Forum Post: IDEA: How to make the political systeme work for us!
Posted 13 years ago on Oct. 4, 2011, 8:24 a.m. EST by Skylarkk22
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First of all, I want to thank each and every person who is part of this movement. This is something we have needed for a long time! Keep up the good work!
I have been reading a lot in the news about how you don't really have specific goals thus hindering the movement, which I don't 100% agree with. I think you are doing a fantastic job building momentum. After reading your Official Statement on facebook last night, I was struck with a simple idea that could go towards making a lot of your stated goals more achievable:
Force politicians to campaign on ONLY public money. No corporate donations allowed. No fat cats getting what they want, while the rest of our voices get silenced. Each politician gets the same amount of money at the start of the campaign, and its up to them to use it wisely. We would therefore have defined campaign lengths, none of this perpetual campaigning crap. Those that run out early clearly wouldn't make very good leaders, so that could be an additional test. And it would open up the field to people who can't afford to campaign now b/c they weren't rich to begin with. It may not fix every problem, but if we had politicians in office who are actually elected by the people and for the people, they would be more likely to work for us rather than a select rich few who give them money.
Either way, keep fighting the good fight! So many people are behind you!!
To fix the system we need proportional representation. It just makes sense. A little edited but PR.
Also, to end the buying of votes, we can let anyone, even corporations, donate as much as they want....to a Non-Profit Organization which collects it, seperates it evenly, and gives it out to all campaigners. That way politicians won't know who is donating, and corporations are less likely to donate, because it helps their enemies.
our current representational system, as far as geographical demographics, is set up really well. the founding fathers had a good system, the house of reps is a proportional house, but the senate is an equal house. this is set up this way so that more populace areas don't have the ability to completely smother the less populace areas and that is an important check and balance to have in place.
i like your idea for equal funding it is an interesting concept, thogh i think the reality wouldn't work so well, how many people paid the extra $1 on their taxes to go to the presidential campaign fund? not many because people don't want their money going to the other guy.
one thing that would help tremendously would be to switch all elections over to a ranked voting system, this levels the playing field an amazing amount between those with huge bankrolls and those with huge ideas. it essentially nullifies the effect of massive corporate bankrolling of candidates.
I think you misunderstand proportional representation. Right now we have the senate, which gives every state an even say. That is great! But the House of Representitives don't really "Represent" us, as a large chunk of Americans (The ones who don't vote) Are neither Democrat or Republican. Right now we use a Single Member District system for electing our HoRs. Meaning, each state gets x number of seats in the house. That state is then divided into x voting districts, and each district elect it's own Rep. This means, that whoever gets the most votes in their district wins. But this leads to a two party system. I'll give you an example.
If I stat gets 5 Seats. it is split into 5 districts. Here are the votes: District 1: 45% Dem 35% Rep 20% other District 2: 35% Dem 40% Rep 25% other District 3: 50% Dem 40% Rep 10% other District 4: 25% Dem 55% Rep 20% other District 5: 40% Dem 45% Rep 15% other 195 215 90 In this example, 2 Dems and 3 Reps will go to the house. But as you can see, over half of each district is left un-represented. If, however it was Proportional Representation, we would poll the whole state instead of districts.
We would then get this for the state: 39% Dem 43% Rep 18% Other With Proportional Representation, this state would send 2 Dems 2 Reps and 1 other.
This more completely represents the whole state, AND breaks the two party system, theoretically ending the stalemate in washington.
The problem with the current system is that in many districts (and in many states) votes aren't even a contest. With the current system there is almost no point in voting, as it is nigh imposssible to make a difference.
Tinkering with finance reform (which can be reversed by the next administration), whilst important, isn't going to change that.
Finance reform would need to be massive and likely the only thing that would make it stick is a constitutional amendment. Right now in most districts the candidate with the most funding wins. Sadly this has a lot to do with a general lack of education, many people get their political education from the actual campaigns, thus the bigger pocketbook will win.
Unfortunately, whatever finance reform you do, money will still find its way into the system. For example, what do you do about all the washington "think tanks" which seem to be able to flood the opinion pages of major newspapers, but are really just spreading the talking points for the major parties?
The real solution is to make money spent on campaigning less important/less valuable. I believe that proportional representation should help (in the current system you can buy off pretty much everyone -> in a proportional system it will be much, much harder). I am sure there are plenty of other things we could change that could reduce the influence of money.
I feel, personally, that I don't mark that $1 donation because I know they get all their money from corporations and damned if I'm giving my $1 to that system. If I could trust that our collective $1's or $20's were the only legal source of funding for any politician that wants to run, then I would be happy to participate in that.
I think we need to do more than this. We need to step back and think about what changes could be made to the political system so that money is not as important. For example: create super-districts for the house with proportional representation (so smaller parties have a shot), longer terms in the house (2 years is too short and forces constant fundraising) but add in term limits.
I am sure there are a lot of bright people here. We need to start the discussion!
So you are condemning and won't vote for those who use private money?
Actually, yes. You have to ask yourself, why is that donation private? Because the company doesn't want anyone to know who they bought.
I agree... Obama has to go.
And most other politicians
if we want to make the political system work for us and put some pressure on to create real change how about this http://occupywallst.org/forum/u-boys-need-a-convoy/ and this https://occupywallst.org/forum/our-turn/
I saw CNN and Erin Burnett commenting on OWS yesterday. She basically said this movement was irrelevant. That the right wing organizes and gets things done, the left wing organizes and dissipates and never votes. She made me sick.
Citizens United was the worst decision ever handed down by any judge in history.