You know what I think we should all do this election day. I’ve made that pretty clear. Of course, It’s not going to happen, so we will have to muddle through with the ineffective politicians that our polarized electorate provides. If we can’t run off all incumbents, the next most important priority is:
VOTE!
The Senate is going to be controlled, albeit by a razor-thin majority, by one of the two major parties. Make sure your voice is heard. Your vote is one more drop of water in a bucket that is going to tip over one way or another. You never know. Your vote might be the one that tips our Senate (and our government, for that matter) in one direction versus another. Voting does not guarantee that you will get your way. It may even turn out that your voice is not heard. That being said, the one way you can guarantee your voice (and dreams for a better future) are NEVER heard, is to not vote.
Your vote, even if for a losing cause, can make a race closer than it would have been and may encourage like-minded people to vote in the future.
What is at stake is our direction regarding global climate change, funding for the EPA, and who knows, we may even see a challenge mounted against subsidies for EVs or renewable energy. Gasoline prices have plummeted recently and that could cause those who don’t believe mankind plays a role in climate change to question the logic of all the things being done to ameliorate it.
John Adams said the House should be a true portrait of the people. A lot of us in Texas, like those who believe in science and anthropogenic climate change, aren’t in the portrait. We are left out, as if we don’t exist. We pay taxes. Our views deserve to be represented.
If you are in the same boat, you might ask why your congressperson doesn’t represent your views. Because your congressional representative is determined by your street address rather than by what you think.
Consider the following votes of Kay Granger, my “representative”:
• Voted YES on barring EPA from regulating greenhouse gases. (Apr 2011)
• Voted NO on enforcing limits on CO2 global warming pollution. (Jun 2009)
• Voted NO on tax credits for renewable electricity, with PAYGO offsets. (Sep 2008)
• Voted NO on tax incentives for renewable energy. (Feb 2008)
• Voted NO on investing in homegrown biofuel. (Aug 2007)
• Voted NO on removing oil & gas exploration subsidies. (Jan 2007)
• Voted NO on keeping moratorium on drilling for oil offshore. (Jun 2006)
• Voted NO on raising CAFE standards; incentives for alternative fuels. (Aug 2001)
• Voted NO on prohibiting oil drilling & development in ANWR. (Aug 2001)
• Voted NO on starting implementation of Kyoto Protocol. (Jun 2000)
• Rated 0% by the CAF, indicating opposition to energy independence. (Dec 2006)
• Bar greenhouse gases from Clean Air Act rules. (Jan 2009)
• Signed the No Climate Tax Pledge by AFP. (Nov 2010)
• No EPA regulation of greenhouse gases. (Jan 2011)
• Voted NO on protecting free-roaming horses and burros. (Jul 2009)
• Voted YES on deauthorizing “critical habitat” for endangered species. (Sep 2005)
• Voted YES on speeding up approval of forest thinning projects. (Nov 2003)
• Rated 10% by the LCV, indicating anti-environment votes. (Dec 2003)
The problem is the single member district which awards 100% of the representation to as little as a 50.1% majority. The people who vote for the losing candidate or candidates are left with no one to represent their views.
Is it fair that up to 49.9% of the people in a district have no representation in government? I suspect this is the biggest reason a lot of people in the U.S. don’t vote: they live in a district which is almost certain to elect someone from the party they don’t like. Why should they care about voting? It’s a waste of their time. Incumbent House members are almost always re-elected, 90% in the last election, despite the fact that few Americans (only 14% currently) approve of the job they are doing.
Because of the common practice of gerrymandering by the dominant party in state legislatures, some people talk about establishing a “fair” way to draw districts. Remember this: there is no “fair” way to draw a single member district. The winner-take-all nature of the single member district always leaves some people, usually a lot of people, without a voice in government. This is why most democracies which have emerged since ours have rejected winner-take-all single member districts in their electoral systems in favor of what is known as proportional representation.
The basic concept of proportional representation is that like-minded voters in a geographical area such as a congressional district should be able to elect candidates in proportion to their share of the vote. For example, in a five-seat district, like-minded voters with 20% of the votes (say, progressives) should win one out of five seats and like-minded voters with 51% of the vote should win three of five seats. This voting method is perfectly constitutional. It does require that a federal law requiring single member districts be repealed.
FairVote.org describes a simple method for moving from what we have now, winner-take-all single-member districts to multi-member districts with “choice” voting. In Texas Fairvote proposes combining five single-member districts into a five-member super-district. Here’s how Fair Representation Voting would work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS62N5b5L7Y
Here’s how voting and vote counting would work.
Voters simply rank candidates in order of preference, putting a “1” by their first choice a “2” by their second choice, and so on. Voters can rank as few or as many candidates as they wish, knowing that a lower choice will never count against the chances of a higher choice.
To win under choice voting, candidates need an exact number of votes called a “threshold.” After counting first choices, candidates with the winning threshold are elected. To maximize the number of voters who help elect someone, “surplus” ballots beyond the threshold are transferred to remaining candidates according to voters’ next-choice preferences. After transferring surplus ballots until no remaining candidate has obtained the winning threshold, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. All of his/her ballots are distributed among remaining candidates according to voters’ next-choice preferences. This process continues until all seats are filled.
Here’s a sample election:
http://www.fairvote.org/reforms/fair-representation-voting/choice-voting/how-choice-voting-works/sample-election/
Get behind the Fairvote plan and fight to allow all Americans to be represented by people who share their views.
First thing to do: get angry. You pay taxes, yet you have no representative in Congress to represent your views. No taxation without representation! Open the window, stick your head out and yell, “I am mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Now, get other people angry. Write letters to your state legislators and ask them to support the FairVote plan for fair representation.
Yesterday the Daily Show presented a shocking example of how the Texas legislature gerrymanders congressional districts. The heavily Democratic Travis County is split into SIX congressional districts, five of which are represented by Republicans. It’s so ridiculous that it’s funny.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x290jkg_democalypse-2014-south-by-south-mess-austin-s-real-weirdness-the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-10-30-2_fun
The entire state has been carved up to deny real representation to millions of people.
Remember: there is no “fair” way to draw single member districts. The solution is a system of multi-member districts whereby differing political beliefs are represented in proportion to their popularity.