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 | | From: | The Trucker | | Subject: | Real Representative Democracy | | Date: | Sat, 22 Jan 2005 08:53:57 -0800 |
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 | There are many who want direct election of the (P)resident
in the USA. The proponents claim that Gore would have been (P)resident
in 2000 and Iraq would not have been invaded and the planned attack on
Social Security and Iran would not be in the works. And while all of
that is probably true I would ask you to consider a US government in
line with the intent of the original Constitution as a better solution.
The original Constitution put a lot of power into the hands of the
state governments and that was by design and not by accident. The
Original constitution (the original draft submitted to the Convention
of 1776) called for one US House Representative for each forty
thousand people. There is much to be said for this limitation to
geographical and numeric constituency size in that it assures a
much _closer_ relationship between the Representative and those
he is to represent, but that is not the subject here. The subject
in this article is the number of electoral votes that each state
would have if the one for every forty thousand rule was still
active. Most succinctly, the number of electoral votes will become
more similar to the popular vote as the number of Representatives
in the House is increased. Each state gets one electoral vote for each
Senator and each House Representative. Therefore, the power of non
populous states is erroded and the power of the more populous states
is increased as the size of Congressional districts is made smaller
and the number of House Representatives in increased.
Although the limitation of House members to 435 was the knife in
heart of representative democracy in the United States, the 16th
and 17th amendments were also very detrimental in that these also
undermined the power of state representatives (reps much closer
to the people). If the Republicans really want a less preemptive
Federal Government and are _really_ for democracy as opposed to
autocracy or aristocracy then they have the power to change things
right now. The US congress and the Senate voted to limit the
number of House members to 435 and they can vote to restore it
to the 4350 that it should be today. And if they want to change
the constitution they can repeal the 16th and 17th amendments
thus empowering the states and the people. They can do this
because they control the entire government, and a failure to
do so exposes them as the aristocratic power mongering liars
that they are.
When Bush says "democracy" I want to take the word over to the
sink and wash it off.
--
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of society but
the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough
to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy
is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson. http://GreaterVoice.org
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