The political party system is underused. In practice, you always keep control of the Senate, and you play the whole game with the same party. It would be a lot more fun if you could switch parties and get the bonuses of whatever party is in power. So if you want to go to war, you switch to War Party. But then, if switching parties is useful, there's no penalty for losing control of the Senate, and no incentive to keep your approval rating above 50%.

Also, it seems like the only difference between 100% and 51% approval is population growth. So if you don't need more population, there isn't any incentive to keep your approval rating above 51%.

Here's my idea:

1. Get rid of the Senate screen.
2. When you research a certain government tech, you can switch parties at election time. A more advanced government tech, and you can switch parties at will.
3. You get the benefits of whatever party is in power. So you are no longer playing an executive who belongs to a party -- you are playing the civilization, or maybe the power behind the politicians.
4. Approval affects how much of the party bonuses you get. I suggest (A-50)*2. So if you have 100% approval, you get the full bonuses of the party in power. 75% approval and you get half the bonuses, 50% and you get no bonus, 25% you get half the bonus as penalty, and 0% you get the full bonus as penalty. This makes sense because below 50% approval people will start to do the opposite of what the ruling party tells them.