Proposed Changes to the American Democratic System: Leftovers

I posted four proposals over the last few weeks:

  1. The Hastert Rule
  2. The National Popular Vote
  3. Approval Voting
  4. Supreme Court term limits

To conclude the series, here are others that don’t get their own post.

  • Reducing Incumbency: Remember the exciting 2022 midterm election we just had? Incumbents won 94.5% of the races. That’s absurd. In the Senate, the re-election rate was 100%. Not a single sitting Senator lost a campaign to stay in office. That’s just absurd! But… I don’t have any particular ideas how to mitigate this specifically, although the below ones would help enormously.
  • Eliminating the Filibuster: So many others have written about this, it has all the visibility it needs. I am in favor of this. Ezra Klein convinced me that it is worth having some bad things by a slim majority, pass to get a system back to accountability – candidates win, become elected, pass policy, and that policy is judged by the voters next cycle. This goes with reducing the incumbency advantage, part of the key is that officials are held accountable.
  • Gerrymandering: This is maybe the most important of everything listed. Voters should choose candidates, not the other way around. This is a big problem, well publicized. My opinion is obvious. Note that the National Popular Vote essentially eliminates gerrymandering at the Presidential level.

What else did I miss?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *