this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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Freezing the house did more damage than the Senate alone could ever do.
I understand where you're coming from, I do. But hear me out.
Nebraska has a unicameral, we have only the Senate. Every district in the state sends a senator and that is the only legislative house.
The number of times a single senator from downtown Omaha has single handedly filibustered a fucking awful bill to prevent the state from fucking itself is more than I'd like to count.
For a while that senator was Ernie Chambers. A man who more than once made national news because a point he was trying to make by doing something crazy was lost in the woods and it just looked like a crazy old guy from Omaha was doing something crazy in the unicameral. Omaha and the state of Nebraska owes that man a lot.
A second house would be a huge barrier to the kind of fuckery they try to get up to in the unicameral.
I know the system isn't perfect, but pulling out a safety net because it's getting in your way sometimes is definitely not the answer you think it is.
Uncap the house, fuck it, make Congressperson a remote job, keep them in their districts. They don't need to be physically present and in fact decentralizing the house might prevent some of the rampant corruption now that lobbyists suddenly have to travel all over the country to issue ~~bribes.~~ campaign contributions.
I can't say that's my ideal solution (as it doesn't involve completely rewriting our constitution), but that's honestly the best solution we have to most of our problems. Completely uncap, remote congress, 1 per 30k. At that point, we'd be pretty close to a real democracy. There's no reason why it couldn't be a remote job. Stay in your fucking district where we can yell at you when you fuck up. In fact, there should be a law about how many days per year they can be out of their district. Live with, work with, know the people you represent. And with that many congressional reps, it'd be hard as hell to bribe enough of them.
I also agree with this idea.
On top of that, if it's a remote job and they're not all congregated in one room, harder to have a Jan. 6 type moment. Better for national security.
Jesus Christ, I'd honestly forgotten about the uncap the house movement, but it reminds me of all the shit we're missing out on. We'd be a different country. Imagine knowing your congressperson personally? Seeing them at the grocery store. Being able to to speak to them. Hell, imagine from their point of view, being able to run for election and only having to worry about 30k voters/constituents, and tailoring campaigns to the areas you represent. Id they did it, I'd run, even in my conservative ass area, because at that point you can appeal to voters based on the things that actually plague their communities, instead of bullshit scare tactics and nationwide/statewide issues. I'm surrounded by MAGA morons, but in campaigns that small, you could win this area with a campaign based on legal weed, road construction and a push to make sure the factories around here can stay in business.
This is such a problem here (at least for me) in Canada that even my city councillors only care about talking with the rich and forget reaching out to anyone else. I don't know how they plan to dictate proper policy when you don't talk to constituents who aren't stuffing your pockets.
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While I'm sure that has done a lot of good.
Unfortunately we're talking about representative democracy, and that's probably the opposite.
By no means am I an expert on Nebraska, but lm pretty sure the majority are conservative and voted for that awful shit.
But setting up a system of government that isn't really a democracy because you think voters are too stupid (in Nebraska you may be right) to vote in their own self interest is literally what got us to where we are nationally today. And what people are brainstorming about how to fix.
Omaha voted for Harris. We split the vote, though that's not likely to survive this session.
It doesn't fucking work. Nebraska is a unicameral still because the biggest population center leans to the left. The rest of the state would suddenly have to compromise with the people in Omaha. And they don't want to fucking do that. So, when they try to fuck us we have to hope that Megan Hunt or Ernie Chambers is around to put a stop to it. And even then, we still get fucked by the state.
A second house would likely preserve the split electoral vote in Nebraska. Without it, it's a matter of time before they muster up the 33 votes to kill it.