COMBATIVE CONGRESS BOOK EXPLORES PARTY PRIMARIES AS BLOCK TO INNOVATION AND PROBLEM SOLVING

Cattle Chute or Closed Party Primaries

Number of Parties by Country

Combative Congress front cover

AUSTIN, TX, UNITED STATES, April 8, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ — Published by Solve American Gridlock LLC of Austin, Texas, the book Combative Congress, Your Voice! Your Power! is available on Amazon https://a.co/d/7TSHC5N. It analyzes how three important restrictions to fresh competition for the existing two political parties impede progress on major issues and what can be improved.

Combative Congress develops the closed party primary system as a key barrier to new ideas and innovative policies. It virtually ensures that a candidate from each of the two powerful parties will advance through the primary process – the chute or gateway – and that one or the other will be elected in the general election. This often has the effect of returning the same candidates and the same ideas to the halls of Congress each election.

The book also develops two other major blocks to new competition, fresh ideas, and problem solving in Congress. They are gerrymandering with the safe seats it creates and candidates winning primaries with less than a majority vote. Multi-member districts and ranked choice voting are proposed as corrections.

This book analyzes why Congress has only two parties and proposes needed changes in our electoral systems that will open competition to more parties and a much more civil and productive Congress. Other important countries have an average of 3.9 parties.

Combative Congress addresses a serious and complex topic in ways that make reading it pleasant. This nonpartisan book is unique in that its appeal stretches from a high school student to a professor, from a young housewife to a retired chemical engineer, and more. It was written to be concise and readable in less than three hours with some humor; it has 33 color graphs and photographs to implant images of concepts in the reader’s mind; and it has short chapters and good references.

National constitutions have lasted an average of only 17 years since 1789. America’s Constitution has lasted over 230 years. The book points out the need for continued vigilance.

In 2014, about 94% (https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Congress_elections,_2014) of incumbent congressional candidates were returned to office, but the approval rate for Congress was around 15% (https://news.gallup.com/poll/180113/2014-approval-congress-remains-near-time-low.aspx). How in the world can that be? The answer is that we have broken electoral systems.

Solve American Gridlock LLC is located in Austin, Texas. Its primary focus is educating citizens about improvements that can be made in the methods used to elect members of Congress.

Tom Mast is the founder of Solve American Gridlock and lives in Austin, Texas. He is a retired engineer with degrees from The University of Texas, Stanford, and the Harvard Business School. He served as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, spent his career in manufacturing and engineering management, and has long been interested in our country’s polarization, the duopoly in our Congress and its causes, and what improvements we can encourage.

Tom Mast
Solve American Gridlock LLC
combativecongress@masts.us