Reducing the size of the legislature

Politics Taiwan Politics
1

There seems to be a rare consensus about this one but I’m not convinced, myself.

Currently there are 225 legislators, 16 million voters and 22 million people in Taiwan. Give or take a million. That’s 71,000 voters and 97,000 inhabitants per legislator.

168 of these are elected from multi-member constituencies elected using a single non-transferable vote system. I assume this means there are x seats in the constituency, voters vote for one candidate and the top x candidates are elected (compare single transferable vote system where you vote for candidates in preference 1,2,3,4…x with least popular candidates being knocked out and their votes being transfered to each voter’s number two choice). The STV system makes it possible to vote for a rank outsider without wasting your vote. Imagine if Ralph Nader’s voters had had the chance to place Al Gore as a second choice - no question who would be in the White House and the world would be a safer, more just place. But that’s another story.

Four members are reserved for the aboriginal peoples. Eight are elected from Chinese people living abroad. How the system works I’m not sure.

Forty one members are what are “legislators at large” or “additional members”, basically elected from party lists according to the parties national share of the vote, to ensure proportionality.

The important point here is the 168 constituency members. That’s 130,000 Taiwanese citizens and 95,000 voters per constituency member. That’s means that on average each constituency member has the interests of 130,000 people to look after and be responsive and accountable to. Since the constituencies are multi-member, there are actually many more people than this who could potentially approach you as one of their representatives.

So if I want to lobby my representative, to ask his/her position on an issue, to campaign against my house being bulldozed to make way for a freeway or just to help me in achieving something - access to benefits, challenging a bad employer/bad landlord, etc; suddenly I am going to be competing with twice as many people.

Assuming anyone actually writes to their MPs, or MPs actually do anything for their constituents in Taiwan, that’s going to be twice as many letters dropping into the laps of the administrative staff. Speaking from personal experience working as a researcher (dogsbody/secretary/press officer/ writer/researcher) for an MP in the UK, I know that there at least, MPs do get things done for the people that vote for them (and the people that don’t of course). And the ones who work hard for their constituency as well as playing to the national stage, tend to be the ones that hold on to their seats and increase their majorities.

Maybe I’m trying to draw too many parallels with the UK system which is very different from Taiwan, but I really can’t really see the point in doubling the number of electors to each MP and doubling the workload of those MPs. I was told by one activist that they believed that by reducing the size of the apple cart they would reduce the number of rotten apples. If Taiwan can’t find 225 honourable, responsible, hard working, honest legislators there must be problems. I would think it is better to work on improving the working of the legislature, the democratic procedures and the quality of the candidates than to hope for a cure-all solution such as cutting the number in half.

And why are they doing this now, when they are planning either a comprehensive review of the existing constitution or a completely new one in two years? Surely it should be part of those reforms.

Thoughts?

2

I have been dealing with Taiwanese legislators for over ten years, so I have some experience in seeing what goes on in the Legislative Yuan.

My impression is that a lot of legislators are involved in all sorts of activities that they should be leaving alone . . . . . for example, some member of the public has a problem with a Taiwanese administrative agency . . . . . and asks a legislator to intervene . . . . . in the best of circumstances a “coordination meeting” is held.

But, why is this “coordination meeting” being held? Why can’t the average member of the public deal with these administrative agencies himself/herself and receive fair, honest, legal, and impartial treatment? That is the question that should be asked . . . . . . . so this is just one example of the type of activities that should be taken off of legislators desks altogether . . . . . . and there are many other examples.

On a related matter, the drafting of laws, in my impression it is all a question of horse-trading . . . . . . "Here, you sign on my pet project, and I will sign on yours . . . . . " that kind of thing. In my impression, the legislators are not interested in making clear, effective, or even understandable laws, they are much more concerned with getting this item off their desk, so that they can move on to some other project . . . . . .

Also, to my knowledge, most legislators have far too many “outside interests” and other activities, and when they come into the Legislative Yuan they spend a lot of time arguing . . . . . . . so many people feel that by reducing the number of legislators their efficiency will improve. I would say that I agree with that idea . . . . . . expecially since (as I have suggested to many legislators many times) . . . . . . when members of the public contact the legislators, in my opinion all those contacts should go through the “party office”, and some sort of system should be set up so that you reduce the DUPLICATION OF EFFORT in dealing with all sorts of issues, including the drafting of laws, dealing with administrative agencies, etc.

As it is, if some special interest group wants to have a new law drafted, then they may come up with a proposal, and approach a legislator. He/She may think it is a good idea and assign a staff member or two to do additional research. The interest group, or other groups, may then approach other legislators. So, often as not, what you see is a lot of duplicated effort that is totally unnecessary. There should be one legislator in charge, and everyone else can funnel his/her comments to them . . . . . . but at the present time there is no such concept in the Legislative Yuan. So, this backs up the point of view that there is a tremendous amount of duplicated and wasted effort there.

Additionally, most of the legislators I have met have very little knowledge of law . . . . . and that to me is very disappointing. Often as not, they do not even understand what laws are supposed to do, and in fact many of them cannot understand elementary legal textbooks.

And moreover, most of these people cannot think logically, so they make laws that are illogical. What do you expect?

As I know, the state of Texas has over 21 million people, and 150 representatives in the State Legislature, so I guess 115 or so legislators would be adequate for Taiwan.

3

The point is that 168 of the legislators are elected locally. Their role is not simply to make laws, otherwise there would be no need for local constituencies other than to reduce the number of candidates voters had to sift through.

There are some fights that individuals simply do not have sufficient weight to pick and win. This is where elected representatives come in. If an MP has hundreds of letters on a specific subject, they will carry far more weight than that of one lonely individual fighting his own corner. Not everyone has the know-how to fight battles with corporations, government agencies and the like. If elected representatives don’t help fight people’s battles, who will?

The comparison with the Texas state legislature is not particularly illuminating since Texas is a federal state and Taiwan (unless you believe the PRC) is a country of some description. US citizens in Texas also have representatives in federal House of Representatives and Senate whom they can lobby. I’m not sure if the PRC has representative/delegates for Taiwan as the ROC did for the mainland for many years, but they’re not particularly helpful to the average Taiwanese!

When a constituent contacts his/her representative for help, it is not a party political matter but a request for the elected representative to do his job and help. It doesn’t matter if I vote Conservative, Liberal Democrat or Labour. The member returned for where I live is my MP and it is his job to represent the interests of me and all the constituents (not just those that voted for him) equally. Questions regarding party policy could be forwarded to party officials however.

4

Richard, your description sounds pretty much like politics in the U.S. – Also, to my knowledge, most legislators have far too many “outside interests” and other activities, and when they come into the Legislative Yuan they spend a lot of time arguing…if some special interest group wants to have a new law drafted, then they may come up with a proposal, and approach a legislator…so what’s the difference???

5

Either you are very uninformed about what goes on in the halls of the US Congress, or you are particularly unobservant about what goes on in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan . . . . . . .

6

Well you might be right Jimmy, I do have a job so I don’t have time to hang around the Legislative Yuan nor did I have time to hang around the halls of congress; however, even with my limited grasp on the American system (basically growing up their and studying a few political courses at the university) I have heard of things called special interest groups, pork barrel politics, political ‘contributions,’ and I actually did watch - what is it - CSPAN a few time. Granted it’s not much, but it does sound somewhat similiar to what Richard described. And on a personal note, I have written a letter to a congressman, when I could have ‘went through offical channels’ and he did respond, generating an investigation that probably wasted a ‘relatively’ large amount of money. Oh, and just for the record, he got results and my problem was solved. :wink:

7

[quote=“Hartzell”]
As I know, the state of Texas has over 21 million people, and 150 representatives in the State Legislature, so I guess 115 or so legislators would be adequate for Taiwan.[/quote]

Rather than totally revamp the system, couldn’t they just do away with the non-elected “legislators at large”? You know, the ones who buy their job?

Just a suggestion (with little chance of being enacted).

regards,
Robert

8

I don’t know if legislators at large buy their jobs, but the point of them is to ensure the proportionality of the legislature (that the number of members from each party actually reflects the number of votes they got).

An alternative would be a different form of Proportional Representation such as STV (Single Transferable Vote)

9

Is that really so? I recall when the legislature was being reformed back in the early 90s – the “old thieves” were tossed out and d the thing reelected for the first time in '92 – nobody saying anything abut the at-large seats having anything to do with proportionality. Then they were supposed to represent exactly what they are said now to represent – overseas Chinese and the like. They were seen not as some attempt to reconcile vote share to seat gain but part of the ROC

10

Is that really so? I recall when the legislature was being reformed back in the early 90s – the “old thieves” were tossed out and d the thing reelected for the first time in '92 – nobody saying anything abut the at-large seats having anything to do with proportionality. [/quote]

Legislators at large couldn’t really be anything else - that is unless they were deliberately disproportional.

From the Legislative Yuan website:

[i]1: One hundred and sixty-eight members shall be elected from the Special Municipalities, counties and cities in the free area. At least one member shall be elected from each county and city.

2: Four members each shall be elected from the Mountain and the Plain Aborigines in the free area.

3: Eight members shall be elected from among the Chinese citizens residing abroad.

4: Forty-one members shall be elected from the nation wide constituency.

Members of provisions 3 and 4 of the preceding guidelines shall be elected according to a formula of proportional representation among political parties.[/i]