What do you all think of the chances of the Pan-Greens to gain a majority in the legislature in the year-end elections?
Also, how would halving the number of legislators help the DPP’s chances? Would it be easier then to field enough quality candidates?
As things stand now, the most likely outcome will be a fairly even balance between the pan-greens and pan-blues, with a small number of so-called independents up for sale to the highest bidder.
But there’s a long time between now and the elections, and a lot could happen to swing the uncommitted voters either one way or the other. The surest way for the pan-blues to alienate a large swathe of potential supporters will be to keep on behaving as they’ve been doing since the election. I wonder if they’ll cotton on to that soon enough to avoid doing irreparable damage to their chances?
And, of course, keeping Lien as chairman will be sure to cost the KMT at least several hundred thousand votes that might go to a party led by someone more electorally palatable, such as Wang or Ma.
Don’t be misled by this razzmatazz about halving the number of legislators. I know papers, including my own, have portrayed the bill that failed just before the presidential election as a bill to cut the number of legislators. But that was not, as we latterly tried to make clear, the important part of the bill. Taiwan’s representation is based on one legislator per 100,000 people. The UK has one MP per 80,000 or so, so it is just BS to say that Taiwan has too many legislators. What IS important is that the bill also was going to change the way that legislators were elected. Taiwan’s multi-member district, single vote system is notoriously given to electoral malpractice. In a big constituency such as Taipei county you can get elected winning only a 3% of the total vote. This makes a legislative seat both cheap enough and easy enough for the deep-pocketed to buy and in the 90s there were several notorious cases of guys in trouble with the law doing just that
Lol: Thank-you so much for your post. I learned a lot.
I would like to see the electoral law changed to single member constituencies (but with a PR system - personally I like the MMP system we have in NZ), but I don’t think the number of legislators really needs to be cut.
And New Zealand has about 1 per 30000, so Taiwan’s ratio is quite reasonable.
Brian
The point about reducing the number of legislators is that their quality is so low, and their contribution to society so negative (as Lee Yuan-tseh said, they’re “dragging the country down”), that people have come to feel that the fewer of them there are, the better. It’s a simple enough equation: fewer legislators = less mischief, less grandstanding, less sowing the seeds of conflict in society. To some extent, it’s hard to disagree with that.
Moreover, the fewer there are, the easier it will be for the media and the public to keep tabs on the performance of each – it’ll be harder for the lamest ones to remain hidden among the crowd, their neglect or abuse of their responsibilities obscured by the smoke and noise emitted by their colleagues.
However, I don’t see any reason why the formula for reduction should be arbitrarily set at halving their number, or any other such random figure (I like the number 140, but on no more solid grounds than those put forward in favour of the halving). I see reduction as good in itself, but probably not to such a large degree as proposed. Perhaps the appropriate number should be reached through careful assessment of the minimum required to fulfil the functions of the Legislative Yuan effectively without too much overlap of responsibilities, especially in the all-important standing committees.
I agree wholeheartedly that the most important target is to change to a system of single-member constituencies, and I like the idea of the two votes (one for person, one for party). There should also be a thorough overhaul of legislative procedures, and the introduction of a system of ethics that requires legislators to behave with at least a bare modicum of decency (especially in the interpellation of government officials – there is no justification for the rudeness and baiting that we currently witness on a daily basis, which not only makes good people reluctant to accept public office but also, I believe, has a pernicious effect in undermining civility throughout society).
** Draft comments by the US President, for promulgation after Taiwan comes under United States administrative authority**
Hartzell or anyone know back when the US population was only 23 million how many legislators there were?
call me dumb but i dont think richards numbers mean anything…america is a federal system so the people are also represented at state level within state legislatures (pls correct me if im wrong)…or am i missing something here?
census.gov/population/census … ble-16.pdf
That would be 1850
census.gov/population/census … pportn.pdf
The method for representation in the House of Rep.
Yikes, you right. Richard’s post is not relevant to today’s Taiwan and I missed where he prefaced it with the heading “Draft comments by the US President, for promulgation after Taiwan comes under United States administrative authority”.
What are some typical numbers for “representation” at the state level, and how that is proportioned?
In the USA, what is comparable for Taiwan? Texas perhaps?
HAHAHAHA!!
You sock it to 'em Mr. Winner!!
Hahaha…stop, yer killin’ me here…
He’s hilarious, isn’t he! I nearly split my sides with laughter at that one. Who’d have thought that such a wicked sense of humour could reside behind a visage like his? 
Yes it was almost as funny as Lu claim that she was the main target of the assassination. Oh Pres. Chen claim that he was once a political prisioner once.
You guys see Pres Chen cry like a little girl on TV a few years back when he was mayor of Taipei, claiming his limp arm was the reason he couldn’t be drafted.
I especially like the joke of him where he’s on the operating table calling his wife. I mean give this man a Oscar or Golden Horse award already.
As for reforming the Legislation Yuan of Taiwan. I think you cannot compare it to the USA federal system of states. You might be able to draw parrallel to a state congress in the US. But each state in the USA has their own system of state congress which draws upon how a district is draw in that state.
In the case of Taiwan it would mean an overhaul of the entire system. How seat are determined and candidates selected. I don’t even want to try to discuss how one would redistrict Taiwan. Population, ethniticity, political parties, it is just a can of worms.
Would DiaoYuTai get a representative without Japan protesting?
It wouldn’t be all that difficult to map out new boundaries for the requisite number of single-member constituencies – certainly not so difficult as to constitute a reason for leaving it undone.
It could be put in the hands of an independent committee of academics and/or judges, to avoid making it a subject of dispute between political parties. There are plenty of models in other countries, such as the Boundary Commission for England, that could be referred to in designing an appropriate mechanism for carrying it out.
Diaoyutai would not need to be considered for representation because there are no people living there to be represented.
Omniloquacious,
The the base assumption is that Taiwan has the political maturity to enact this without it becoming some sort of nightmarish nonsense.
“independent committee of academics and/or judges”
Oh my, they can’t even find one of these to resolve the current election dispute. I doubt they will find one of these in the near future.
“Diaoyutai would not need to be considered for representation because there are no people living there to be represented.”
Stranger things have happened on Taiwan.
There is no need to form any kind of committee to resolve any matter related to the presidential election. The Central Election Commission and the courts are doing an excellent job of dealing with all disputes and lawsuits arising therefrom, and can be trusted to deliver completely objective and fair decisions that anyone with the slightest sense of what the rule of law means should accept without demur.
amen to that…if only the weasels could be made to agree