It’s Time For the People’s House to Bulk Up
#UncapTheHouse
In which I propose something rather audacious and hare-brained. #EqualRightsAmendment #ERANow #UncapTheHouse #UncapTheSenate #ProgressiveFederalism #CivicSedevacantism #GovernmentInExile #uspol
The MAGA revolution is playing with fire
@dstndstn @gwynnion Our voting system (first past the post #endFPTP) and various suppression of representation (#uncapTheHouse) , and voter suppression , and lack of campaign finance regulation, all work together to currently ensure no other parties can emerge.
This is also why I have long advocated for expanding the House. #UncapTheHouse
I am also convinced that we should not limit voters to a single party in primary elections. (Still one vote per race but like the general election they can split their ticket.) #OpenPrimaries
These are necessary steps to realign our government to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people" as our founders hoped.
What they designed was calculated to support human flourishing.
@orrickle @mugwump2 Definitely agree on #unCapTheHouse though I'm not sure what we can do about the US Senate in the near to medium term. Mark makes great arguments in his book about expanding the CA Legislature and going unicameral. I've talked to ProRep folks a bit and imho you need to at least expand the Assembly by 50 percent to make #proportionalrepresentation work in California. More would be better, and we'd need to expand a lot to get near the district populations of other states, but it's hard to know what voters would go for.
Edit: tagging @markpaul since I'm not sure if that other account is active anymore.
@bouriquet I think the HOUSE has unfair representation, and that representation is also reflected in the makeup of the Electoral College. #UncapTheHouse and not only will the government be more representative, the Electoral College won't be so much of a shitshow.
@flexghost (to your comment about state legislatures, I also think a bunch of states could use more local districts too)
the House was capped almost 100 years ago and we have way more people now
A small but positive step, but Blue Dog Democrats are proposing a select committee to explore multi-member congressional districts and expanding the size of the House, among other reforms.
Of course, bills to do those things, like the Fair Representation Act, have been introduced in the past. But good to see more conservative dems getting involved in the space.
Also I don't think I've ever seen a big commercial media outlet mention the cube root rule for assembly size. Nice!
@mattly obligatory reply to say #UncapTheHouse will go quite far in evening it out
yet another reason to #UncapTheHouse
it... shouldn't be one, but now you have it
https://abovethelaw.com/2024/10/gop-attorney-general-teen-pregnancy-abortion/
@GottaLaff vote them all out, and #UncapTheHouse
"""“Shame on her,” Manchin, who is retiring at year’s end, said in the Capitol. “She knows the filibuster is the Holy Grail of democracy. It’s the only thing that keeps us talking and working together. If she gets rid of that, then this would be the House on steroids.”
"""
well maybe that would not be true if they'd #UncapTheHouse so it was actually representative of the population
Solution: add four more senators to every state, and elect two senators from every state every two years for a six-year term using multi-winner/proportional #RCV. But also describe the extra senators in this 300-member Senate as “(voting) delegates”.
Do that along with #UncapTheHouse (using the #CubeRootRule ) and #FairRepresentationAct, and you’ll have a proportional, very constitutional Congress. #RankedChoiceVoting #USPol
So I think I found a way to expand the US Senate by statute, without amending the constitution, without adding new states, without violating equal suffrage of the states. #USPol #USCongress #UncapTheHouse #UncapTheSenate #USSenate
@gwynnion I love it and thing number three should be #UncapTheHouse
"Official Acts" I imagine Biden could do after declaring this a national emergency to save Democracy.
1. Institute Ranked Choice Voting for this and all future presidential elections - some states already do, so just make all. Eliminates 3rd party spoiler effects - motivates non-voters who couldn't stomach Biden as 1st choice
2. Declare a crisis of representation: move to #uncapTheHouse in 2026.
3. Add justices and / or impeach justices from SCOTUS.
@jaredwhite Interesting! Feel like this would have more appeal if backed by actual policy ideas that stand to fix certain aspects of people feeling disenfranchised. Ranked Choice Voting plans so that Biden could say something like "make us your second choice", increasing the size of the house of representatives and/or moving to multi-member districts to give citizens better access to their reps, and more likely to have a member who actually shares their views, etc.
@JamesGleick the other thing that would fix the problem of the of the electrical college, is increasing the number of representatives to match the population gain. It was capped a hundred years ago, and should be increased dramatically. #uncapthehouse has numerous other advantages too.
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