To the Editor,

In response to “Colton man calls for post shutdown elections,” I understand Mr. Hassig’s frustration with the present state of affairs caused by the government’s shutdown.

His call for elections once the shutdown is over sounds like an excellent idea, however, our form of government doesn’t permit this. If we had a parliamentary form of government, a “no confidence” vote would be taken, and if it succeeded, elections would be called.

Every seat in the parliament would be involved, and the party winning a majority would be asked to form a government, with the leader of the party becoming prime minister. If there isn’t a majority, usually the party winning the largest number of seats would form a coalition with one or more other parties and a coalition government would be formed.

An advantage of this form of government is that usually the parliament and head of government are from the same party and aren’t forced to work at cross-purposes.

Calling a (national) general election is just not possible in the United States under our present form of government and changing it to a parliamentary form of government is highly unlikely.

Penelope Hernandez

Waddington