Tag Archives: congress

Uncap the Senate and the House

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I like that the Australian Senate fixes the issue of equal suffrage in a federal system by 1) electing 12 senators per state, using 2) multi-winner ranked-choice voting.

At the very least, the U.S. could resolve the relationship between rural-urban polarization and equal suffrage of states by raising the number of senators elected per state to at least 6 (giving us multi-winner senate elections every two years in every state), giving us a 300-member senate in which two members are elected every two years to six year terms from every state, and electing all senators using multi-winner RCV.

I initially thought that simply raising the number of senators per state to three would be sufficient, but the issues of (1) 6-year terms and (2) single-winner elections means that states holding elections every two years (rather than states currently taking one even-numbered year off, as per the Senate classes arrangement) would carry out more of the same polarization.

But raising the number above three per state would mandate at least one multi-winner election for each state within a six-year interval.

So not only should we uncap the House to at least 693 members using the cube root rule, but we should uncap the Senate to 300 members.

Delegates to the Senate?

And while adding senators to the Senate would require amending the constitution, I do have an idea that (voting) delegates could also be elected to the Senate by mere statute, without violating the equal suffrage mandate.

This could mean that, in at least two Senate elections per state (out of three total every six years), a senator and a delegate could be elected jointly using multi-winner RCV, while the third Senate election following would jointly elect two delegates, all for six year terms.

In summary, every state would have the following every two years using RCV:

  • Class 1: Senator and delegate
  • Class 2: Senator and delegate
  • Class 3: Delegate and delegate

Finally

Finally, what if the House is expanded to four-year terms, like in most other democracies? Then it would make it unfeasible to hold Senate elections in three classes divided by year, since there would be Senate elections which are held in non-House years. I would instead consider two classes of elections instead of three, extending Senate terms to eight years and splitting the federal elections in half into quadrennial cycles.

Granted, this would require amending the constitution, but still…

Proposals: Delegates to Congress from Native American Tribes and from Americans Abroad

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I have two ideas for better representation in Congress:

A Delegate for Native American Tribes

For several years, the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetowah Band of Cherokee Indians have both pursued the goal of sending a delegate to the U.S. House. The Treaty of Hopewell (1785) and Treaty of New Echota (1835), signed between the Cherokee and the United States, promised a delegate for the Cherokee to Congress, but it was never acted upon until Cherokee Nation President Chuck Hoskins appointed activist Kimberly Teehee as a delegate in 2019. Despite this appointment, Teehee has not yet been seated in any session of Congress.

Similarly, the Choctaw Nation, who received a promise for a delegate in the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (1830), has never pursued sending a delegate, although the nation did send an ambassador to represent them before the general U.S. government throughout the 19th century. The Lenape Delaware Nation also signed a Treaty of Fort Pitt (1778) with the U.S. government, which encouraged them to form a state that would have representation in Congress, but never pursued either idea.

The issue here is that if the Cherokee (which are split between three tribes) and Choctaw deserve representation, that still leaves over 570 tribes which did not receive such a promise and do not have representation in Congress.

Their political concerns may be better represented by an at-large delegate who is popularly elected by enrolled voters from all the federally-recognized tribes in U.S. territory.

This idea, which may either provide for at-large or perhaps at least two districts on either side of the United States, more equitably support the representation of Native Americans in the federal level of government beyond the bounds of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The idea also passes the smell test of the 14th Amendment, as this would be limited only to enrollees of sovereign nations within the United States, including the 1 million who reside on reservations.

A Delegate for Americans Abroad

More countries in the 21st century, including France, Italy, Tunisia and more, have created electoral districts or reserved seats in their national parliaments to allow citizens who live abroad to vote for their own member/representative. This is often a recognition of the diasporas of citizens who keep their nationality and citizenship even as they live abroad for a long duration of time.

As of 2016, there were at least 4.8 million U.S. citizens who live abroad, including Armed Forces personnel, diplomats, businesspeople, expats, their families, and even accidental Americans who were born on U.S. soil to temporary workers or tourists but who have been raised for most of their lives in another country.

Suffrage for U.S. citizens has greatly increased since 1986, when the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) was passed. But what overseas U.S. voters are allowed to vote on varies between their state of formal residence, with some only allowing them to vote in federal elections, or some states barring their overseas residents from voting in any election if they have never resided in their formal state of residence.

Furthermore, expecting all overseas Americans to know about the candidates who are running for office on home soil is a tall order.

At the very least, those Americans who reside abroad should have more competent federal representation in Congress from U.S.-citizen candidates who may also reside closer to or on the same continent as themselves and share similar concerns as other U.S. expats.

Similar to France, this arrangement could create more than one district, but that may get into the weeds of reapportionment and how to draw lines to ensure equal population in order to comply with law, at least unless this delegation is exempted from the equal population requirement.

Finally, creating an overseas constituency for one’s parliament is an example of projecting soft power to a country’s diaspora which goes beyond just mere diplomacy, business networking or cultural promotion:

  • It creates a “legislator-diplomat” who liaises and and advocates for policy between the home country and its citizens in other countries, albeit more in the legislative branch more than in the executive.
  • If a foreign ministry executes the policies developed in the legislative branch which impact overseas citizens, it stands to reason that overseas citizens ought to have a direct say in the legislative branch.
  • Even when the policies from the legislative branch don’t directly affect foreign policy, overseas citizens also have an interest in domestic policies of a country to which they may return at some point for as long as they keep their citizenship.

What is, What Isn’t in the NDAA FY22

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The U.S. House passed an amended version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022 (“NDAA”) 363-70, with 51 Democrats and 19 Republicans voting against. This version, which authorized expenditures of around $770 billion, would remove key portions which were passed in a prior version passed by the House in November, and faces a Senate vote this week.

Sex and gender in the NDAA FY2022

In regards to sex and gender relations, the current version of the bill does the following:

  • encodes sexual assault into the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) as a crime for the first time
  • requires each military branch to establish an office to handle such crimes,
  • bans military commanders from making decisions about prosecutions in these and other “covered crimes”
  • directs DoD to track allegations of retaliation by victims of sexual assault and harassment, including demographic information on both the purported perpetrator and victim

To gain support from Republicans, Senate Democrats removed key provisions from the House’s earlier version of the NDAA FY2022, including provisions mandating the removal of language in the Selective Service Act only requiring men to register for Selective Service by the age of 18. While the NDAA had passed with bipartisan support in the House, several key Republican senators such as Josh Hawley of Missouri objected to this language on sexist grounds, while Rand Paul of Kentucky objected to the maintenance of the Selective Service System in its entirety.

Far-right Republican members of both houses objected to the bill for purported financial support of gender-affirming surgeries for transgender servicemembers, even though the bill did not include such language and merely failed to include a transphobic amendment banning such support. The bill also fails to codify President Biden’s re-integration of transgender servicemembers.

The provisions in regards to sexual assault and harassment have the support of DoD leadership.

Other provisions

The bill also includes:

  • the establishment of a “multi-year independent Afghanistan War Commission” to examine the beginning, procedure and U.S. withdrawal from the war over the last 20 years.
  • authorizing a 2.7% pay increase for servicemembers
  • authorizing DoD to provide a “basic needs allowance” for qualified low-income servicemembers who have experienced setbacks from the pandemic
  • establishes an “office, organizational structure, and provides authorities to address unidentified aerial phenomena,” aka UFOs
  • requires the President to develop a “Grand Strategy with Respect to China,” including assessments of Chinese activities in military, security, and foreign and economic relations in Central and South America
  • bans the U.S. military from buying equipment made by forced labor camps in Xinjiang Province (a provision added at the behest of Republican senator Marco Rubio)
  • reinforces U.S. policy against Chinese attempts to find a fait accompli against Taiwan

However, Senate Democrats removed a repeal of the 2002 Authorization to Use Military Force in Afghanistan from the most recent version. They also removed a provision legalizing marijuana banking, which was pushed by NJ Rep. Ed Perlmutter and passed the House.

Several House progressives voted against the bill due to the largesse of the funding to the military compared to the repeated cuts to the Build Back Better Act which has yet to pass the Senate.

An End to American Exceptionalism

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So….

That happened.

I hope this is an end to American exceptionalism. I hope it’s an end to the idea that we could never have a(n auto)coup attempt against the U.S. government take place, that we’re not built like that.

Numerous people around the world can tell first-hand about how things went when a coup or coup attempt took place, when the constitutional order was seized and abrogated, when the reset button was pressed, when the machine was unplugged because someone felt it was acting too buggy.

This is the first time that someone tried to abrogate the constitutional order of the United States, and it unfortunately was the fascist side which made this attempt. And it is pretty damn symbolic that only 24 hours earlier, Georgia voters played by the same damn rules which had been decried for giving Biden the win in November and gave a giant L to two Republican Senators. Yet, such an event as happened on Tuesday was not on the front pages of the struggling newspaper industry on Wednesday.

And now we see how buggy and limited in functionality the constitutional order is when it comes to responding to such an incident as what happened Wednesday, as well as our current chronic inability to fix the limitations of the 25th Amendment. We’re likely not going to see it invoked before January 20th.

But yet, we’re forced to live with the garbage structure of the 1787 Constitution, because we’re scared of how people who decided to flex their perceived privilege and assault police inside the Capitol building and are now in various levels of dispersion from scrutiny are more than willing to kill people and avoid consequences in the attempt to seize power.

I fear impunity. They may get away with it, Congress may do nothing, and we’ll be effectively living under a different set of rules than what applies to Trump and his shitty supporters, even after he leaves office.

And we also won’t be exceptional in that regard. After all, despite her family’s crimes in office (including her husband, “our man in Manila” who we effectively rescued from the consequences of his actions), Imelda Marcos was allowed to come back and serve in the Philippine Congress twice.

(Fun fact: Mom was living in Clark AFB, and still remembers the curfew enforced on the base the night that the Marcos family fled Malacañang Palace 83 km north to Clark AFB, where they spent two days and then flew to Guam, then to Hawaii. I was born in California almost a year after the People Power Revolution.)

Congressional Committees

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Congress nerds: After reading articles from Politico and the American Prospect on the need for congressional committee reform, I have one question:

Why does the House Standing Committee on Energy and Commerce seem to have the same purview as the Standing Committee on Natural Resources: namely, regulating the Department of Energy?

In fact, the Committee on Energy and Commerce has jurisdiction over five Cabinet-level departments and seven independent agencies. It passes legislation regarding telecommunications, consumer protection, food and drug safety, public health, air quality and environmental health, the supply and delivery of energy, and interstate and foreign commerce. This means that Energy and Commerce has the most overbroad, but the least penetrative, of all the standing committees in the House.

If anything, it should be renamed to just the Committee on Commerce, with jurisdiction over telecommunications, consumer protection, and interstate and foreign commerce. The other jurisdictions should be resorted – air quality and the supply and delivery of energy should be sent to the Committee on Natural Resources; food and drug safety, public health and environmental health to a new Standing Committee on Health and Human Services with jurisdiction over the HHS Department.

The Standing Committee on Education and Labor should be split up to correspond more effectively to the DoE and DoL, respectively. Another new Standing Committee on Housing and Urban Development should be established for similar purposes over HUD.

Then you’ll have just as many House Standing Committees which correspond to federal departments as possible, with less overlap between committees.

If we want to strengthen the power of Congress, we need a Congress which is just as expansive and proactive as the executive branch and its agencies. I’m convinced that such an expansion is what’s missing from #HR1.

VIDEO: Doug Jones (D-AL) and Tina Smith (D-MN) Sworn Into Office as U.S. Senators

Talking Points Memo reports:

Former Vice President Joe Biden will escort Sen.-elect Doug Jones (D-AL) to his swearing-in ceremony on Wednesday morning, according to CNN and local reports from Alabama. While the state colleague typically accompanies a new senator to the swearing-in ceremony, Jones did not ask Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) to attend, AL.com and WAAY TV reported Tuesday evening. Jones’ ceremony is scheduled for noon on Wednesday and he plans to do his swearing-in on a personal family Bible, according to AL.com.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports:

Tina Smith, who served three years as Minnesota’s lieutenant governor and worked behind the scenes as an influential DFLer for years before that, will join the U.S. Senate on Wednesday. Smith’s rapid elevation to the Senate follows the resignation of former Sen. Al Franken, who stepped down a day earlier following sexual harassment allegations. Smith, 59, will become Minnesota’s junior senator alongside Sen. Amy Klobuchar, also a DFLer. That will make Minnesota just the fourth state to currently have two women as U.S. senators.

Smith is now the 22nd currently-sitting female senator, a record. Jones’ election nubs the Republican majority even more to 1 seat, so expect more tie-breaker votes from Pence. Smith intends to run for her new seat in November 2018, and Jones will be up for re-election to a full term in 2020.

Nancy Pelosi Stays On

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This win by Nancy Pelosi is immediately being spun in social media as every ugly stereotype of 2016’s elected Democrats: “Coastal”, “elitist”, “aging”, “out of touch with Middle America”, “Dems will keep losing”, “thanks for another 4 years of Trump”, “identity politics”, etc. Journalists and pundits are hedging toward this narrative, from Chris Cilizza to Krystal Ball to Matt Drudge.

Tim Ryan came in as a challenger, but I don’t think he promoted himself enough to the rank-and-file caucus members. His optics turned off quite a few politicos seeing him as a “working class white man is best to fix it” arrogant type. His interview with Lawrence O’Donnell may have strengthened that perception.

But this is also a flashpoint. A lot of people wanted a working class-descended white man from the “flyover” Rust Belt to lead the party in the House in order to shunt “identity politics” and give succor to Middle America’s Trump voters in the short term. They *really* wanted this, if at least for the political gratification of a progressive leadership in one’s likeness.

But, for better or worse, they aren’t elected Democrats.

FUN FACTOID: The 115th Congress will also be the second time that Nancy Pelosi has served as House Minority Leader under a Republican presidency. She served as Minority Leader from 2003 to 2007 under George Bush’s presidency, then became Speaker after leading the Dems to a majority.

For over 13 years and counting, Pelosi still remains the highest-ranking elected female politician in U.S. history. She was the first and only female Speaker, first and only female House Leader of a major party, and the first and only female whip of a major party in the House (2002-2003).

The 115th Congress will also remain slim and lopsided in women’s representation: the number of women in the House will drop by 1 member to 83/435 (20% of the body, compared to 50% of the U.S. population), while the Senate’s share of women will go up by 1 to a record 21/100.

My Future with the Sanders Campaign

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After #DemDebate night and reflecting with Dominick on how the nomination contest has played out in both social media and real life, I don’t think I can take anymore of the presidential race. I’d rather work to get Democratic lawmakers into majorities, and let others work to get Sanders or Clinton into succeeding PBO.

News media is jostling over whether Clinton or Sanders won the first debate, while Democrats are hurting all over from the last two midterms. While Sanders expands his interactions with AAs and starts to affirm that #BlackLivesMatter (for which I am proud), his supporters have already burned bridges with many pro-BLM activists on social media while I looked on in horror. I’m really muted about Hillary because of the iconic symbolism of having a (first) woman president who at least tilts toward progressive ideals (“a progressive who gets things done”). I really do want her to do better intersectionally in her policies, as I do Sanders and, yes, (VP-in-waiting) O’Malley.

But again, Democrats are hurting. Progressives and liberals in general are hurting. Social cannibalism abounds in the GOP’s state-level and federal-level policies. Nothing is getting done with state or federal legislatures to fix the cracks left by negligent or abusive government in our society. The state-level Democrats in Georgia and the Old South are a lost brand, spoiled goods which make little sense for progressives and liberals in the South to support.

So I’m just tired of presidential election news, because the presidency has only so much that it can get done. I tire of waiting on pins-and-needles to see the candidates become everything that America needs. I’d rather help get more progressives and liberals into legislative and statewide office. Next year will be an opportunity for that, so I will ask around.

I’m thinking of backing away from most of my active involvement with the regional Sanders grassroots campaign. I have not been too actively involved for months.

The Big Tent Sucks

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Watching last month’s general election in Sweden, I was once again treated to the non-majoritarian nature of proportionally-representative election systems like Sweden (although the Feminist Initiative barely missed the 4%). It is not as zero-sum as ours: a total of 8 parties are now represented in the Swedish parliament (Riksdag), encompassing a range of variably-compact ideologies in a variety of portfolios.

I favor proportional representation due to its ability to better reflect the political diversity of the voting population, as well as its ability to let candidates be more honest and thorough about their ideologies.

In this year’s election, the Social Democrats gained the largest vote share and is tasked with forming a coalition that can back the next prime minister and cabinet; possible partners include the Left Party and the Green Party. On the opposite end, the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats gained more seats from the free-market parties of the outgoing Alliance coalition, such as the Moderate Party, Liberal People’s Party, Christian Democrats and Centre Party.

In the United States, potential candidates and their supporters at the federal level would be grouped into just two parties – Democratic and Republican, Blue and Red, Liberal and Conservative, etc.

I contend that the sheer forcing of multiple ideologies together under two roofs is stifling. It forces all of the partisans who may not be predisposed to a whole-hog ideology to adopt such an ideology for the benefit of an unwieldy party unity. As a result, reasonable-minded people may find themselves trapped in an unpopular party because of the words, policies and actions of fellow partisans.

If you need to switch to another party, it shouldn’t have to make the news as some sort of epiphany or “I’ve seen the light” moment, whether it is the Charlie Crists, Lincoln Chafees, Gary Johnsons or Cynthia McKinneys of American politics. The candidate or voter shouldn’t have to feel like some sort of “traitor” for switching or creating new parties.

That’s why I support the Single Transferable Vote. I support having more options in Congress and state legislatures, including more equal representation for the six most-popular parties in the United States: Democratic, Republican, Green, Libertarian, Working Families, and Constitution.

I could see Rand Paul as an LP senator, Bernie Sanders as a WFP senator, at least a quarter of the House Republican caucus being Constitution Party members (including the likes of people like Louie Gohmert), a quarter of the same caucus being LP members (including some of the Tea Party-backed members like Justin Amash), most of the Congressional Progressive Caucus being members of the WFP or Greens, and so on, while center-right or center-left candidates would stick with more uniform, less-problematic Republican or Democratic parties.

Maybe after all the libertarians and socio-conservatives left for their own parties, the GOP would revert back to its image as the “Party of Lincoln”, or even to the pro-civil rights stance of the Radical Republicans of the Reconstruction era, or even to the likes of Eisenhower. I could imagine people like Rob Portman and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen remaining in this incarnation of the GOP.

Maybe after the progressives of the CPC left to join the Working Families Party and Greens, the Democrats would get much more pushback against their acquiescence to pro-MRI policies. Centrists like Dianne Feinstein, Kay Hagan and Harry Reid would still likely remain in this incarnation of the Democratic Party.

Maybe after the far-right Republican Study Group joins the Constitution Party, that party would be marginalized in their socially-far-right politics by the other parties in Congress through a sort of cordon sanitaire.

Any of these possibilities would perhaps prevent people from associating “fright-wing” politics with a plurality of the voting population, and allow voters to make a better distinction between the candidates for whom they would vote, as well as the issues on which they would campaign.

I just want more diversity of party labels to choose from, not this frustrating, debilitating duopoly in which we’ve been stuck for so long. And to have more diverse party choices in our politics, we need to dispense with the idea that anyone has to win a majority to be part of the political process.

We just need to win 4%.