There’s another approach: Merge some of the low population states. Perhaps we could have Wykota.
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Why indeed.
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OR, the public will have over site of how money is spent on elections… Horrible thing, I know.
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You realize there are several countries that have this sort of practice, yes? Yet they aren’t bankrupt.
Fun thing about the FCC controlling the air waves, if one wanted to remove private spending, shift to a more equal public level of spending, they could even create rules for the over-the-air stations to present x number of minutes of political ads per day between x and y times. It certainly would remove all those 3rd party ads which are often so full of lies and half truths it is comical.
But let’s just assume you’re right, and the media stations get to pick their prices and jack them up. Uh, all that means is the politicians will get to run less ads. So if you give them a $10 million TV media budget each, that buys as many ads as that buys. Why on earth would you think it would mean “OMG, they jacked the prices! We need $40million more!”
That isn’t how public spending works. Ask anyone who has sold to the gov. They have a budget and will seek bids to meet their needs at or below that budget. Some things may involve budget increases (cough, the military) but for most other things the budget is the budget. For example my dad couldn’t got the county he won a bid for and say, “Oh nos, your chipper just got $10k more expensive.” They would be like, “LOL. Nope.”
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Well that was the essence of the Great Compromise, that independent states surrender a modicum of their autonomy with the assurance that those small (population) states would have sufficient voice to overcome the tyranny of the majority.
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No, there needs to be a harsh, personalised and punitive aspect to it, otherwise politicians will just view it as a cost of doing business; “Oh, six months after I won the election your cute lil’ investigation discovered I cheated? Well clutch my pearls, how embarrassed am I? Here, here’s a repayment of the $10M overspend I made. What that? Why yes. Yes this $10M did come from the same place as the first $10M. Uncanny coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”
Simple restitution won’t work. It needs to be something like; you are precluded from holding any office elected or publically funded role by one day for each dollar over the limit you accepted. $10M overspend? Fine. You’re out of office and can’t reapply until June of the year 29416. And If you’re currently already in an elected office or publically funded role then GTFO. Now. Hand it over to the next highest polling person. And all the things you’ve done while you were there - laws signed, decisions made, reviews enacted, positions filled - they are null and void. Your record is expunged. With prejudice.
Also; no pension for you.
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I don’t think that balance is reflective of who we are as a nation today, though. Even in those small states you’ll find many, many more people displaying American flags than their own states’ flags. People are more likely to identify as “American” than as a Wyomingite or an Iowan. Our states’ economies are more entangled than ever, and the political issues people care most passionately about tend to be national issues like immigration and Constitutional rights surrounding civil rights or abortion.
It seems wrong that the representation gap between large and small states should continue to grow even as our collective identity has shifted from state-centered to nation-centered.
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No, it was slavery. Counting a portion of your population as being there (or even 3/5s of there), but not giving them voting power only works if you play games like this. The small (white male population) states were the slave states. Yes, this was the compromise that got it ratified, but it’s a relic of slavery and should be disposed of in the same dust bin.
As a result, we’d also see much shorter election seasons, at least as far as TV ads aimed at low information voters are concerned. Also, fewer of those ads would be from JAQ-PACs pretending they don’t want the candidate in their thrall to win.
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How about ONE term? Same deal for President (though maybe increase the Presidential term to 5 or 6 years). Perhaps allow multiple nonconsecutive terms, but no running for office while in office - not even for any other office.
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The Supreme Court is already 9 seats, not 7, and more justices won’t change how much work they can get done - they all hear the same cases.
I think some of the recent proposals for fixing SCOTUS to be very interesting, like limiting them to a 9-year term. That takes the pressure off appointments. Lifetime appointment was a flawed solution from the beginning.
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Hire an editor please.
Nah dog. The media will provide the air time for free as part of the license to use whatever spectrum it broadcasts on. How much money can be spent producing the messages? that will be a fixed amount. Not sure how this isn’t obvious to you.
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Please note that none of your suggestions (or anyone else’s, for that matter) have been taken to heart.
Cory is gonna Cory; end of story.
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sigh I know you’re right but it’s embarrassing.
Only if you take it personally. I don’t.
Disclaimer:
I’m not calling Cory or anyone else here ‘stupid’; that’s merely my personal interpretation of the Serenity Prayer.
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Feature, not a bug. I think we need to focus on what IS doable. I put ranked voting and the National Popular Vote as the most viable and bang for the buck projects at this point, since they can be implemented locally and incrementally rather than by Congress.
That depends on whether you’re a Californian or not.
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Now we need to urge state legislators, in states with the 98 more electoral votes needed, to enact the National Popular Vote bill, to be in effect for the 2020 presidential election.
The bill is 64% of the way to guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes and the presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the country, by changing state winner-take-all laws (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), without changing anything in the Constitution, using the built-in method that the Constitution provides for states to make changes.
It simply requires enacting states with 270 electoral votes to award them according to the nationwide, rather than the statewide, popular vote.
All voters would be valued equally in presidential elections, no matter where they live.
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