Sorry for the confusing formatting, I’m at work and formatting posts the way I want is more difficult than it’s worth.
-Regarding congressional districts, I do believe that legislatures should be able to draw their own districts as a check on federal power and to attempt to balance the needs and interests of various groups within their state. The system as it is has been abused, and an unfortunate side effect is that some voters are un-empowered at the expense of others. I do not want to see it change though, because I believe the alternative will lead to large, populous urban centers having even more outsized influence at the state and federal level than they already do. Drawing them the way you want will also disempower some voters at the expense of others: rural areas will have little or no say in government policy due to their low population.
This is probably another "agree to disagree" point. Congresspersons represent people, not areas. Each rural person's vote will count just as much as each urban person's vote. And congressional districts are generally small enough that I suspect it would be rare to get a major rural/urban divide within one district. Some districts in the Midwest and west may be huge, but in those situations, I suspect the "urban" areas within the districts aren't likely to be urban in the sense of east coast urban areas.
-Regarding the national vote and working for people not states: the people in those states with lower populations deserve a say in the government as well. Their needs and interests are very different than the needs and interests of densely populated areas. I’ll restate my question: if the most populous areas of the country generally held beliefs that were mostly the opposite of your own, would you still be for the abolition of the electoral college?
Yes. And I'm starting to get annoyed at the insinuation that I'm only interested in pursuing partisan political advantage, when in actuality the changes I'm proposing are mostly aimed at getting rid of the underhanded pursuit of partisan political advantage.
-Regarding Congress running the country without the various agencies. We’ll have to agree to disagree, since I do believe they can and they should. The constitution actually prohibits one branch from abdicating their duties to another branch. This provision is rarely, if ever enforced though. I’ll use an example that I hope everyone will agree is not partisan: the Veterans Administration. The VA is an awful cesspool of corruption, mismanagement and waste. There were various scandals under Obama that got national attention. Eventually he swapped one figurehead for another as the top guy there. Trump came in and hired some new patsy to head up the agency. Actual change? ZERO. What are the consequences for all three of these losers for running arguably the most corrupt and mismanaged dept in the federal government? They had to spend a day in Washington in front of cameras being told that various congresspeople were very disappointed in them. HOW AWFUL. If a congressman allows something shitty enough to happen, they are voted out. Accountability and consequences are how to police behavior. The separation of powers provides for that, the current system of these executive departments having legislative power does not.
I think you're pretty far out of the mainstream on this one, so yes, we'll have to agree to disagree.
-You keep referencing “political campaigns” and “issue ads”. There is no black and white definition of what qualifies as one of these and what doesn’t. Planned Parenthood would argue that they promote awareness of health issues; pro-life groups say planned parenthood is pushing a political pro-choice agenda. Is a KKK recruitment video political speech? A political campaign? How about the movie Farenheit 9/11? A book that trashes Trump? A website about how awful labor unions are? Lobbyist is the only job that is specifically approved of in the constitution: citizens have the right to petition their government. They have the right to political speech individually and as groups. Restricting those rights inevitably leads to the slippery slope.
Any campaign or ad that refers to a candidate for office or a ballot initiative is clearly political advertising. Any ad that says "vote for people who support/oppose abortion" is clearly political advertising. But we don't have to reinvent the wheel here; McCain/Feingold already had a workable definition that we can build on. That law may have been struck down as unconstitutional, but that's a reason why this needs to be done through constitutional amendment, not a reason to throw up our hands and say it can't be done.
-Regarding the “one person one vote” thing you keep talking about. Let’s imagine a scenario where congress is considering a bill that levies a 5% tax on any property over .5 acres. These funds will be used to improve inner city schools. A bill like this would benefit residents of cities at the expense of residents of rural areas, since the majority of properties in cities are less than .5 acres, but properties in rural areas with more than .5 acres are very common. Because the majority of the population lives in cities, and this would be a very popular bill, it would likely pass on a strictly “majority rule” basis. State legislatures being able to draw up their own districts is a check on this power, as is the senate.
-You keep saying that congresspeople represent people and not pieces of land. Part of meaningful representation is the ability to influence decisions. Strict majority rule means that rural areas would have little or no influence on how the country is run. Yes majority rule is USUALLY a good thing. But there are lots of scenarios where majority rule is a bad thing, sometimes an awful thing (the Nazis, slavery and segregation were all supported by majority rule). Having meaningful checks on majority rule helps curb the worst tendencies and helps promote compromise. Yes there are unintended consequences (gerrymandering, partisan gridlock, etc), but I find these all preferable to the unintended consequences of removing that check on majority rule.
You seem to think that all of our major issues break across the urban/rural divide, so therefore we can fix the tyranny of the majority by preserving disproportionate representation of rural residents. In reality, there are many divides in American politics; racial/ethnic, religious, professional, socio-economic, etc. Whenever you attempt to protect a particular group by giving it disproportional representation, you are screwing somebody else. In practice, this always devolves into partisan gerrymandering, because when you have one political party in charge of the process, they are always going to look out for their party's interests first. The only fair way to deal with this is to ensure that everyone has an equal vote, and that voters are not grouped in a conscious attempt to give one group an advantage at the expense of others. Some people will end up in the minority in their district, and they will feel like they don't have a voice. But certainly that dispossession won't be any worse than under our current system, wherein most people live in districts that have been gerrymandered to be safe seats for one party. On the contrary, more districts are likely to be competitive, which will make people feel like their vote actually counts.
-Regarding the EPA, Dept of Education, etc., I am very far from the mainstream. I just don’t see the benefit of having these huge, often inept and corrupt, lawmaking bodies exist with no accountability. We’ve known about the problems at the VA for decades. DECADES. And still nothing has changed. If anything it’s gotten worse. Has education improved drastically since the founding of the Dept of Education in 1979? Have roads/bridges improved drastically since the introduction of the Dept of Transportation? Yet in addition to pouring trillions and trillions of dollars into them, we’ve given them no consequences for their failure. Arguably we’ve REWARDED their failure with even more money and job security.
Yep, agree to disagree.
-I disagree with your conception of “political ad/campaign” in two ways. The first, is of course the slippery slope. Let’s use the abortion example. Planned Parenthood has tons of pro-choice ads and literature. If congress introduces a pro-life bill, are Planned Parenthood’s ads suddenly part of a political campaign? Or are they allowed since they don’t mention the specific bill. If they’re allowed because they don’t mention the specific bill, what’s to stop a pro-life group from spending an unlimited amount on ads that say “ABORTION IS MURDER”? Do you think that there is a meaningful difference between an ad that says “ABORTION IS MURDER” and “ABORTION IS MURDER SO VOTE FOR THE ANTI-ABORTION BILL”? If you decide that “ABORTION IS MURDER” can be limited even though it doesn’t specifically mention a bill, then welcome to the top of slippery slope mountain. The second is that I believe that speech, especially political speech, should be limited in only the very rarest of exceptions. I will reiterate that the right to petition the government is in the constitution. Except for outright bribery or other illegal means, it does not limit the method, message or number members. I wholeheartedly believe this is a good thing. I believe that labor unions should be able to petition for a $15 minimum wage, that Planned Parenthood should be able to promote abortions services, that pro-life groups should be able to promote pro-life messages, and that any other message, including which candidates and which bills to vote for should not be restricted.
-Related to the above, I believe the way you combat the negatives of money in politics is with transparency: campaigns and PACs should be required to publish complete lists of donors. This way if the Koch Brothers or Tom Steyer or George Soros want to fully fund some sock puppet, then so be it. Everyone will know how he’s getting his funding and can make their judgment accordingly.
It is possible that I may have painted with too broad a brush in my initial statement about eliminating all private spending on anything political. In practice, we probably will need to work out a system of dollar limits and time windows prior to elections, similar to McCain-Feingold. Heck, I'd consider it a win to just reinstate McCain-Feingold verbatim. Yes, there will be tough decisions about what constitutes political advertising vs. free speech, and we may get some of those wrong. But if we end up telling Planned Parenthood that they can't put a half-page ad in the paper extolling the virtues of safe and legal abortions within 60 days of an election, that's a price I'm willing to pay for getting unlimited amounts of Koch and Soros money out of our campaigns.
Regarding the right to petition the government: limits on campaign spending will in no way infringe on this right. You (or whatever group you belong to) would still be free to communicate with your elected representatives at any time about anything. Campaign ads don't petition the government, they petition your fellow citizens.
I completely agree with you that we need to have full transparency around campaign funding. But by itself, I don't think it will have nearly the effect you think it will. A TV ad comes on that says "candidate John Doe eats babies for breakfast," and at the end it says "paid for by People for Motherhood and Apple Pie." Most voters aren't going to bother looking up who People for Motherhood and Apple Pie is and what they stand for. If this group has a billion dollar fund behind them, they are going to out-advertise the candidate 100 to 1, and all the average swing voter is going to remember when he goes to the booth is that John Doe eats babies for breakfast.
-I’m sorry to paint you with such a partisan brush, but the timing of threads like these has my “Partisan Hackdar” on full alert, and perhaps I sometimes read more into it than what’s there. Consider this though: were these things concerns for you when Obama was president and the Democrats held majorities in both chambers of Congress? If so, what were you doing to raise awareness then? If not, then why not? I’m not trying to insult you, because you do seem sincere in your desire to make right perceived wrongs, I’m just trying to challenge you to examine your motivations. Politics is a game, and it feels awful when your side loses, but changes to the game should be approached EXTREMELY cautiously. The rules are there for reasons, often very good reasons, regardless of their sometimes negative side effects.
Rest assured, Trumpism will fade and fall out of favor, Republicans will lose power, and progressives and Democrats will be ascendant again at some point in the future, before the balance swings again. I am neither a progressive nor a Democrat but I recognize that THIS IS A GOOD THING. History does not show a good track record of one group remaining in power for too long.
Sure, it's easier to be motivated to speak out when you're on the losing side. But many of these are things that have bothered me for a long time. I remember learning about the electoral college in grade school or middle school, before I had formed any discernible political opinions, and thinking "that's really unfair." Later on, I began my political life as a dyed-in-the-wool Reagan Republican, and I remember being completely disgusted by what Ted Kennedy did to Robert Bork. Not long after I started voting, I lived in a state whose legislature was controlled by Democrats at the time, and I was really pissed off that I got gerrymandered into a majority-black safe Democratic house district.
Yes, eventually the Democrats will be back in power again. And they will start gerrymandering districts to their advantage. And using signing statements to ignore parts of laws. And appointing the most liberal judges and justices they can find in an attempt to reverse the balance of the courts. The Republicans will pull out all the stops to block every appointment regardless of the person's merits, and the Democrats will use the nuclear option to ram them through. NONE OF THIS IS A GOOD THING. I might rest a little easier knowing that the outcome of all this bad faith bickering is likely to produce policy results that I agree with, but ultimately it will just keep polarizing our society even more, and will make the backlash just that much worse once the pendulum swings back the other way. No thanks, I'd rather get off this merry-go-round.
