Governance

Ours is a democratic form of government. We Americans know this because we have been taught this over and over again. A person has a vote and casts it on election day. The votes are counted and the candidate or proposition in question is settled. A winner is declared. The processes of government continue.

Actually, we are not a pure democracy. We elect representatives who then sit at the seat of government and legislate what they feel we would support them doing. The process is much more complicated than that, but this is what is meant by ‘representative democracy.’ Ours is also a republican form of government; it is another term for representative democracy. We elect people to act for us. All 330 million Americans do not sit in the same building and vote; nor do we cast a vote on every single issue being considered for the public’s good. Congress does that on the federal level; state legislatures act for us on the state level. County and municipal governments follow a similar representative process.

Trouble: the more complicated the process or representation, the more elected officials can hide from accountability to the electorate. In a nutshell, that is what is bedeviling our nation today. As long as elected officials can escape their duties, nothing much gets done. And what does get done is often in the interests of those officials rather than the common good of the public.

Solutions: there are many we need to examine and research. However, nothing will happen if we do not agree there is a problem to be fixed. That is the first step we need to take.

Our form of government has not worked well for quite a few decades. It needs to be tuned up at the very least. Part of the problem is too many people are elected to serve the people’s interests. The more elected officials in the Congress or state legislature, the more divisive the process and interests are. That multiplicity alone provides the ‘cover’ from accountability. One way to address this is to cut the representation in half. Instead of 435 congresspeople and 100 senators, reduce those number to 216 and 50, respectively. Population areas would be increased, and the elected official must represent what is best for all the people regionally, not just special interest groups. Finding the key principles to consider in such a case becomes more principled, not less.

Our form of government needs to be based more on consensus than base agreement. Consensus supports better compromises over time rather than bald agreement that maneuvers power.

Removing corporate and special interest funding from campaigns would improve the system as well. The government is of, by and for the people, not of, by and for corporations or commercial interests alone. Election Finance Reform paid from tax funds on a formula basis would place every candidate on a level playing field. This alone would greatly improve the quality of governance in America.

A few other guidelines or principles should be considered. One of the first is the role of religion in governance. It ought not to be a consideration. Right and wrong, yes; faith or not faith, no. Abortion is just such an issue affected by religion. The inception of life is not fertilization of an egg; it is the viability of the fetus to survive outside the womb at whatever stage of development it emerges. Not viable? Not a person. Abortion does not kill a person; it ends the development of what could become a person but is not yet a person. One is feeling; the other is science and logic. Feeling is supported by faith issues and religious creed. It is fine for a person to live their life by, but it is not fine to force others with differing beliefs to live by those beliefs. If you do not like governance by Taliban beliefs, then you see the lengths of why this is important. No religion in government. Values yes, but those are not purely religious values. Murder is a wrong philosophically as well as religiously. So, we outlaw murder. And so forth.

There are other principles to embrace in our governance design, but exploration will uncover those. Meanwhile we need to consider how all of this will be authorized and managed. That is a challenge given the ineptitude of Congress and state legislatures. Perhaps a plebiscite on a new constitutional convention?

Whatever the method, people with more wisdom, energy and youth than I are needed to handle this. The when is now. The how is still an open question.

If we do not do something like this, we can kiss the USA goodbye. Yes. It is that serious a problem. Just look at all the millionaires serving in Congress preserving their own skin, money and special interests!

October 6, 2021