Local offices in a multi party republic in America

 Americans often have pride in the idea of America being a federal state, one where sovereignty is directly vested from the people in both the federal and state governments and prize decentralization. 

Given the true vastness of America, 330 million people, the fourth largest country in the world with 9.8 million square kilometres or 3.8 million square miles, fifty states, ranging from the population of Wyoming, to the median of about 4,558,234 people, and a median area of 151,953 sq km or 57,093 sq miles, each with so many different cultures, many with strong minority languages besides English, and their respective histories, this is likely for the best. 

Good reforms have come at the state level, but often, people see their states anymore as politically competitive and have less trust that they will follow the will of their people. Ballotpedia has a map of trifectas, where the same party controls both houses of the state legislature (or the state senate in the case of Nebraska, always the exception), and it looks like this: 

States also independently elect a governor, an attorney general, and a secretary of state, with a few odd exceptions as well. They also can elect lieutenant governors independently of the governor, although only a few states actually end up with different lieutenant governors, notably Louisiana and North Carolina right now. 

Many states also have supermajorities in the state legislature, usually 2/3 but not always (a few states have it at 3/5, and a couple more have it at a majority vote again). 

Here are the states where the margin of winning in the electoral college had the winner had no more than 55%, which as I calculated, adds up to 242 (Nebraska and Maine divide up their electoral votes by district which makes this less good as a mode of comparison but the number of state it affects is limited):

Municipalities are often much worse. They tend to have insufficient diversity of geography that makes even a balance of power often untenable. Even mayors with a strong veto needing 2/3 to override and the sole right to nominate many of the official offices are often able to be overridden by a council that normally has a supermajority, if not zero seats for the minority. Sometimes mayors can be different from the council like Mayor Rudy Giuliani in New York, but it's still generally not a very competitive system by party affiliation and thus the connection to the rest of the country and the degree to which people trust that their elected officers will work for them. If not for the primaries and ballot initiatives and sometimes recalls, many would likely still be under machine politics.

Many state supreme courts are also partisan, which is certainly a strange thing to see if you aren't very familiar with the process, and even still then it's an oddity. Non partisan elections are better, but still personality dominated and people generally do know of their affiliation. Retention elections with a commission can reduce this, but the appointers are still not generally very diverse and often have the legislators coming from one party, and sometimes judges do get into trouble with voters in systems which are too partisan from the outside.

This is fixable. 

Let's recap the system I've proposed in the other posts: Single positions, that would be mayors, district attorneys, public defenders, the sheriff, the county clerk, the city clerk, governors, other state executives in most case aside from boards and commissions, and in general, positions where the power to exercise the power is held by a single person, would be elected by a ranked ballot by instant runoff voting. Any multi member bodies would be elected by single transferable vote. Primaries for each use the same system, unless the elected position is non partisan in which case there is no primary, just the general election and whoever files a petition to run. Districts normally are around 5 members each, ranging from 3-7, drawn by an independent commission by mathematical and demographic criteria but no partisan criteria. Once elected, anyone on multi member bodies like a legislature or commission elects their officers and members of committees and committee officers, as well as their party's officers like a majority or minority leader, by secret ballot by single transferable vote for multi member positions like committees and by instant runoff voting for single positions like speaker, president, or chair, or leader. Parties also have the same function. If one candidate runs, or only as many file as there are seats to fill, the question is a yes or no by secret ballot.

That should immediately get anything multi member to have at least enough seats from the minority party or parties to prevent a supermajority going for any party, so that means that most vetoes of governors and mayors will be considerably more important. It also means that many state constitution legislative proposals for amendment will need more support than just one party can provide. 

That should also provide a considerable check on the power of many long term legislative leaders like the speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, Mike Madigan, in power for all but two years since 1983, by likely making their caucus or conference quite diverse, likely including many geographic areas and all the subgroups among them that includes like Black Republicans or suburban and particularly rural Democrats. It also makes their negotiating position in the state legislature weaker in the face of a governor who if popular is likely able to use their veto successfully, and it means their control over legislators is far weaker, and probably sees the rise of more influential majority and minority leaders over legislative speakers and presidents, but both waning to the backbench. 

Long term legislators also face tough challenges and will need to win a general election, likely against both their other parties, and any independents, but also within the party, at the same time, and no matter how they win, they will often need transfer votes from voters supporting other candidates to win, likely a mix of voters from their own party and others. The Chicago City Council Finance Committee Chair Edward Burke would likely have major problems continuing in office since (checks notes) 1969.

Over time, it is likely that the smaller parties will grow and factions within both the Democrats and Republicans will split or join them and run on their specific ticket, over time likely meaning no party has an absolute majority. The speaker or president's rulings will necessarily become either multi party in scope or often be overruled by a majority. Your party's lock on the legislative agenda also diminishes and any legislative group that can get the votes for a discharge petition or to overrule the speaker can force their way in, and even if they fail to pass the bill, they may succeed in forcing the other parties to put themselves on record. Governors may also be forced to use their veto in this knowledge that their names will be forever tied to them, and can't rely on the legislative party to kill a bill. 

Legislative leaders also won't be able to have their hold on being able to promise things to those in their caucus who vote for them, and have less to punish wayward members with. Their ability to continue to win the votes in their caucus to win is likely to diminish and it shouldn't surprise you if the caucus ditches their nominee for speaker or president, leader or a whip or chair, and large factions don't necessarily vote for them even if they win. 

Those who want the governorship or any singular positions is also likely in trouble if they depend only on their own party's partisans. They have to build a grand alliance and get support from transfer votes from candidates who don't meet the benchmark, so while they may be chosen by a single party, they also aren't necessarily going to ally with them all the time in order to get those few extra percentage points to reach a majority. For many of their powers, proposing the budget, approving appointments, vetoes if a governor, and other political decisions, they will also need to work with more legislative partners than just their own party to avoid that fate. 

Governors and mayors, facing the need to be often cross party to succeed at all, and so is more distant from their home party, face higher primary challenge risks, and even if the challenge fails, it may show they aren't popular enough to win reelection. They may also fully abandon their party if times change, and parties also have to work knowing that governors won't always be on their side as much and have to appeal mostly to the general electorate and to enough of a conviction proof faction in the state senate to stay in power, so they have more reasons to support a primary challenger. Governors and mayors likely face a much higher chance of being primaried out or defeated, or refuse to run again to save face, so expect a lot more one term governors, and possibly non consecutive terms too.  

These local and state officials also have to deal with multi party structures and a balance between so many elected and appointed officials that face much tougher confirmation hearings that won't be a partisan rubber stamp at other levels, so states will face less automatically cooperative municipalities, states face less cooperative federal governments, and each individual state deals with less cooperative other states, so relying on a solid alliance of any of these for your own ends is going to be hard. 

Appointed officials also become more liable to being impeached and convicted, as their numbers of party supporters in either house dips below 1/3 in most cases for conviction and a majority coalition or party may have the votes to begin the impeachment. That could also make the lieutenant governors more important as political alternatives to governors, even the ones of the same party. Local officials may also face more discipline if they are elected, such as Kim Davis whose only means of constitutional removal midterm was an impeachment and conviction by the state legislature. 

Most states also have recall petitions at some level and about half at the state level. Those are simple enough for singular positions like a governor, you need a majority to win them to override the majority vote necessary to elect them, but they also would apply to legislators. How do you design it with this in mind, STV's ability to protect the minority? Well, one option is to make it so that if you get enough votes as would be necessary to elect you in the same election, so a legislator from a 3 member district has a quota of 25%+1, and so if they in a recall election get at least that many in favour of their retention, they stay in office. 

Many states and localities have direct ballot questions, some mandatory like in almost every state minus Delaware, the need to approve of constitutional and usually municipal charter questions by referendum, many tax questions need authorization from voters, some legislatures refer questions to voters, which may also act as a bypass against an uncooperative governor, and still others are veto referendums against legislation passed, and more are able to be initiated by a popular petition. As no one party is likely to have an absolute majority, let alone a supermajority, amending the state constitution on your own partisan proposal is less likely to work, and a legislative proposal for a law will normally need at least one other party or a few independents to pass. Once passed, most states have rules regarding how and when a state legislature can amend a balloted law, most of which would deny a single party in a multi party system from being able to do that and so the normal way is to either find a few technical details to fix them while keeping the spirit or to refer the amendments back again to popular vote, or need a very large majority to fix the issue, usually the governor's stamp of approval, and they all would face significant risks if this was done to deliberately undermine the law. 

Most of these elections also gets a big spike in how many people file to run. Most people will need to have opinions about many more people in the election, but also, those who have been excluded in the past for not having their views be in their area to be competitive would suddenly be turbofranchised. As John Oliver put it in the 2014 elections, about a quarter of state legislative positions were uncontested in the general election. That should be almost zero given the new rules in that by filing to run, you don't always throw out a single incumbent, you may join them on the same team and could mutually depend on each other for support in the election.

Judicial elections would also become quite interesting. We may see more people filing to run in the electoral kind with multiple candidates, so seeing the judicial viewpoints of maybe five people where just two, maybe three, did so before, could become quite the debate, and as usual for ranked ballots, you need more support than just a single base. Retention elections will be interesting too, with a diverse senate usually confirming the appointments to the commission in the first place, the governor often being replaced more often so fewer of any one governor's picks will be on the commission, and with parties fractured into maybe something like the biggest party only having 28% of the legislative seats, you are going to need to work hard to keep your majority necessary building coalitions of voters, or else have a reputation for neutrality and have many parties respecting you regardless of party. 

There are thousands of legislative seats in any election, and hundreds of thousands of local officials. In a multi party system with so many viewpoints and backgrounds of any faction of America able to reasonably win and hold power, will you become one of them one day?