Thank you, Dave.
This is not Canada. People are desiring to change the voting system at the local levels and the US Constitution empowers people here; you don’t have that in Canada.
The list of invoked cities is quite long already. I am not alone, if that is what you think. Local Revolutions has two chapters in California and Tennessee and we have many requests that came in from other states.
We started up our media outreach and got our first article in:
Can we use more help?
Yes, but that is always the case with grassroots organizations. The roots are short and wide, and greater roots are welcome.
Also, political science professors we communicated with acknowledged that the pathway is indeed available and correct onto itself. None of them had legal counter arguments, and we reached out to more than a thousand now. That means there is no need for complicated US Constitutional changes; it is in place already. We can get the reform toward better representation in place, today. Doesn’t mean all were jumping up and down. That’s not how politics is done in the USA.
To address other parts of your reply: The specific format of Proportional Voting requested is indeed without party affiliation. At the local level, no candidate can run on party lines, and that is a good thing; I love it.
I did fix up some of the article later on, so your reply may not appear logical anymore for a future reader. I fixed up the example of the landlord, so the exact crux of the legal issue is pointed out more precisely. The landlord walks into your home telling you to not cook Brussels sprouts. Obviously, that is an illegal act.
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In Canada, the Canadians are not given constitutional powers. The United States is a bit unique in that sense. The People are empowered.
The Founding Fathers wrote the US Constitution, and particularly the part that is known as the Bill of Rights hands powers to the People: The Ninth, Tenth and Fourteenth Amendments are rather clear about that, even declare that government should not deny or disparage powers held by the People.
Canadians do not have that. In as far as I know, no other nation has that in their constitution. We are unique.
It is the individual States that declare what is allowed and verboten in local elections, and as such we have a government that disparages powers given to the People at the local level. Legally, that is overreach by the government and they have been called on that before. They point to their own rules, and yet they cannot move outside the US Constitution.
The US have English Law (Case Law), but the United States Constitution is actually Enlightened Law (i.e. it is the anchor). It gets complicated to show folks what the difference is; even a few political science professors tend to think the US Constitution is some kind of English Law.
Canada has English Law as well as its legal origin, but French Quebec has the Enlightened Law in place as its origin, so one part of Canada is deeply anchored as well. And this is then also a requirement for the national decisions in Canada.
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"You [...] seem to be the only person who knows something about this."
I am glad that this is changing. People are indeed becoming aware of the governmental setup that disparages their powers. Many Friends as we call them are part of the Local Revolutions grassroots organization. Let me know if you want to receive our news letter.
So, fortunately, there are more and more people who are now seeing what is going on and they are actively desiring change. I am invoking quite a bit of cities for other people. I have great conversations with mayors, city clerks, political science professors. It is happening, Dave.
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Here is an image that tells it in perhaps a real obvious manner.
In a two-party system, people end up seeing red and blue only. They do not see green anymore. But green is the actual color that dominates this picture. I help folks see that green is quite obviously the most important color here. It is not easy because folks may still think that green is actually blue and look at the blue in the image. Something greater is at work here; once yellow is put back, green is very obviously the most important color.
At the end of my reply, I show the full color picture. Green is indeed the most important color.
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The situation in Canada is different, and I understand that Canadians are a bit more independent in their thinking than folks south of the border, so there are more parties with quite a bit of political power in Canada, not just two. That makes Canada a better political nation to begin with. It also helps that there is no empowered president in Canada but a prime-minister. Empowered presidents do pull power in their own direction and in peacetime that is not helpful (but in times of war it is good to have one general in top).
It is happening, Dave, so that is the good news. People are invoking their cities, or they ask me to do that for them. If you have recommendations how to improve, please let me know. There is always space for improvement.
If possible, tell others about the Local Revolutions that are now taking place at the local level in the USA.
