I think a bigger component in making this happen is instituting ranked choice voting. Political parties are private institutions that have amassed entirely too much power over our country. Sure, we can vote but electoral college or popular voting and we still are stuck with a candidate selected by one of two private institutions. These private entities are able to control elected officials who stray too far from the party line.
As long as large political parties control the candidates our vote holds less power.
I think having a bicameral house is a very good thing.
And I know it gets a lot of hate in these parts, but the Senate was never meant to be proportionate. We are a federation of states, it makes sense to have one house be “the people’s house” with proportionate representation, and a second house that is divided by state. It’s kind of the entire point of having a union of states.
Bring on the hate, but I don’t think the Senate is the problem. The corruption in the Senate is a symptom of the problem, but there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it as a concept.
The problem is that they haven’t expanded the house since 1920(?) 1929 the current house should have at least 659 representatives, and personally I think it should be double that, because at 659 each representative is still representing 500,000 people.
Everything is an arbitrary division when we get down to it. Doing away with states would require a complete rewrite of the constitution, and a fundamental shift to the country as a whole. I personally like the Republic concept and ability for states to experiment with things that might not be popular or a priority for the entire country. This will have good and bad outcomes on these experiments, but it’s how we have things like decriminalization, universal healthcare attempts, etc. Without the “all other things not innumerated belong to the states” this isn’t possible, and removing state representation removes that.
Approval voting, not ranked choice. Easier to explain, solves the same problems at least as well and most voting machines already support it.
Combine it with every state assigning their electors in the same fashion as Maine and you’re most of the way to what people want without needing to get 38 states and 2/3 of Congress to agree to an amendment. Just simple majorities in individual state legislatures that can be done piecemeal.
I think a bigger component in making this happen is instituting ranked choice voting. Political parties are private institutions that have amassed entirely too much power over our country. Sure, we can vote but electoral college or popular voting and we still are stuck with a candidate selected by one of two private institutions. These private entities are able to control elected officials who stray too far from the party line. As long as large political parties control the candidates our vote holds less power.
ranked choice isn’t going to fix shit, proportional or go home
Ranked choice for presidency, proportional for congress (and the senate if that’s worth having exist at all).
I think having a bicameral house is a very good thing.
And I know it gets a lot of hate in these parts, but the Senate was never meant to be proportionate. We are a federation of states, it makes sense to have one house be “the people’s house” with proportionate representation, and a second house that is divided by state. It’s kind of the entire point of having a union of states.
Bring on the hate, but I don’t think the Senate is the problem. The corruption in the Senate is a symptom of the problem, but there is nothing fundamentally wrong with it as a concept.
The problem is that they haven’t expanded the house since
1920(?)1929 the current house should have at least 659 representatives, and personally I think it should be double that, because at 659 each representative is still representing 500,000 people.Edit: thanks to AbidanYre
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reapportionment_Act_of_1929
States are fairly arbitrary divisions of land and I don’t think they need representation separate from the representation their people have.
Everything is an arbitrary division when we get down to it. Doing away with states would require a complete rewrite of the constitution, and a fundamental shift to the country as a whole. I personally like the Republic concept and ability for states to experiment with things that might not be popular or a priority for the entire country. This will have good and bad outcomes on these experiments, but it’s how we have things like decriminalization, universal healthcare attempts, etc. Without the “all other things not innumerated belong to the states” this isn’t possible, and removing state representation removes that.
Approval voting, not ranked choice. Easier to explain, solves the same problems at least as well and most voting machines already support it.
Combine it with every state assigning their electors in the same fashion as Maine and you’re most of the way to what people want without needing to get 38 states and 2/3 of Congress to agree to an amendment. Just simple majorities in individual state legislatures that can be done piecemeal.