The US Constitution demands that governments cannot discriminate in the way they function, that is, if there is a better system available. Interestingly, the Fed and State levels were given powers in the US Constitution that provides them some leeway around that demand. No such leeway was given to cities and counties, yet they behave as if they were given those same freedoms nevertheless. They were not. Here’s how it works:
Our voting system discriminates. We all know that it does not contain green, orange or yellow. And that is not allowed — for the local level. But that’s exactly what is found in place.
Many folks like the local politicians better than the State or Federal politicians. Yet it is at the local level that we find almost exclusively blue politicians or almost exclusively red politicians occupying all seats, all across the nation.
To create change, we’ll have to start with the level we like best. There are more than 30,000 cities, townships and counties in the US, and we only need a couple of good examples to show that proportional voting is the better system.
If I am correct, ALL political scientists agree that proportional voting is the better system for the individual voter. The reason is obvious: proportional voting is an inclusive democracy. There are basically no losers in proportional voting, whereas our district voting produces about 40 percent of losers, not represented at the table of decision makers. We live in an exclusive democracy.
The next step is people everywhere wanting that system for their city and county because they like what they see.
The third step would be, but this will only happen once folks recognize how bad our current system is, changing State Constitutions. They are much easier to change than the US Constitution.
Perhaps having full-color democracy for local and state levels may already be enough to populate the federal level with more honest politicians (yes, politicians in the proportional voting system are more honest because voters don’t pick them any longer if they lie just once and certainly if they lie twice). It is a fundamentally different system.
We can be that change — starting with the city we live in.
