Check out the website: https://lenspoliticalnotes.com  Look at the recent Political Notes and Len’s Letters on the website: 

December 5th , 2022          Len’s Letter #56 Our system is flawed; some might say it’s  rigged.

2022                                        General Election

Jefferson            Madison            Mason

The 2022 election was rigged.  Not in the Donald Trump sense.  No one fixed the voting machines.  No one brought in thousands of ballots. Nothing happened resembling the Republican Congressional candidate in North Carolina whose 2018 victory was cancelled because his minions collected, completed, and revised other people’s signed ballots.   Our System is rigged in a way that affects every election.

People ask:

 Is the United States supposed to be a democracy? Is the United States  supposed to be a republic?  That’s an old conversation. Some respond and say the United States does not live up to being the democracy it is supposed to be.  Some say the United States is not supposed to be a democracy.  It is a republic.

Of course, the United States is a republic.  The American Revolution was fought to be free of the British monarchy.  No king?  No other autocratic ruler?  The United States is a republic.

The United States is not and never was a direct democracy.  No one ever suggested we be the kind of direct democracy in which the people as a whole decide on every issue or even on the most important issues. Well, maybe Andrew Yang suggested it.  If he did, the Italian Five Star Movement should have demonstrated to him just how much of a disaster that idea would be when implemented.

Americans have experimented some with direct democracy. New England Town Meetings existed prior to the Constitution. I spent most of my working life dealing with New England Town Meetings.  Towns have committees that do work before the town meeting votes. Especially in communities small enough where everyone who wants to participate can meet in a community meeting room and where trust is high, that modified version of direct democracy works pretty well. People who were part of the Occupy Wall Street movement attempted a form of direct democracy – one park at a time.  “Revolutionary” direct democracy did not work as well.

For entities larger than small New England towns, we are a representative democracy.  When we were taught American history in school, we celebrated each step toward greater democracy in electing those representatives – the end of property requirements for voting, Reconstruction and former enslaved people voting, the direct election of US Senators, women gaining the right to vote.  We also celebrated state level innovations like referenda.  The United States is a Democracy — a Representative Democracy.

One more thing we learned when we were taught American history in school – Thomas Jefferson’s political party was the Democratic Republican party. The opponents, stressing the national character of the government, were called Federalists. They valued a strong national government under the Constitution in contrast to the very weak national government under the Articles of Confederation. There should be no debate about whether we are a republic or a democracy. At the end of the 18thcentury and early in the 19th century, we understood we were a nation that is both a republic and a representative democracy.  We still are.

But do we elect our representation fairly?    If we do not, our democracy is flawed, even rigged.  George Mason described the House of Representatives as the “grand depository of the democratic principle of government.” James Madison sought to create a second legislative body that would be small and deliberative; independent of the larger House of Representatives.

The Constitutional Convention wrestled with the idea of a bicameral legislature and, when committed to the idea of the Senate, to it representing states.  The commitment to two Senators per state seems consistent with the conventional understanding – the people in small states wanted to be assured that they not entirely lose the veto power they had in the Confederation.  It is fair to wonder if the Founders would have allowed the much greater disparities in power that now exist between large and small states.

To see how the disparity has changed, look at the chart below.  From the 1790 census the chart will include the number of free white men in each state.  That, after all, is who Senators represented when they represented states.  Because of those (small d) democratic gains celebrated in school history lessons our legislators no longer represent only free white men. (Ron DeSantis could take note. If the history of that (small d) democratic progress makes him feel bad, he might require that Florida schools delete that part of history from its public school curriculum), Nowadays we consider representation of the entire population of each state.  The chart shows the three largest states, the three smallest states, and the states at or around the median from the 1790 census and the 2020 census. 2020 figures are in rounded numbers.

State 1790 Rank 1790 FW Men Power per-cent State 20202 Rank 2020 Pop. Power per-cent
Virginia 1 110,936 100% Calif. 1 35.5 Million 100%
Penn 2 110788 100% Texas 2 29.1 Million 122%
Mass. 3 95,464 116% Florida 3 21.5 Million 165%
Alabama 24 5 Million 710%
Conn 6 60,523 183% Louisiana 25 4.7 Million 755%
Maryland 7 55,915 198% Kentucky 26 4.5 Million 789%
RI 11 16,019 693% Alaska 48 730,000 4,863%
Georgia 12 13,103 847% Vermont 49 640,000 5,5475
Delaware 13 11,783 941% Wyoming 50 580,000 6,121%

Rhode Island’s power percent in the post -1790 Senate is calculated by dividing the number of free white men in Virginia by the number of free white men in Rhode Island. Alaska’s power percent in the post-2020 Senate is calculated by dividing the population of California by the population of Alaska.  In the early days of the United States, the Senators of small states were more powerful than the Senators from large states – between 7 and 9.5 times more powerful.  Now the Senators from small states are between 50 and 60 times more powerful.

Senators from the smallest states have grown startlingly powerful.  If we are going to have a democratic country, we need to find a way to change our representation in the Senate.  Even as we retain our sense that Senators represent the people of individual states, if the Senators are so disproportionately powerful, every election is rigged.

The rigging of the Senate elections is more egregious than the rigging of the elections in the House. However, the purpose of the House is to represent the people. If House elections are undemocratic, it is a disgrace.

One small, but simple matter has to do with the states with only one representative.  The two smallest states, Wyoming and Vermont have populations smaller than the average sized district of 760,367.  Wyoming had 576,851 people and Vermont had 643,077.  The third smallest state, Alaska, had 733,367 – close enough to the normative sized district to not raise a fuss. The over-representation of the people of Wyoming and Vermont is a small problem.  If we don’t fix it, we won’t be shocked.

Voter suppression is another matter.  It is shocking to know that, for the election that just passed, because of the devastating hurricane, through an executive order, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis made rule changes to ease voting for predominantly white counties, but not predominantly Black counties.  That is a blatant example of voter suppression that African American voters face throughout the South and, possibly, elsewhere.

Gerrymandering is different.  A little more than a year ago, the Brennan Center did an analysis of gerrymandering.  It reminded us that one kind of gerrymander is “cracking” – splitting up a group of similar people to limit their influence in elections because too few remained in each district to be influential.   Another kind of gerrymandering is “packing” – cramming a group together in a single district because they were sufficiently numerous that if they were in two or three districts, they could affect or even control the elections in those districts.

The Brennan Center reported that gerrymandering after the 2010 census probably gave Republicans an extra 16 or 17 seats nationally.  They suggested that three states alone – Michigan, North Carolina, and. Pennsylvania gave Republicans 7 to 10 extra seats.  The US Supreme Court, meanwhile, has washed its hands of any responsibility for considering partisan-oriented gerrymandering.  Since that decision, state legislators undertaking redistricting are explicit about political motives while staying silent about racial-based decisions which would get them in trouble, even with the current US Supreme Court.

You never can tell what the Supreme Court might do.  They have, for instance, decided that, for freedom of speech purposes, corporations are people.  On the other hand, they have decided that women are not people to be protected by the 14th amendment – so states can prohibit women from having an abortion.

State Supreme Courts may step in when the Supreme Court backs away.  Some state supreme courts have decided that their state constitution requires that people have equal representation. The Supreme Courts of Pennsylvania and North Carolina have prevented gerrymandering state legislative districts and Congressional districts on that account.  In Pennsylvania, the change was for the long term.  In North Carolina, the change was for the short term.  The North Carolina Court agreed they would look at the issue again before 2024.  Now that the Court is 4-3 Republican, they might make a different decision.  In Michigan, the people ended gerrymandering.  They changed the constitution, created an independent commission, and elected a state legislature without gerrymandered districts in 2022.  Congressional districts, too.

Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida are three states with gerrymanders that favor the Republicans. Illinois favors Democrats.  Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama have ‘packed” African Americans into a single district in each state. Unpacked districts would give each state an additional district likely to elect an African-American Democrat.

State Courts in two states where gerrymanders favored Democrats overruled legislatively created districts.  The gerrymandered districts in Maryland and New York were replaced. (In New York, I have an uncomfortable sense that the Master assigned the task of redistricting created something of a gerrymander in favor of the Republicans).

The most common complaint about the current undemocratic character of the United States is the Electoral College, the composition of which is affected by the disproportionate power of small states in the Senate.  And there are more issues.

Should a democratic nation have territories?   Should a democratic nation control populated territories whose people do not have full political rights.

Finally, consider the Native American tribes. They are members of defeated nations. Should they have some kind of independent representation?

Until gerrymandering is fixed in every state, until voter suppression is stopped in every state, until the extreme disproportion of the US Senate is revised, every national election is rigged.  Every national election is insufficiently undemocratic.  Until something is done that affects the Electoral College, every presidential election is rigged as well.

Experts have questions about our democracy as well. The magazine The  Economist has created a Democracy Index of all 167 nations in the world (though they exclude some microstates).  According to the Economist, in 2021 in the world, there were 21 Full Democracies, 53 Flawed Democracies, 34 Hybrid (Part Democratic, Part Authoritarian) Regimes, and 59 Authoritarian Regimes.

The United States is not among the 21 Full Democracies.  Three countries in the Americas are included: Canada (#12), Uruguay (#13), and Costa Rica (#20 – tied). The United States (#26) is listed high among the 53 Flawed Democracies: Below France, Israel, Spain, and Chile.  Above Estonia, Portugal, the Czech Republic, and Botswana.

Should we live with and operate with the rules that we have?  Of course, we should.  If we don’t live by those rules or if we distort those rules by false claims about rigged elections, we will become less democratic rather than more.

Should we change our rules so we would be more democratic?  Of course, we should.  I will propose some rules changes.  Some are statutory changes already proposed in Congress.  Some are statutory changes that have not been proposed in Congress.  Some are what I believe are palatable constitutional amendments that would make us more democratic.

PROVIDE FINANCIAL SUPPORT
Special Election January 10, 2023 – Virginia State Senate
City Councilman Aaron Rouse 

Take Back the House in 2024 
Inc Mary Peltola (AK AL) (R+15)
Businessman Adam Frisch (CO 03) (R+15)
Inc Jared Golden (ME 02) (R+10)
Non-profit Head Jevin Hodge (AZ 01) (R+7)
Law Professor Kirsten Engel (AZ 06) R+7)
Inc Yadira Caraveo (CO 08) (R+3)
Inc Jahana Hayes (CT 05) (D+3)
Inc Pat Ryan (NY 18) (D+3)
Inc Gabe Vasquez (NM 02) (D+4)
Inc Val Hoyle (OR 04) (D+9)
Inc Seth Magaziner (RI 02) (D+17)
Len’s Political Note #525 Get the House Back in 2024, Part 1
Len’s Political Note #526 Get the House Back in 2024, Part 2