One general principle I have for life is that if I see something I believe ought to be done undone, I do it. It is easy to complain, criticize, and express anger. It is easy to criticize Congress for being dysfunctional, self-serving, a seller of policy for campaign contributions, and filled with crazy and/or awful people, for all of these things are true. But this is of no use unless one steps forward to offer an alternative. The events of 1/6/2021, the attempted assassinations of Donald Trump and the successful murder of Charlie Kirk, the rising tide of threats and violence against elected officials and election workers, and the confrontations between ICE and state governments show a very ominous trend. Every federal election is presented by major-party partisans as having apocalyptic consequences, of being an Armageddon. They are all too correct: the DC government’s power only grows from year to year at the people’s expense, and this power is easily used by one major party against those who voted for the other, whether in terms of disaster relief, anti-discrimination law, supposed infrastructure spending, ICE’s actions, or manipulation of the media. Proposals have grown steadily louder to break the deadlock by locking in one party’s power, whether by packing the Supreme Court, adding many low-population states dominated by one major party to control the Senate, restricting voting, or drastically expanding or curtailing citizenship. This seems likely to end in an escalating spiral of semi-Constitutional power grabs, or one major party succeeding in changing the rules to lock itself into power at the national level. That would mean the end of meaningful self-government, de jure or de facto breakup of the United States, or civil war. Any of these outcomes would be very harmful; civil war would be utterly catastrophic, likely resulting in economic collapse, tens of millions of deaths, and no clear winner. My proposed alternative is to reduce the stakes of federal elections by taking that power back from DC and returning it to the states, local communities, and (most importantly) individual citizens. My broader vision is to uphold the basic classically liberal ideals core to the identity and founding vision of the USA: rule of law, equality before the law, private property, personal responsibility, and the freedom to act in any way which does not infringe on the rights of others to do the same. Though the Founders frequently failed to act in accordance with these ideals, their vision gave later generations the power to make them reality. These ideas produced a level of peace, personal safety, and prosperity unimaginable to the vast majority of humans who have ever lived, whose lives as peasants were filled with brutal struggle to survive ubiquitous disease, famine, violence including war, and exploitation by rulers.
The most critical problems with our electoral system are gerrymandering and the spoiler problem. Unlike campaign finance or balloting procedures, those directly thwart the will of the people as expressed through the actual votes cast, and thus impede necessary action on every other issue. The solutions are simple: For Senate elections, ranked choice voting, which mostly prevents spoilers from altering outcomes, and allows options outside the two-party system to gain traction without being wasted votes. For House elections, proportional representation on the Swiss model: each state’s House seats are filled by a party’s list in proportion to vote share (with independent candidacies allowed), with no winner-take-all districts. If, for example, the Republicans got 50% of the House vote in a state with eight seats, Republican candidates would fill exactly four seats, neither more nor less. Party lists can be determined in primaries, or by a party organization according to its rules. This allows small parties and independents with dispersed support to win representation in accordance with voter preferences, eliminating the duopoly. It would force legislation to reflect consensus among a broad range of ideas in the Capitol, representative of the sweep of Americans’ views, instead of the status quo of one specific vision using slim pluralities in a slim majority of districts to roll over all opposition and produce wild swings in policy. The Senate filibuster is a kludge for this; my proposal is a real fix. Recent polling shows majority support for this system once people understand what it is. This would work best if tied to expanding the House. That the House has 435 Representatives was set by statute more than a century ago, and has not been adjusted to population increase. More Representatives would allow more personal attention from each Representative to their constituents, and improve proportionality under the proposed PR system for almost all states.
Regulations are necessary because entities which cause massive harm can be unable to pay judgments. By repealing most regulations and only requiring sufficient liability insurance for a worst-case scenario, regulatory functions can essentially be outsourced or privatized to insurance companies.
Our current debt and deficit, political vitriol and dysfunction, and economic problems are all consequences of a federal government that is too big and trying to do too much. Wherever possible, federal programs, taxes, and regulations should be cut and returned to state and local governments, or the judgment of individual citizens deciding how to spend their own money and live their own lives.
Have questions or suggestions? I would love to hear from you!
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