6 ms·
I support abolition of the EC, but only if there is some form of geographic weighting (ideally a smart one) that doesn't allow a handful of cities to dominate t
by JPKab 6y ago
I support abolition of the EC, but only if there is some form of geographic weighting (ideally a smart one) that doesn't allow a handful of cities to dominate the Federal gov't.
I understand that this sounds crazy to people, but as a resident of Colorado who occasionally enjoys marijuana, a substance that my state allows but the Federal gov't has long outlawed, I like the fact that the current system puts a higher emphasis on winning over broader regions of the country without just focusing on cities.
Obviously, I want it to be more of a sane weighting. My concern with not having some form of geographic weighting is that it sets up the USA not for some dramatic Civil War 2 that some people envision, but instead for a peaceful secession of certain regions who would end up going decades without having a voice in the Federal gov't.
Most Americans don't have a strong grasp of WHY the Senate was made the more powerful chamber of Congress. It was done over the objections of the two largest, most powerful states at the time (Virginia and Pennsylvania) at the demand of Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, Mass, etc.
They explicitly stated that they were worried that Philadelphia, New York City, etc would dominate the Federal Gov't and permanently ignore the smaller states who were irrelevant to the power process. It's an odd situation, because the Federal Gov't of the US was a creation of the state governments, not vice versa like many Europeans seem to think.
Obviously, the current EC is pretty silly and feels arbitrary and unjust. But I don't foresee there being a single US nation without some mechanism to prevent a massive, contiguous chunk of the country from being permanently alienated from the legislative process. The history books are pretty clear on the longevity of empires whose governments ignore citizens outside of their urban centers. You can drive from Mexico to Canada in the US without driving through a single state that Hillary won in 2016. I don't see those people putting up with 6 elections in a row of defeat for their candidate. They frankly are already combative as it is.
Ironically, many states in the US already have this issue within their own governments. The citizens of upstate New York are pretty much ignored at the expense of the citizens of New York City. Property taxes reflect this. My home state of Colorado is so dominated by Denver that a minimum wage law was enacted that ignores the vast differences in cost of living across the state, forcing small businesses in tiny towns with extremely low rents to pay as if their employees live in the relatively expensive Denver metro area. The Denver Post, which is absolutely not a conservative rag, opposed the minimum wage law's implementation due to this fact.
- mcv 6y agoThere's one big problem with this line of thinking: states don't vote. At least, not once you get rid of the electoral college. Once the EC is gone, it's people that vote. So cities don't dominate, people do. And that's not just semantics; at the moment there are millions of conservatives in California whose vote gets ignored. There's millions of liberals in Texas whose vote gets ignored. Cities are not a homogenous voting bloc.
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- tathougies 6y agoBut that is exactly the problem. City dwellers know about city problems. If it's up to city dwellers, they may vote to fund things like public art in lieu of critical infrastructure like irrigation or government weather infrastructure because those things don't seem necessary when you're living in a metropolis, but are vital when you're a farmer. Or, what if city dwellers choose to do things like burn fossil fuels for convenience and pay no attention to changing weather patterns, etc? We shouldn't require our required rural brethren to become activists and lobbyists in the city just so the interests of the land can be surfaced.
- mcv 6y agoBut that's true for literally every issue. Rural voters are equally less aware of city issues. White voters are less aware of issues faced specifically by minorities. Men are less aware of female health issues. Skewing votes in favour of one group or another is never going to fix that. The only way to fix it is to ensure that all opinions are represented. A multi-party system with proportional representation will accomplish that much better than a skewed and polarised two-party system.
- joe5150 6y agoagriculture lobbying is a $140 million industry[1]. public art and infrastructure might be nominal priorities for a presidential candidate, but these decisions are generally going to be made by representatives in Congress, so whether or not the EC exists doesn't really change how these issues are addressed. 1: https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/sectors/summary?cycle=2019&id=A https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/sectors/summary...