How to Fix Our Democracy

CharminTide

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It's hard to pick out a unifying story from the midterms, but one observation is deepening polarization: blue areas got bluer and red areas got redder. I don't pretend to know how to bridge that divide, but one consequence of this urban/rural division when combined with the structure of our government means that a minority of citizens has held the majority of federal power for decades. In the last three presidential elections won by the GOP, they've lost the popular vote. And the structure of both the House and Senate give disproportionate power to rural voters. I argue that minority rule represents an unhealthy state in any modern Democracy, and the deepening divisions may even be related to the strain of unbalanced representation.

The rural/urban divide is not an American phenomenon. It happens all over the world. The difference is that our system gives structural advantages to rural parts of the country, which allow them to hold more power than they represent by population balance alone. In the Senate, this is largely by design. In the House, it is due to political choice. The Permanent Appointment Act of 1929 capped the number of representatives in the House, and population dynamics since that time mean that a voter in rural Montana has three times the political power as an urban voter in California. As a result, the House is failing in its designated purpose -- to represent the people of the United States.

In contrast, the Senate is meant to represent states, which largely insulates it from the kind of political manipulation that we see in the House. However, there are 4 million American citizens living in D.C. and Puerto Rico who are taxed by the federal government, yet not permitted to have representation in it. This runs in contrast to the founding principal of the United States, and the continued designation of "district" and "territory" is a political choice that effectively denies these citizens proper representation in our government. If we tax these areas, they deserve Senate and House representation.

Some people have argued that any fundamental changes to our government would require a Constitutional Amendment. I disagree. The concept of a Senate that represents the states and a House that represents the voters is a sound one. The structural issue is a Congressional one, not a Constitutional one. Our system as designed is fine, but it’s been biased against current U.S. population dynamics for so long that’s it’s taken as a given that nothing can ever be done because literally any changes will be seen by the GOP as “unfair.” If Democrats and centrists want to be more fairly represented in the federal government rather than live in a country under constant rule by a minority of voters, they need to address these structural impediments.

1. Automatic voter registration. Tie it to an ID, but make it automatic and free.
2. End gerrymandering. Politicians should never be permitted to choose their voters.
3. Re-balance the House to actually reflect the current U.S. population, and stop using a century-old map.
4. Grant D.C. and P.R. statehood so 4 million Americans aren’t being taxed by a government they aren’t allowed to participate in.

Of course, the GOP would fight any of these changes tooth and nail, but that doesn’t make them unworthy to pursue. There are other changes -- for instance, Florida will allow citizens with prior felony convictions to vote in the next election, which was another (racial) structural check on representative democracy. But these are what I see as the big issues, and fixing the structural imbalance would go a long way to restoring an actual representative government.
 

twofbyc

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Oct 14, 2009
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You left out the source of the problem - money in politics.
Publicly funded campaigns (Beto and Bernie say hi), limit amount with no pac’s allowed.
You will never reform jack squat unless/until this is done because:
The rich (the minority) control our elections and thus our elected officials.
Nothing changes without getting big money out of our elective process.


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CharminTide

Hall of Fame
Oct 23, 2005
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You left out the source of the problem - money in politics.
Publicly funded campaigns (Beto and Bernie say hi), limit amount with no pac’s allowed.
You will never reform jack squat unless/until this is done because:
The rich (the minority) control our elections and thus our elected officials.
Nothing changes without getting big money out of our elective process.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Agreed. This was more aimed toward the structural bias, but I completely agree that the corrupting marriage of money and politics needs to be addressed.
 

Tidewater

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Mar 15, 2003
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It's hard to pick out a unifying story from the midterms, but one observation is deepening polarization: blue areas got bluer and red areas got redder. I don't pretend to know how to bridge that divide, but one consequence of this urban/rural division when combined with the structure of our government means that a minority of citizens has held the majority of federal power for decades. In the last three presidential elections won by the GOP, they've lost the popular vote. And the structure of both the House and Senate give disproportionate power to rural voters. I argue that minority rule represents an unhealthy state in any modern Democracy, and the deepening divisions may even be related to the strain of unbalanced representation.

The rural/urban divide is not an American phenomenon. It happens all over the world. The difference is that our system gives structural advantages to rural parts of the country, which allow them to hold more power than they represent by population balance alone. In the Senate, this is largely by design. In the House, it is due to political choice. The Permanent Appointment Act of 1929 capped the number of representatives in the House, and population dynamics since that time mean that a voter in rural Montana has three times the political power as an urban voter in California. As a result, the House is failing in its designated purpose -- to represent the people of the United States.

In contrast, the Senate is meant to represent states, which largely insulates it from the kind of political manipulation that we see in the House. However, there are 4 million American citizens living in D.C. and Puerto Rico who are taxed by the federal government, yet not permitted to have representation in it. This runs in contrast to the founding principal of the United States, and the continued designation of "district" and "territory" is a political choice that effectively denies these citizens proper representation in our government. If we tax these areas, they deserve Senate and House representation.

Some people have argued that any fundamental changes to our government would require a Constitutional Amendment. I disagree. The concept of a Senate that represents the states and a House that represents the voters is a sound one. The structural issue is a Congressional one, not a Constitutional one. Our system as designed is fine, but it’s been biased against current U.S. population dynamics for so long that’s it’s taken as a given that nothing can ever be done because literally any changes will be seen by the GOP as “unfair.” If Democrats and centrists want to be more fairly represented in the federal government rather than live in a country under constant rule by a minority of voters, they need to address these structural impediments.

1. Automatic voter registration. Tie it to an ID, but make it automatic and free.
In Virginia it pretty much is this way. You get a driver's license, you are automatically registered to vote. Not sure about resident aliens, but it would not surprise me to see resident aliens registered to vote by the system because the administrators would rather err on the side of not disfranchising legal voters.
2. End gerrymandering. Politicians should never be permitted to choose their voters.
In principle I agree, but who draws the new map? Both parties would approach that issue with the attitude of "what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable." Plus, the Federal judiciary and the Justice Department are the worst violators, with some of the gerrymandering that they have demanded states adopt. For example:

3. Re-balance the House to actually reflect the current U.S. population, and stop using a century-old map.
This is a problem.
Constitution said:
The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative.
If we used the same formula today, the House would consist of 10,833 Representatives in the House. This would be an improvement?
4. Grant D.C. and P.R. statehood so 4 million Americans aren’t being taxed by a government they aren’t allowed to participate in.
I would be fine with telling P.R. to hold a referendum with two choices: statehood or independence. The Founders wrote in the provision on the Federal District to prevent the Federal government from being threatened by the state government in which it was operating and dependent on the state authorities for protection (this had happened in Pennsylvania). They created a district which was big enough that the Federal authorities would not be within cannon range of any state authorities. Since the balance of power between state and Federal authorities has been won decisively by the Federal authorities, at present there is very little threat that a state authority will threaten the security of the Federal authorities. I would be fine with de-annexing all of the District and giving it back to Maryland, except those portions of the District which are Federal property, so that the only inhabitants of the Federal District would be the President and his family and the Vice President and his family. The Federal government retroceded Alexandria to Virginia in 1847. Why not just do the same with DC north of the Potomac?
Residents of the Federal district moved there with the knowledge that they would be taxed and would have no representation in Congress.
 
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Its On A Slab

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Apr 18, 2018
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You left out the source of the problem - money in politics.
Publicly funded campaigns (Beto and Bernie say hi), limit amount with no pac’s allowed.
You will never reform jack squat unless/until this is done because:
The rich (the minority) control our elections and thus our elected officials.
Nothing changes without getting big money out of our elective process.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Citizen's United just about killed our democracy.

Unlimited $$$ and shady, hidden donors. Even if we were to get a more sane mix in the SC, I'm sure stare decisis would make Citizen's hard to overturn.
 

Tidewater

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Mar 15, 2003
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Agreed. This was more aimed toward the structural bias, but I completely agree that the corrupting marriage of money and politics needs to be addressed.
Money in politics is a problem, but the fix is difficult to bring about. If you and I just really like Bet O'Rourke and want to see him serve as president in 2021, and we go out and but a newspaper ad telling our neighbors what a great guy Beto is, how does a government restrict that without violating the First Amendment protection of political speech? What if we purchase a radio spot? How about a TV ad? Or an ad on Facebook?
 

Jon

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Feb 22, 2002
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In Virginia it pretty much is this way. You get a driver's license, you are automatically registered to vote. Not sure about resident aliens, but it would not surprise me to see resident aliens registered to vote by the system because the administrators would rather err on the side of not disfranchising legal voters.
In principle I agree, but who draws the new map? Both parties would approach that issue with the attitude of "what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable." Plus, the Federal judiciary and the Justice Department are the worst violators, with some of the gerrymandering that they have demanded states adopt. For example:


This is a problem.

If we used the same formula today, the House would consist of 10,833 Representatives in the House. This would be an improvement?

I would be fine with telling P.R. to hold a referendum with two choices: statehood or independence. The Founders wrote in the provision on the Federal District to prevent the Federal government from being threatened by the state government in which it was operating and dependent on the state authorities for protection (this had happened in Pennsylvania). They created a district which was big enough that the Federal authorities would not be within cannon range of any state authorities. Since the balance of power between state and Federal authorities has been won decisively by the Federal authorities, at present there is very little threat that a state authority will threaten the security of the Federal authorities. I would be fine with de-annexing all of the District and giving it back to Maryland, except those portions of the District which are Federal property, so that the only inhabitants of the Federal District would be the President and his family and the Vice President and his family. The Federal government retroceded Alexandria to Virginia in 1847. Why not just do the same with DC north of the Potomac?
Residents of the Federal district moved there with the knowledge that they would be taxed and would have no representation in Congress.
It would be fairly easy to write a quick program that used GIS info and Census data to create voting districts impartially nationwide. It will never happen but gerrymandering is a simple problem to solve
 

Tidewater

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It would be fairly easy to write a quick program that used GIS info and Census data to create voting districts impartially nationwide. It will never happen but gerrymandering is a simple problem to solve
I agree on both counts.
Easy to develop an unbiased election map, given the parameters in the Constitution.
And politically impossible, in today's political climate. Any unbiased map would probably drastically reduce the number of black members of the House (if we got rid of Federally-mandated gerrymandering designed to get black members elected), which would be politically unacceptable.
 

CharminTide

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In Virginia it pretty much is this way. You get a driver's license, you are automatically registered to vote. Not sure about resident aliens, but it would not surprise me to see resident aliens registered to vote by the system because the administrators would rather err on the side of not disfranchising legal voters.
Oregon as well. There have been wildly successful state experiments that could be expanded to the entire country.

In principle I agree, but who draws the new map? Both parties would approach that issue with the attitude of "what's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable." Plus, the Federal judiciary and the Justice Department are the worst violators, with some of the gerrymandering that they have demanded states adopt.
Short answer: an independent commission without any affiliation with political groups. Colorado just established this, and we now have metrics that can determine the extent of partisan gerrymandering that could guide this process in a more objective way. It's not a perfect solution and will certainly require ethical oversight as well as possible racial balancing, but it's orders of magnitude better than politicians drawing their own lines. Like most decent solutions to complex problems, it's a starting point, not a final destination.

This is a problem. If we used the same formula today, the House would consist of 10,833 Representatives in the House. This would be an improvement?
It would be from the perspective of proportional representation. It's also unavoidable if we maintain that every state must have at least one representative. The House is already enormous and unwieldy, so I don't really see this is a significant problem and consider the advantages to vastly overshadow the disadvantages.

I would be fine with telling P.R. to hold a referendum with two choices: statehood or independence....

I would be fine with de-annexing all of the District and giving it back to Maryland, except those portions of the District which are Federal property, so that the only inhabitants of the Federal District would be the President and his family and the Vice President and his family. The Federal government retroceded Alexandria to Virginia in 1847. Why not just do the same with DC north of the Potomac? Residents of the Federal district moved there with the knowledge that they would be taxed and would have no representation in Congress.
Puerto Rico actually held a referendum on U.S. statehood last year that passed overwhelmingly (only a minority of their population voted, so they'd fit right in), and their congressional delegate has repeatedly introduced legislation to begin the process of Puerto Rico statehood. It has been ignored.

I'd also be fine with giving D.C. residents the same choice.
 

Jon

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I agree on both counts.
Easy to develop an unbiased election map, given the parameters in the Constitution.
And politically impossible, in today's political climate. Any unbiased map would probably drastically reduce the number of black members of the House (if we got rid of Federally-mandated gerrymandering designed to get black members elected), which would be politically unacceptable.
are you implying that this is the only reason we are Gerrymandered because I know you are far smarter than that
 

Tidewater

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are you implying that this is the only reason we are Gerrymandered because I know you are far smarter than that
No, I am not saying that, just that some of the problem is a deliberate attempt by Federal authorities to gerrymander to achieve the rssult of black members of the House (on the assumption that only black representatives can represent black citizens). Gerrymandering existed before the Department of Justice (in fact, it comes from 1812 Massachusetts Elbridge Gerry).
Not to derail the discussion, if gerrymandering were done away with, it might result in fewer black Representatives, but it might also increase the political influence of black voters. Imagine if the egregious North Carolina district was redrawn, and all the black voters in Durham were to vote in the now white-majority Durham district and the black voters in Winston-Salem were to vote in the white-majority Winston-Salem district, etc. Winning the black voter would be more important to wining the district and politicians of any race could ignore black voters only at their electoral peril.
The current system marginalizes black voters because both parties can safely ignore them.
 

Tidewater

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It would be from the perspective of proportional representation. It's also unavoidable if we maintain that every state must have at least one representative. The House is already enormous and unwieldy, so I don't really see this is a significant problem and consider the advantages to vastly overshadow the disadvantages.
You honestly believe that adding another 10,008 Representatives to the House is better than what we have today?
Puerto Rico actually held a referendum on U.S. statehood last year that passed overwhelmingly (only a minority of their population voted, so they'd fit right in), and their congressional delegate has repeatedly introduced legislation to begin the process of Puerto Rico statehood. It has been ignored.
Why is that?
I'd also be fine with giving D.C. residents the same choice.
You would still have the same problem: the Federal government seats within the boundaries of a state. And 693,972 is too small for a state. Easier to just de-annex DC in my view. They already have a state. It is called Maryland. That is where the land came from originally anyway. Give it back. Problem solved.
 

CharminTide

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You honestly believe that adding another 10,008 Representatives to the House is better than what we have today?
I honestly believe making the House proportional to the U.S. population, as it was designed to be, is better than the broken system we have today. Now, if you wanted to allow House districts to cross state borders and/or combine small neighboring states under a single representative to reduce the overall size of the House, I'd support you. But you'd need to amend the Constitution, which won't happen since small states would have to agree to give up their disproportional power. At the end of the day, I do not think violating the principle of "one man, one vote" is acceptable simply because it's convenient.

Why is that?
Not sure if this is rhetorical? I have no special insight into Ryan or McConnell's decisions, but if the bill moved forward in 2017, do you think Trump would've signed it?

You would still have the same problem: the Federal government seats within the boundaries of a state. And 693,972 is too small for a state. Easier to just de-annex DC in my view. They already have a state. It is called Maryland. That is where the land came from originally anyway. Give it back. Problem solved.
Wyoming only has 579,315 people, so the size argument falls flat. Just section off the residential part of D.C. and let them choose whether they want to represent themselves or petition Maryland/Virginia to expand their borders and absorb them. Problem solved. Frankly, it seems odd that you'd advocate the federal government forcing a state to expand its borders and adopt a large metropolitan area.
 

twofbyc

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Money in politics is a problem, but the fix is difficult to bring about. If you and I just really like Bet O'Rourke and want to see him serve as president in 2021, and we go out and but a newspaper ad telling our neighbors what a great guy Beto is, how does a government restrict that without violating the First Amendment protection of political speech? What if we purchase a radio spot? How about a TV ad? Or an ad on Facebook?
The problem stems from the “speech” issue; broadcasting lies using national media has long been acceptable, thanks to Reagan and Clinton.
It should be illegal; saying whatever you want is one thing, but using a national platform to broadcast blatant lies is and should be considered another issue altogether.
It is in some other countries; lying and false advertising using national media can land you in jail.
Opinions are not necessarily facts and as long as they are presented as such that shouldn’t be a problem; when there is no qualifying the difference it becomes a big problem.


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Crimson1967

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If you can get 27 states on board, this can be part of the constitution.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment

Shoving DC residents into Maryland would give that state another House seat or two along with electoral votes, that would be for the Democrats. That being said, I don’t have a problem with it happening.

I don’t recall the details, but a large segment of Puerto Ricans that were against statehood boycotted the vote as some sort of protest.

Should we also liberate residents of the USVI, Guam, Northern Mariana, and American Samoa?


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DzynKingRTR

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Dec 17, 2003
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We desperately need term limits for both the House and Senate. These career politicians are not helping to fix any issues. Hank Johnson got re-elected again. The same guy that thought Guam was going to literally tip over got re-elected. I say give the House and Senate a 12 year rule. You cannot serve more than 12 years at either the House or Senate. If you cannot get anything accomplished in 12 years, you have failed at your job and someone else needs a shot. More proof people are idiots, a dead guy won in the Nevada state assembly. He got 60% of the vote.
 

MattinBama

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We desperately need term limits for both the House and Senate. These career politicians are not helping to fix any issues. Hank Johnson got re-elected again. The same guy that thought Guam was going to literally tip over got re-elected. I say give the House and Senate a 12 year rule. You cannot serve more than 12 years at either the House or Senate. If you cannot get anything accomplished in 12 years, you have failed at your job and someone else needs a shot. More proof people are idiots, a dead guy won in the Nevada state assembly. He got 60% of the vote.
I would even say 12 years is too long. 8 would be about my max. Same as a President.
 

bama_wayne1

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The problem stems from the “speech” issue; broadcasting lies using national media has long been acceptable, thanks to Reagan and Clinton.
It should be illegal; saying whatever you want is one thing, but using a national platform to broadcast blatant lies is and should be considered another issue altogether.
It is in some other countries; lying and false advertising using national media can land you in jail.
Opinions are not necessarily facts and as long as they are presented as such that shouldn’t be a problem; when there is no qualifying the difference it becomes a big problem.


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You left out President Obama. "If you like your plan you can keep your plan."
 

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