The anti-democratic "Electoral College" sticks us with presidents like Bush Jr. and Trump. It is one of many features that mock the promises of one person, one vote, and liberty and justice for all.
The anti-democratic "Electoral College" sticks us with presidents like Bush Jr. and Trump. It is one of many features that mock the promises of one person, one vote, and liberty and justice for all.
And Wyoming, a large, beautiful, yet sparsely populated state, home of the wild and spectacular Wind River Range, elects the same number of US Senators as California.
There are historical reasons for this, but it is unfair to urban populations and a far cry from democracy in the modern world.
I would change the Constitution to eliminate the Electoral College, elect senators proportionately, and mandate truly progressive taxation of all income. Then we might be able to deal with our existential issues effectively. Enough of allowing a selfish, racist minority to push the rest of us around.
The irony is that the Senate is working and functioning in a bipartisan manner, but the House which is supposedly proportional is choked because those proportions can be manipulated at a more local level, such that Republicans control a very disproportionate amount of it.
If the right to vote is considered a foundational human right (legal equality and consent of the governed). How (but for epic corruption) can deliberately or even negligently depriving citizens of the full and fair right to vote be be viewed as deeply corrupt?
David If you could get 3/4 of the states to support your recommended constitutional changes, Houdini would come from his grave to dub you the greatest magician ever.
Neither Wyoming nor Delaware would reverse the Great Compromise [two senators for each state] that resulted in the Constitution. Ditto eliminating the Electoral College.
We need more public discussion of one person, one vote. we have really mucked it up today, although it could be worse and if we let it, could go there. The equal representations of states Senate seems more anachronistic when you consider the difference between the mostly agrarian society of the US in the Framers era with the urban populations of today. That said, as discussed above, the Senate can't be gerrymandered or Electoral Colleged. The electoral College seems the more odious of the two, since the President and Vice President are the one national choice for which all registered citizens can vote, and for whom, all are constituents. Also, given the scale of (often) necessary but highly dangerous-if-misused powers granted to a president, there, above all, "one person, one vote" should rule.
The electoral college impacts voting. How do you convince people that it is important to vote and that their vote counts when the electoral college can override the popular vote??? Gerrymandering doesnтАЩt help either!
I think there are at least two major dynamics at work here. First is that the way we traditionally do things that makes some votes "tr#mp" others, such as which states vote first in presidential primaries. While many minds are made up from the get go , the game is still in play; but the decision is often "made" even before many get to cast their vote.
Secondly, we overemphasize voting as an expression of personal choice when is at least as legitimately a share of societal responsibility, and outcomes that affect not only us and our families, but many, many others, and generally impacts, one way or the other, the already most vulnerable the most. No? And I'm talking about the living. We make decisions now that will also impact generations to come, and even not voting shapes that. Asking how our behavior is likely to affect others is the foundation of a civil society.
And there's more. It felt to me in my youth and it feels to me now that there is far too little good faith inclusion of the priorities of young people in our national dialog. The young don't necessarily have the whole story, but they often provide a fresh "emperor-is-naked" view of our own follies, that can become so familiar to us we no longer notice. In any case, a society that is not a whole society can become it's own worst enemy. At some point solidarity and good faith conversation is foundational for liberty and justice for all.
Oh, and the notion that unlimited money spent to alter political outcomes is the same thing as free speech is an anti-democratic travesty.
The anti-democratic "Electoral College" sticks us with presidents like Bush Jr. and Trump. It is one of many features that mock the promises of one person, one vote, and liberty and justice for all.
And Wyoming, a large, beautiful, yet sparsely populated state, home of the wild and spectacular Wind River Range, elects the same number of US Senators as California.
There are historical reasons for this, but it is unfair to urban populations and a far cry from democracy in the modern world.
I would change the Constitution to eliminate the Electoral College, elect senators proportionately, and mandate truly progressive taxation of all income. Then we might be able to deal with our existential issues effectively. Enough of allowing a selfish, racist minority to push the rest of us around.
The irony is that the Senate is working and functioning in a bipartisan manner, but the House which is supposedly proportional is choked because those proportions can be manipulated at a more local level, such that Republicans control a very disproportionate amount of it.
Add effective and immediate oversight of "gerrymandering" to the election reform bill!
If the right to vote is considered a foundational human right (legal equality and consent of the governed). How (but for epic corruption) can deliberately or even negligently depriving citizens of the full and fair right to vote be be viewed as deeply corrupt?
David If you could get 3/4 of the states to support your recommended constitutional changes, Houdini would come from his grave to dub you the greatest magician ever.
Neither Wyoming nor Delaware would reverse the Great Compromise [two senators for each state] that resulted in the Constitution. Ditto eliminating the Electoral College.
We need more public discussion of one person, one vote. we have really mucked it up today, although it could be worse and if we let it, could go there. The equal representations of states Senate seems more anachronistic when you consider the difference between the mostly agrarian society of the US in the Framers era with the urban populations of today. That said, as discussed above, the Senate can't be gerrymandered or Electoral Colleged. The electoral College seems the more odious of the two, since the President and Vice President are the one national choice for which all registered citizens can vote, and for whom, all are constituents. Also, given the scale of (often) necessary but highly dangerous-if-misused powers granted to a president, there, above all, "one person, one vote" should rule.
The electoral college impacts voting. How do you convince people that it is important to vote and that their vote counts when the electoral college can override the popular vote??? Gerrymandering doesnтАЩt help either!
I think there are at least two major dynamics at work here. First is that the way we traditionally do things that makes some votes "tr#mp" others, such as which states vote first in presidential primaries. While many minds are made up from the get go , the game is still in play; but the decision is often "made" even before many get to cast their vote.
Secondly, we overemphasize voting as an expression of personal choice when is at least as legitimately a share of societal responsibility, and outcomes that affect not only us and our families, but many, many others, and generally impacts, one way or the other, the already most vulnerable the most. No? And I'm talking about the living. We make decisions now that will also impact generations to come, and even not voting shapes that. Asking how our behavior is likely to affect others is the foundation of a civil society.
And there's more. It felt to me in my youth and it feels to me now that there is far too little good faith inclusion of the priorities of young people in our national dialog. The young don't necessarily have the whole story, but they often provide a fresh "emperor-is-naked" view of our own follies, that can become so familiar to us we no longer notice. In any case, a society that is not a whole society can become it's own worst enemy. At some point solidarity and good faith conversation is foundational for liberty and justice for all.
Oh, and the notion that unlimited money spent to alter political outcomes is the same thing as free speech is an anti-democratic travesty.