That seems like a really convoluted system. Is that what is generally meant by “proportional representation?” The proposed FRA doesn’t work like that at all.
A majority party unable to address an expiring law prohibiting murder wouldn’t be a majority party for long. Jesus Christ.
Yes, well, not here, except maybe on super rare occasion. 2/3rds of California voters vote by mail. Longest I waited was 15 minutes. usually I just walk in, no wait.
Do they get the day off? No cops working on election day?
Is it a paid holiday? Who pays for it?
Nonsense, look at how many times Congress had deadlocked and the government has shut down.
The majority party would simply blame the minority party- which is EXACTLY what happened in the USA.
It’s Party-list proportional representation, or at least one form of it.
What’s FRA? Searching for >> FRA Proportional representation<< does not turn up anyting.
I believe it might stand for fundamental rights amendment. But references to that seem to be more directed at people not being disenfranchised rather than a particular voting method.
Your answer ignores the other amendments I proposed earlier which would fundamentally alter the structure of Congress and make this kind of horse swapping a thing of the past. Even then, you are arguing that a party would choose to make a stand based at least in part on supporting the expiration of murder as a capital crime. That’s the real nonsense here.
It’s the Fair Representation Act, authored by Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA). I like the way it punctures gerrymandering and makes proportional representation, well, representative.
I don’t think we want some kind of Israeli-like abomination.
How soon before people call for a modification to the FRA to allow for “cumulative voting,” where each voter gets a number of votes equal to the number of seats, but can cast all of them for the same candidate? I keep hearing for major corporations to use this, almost always by people who want a “non-corporate voice” on that company’s board.
It would have really helped for you to have stated that upon first bringing it up, as neither **dtilque **nor myself were making allusion to that proposal in our exchange of posts to which you were reacting (and they later clarified they were talking about PLPR) so it created a bit of confusion there a moment.
But BTW one will notice upon reading Rep. Beyer’s bill, that is not even proposed as a constitutional amendment, but as legislation under the already existing power to regulate the election of federal officials, nothwitstanding the state organization of elections.
In my election holiday jurisdiction, basically it’s mandated leave for nonessential workers, with special advance voting for essential security/rescue/medical personnel who will be on duty, and the public or private employer will figure a way to make it a paid holiday, redistribute shifts, or make up time, because the Law says they will or else.
Dear Lord. I’m going to have to go to the fucking hospital now. 
So Ford wouldn’t have been able to grant a conditional amnesty to Vietnam déserters, and Carter couldn’t have granted a full pardon to Vietnam draft dodgers.
Each one of them would have had to turn themselves in, plead guilty, and then hope that the President would carry through on the offer of pardons.
Maybe call ahead for a ventilator. Sounds pretty sensible to me.
That said, it’s not known if a federal holiday (or even a shift to weekend voting) would impact turnout. While some believe making Election Day a national holiday could transform voting culture in the U.S., more research is needed to truly understand the impact, as Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law recently told USA Today.
OK, so let us remember, that on national holidays- not everything is closed. Retail, emergency, restaurants, entertainment- all still open.
Multiple jobs? Likely they work in one of the above categories- so they’d still have to work.
So, emergency workers would still have to work- just that they’d get a extra day off for working on a holiday.
*Making Election Day a national holiday will disadvantage low-income and blue collar workers. Federal law doesn’t require private employers to give employees paid federal holidays. [20][21][22] A part-time hourly worker is more likely to have multiple jobs, none of which are likely to offer time off for a national holiday. [23]
Annie McDonald, Editor of the Berkeley Public Policy Journal, noted that the workers who are least likely to get paid holidays are those who already have less of a voice in the political process: "Americans working in retail, hospitality, and service jobs, for example, would most likely not receive the benefit of a paid holiday to vote. In fact, these voters may be more likely to have to work as a result of a federal election holiday, where they may have had time off previously on a random Tuesday in November. Additionally, many of these individuals rely on school days as childcare for their children. …
People who have already suffered significant disenfranchisement, such as women and people of color, are more likely to be working those low-income jobs that wouldn’t get the time off to vote even on a national holiday. [24] Holidays usually mean more work hours for retail workers, because stores run promotions and sales. [25]*
On edit- that being said- it is not a stupid idea- it has pros and cons. But it doesnt need to be Constitutional, and it might not work.
My link was a counter to the implied claim that work schedules aren’t a reason some people don’t vote.
At any rate, the issue at hand would be does it make things more fair, and I do think it does. We are starting from a place of unfairness and we need to evaluate whether a change reduces the current unfair situation we have. We currently have elections that cut off access to a variety of people. If we reduced barriers to at least some people, that makes elections more fair. The solution to one measure not working for everyone isn’t to quit trying to ever make elections more fair - it’s to have an election day holiday, early voting, easily accessible voting by mail etc. to try to cover as many bases as possible, not to refuse to do any one thing because it doesn’t completely solve the problem.
And that’s really what’s more to your point, really: that as things stand, in the USA it is up to each state to determine what a “holiday” entails and what labor protections apply within it(*). Many of us remember the nonsense around the proclamation of MLK Day. So mine provides labor protections for “voting leave” but others may not. (PLus other than nondiscrimination for race, sex, payment of poll taxes, or age over 18, the text of the US Constitution is silent on other *explicit *protections for the right of suffrage.)
(*The US Constitution mentions no labor rights - at the federal level these matters are statutory. It is various *state *constitutions that *explicitly *recognize a right to an education, to labor protections, to universal suffrage etc.)
Witnessing the country become so polarized and tribal that it’s literally come down to “pro-spreading-disease” versus “anti-spreading-disease”, has made me more grateful than ever for the 2nd Amendment. It truly feels like the whole goddamn thing could come crumbling down at any moment. We’ve got a government that is brazenly on the side of spreading deadly diseases, and all of its supporters who are totally down with this. I have absolutely zero doubt that if the government were to collapse completely, all these same people would be out committing horrific acts. I am not comfortable at this time with relinquishing any rights to bear arms.
If mobs of people totally unwilling to respect personal boundaries, potentially carrying a fatal disease, openly congregating, is not an affirmation that there IS a use for an AR-15, I don’t know what the fuck is. This is literally “zombie apocalypse” times.