The American government, for all intents and purposes, is melting down. 

 For those of you who do not obsessively follow everything that happens in Washington, DC, a brief summary. On Sept. 25, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) announced he would be resigning his leadership and Congressional seat on October 30. On October 8, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the front-runner for the Speaker position, announced that he would no longer be seeking the seat either — most politics nerds agree it was because he did not have enough support in the Republican Party, but there is also a chance that he had an affair with another member of Congress. Of the 247 Republicans, roughly 40 or 50 are members of the so-called Freedom Caucus, a quasi-Tea Party group within the Republican Party formed in 2015 that refuses to support any Speaker candidate who may negotiate with President Obama. 

It is not in the Democrats’ interest to help elect a moderate Republican speaker. The only candidate that all Republicans like, Paul Ryan (R-WI), has made it very clear that he will not run. Until a new Speaker is elected, John Boehner cannot legally step down. The United States is approaching a government shutdown at the end of October and is very close to hitting the debt ceiling in November.

 Even though I love American politics, I think the way Congress is structured is deeply flawed, and the issues within its organization actually lead to the dysfunction we are facing right now. There are four key problems with how American government functions that I believe need to be changed: the system of first-past-the-post elections, the relative power of the two houses of Congress, the set election cycle and the dominance of two political parties due to the first-past-the-post electoral system.

 In the United States, we use a first-past-the-post system. Whoever gets the most votes in a district wins everything, and the proportion of one party to another in the House or Senate does not have to match the proportion of the overall support for the party in the state or country. Using a more proportional system would be an easy fix, as the ideological makeup of Congress would more closely match that of the American people, at both the national and state level. Congresspeople would run to represent the whole state but have many congresspeople per state, or, in larger states, certain diverse regions of the state.

 Very few democratic states with two legislative houses give equal weight to both houses. For example, in Ireland, the Dail — the Irish version of the House of Representatives — is a proportional house that creates legislation while the Seanad — the Irish version of the Senate — is made up of people nominated by the universities and specialists in various fields and institutions and only has the power to delay legislation. The two houses have distinct, different roles and functions; one legislates and the other, the body made up of specialists and experts, advise. They are not in competition with each other in the same way that the House and Senate are.

 I believe we should also get rid of the set election cycle. I am calling not for ending democratic elections but rather for looking at the British model. In the United Kingdom, there can be no more than five years between two elections, but elections can happen more frequently for example, if the majority party implodes or has a leadership crisis. 

That way, the people have the opportunity to elect new leaders who they believe are more efficient or, if they like their representative to re-elect them and keep faith in the majority. Campaigns are shorter and less expensive, so elected officials do not have to spend as much time fundraising and can be more focused on governance. While British government is not as polarized as American government, the ideological difference between Tories and Labour has been steadily widening, and the UK has very right-wing groups like the United Kingdom Independence Party and the British National Party.

 Estimates place between thirty to forty percent of the American people as independents, or that they do not support either major party. Within parties, there is further fracturing, as we can see in the Republican Party right now. It is, frankly, ridiculous to expect people to condense their multi-faceted identities and ideologies to fit into a single, broad party, but it is also very hard for third parties to gain any prominence. Restructuring electoral systems to make it easier for third -party candidates to get elected could help. A single transferable vote system, like Ireland has, would help. 

Voters would rank their candidates by preference. If their first-choice candidate hit a certain vote threshold before their vote was counted, their vote would be transferred to their second choice candidate, and so forth. Smaller parties have an opportunity to gain more supporters and have a better chance of winning a seat or some representation.

 Obviously, the United States is a large and complicated country, and no single fix would be easy to implement or would even work. However, I do believe that these reforms could make a difference how Congress works or, as it is right now, doesn’t work.