Thursday, February 11, 2010

Something has not been right for too long.

I'm no militia member. I have no desire to overthrow the government. If I did, I had the past 8 years I would have been more than happy to be a revolutionary. But since the new administration has come in, it's evident one side of the political spectrum has no desire to do what is right - keep government moving (or even to keep government in the hands of the people). They obstruct every chance they get. Now, they seem to want to change the definition of the word majority to mean that a simple majority is 60% and not 51%.

It's time to get rid of the Senate.

Really - hear me out. The Senate has no real purpose. It's very existence divides the only branch of the government the citizens have the right to choose the representation. Think of it - the Supreme court and many of the lower courts: all the judges are appointed by the President. John Q. Public has no say who sits behind that bench. Mark off the judicial branch. The President is technically not elected by the people but by the electoral college. In that regard, a candidate can win the popular vote (remember that "majority"word) but not win the highest seat in the US. Has happened 4 times in US history. So in effect, Jane Z. Public (John's wife who is a 3rd grade school teacher) cannot decide who gets to work in the Oval Office. Mark off the Executive branch.

That leaves just the Legislative branch - which is divided into two separate groups. You have the House - all elected officials in the House has always been given their seats via winning the majority of votes in their district. Also, the makeup of the House changes as the population moves about the country, so states may gain of lose seats with each census. So Mark V. Public (their son who just graduated from state college) can pick who represents him in the House. The Senate, however, is not based on population, but on simply being a state. All 50 states (and the District of Columbia) get 2 Senators. Not bad, except when you do the math and realize how proportionally unfair such a setup is.

If you look at the 2009 population of each state you will see that the folks living in California only get a roughly 1.9% vote power in the Senate, while the bottom 18 states (and DC) in population total to about the same number of citizens, yet have the voting strength of over 35% in the Senate. Scary fact??? Half of the population of the US have only a 18% voice in the Senate (CA, TX, NY, FL, IL, PA, OH, MI & GA), while the rest of the population is spread out thru 42 states and DC with an astounding 82% might in the Senate. When you think that one of the major duties of the Senate is to confirm judicial and executive nominees, you can see the huge ideological discrepancy that plagues this country and unfairly shifts power to half of this land.

If have yet to read anything that states we should not alter the documents that govern this democracy. I think it's time for a change.

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