Is geography-based politics an antiquated idea which should be replaced? I think it is.
When the country was founded, and even fifty or a hundred years ago people's interest were geographical and the people they knew were almost all local. I'll guess that only a tiny percentage of the population knew more than a handful of people who did not live close by. Today most people have lived in a number of places and have friends and relatives scattered all over the US. Even if they've always lived in the same place others have moved. And most people live in one part of town but only know a small portion of the people within a few blocks of them. They do everything from working and going to church someplace else. They even shop, go to the doctor, get their car fixed and play golf someplace else in town.
If you're an aerospace engineer in Alabama your interests are much more Republican and white collar worker than Alabama. For anybody, geography is not the important political predictor it once was.
Both our interests and our social networks are not defined by geography the way they once were.
While we still need to have geographical political entities (the nation, states, counties and cities) I propose that our representatives should not be local. Specifically I propose at-large candidates and cumulative voting. So for example, for the nation, this year we'd elect, say, 33 Senators and 435 members of the House, from all over the US. You might get ten votes to use in the Senate race and you could use all ten on one candidate or vote once for each of ten candidates. Maybe you're more interested in a gun Senator, a pro-choice Senator or a farm Senator than you are an Iowa Senator.
A less extreme proposal would be to use this just for the House and do it on a state by state basis. So, Alabama still gets seven seats in the House but all are elected at-large with cumulative voting. So if Blacks had 28% of the vote and used it for Black candidates they could get two seats.
When the country was founded, and even fifty or a hundred years ago people's interest were geographical and the people they knew were almost all local. I'll guess that only a tiny percentage of the population knew more than a handful of people who did not live close by. Today most people have lived in a number of places and have friends and relatives scattered all over the US. Even if they've always lived in the same place others have moved. And most people live in one part of town but only know a small portion of the people within a few blocks of them. They do everything from working and going to church someplace else. They even shop, go to the doctor, get their car fixed and play golf someplace else in town.
If you're an aerospace engineer in Alabama your interests are much more Republican and white collar worker than Alabama. For anybody, geography is not the important political predictor it once was.
Both our interests and our social networks are not defined by geography the way they once were.
While we still need to have geographical political entities (the nation, states, counties and cities) I propose that our representatives should not be local. Specifically I propose at-large candidates and cumulative voting. So for example, for the nation, this year we'd elect, say, 33 Senators and 435 members of the House, from all over the US. You might get ten votes to use in the Senate race and you could use all ten on one candidate or vote once for each of ten candidates. Maybe you're more interested in a gun Senator, a pro-choice Senator or a farm Senator than you are an Iowa Senator.
A less extreme proposal would be to use this just for the House and do it on a state by state basis. So, Alabama still gets seven seats in the House but all are elected at-large with cumulative voting. So if Blacks had 28% of the vote and used it for Black candidates they could get two seats.
