The real problem isn't Republicans or DINO's, it's the Constitution itself

[billbuckhead]

Ironically, there is now more turnover in the British House of Lords than in Congress.

"In other words, there is a reason that the British House of Lords, with its lifetime appointments, has more turnover than the U.S. Congress. But that reason isn't money -- it's that the parties get to draw the districts, which lets them choose precisely which voters will be allowed to choose candidates in November."
<http://www.fairvote.org/op_eds/mort1000.htm>

We need an ironclad end to gerrymandering.

Remember that Al Gore got more votes, but got screwed over by the electoral college? Why should small rural states have more voting power per capita than large states and urban areas? Do Wyoming voters deserve 1.5 votes vs Californian's 1 vote? Maybe it made sense once upon a time to favor rural areas and small states, but now it's crippling our system. This practice invites corruption by corporations, big money and other anti democratic special interests which basically take over small states to subvert the will of the minority.

I know we have made a sacred cow out of the Constitution, but it's not unpatriotic at all to want to change the document to be more more in tune with the times. Sort of a political upgrade from Windows 95 to Windows XP. Here are some quotes from Jefferson to make the queasy more comfortable.

"Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment… laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind… as that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, institutions must advance also, to keep pace with the times… We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain forever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
-- Thomas Jefferson, on reform of the Virginia Constitution

"That our Creator made the earth for the use of the living and not of the dead; that those who exist not can have no use nor right in it, no authority or power over it; that one generation of men cannot foreclose or burden its use to another, which comes to it in its own right and by the same divine beneficence; that a preceding generation cannot bind a succeeding one by its laws or contracts; these deriving their obligation from the will of the existing majority, and that majority being removed by death, another comes in its place with a will equally free to make its own laws and contracts; these are axioms so self-evident that no explanation can make them plainer."
-- Thomas Jefferson to T. Earle, 1823

"Jefferson was a man of many dimensions, and any explanation of his behavior must contain a myriad of seeming contradictions. He was a sincere and dedicated foe of the slave trade who bought and sold men whenever he found it personally necessary. He believed that all men were entitled to life and liberty regardless of their abilities, yet he tracked down those slaves who had the courage to take their rights by running away. He believed that slavery was morally and politically wrong, but still he wrote a slave code for his state and opposed a national attempt in 1819 to limit the further expansion of the institution. He believed that one hour of slavery was worse than ages of British oppression, yet he was able to discuss the matter of slave breeding in much the same terms that one would use when speaking of the propagation of dogs and horses."
-- William Cohen, Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Slavery

<http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Quotes-USconstitution.htm>

The only hope for real democracy and progress in America is an improved Constitution. To stay the present path is to wander deeper and deeper into a corporate state where they have rights and humans don't. Isn't this what we rebelled against in the first place?

[Charlie Brown]

1. I'd rather stick with a Constitution I can trust

and not one erected by corrupt conservatives.

[billbuckhead]

2. Like the corrupt conservatives now on the Supreme Court?

As long as Corporatists are in control of the courts, the media and the voting machines, we have whatever Consitution they impose on us. At best we are now a "managed" democracy, at worst we are marching towrd Mussolini's version of fascism.

[Charlie Brown]

3. and you propose to change that?

What is your criteria to keep conservatives off the Supreme Court?

[billbuckhead]

4. Consitutional Convention making the Consitution more democratic

The ugly truth is that the Consitution was designed not the represent all the people but business intrests. It's no accident John Hancock has the biggest signature on the Declaration of Independence since he benefited financially from the revolution.

[Charlie Brown]

5. Can you back that up?

It's a pretty heavy charge that the document that has ensured checks and balances and guaranteed our rights for 200 years was designed for business interests (before the age of corporations and consumerism).

How would you make the Constitution "more democratic" specifically?

[billbuckhead]

6. The tea dumped in Boston bay was Hancock's corporate competitor

The tea dumped in Boston bay was Hancock's corporate competitor, the British East India company. All conspiracies goe back to, who benefit's?

"The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by Boston, Massachusetts, residents against the British government. It is one of the key events in the start of the American Revolution.
The Stamp Act of 1765 and the Townshend Acts of 1767 angered colonists regarding British decisions on taxing the colonies with no representation in the Westminster Parliament ("no taxation without representation"). One of the protestors was John Hancock. In 1768, his sloop Liberty was seized by customs officials and he was charged with smuggling. He was defended by John Adams and the charges were eventually dropped. However, Hancock later faced several hundred more indictments.
Hancock organized a boycott of tea from China sold by the British East India Company, whose sales in the colonies then fell from 320,000 pounds to 520 pounds. By 1773, the company had large debts, huge stocks of tea in its warehouses, and no prospect of selling it because smugglers such as Hancock were importing tea without paying taxes (import tax). The British government passed the Tea Act, which allowed the East India Company to sell tea to the colonies without the usual colonial tax, thereby allowing them to sell for lower prices than those offered by the colonial merchants and smugglers.
The ships carrying tea were prevented from landing as most American ports turned the tea away. In Boston, however, the East India Company had the help of the British-appointed governor - plans were made to bring in - by force - the tea under the protection given by British armed ships.
On December 16, 1773, the night before the tea was supposed to be landed, the Sons of Liberty, a group of about 60 local Boston residents organized by Samuel Adams, burst from the Old South Meeting House and headed toward Griffin's Wharf, dressed as Mohawks. Three ships - the Dartmouth, the Eleanor and the Beaver - were loaded with hundreds of crates of tea. The men boarded the ships and began destroying the cargo. By 9:00 PM they had smashed 342 crates of tea in all three ships and had thrown them into Boston Harbor. They took off their shoes, swept the decks, and made each ship's first mate agree to say that the Sons of Liberty had destroyed only the tea. The whole event was remarkably quiet and peaceful."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party>

[Robert Cooper]

13. Extremism + poorly educated masses =...

Changing the Constitution is a pipe-dream as long as you are confronted with these twin horrors.

And not surprisingly, improving the latter solves the former.

Failure to educate is a guarantee of demagoguery.

The authors of the Constitution did not anticipate political parties, certainly not in their modern sense. They did not implant checks and balances for situations where party loyalties over-rule loyalties to the country.

They also lived through a period of wide-spread political/religious persecutions against democratic reforms and Christian religious denominations. They never anticipated that a generation would be born that would forget these lessons, let alone be the ones who would unleash intolerance. Their world-view and expectations of humanity were quite different from those nearly 230 years later.

The Constitution won't change without votes, and votes won't come without education, and with education the Constitution works.

[Yupster]

12. The Constitution alows the state legislatures to draw

the districts.

That's where the fight should be fought.

With computers, we should be able to tell the omputer to divide the state into as compact districts as possible with equal numbers of voters.

The problems with that would be politicians would hate it, and it would run afoul of the Voting Rights Act.

[Charlie Brown]

22. the Constitution does not mention districting

Gerrymandering is illegal by Davis vs. Bandemer (1986), though it's difficult to enforce. It would still be difficult to enforce if it was encoded in the Constitution.

If we supported scrapping the Consitution over every bug in the system, Progressives would not have much credibility as a movement, just like conservatives do not have credibility for their proposed const'l changes (the marriage ban and eliminating birth citizenship).

We need election reform and accountability, not a new constitution.

[Ravy]

7. No, thanks. I will stick with the constitution I have.

Plus, I think it is a stretch to say that corporations have taken over the small states and that is why we need to change our bicameral congress.

[billbuckhead]

8. Here's an example of this going on right now

GOP closer to breaking up left-leaning 9th Circuit appeals court

BY HOWARD MINTZ

San Jose Knight Ridder Newspapers

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Republican lawmakers have tried for decades to split the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sometimes called the "nutty Ninth" by its detractors.

Each time, the nation's largest and most controversial had done something to tweak a conservative nerve, with rulings on fishing rights in Alaska, timber harvesting in the Northwest or death sentences in California. And, of course, there was the decision three years ago to find the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools unconstitutional because it contains the phrase "under God."

But after failing over and over to break up the court, congressional Republicans now appear closer than ever to achieving their goal - in the last two weeks, House committees have approved legislation to split the court in two, and a similar proposal in the Senate was heard by a key subcommittee.

"I think the 9th Circuit is in the fight of its life," said Arthur Hellman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor and a leading expert on the court.
-----------------------------snip-------------------------------------
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/myrtlebeachonline/news/nation/13103238.htm

Why are so many banks and corporations based in small states?

[Ravy]

9. What are you talking about?

What does that have at all to do with corporations and electoral votes, other than your last question which as far as I can tell, is totally unrelated to the rest of the post.

There are a lot of banks and corporations based in small states because there are lots of people in small states. There are lots of banks and corporations based in large states because there are lots of people in large states. There seem to be a lot of Delaware corporations, but I think that is just because of that state's rules concerning corporations. I somehow don't think Delaware's senators were what you were referring to.

You think giving more power to Texas will help the democratic cause?

I believe what you are looking at is more of a coastal phenonemon, unrelated to size of the state. It has to do with cross-cultural influence, imho. However, I am not about to give the coastal states an extra senator or two.

[billbuckhead]

10. The corporations pick their judges, pick their voters, pick their media

Sure it helps them in TeXXXas, but it would help liberals more in California, New York and Illinois. Look at this map. if we could make the big states, bigger and the small states, smaller, we would have won the last 2 elections easily.

<http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/>

[Ravy]

11. More confused than ever.

Your point was that Republicans and DINOs werent to blame, it was somehow in the way electoral votes are distributed.

Yet your red-state/blue state map somehow shows states by how they went in the last presidential election, nothing to do with the Senate at all. You seem to forget that Bush won the popular vote (well, the machines said so anyway--another subject). Had Kerry gotten 120k more votes recoreded in Ohio, he would have lost the popular vote yet still been elected. Opposite of what happened in 2000 when Gore won the popular vote, yet (allegedly) lost the electoral vote.

The post before had do do with Republicans wanting to break up the 9th circuit. That was congress doing that- REPUBLICANS. You said Republicans weren't the issue in your original post.

So, your supporting points are all lost on me. You have posted nothing to demonstrate that corporations are somehow targeting states with small electoral votes for the purpose of subverting something.

[billbuckhead]

17. I'm talking about the apportioning of electoral votes vs population

Small population states have too much power. If we really want democracy, then it's time to do away with electoral votes and gerrymandering. Maybe it's time to do away with states altogether and just go with Federal and county. Think about the advantages in doing away with a whole massive layer of redundant government in terms of efficiency and especially transparency.

The problem in the courts is that this breaking up of the court system can be done at all. This is like judge shopping on a national scale aided and abetted by legislative gerrymandering. Corporations will be able to dominate these small states in a way they can't in larger states.

[Ravy]

20. Yes, you are talking about it, but providing absolutely no

argument to support your position that corporations have undue influence over the small states, or if they do, that this in any way is responsible for the potential breakup of the 9th circuit.

I am all for limiting the power of corporations, I am just not about to support throwing out the constitution to treat some symptom you perceive as the root of breaking up the 9th circuit court.

[RoyGBiv]

14. Interesting analogy ...

Political upgrade from Win95 to WinXP ...

Win95: Fundamentally broken in many ways, but relatively predictable in the way it is broken.

WinXP: Fundamentally broken in many ways, but with pretty widgets that do nothing of substance but make us not notice so much.

Altering the basic structure of government on a constitutional level, which is what you are suggesting, in the modern political age would be a disaster of monumental proportions.

[Lexingtonian]

15. don't take that road....

In practice, seemingly excess small state electoral votes roughly balance out.

The problem with outlawing one kind of gerrymandering is that in effect you get the same thing as gerrymandering according to some different standard. In Iowa their commission created districts the last time around that put three of their five House reps outside the district they previously represented. They all moved and won re-election. But the 'standards' involved in the redistricting (compactness etc) really amounted to a formally unintended anti-incumbent gerrymandering that failed.

You also ignore what partisan gerrymandering does in practice- the party doing the gerrymandering dilutes out its voters. As long as the political status quo at the time of gerrymandering holds, they hold an excess of seats. When there is a significant partisan political shift in the electorate, they lose seats to the opposition far in excess of the proportion of the electorate that changed sides. Over longer periods of time the statistics work out nationally to the same as if everyone lived in perfect swing districts, iirc.

There are also simply enough seats and enough diversity that the popular vote and proportion of seats held/gotten by the major parties works out exceedingly well; things behave close to statistically exactly. In 2004 iirc nationally Republicans got 53% of the major party House election votes, Democrats 47%. A margin of 6% of the House is roughly 26 seats. The present split is about 232 to 203, or 29 seats. That's the result pure democracy would give you within 1%.

So IMHO there's enough democracy in the system despite the appearances otherwise. Gerrymandering isn't the problem. The real problem and the solution are simple: getting more votes.

[Douglas Carpenter]

16. It might be a good idea. But it is not going to happen

I'm sorry. I have this terrible mental condition which causes reality to keep raising its ugly head.

[billbuckhead]

19. Reality is it's OUR Constitution that is failing in Iraq

When governments make disasterous decisions such Iraq and these insane tax cuts for the rich there will be a reckoning. Multinational corporations make a mockery our laws by almost open corruption all the while using them against people. The US has huge percentage of it's population in jail by any standard, a huge percentage of it's population without a social safety net and a electoral sytem that is among the most questioned in the world. Reality is that there will be reckoning for all these failures and more. It goes way deeper than blaming the duopoly of Karl Rove and the DLC. Neither could exist without a profound failure in our political system and the laws that govern it.

Basically this would be bloodless revolution. The founding fathers wanted periodic Constitutional Conventions and we are paying dearly for not having one.

[rucky]

18. Why can't there just be a law to end gerrymandering?

why does it have to be an Amendment?

[TahitiNut]

21. Small correction: Each Wyoming voter has 3.74 times as much electoral ...

... power as a California voter. Consider - Wyoming has 3 electoral votes, one for every 165,100 people; California has 55 electoral votes, one for every 616,920 people.

Massachusetts, Maryland, Wisconsin, Washington, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Indiana, New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Florida, New York, Texas, and California all have less than average electoral voting power per capita. Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, and South Dakota have the greatest per capita electoral voting power.

Another factoid: Senate Democrats, although in the minority, represent a majority of Americans.

[Cleita]

23. I really hope that we have a grass roots movement

before the 2008 election to end the Electoral College and vote in the President with the popular vote. It should be a priority along with run off voting, which will more accurately reflect the will of the people. We also need double entry accounting introduced to counting the votes to prove the tallies. Single entry, like we do now, invites voter fraud.

It's time to put the power of the people back with the people. It's time that elected representatives realize that they are servants of the people, not the other way around.