommon to see any but a Frenchman outside of the Foreign Quarter. Thus, their maps are still based upon pre-Revolution ones, and their knowledge of the Federation’s inner workings is little to none. And that’s just the way the Party (and thus the People, and thus the Nation) like it.
That's a cool scenario! I'd be interested in seeing the next election, after the 2000 census reapportions the EVs
Rights of No Passage: 1996
Here's a wikibox/electoral map that I've been doing instead of homework, which I imagine coming from the same world as my Communist Confederacy World. This map shows the inciting incident for the 1893 General Strike and the May Revolution, which swept the Labor Party into power.
Some notes:
The Republican party, after losing the war and permanently splitting into two parties, the Radical and the Liberal parties, was more or less kept out of federal politics for years, allowing for the Democrats to maintain a de facto one party rule. This began to change when the Radicals coopted or were co opted by the emerging worker's movement (who co opted whom is a question historians quibble over but hardly anyone cares) So by the 1890s, the Radical-Labor, or Labor party was poised to sweep into power. They weren't able to get enough electoral votes, and thus the election was thrown to Congress, where Democrats and Liberals worked together to ensure that they stay in power. This...was unpopular.
And the electoral map by itself:
[/QUOTE]
Oh damn. That's interesting shite. My one strife is that if any party's gonna split, it's gonna be the treacherous Democratic Party, who literally have had half of their party betray the US.
[quote="prime-minister, post: 12289519"][B]2000
[/B]The mood of the inauguration of Tom Carper as the 42nd President of the United States on January 20, 1997 was sombre. Tsongas, whilst someone who ideological liberals and conservatives were very split on, was something of a hero to the Republican Party for an electoral landslide, their best showing in Congress since the late 1940s, and a victory against all the odds that proved their agenda was viable in and of itself, while leaking votes to more liberal and conservative rivals.
Carper's role in all this had been notably passive. Whilst he made a concerted effort to continue the policies of President Tsongas, continuing a focus on developing the American economy and urging businesses to invest in the US. He had a good reputation as Delaware's State Treasurer during the late 1970s, but there was a simple problem: Carper was nowhere near as ideologically distinctive a figure as Tsongas, and many Americans missed the late President.
This did have an upside. The Democrats badly botched their midterm campaign by presenting Carper as boring and inexperienced. The President was able to articulate this to his advantage, as Democratic voters were largely indifferent while Republicans were incensed by attacks on the policies Carper (and by extension Tsongas) represented. In a major upset, the Republicans increased their majority in the Senate and took the House with a majority of four seats (to the surprise of many, Ralph Nader's Reform Party took six seats in the House).
However, any prospect that Nader might have had to make as much headway in 2000 as he had in 1996 was snuffed out when Carper stunned the nation by picking Maine Governor Angus King as his running mate. Not only was King a radical centrist and open-minded on most issues, he'd been an Independent for seven years. Carper declared that his strategy was 'to bring about a new kind of politics for the new millennium'.
The Democrats effectively decided to fight fire with fire. Their (somewhat reluctant) nominee was Colin Powell, former NSA and four-star US Army general. Powell came with very pronounced advantages: his involvement in founding the socioeconomic rights foundation America's Promise and his successful record on military affairs made him a strong leader, and the possibility of him becoming the first African American President was a far cry from the out-and-out racism of the Democratic Party of years gone by. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle was nominated by the Democrats for Vice President.
The contest was almost as close as 1996. Both parties played to try and capture a spirit of optimism about the future, and emphasized their 'new agenda' almost to the point of ridiculousness; a Steve Bell cartoon which depicted the two Presidential candidates as talking action figures was unsettlingly close to reality.
[IMG]http://uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/genusmap.php?year=2000&ev_c=1&pv_p=1&ev_p=1&type=calc&AL=1;9;5&AK=2;3;5&AZ=1;8;4&AR=1;6;6&CA=2;54;5&CO=2;8;5&CT=2;8;5&DE=2;3;5&DC=1;3;5&FL=1;25;5&GA=1;13;5&HI=2;4;5&ID=2;4;5&IL=1;22;4&IN=2;12;5&IA=2;7;5&KS=2;6;5&KY=1;8;5&LA=1;9;5&MD=2;10;5&MA=2;12;6&MI=1;18;5&MN=2;10;5&MS=1;7;5&MO=1;11;5&MT=1;3;5&NV=1;4;5&NH=2;4;5&NJ=2;15;5&NM=1;5;5&NY=2;33;5&NC=1;14;5&ND=2;3;5&OH=1;21;4&OK=1;8;6&OR=2;7;5&PA=2;23;5&RI=2;4;6&SC=1;8;6&SD=1;3;6&TN=1;11;5&TX=1;32;5&UT=2;5;4&VT=2;3;6&VA=1;13;5&WA=2;11;5&WV=1;5;5&WI=2;11;5&WY=2;3;5&ME=2;2;5&ME1=2;1;6&ME2=2;1;5&NE=1;2;5&NE1=1;1;5&NE2=1;1;5&NE3=1;1;5
Powell/Dashle (Democratic): 271 EVs, 48.8%
Carper/King (Republican): 267 EVs, 48.0%
The election indicated something of a seismic shift in American politics. The tight holds on their respective reasons; the North East for the Republicans, the South for the Democrats; appeared to be cracking. Whilst Dornan had won Mississippi and South Carolina by almost 50 points over the Republicans, Powell only did so by 15. Tsongas had taken New York by over 20 points over Nader and Dornan in 1996; Carper did so by just 4.
The most startling results were in Utah and the District of Columbia. The former had always been strongly conservative, but with both candidates leaving little to choose between, Carper eked out a win there by barely 1%. Similarly, the staunchly liberal District with a high ethnic minority population gave its electoral votes to Powell (a factor that also helped him sway Arizona by a wafer-thin margin), the first time a Democrat had ever won it and leaving Vermont as the only state ever not carried by the party.
These results, however, did not affect the outcome so much as the results in Illinois and Ohio. The results in Cook County, home to Chicago, were heavily split between Powell and Carper (the rather uncomfortable speculation is that the divide was racial), and it was not until a final recount on the 23rd November 2000 that the result, by a margin of only 571 votes across the whole state, was confirmed as a victory for Powell.