Apologies for not reading the entire thread. But this reminded me of a discussion my wife and I had this morning as to the source of various rights, and the powers of the legislature and judiciary. We were discussing trans rights, and where those rights come from, and whether they are a matter for the federal or states’ governments. (No, you DON’T want to join us for morning coffee! ;))
(Apologies - what follows is not a carefully crafted proposition, such that I will defend every word.) IMO, it is very challenging to even discuss the Constitution, individual rights, and whether rights can be defined/protected by Congress/judiciary/states, if everyone does not have a basic agreement that we are working together to provide a “decent” situation for EVERYONE. And that we do not view the Constitution as a useful general FRAMEWORK, based in the ideas of individual HUMAN rights, protecting the individual from the tyranny of the majority, with a perspective of a general expansion of the Constitution’s specific wording over the ensuing centuries. (Simple examples - the founders weren’t considering trans people, or cellphones.)
Today, half of the population, the Supreme Court, and a good portion of Congress read the Constitution VERY narrowly, as a set of MINIMAL rules which are to be avoided whenever convenient or advantageous. And the Supreme Court has no compunction against simply changing precedent - with no good theoretical or historical basis.
I don’t think the founders anticipated the sort of self interested manipulation of the Constitution as we are seeing today.
I have ZERO faith in the current Court as anything other than a political body, eager to reject precedent for their personal agendas. That is horrifying.
Apologies if this rant is inappropriate for this thread.
Filibusters were aways back in this thread, but does anyone else remember articles that mentioned senators wearing external catheters during filibusters? (They were mostly men, back then.)
This idea makes me want to have actual filibusters again. It’s an actual commitment.
I wouldn’t call that a rant, it’s a pretty fair assessment though I see a couple of bones to pick.
First I would say the framers invested as much effort as possible to prevent the Constitution’s intent from being subverted. They had a fair idea of the threats to democracy, because some of the framers themselves were the threats from the very beginning. Not everyone believed in the concept of a pluralistic society, and of those who did, few believed in granting rights to women or slaves.
If anything I think the major flaw was the assumption that states wouldn’t feel the need to subvert the federal government because they were given such broad rights of their own. The abolitionists and sympathizers thought their compromises bought the compliance of the slave states, and slavery would eventually taper off. Things might’ve played out that way if not for the cotton boom.
The Constitution isn’t a divinely inspired work of perfection, it’s a flawed document produced by flawed men. It was always at risk of falling apart once we started deciding that everyone should have liberty, not just white males. That’s been happening in ebbs and flows since 1860, and once again we’re at a high water mark of division.
Strom Thurmond holds the record for single filibuster, at 24 hours, 18 minutes, against the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
Thurmond’s filibuster has been described by historian and biographer Joseph Crespino as “kind of a urological mystery”.[21] Thurmond took regular steam baths leading up to the filibuster to draw fluids out of his body, thus dehydrating himself and allowing himself to absorb fluids for a longer period of time during the filibuster.[7][31] It has also been rumored within the African American community that Thurmond used other methods to avoid leaving for the restroom.[32]The Chicago Defender stated that Thurmond had worn “a contraption devised for long motoring trips” that allowed him to relieve himself on the stand, and longtime Capitol Hill staffer Bertie Bowman claimed in his memoir that Thurmond had been fitted with a catheter.[21][32]
My favored method to eliminate gerrymandering:
Let’s say a state has 15 electoral districts. Have the parties nominate their candidates by statewide primary. Rank their candidates from 1 to 15 based on their share of the vote. So you have 15 Democratic, 15 Republican, and 15 candidates for each of the other parties. In the November election, the voters choose which party they want to represent them. Let’s say it comes out 53% Democratic, 43% Republican, and 6% Green. Democrats get 0.53(15) = 7.95 seats, Republicans get 0.43(15) = 6.45 seats, and Green gets 0.06(15) = 0.90 seats. Rounding, the Democrats get their first 8 choices seated, Republicans get their first 6 choices, and Green gets their top 1 choice. You eliminate gerrymandering giving one party a 12-3 edge and you also get the odd seat here and there for a third party.
Big fan of proportional voting.
We’ve used it here for most of century. Good to hear you are thinking of catching up.
But it’s a bit more sophisticated than glibly saying after “rounding”.
You need to include some form of preference, ranking or staged counting else it could end in a shit fight. And Murphy’s Rule say it will be in the first poll you try it.
And you’d get plenty of populist single issue candidates who’ve figured out that winning about 3% of the primary vote might just give them the balance of power.
Well, we were such a loose federation back in the 1700s. It’s a really crappy way to design a large 21st century country. And hence is one of the things that fit the OP’s point about how the FFs f-ed up compared to modern needs.
Yes, but tweak the numbers slightly and you can resolve the FPTP system ie the 15th spot goes to GRN, but the proportional representation issue remains.
Not sure how actual pure PR countries do it, but as the greens have the highest remaining fraction after divvying up the first 14 seats, i’d give them the 15th seat.
This also doesn’t seem that alien even to a fptp country like the us because essentially this is how constituencies within constituencies get split up in some instances. There are cases where one state in the us has a higher proportion of population than in a previous census but they get fewer districts.
The biggest mistake was the great compromise wherein the states got equal representation in the Senate. Even at the time, it wasn’t a great idea. In the 1790 census, the largest state (Virginia) had a population of 691,937 while the smallest state (DE) had a population of 59,096. VA had 11.7 times the population of DE, yet equal representation in the Senate. Not very democratic in my book. Compare that to now, where CA has a population of 39,538,223 and WY has a population of 576,851. Now the largest state has 68.5 times the population of the smallest, yet equal Senate representation. This is nuts. The Constitution prohibits any move to deprive the states of equal Senate representation, so the only cure would be to toss out the Constitution entirely and write a new one from scratch.
It’s sorta democratic if you believe the USA is a loose confederation of sovereign states more akin to the current EU but with even less Federal oversight, and furthermore zero intent of “ever-closer union”, and in fact rather the opposite.
The states were assumed to be the actors on the Federal stage, not the people.
Of course that had become bunk by the early 1800s and now 200 years later it’s an abomination. Come the revolution that will not stand. And that’s about what it’ll take to ever change it.
And FWIW representation in the EU’s decision -making is (in the Parliament) entirely proportional to population, and (in interstate decisions for certain policy areas) requires some weighting relative to population. But the whole set-up is geared towards encouraging consensus.
Whereas the USA’s setup was meant to encourage something between stasis and paralysis. Which in practice amounts to “winner take all, loser get nothing” zero-sum thinking about everything.
There’s also the option of neutering the Senate, like the British did with their House of Lords. Keep the two Senators per state; they can rubber-stamp anything Congress gives them.
I had always thought that the Constitution prohibited electing Representatives on any basis other than single-member districts, but I just checked and it doesn’t seem to be in there. Is it just statute law that mandates that, or was I completely wrong?
If the Constitution permits it, proportional representation for Congress seems like a fair idea, although the disadvantage is that nobody (except people in one-Rep States) has a Representative to call their own. A big part of a Rep’s job is to be relatively accessible to constituents who are having some problem with the Federal government.
Putting the PR issue aside, I think Congressional districts are currently too large for constituents to get much individual attention, which is why I would support significantly increasing the size of the House, by another 100-200 Members.
That was true in the 18th Century, but it doesn’t reflect modern reality. Any changes that reflect this change and treat all Americans as equal, such as eliminating the Senate and Electoral College, make the system more democratic and are to be desired.