Weiser: Here’s what political revolution looks like
It’s not about electing one person.
Click here for reuse options!Voting remains the central and most powerful form of participation. Indeed, it is because of what the voters are doing in this primary election cycle that we know how much the public cares—and how deeply angry it is—about the state of our democracy. But only 36 percent of eligible Americans voted in the 2014 congressional elections—the lowest participation rate in seven decades. While turnout in this year’s presidential primaries is up from an abysmal 16 percent in 2012, in half the states that have voted so far, fewer than 30 percent of voters participated. Participation in funding campaigns is even lower—only 4 percent of Americans contributed to any political campaign in 2008.
Increasing those numbers should be a national priority. And there is a lot the federal government can and should do to foster participation above and beyond un-rigging the system…
To take the most obvious example, what part of “two” is it possible to misunderstand with regard to the Constitution’s disastrous apportionment of senators for the states? Though it is politically gratifying that my two favorite senators, Sanders and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, have the same number of votes as the senators from my home state of Texas, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, the arrangement is otherwise indefensible, given that Texas, with 27.6 million people, has roughly 40 times the 626,000 people who inhabit Vermont; even worse, California has 70 times the population as Wyoming, but the same number of senators. James Madison correctly described this arrangement as a “lesser evil” justified, like slavery, by the necessity to procure acceptance of the Constitution. There are many other such examples of “hard-wired” aspects of the Constitution that were designed in 1787 to rig the game in favor of maintaining the status quo, whether involving slavery in particular or existing distributions of wealth more generally. The 13th Amendment prohibited slavery, but it did nothing to eliminate other constitutional biases in favor of the status quo.
Copyright 2016 Liberaland
10 responses to Weiser: Here’s what political revolution looks like
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Mike March 27th, 2016 at 14:23
The author only quotes Madison and not Jefferson (or Hamilton)…by doing so he misrepresents the reason the Founders agreed to 2 senators per state. It was not a compromise at all
It was thought that states were individual sovereign entities, allowed to pretty much legislate as they wished and that no state was more important than another simply because it had a greater population or GDP.
The states weren’t even bound to the protections granted by the Constitution until the 14th Amendment came along with it’s doctrine of incorporation…
2 senators per state is exactly fair when looked at in the context of one state forcing it’s will upon another…if Texas had 20 senators to Rhode Island’s 2 we’d have fracking in Providence and off shore drilling …. the fish would have been gone 50 years ago
It’s the only way to insure the rights of small states.
tracey marie March 27th, 2016 at 14:25
clap clap clap.
Larry Schmitt March 27th, 2016 at 14:43
So I guess he forgot about the House of Representatives, where Texas has 36 and Vermont has 1?
rg9rts March 27th, 2016 at 15:47
You noticed too!! seventh grade social studies
Larry Schmitt March 27th, 2016 at 15:50
From what I remember in school, the founders deliberately set up the two houses that way, one with equal representation, and the other proportional.
rg9rts March 27th, 2016 at 15:49
no wonder Texas is so messed up if he is an example
Larry Schmitt March 27th, 2016 at 15:49
Don’t forget, Gomer, Perry and Cruz are also from Texas.
rg9rts March 27th, 2016 at 15:55
Without a doubt
amersham46 March 27th, 2016 at 20:58
It is never about the number of voters but the quality of the people elected. And some states are woefully falling short on whom they elect
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