Unanimous vote requirement
Political ·Saturday February 27, 2010 @ 17:56 EST (link)
Would there be any negatives to requiring legislative votes to be unanimous rather than just a simple majority?
Certainly it would not be perfect—if enough horse-trading took place, they could still conspire to mulct the voters.
But it would slow the speed of government growth and spending, to be sure. It would not slow down the mechanisms in emergencies (or, at least, whoever did slow it down in those cases would be shamed and ousted). Yes, it would give nay votes more power; but (as Heinlein proposes near the end of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress) it should be harder to add new regulations and spend people's money than to not do so.
How would repeals be handled? Heinlein also proposed that repealing should be easier. For one, each and every law (or regulation, or tax—everything under federal control that coerces anyone to do anything at all) should have a sunset provision not to exceed two years (even, to avoid exceptions piling upon exceptions, things like federal murder statutes: nobody's going to oppose them, and it doesn't matter if they do because every state has laws against murder anyway). With this provision, again it only takes one no vote to repeal a law when it comes up for renewal.
If a straight repeal (with no riders whatsoever) comes before the legislature, should it still require unanimity? In defense of such a requirement is consistency, the possibility of repealing it at the sunset which will be within two years, and the fact that within the past two years largely the same group (given term lengths and the historical odds of incumbents being reelected) unanimously voted to pass it. Against it are some of the same arguments: if it required unanimity to pass a law three months ago, why does it not require unanimity to retain it—why the incongruous one-way ratchet?
I would also suggest that votes should be made all at the same time and secret until all present have voted, so that nobody need be the first no vote and take the fall for others that would vote no. (This would be a good idea now too; frequently a party will let its more conservative or liberal members—depending on the party of course—abstain or vote against a bill to help them in their districts, even if they would prefer to vote for it and will vote for similar legislation odious to their constituents when called on to do so by the party machine.)
We can take a look at past votes and see how many were unanimous or as nearly enough as to be potentially convertible. Less legislation appears to always be a positive thing. Even better would be a legislature constrained to never infringe on individual right to life, liberty, or property (of course, it would be voluntarily funded and spending would be in regard to donated funds, since taxation—force—would be impossible); and the next step would be to eliminate the body entirely.
