politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
I can believe it. Very few politicians (and probably no GOP politicans) are fans of RCV and other systemic democracy reforms. But don't ignore the fact that the most successful way to changing the state laws is through ballot initiatives. It is the best tool we, as citizens, have. Marijuana, minimum wage increases, and abortion access have all been won through ballot initiatives. Every state has some form of ballot initiative that can be used although some are more restrictive than others.
I can certainly understand this viewpoint, but to me it seems somewhat like defeatism. I have very little hope that our politicians will willingly take federal action on issues like RCV and campaign finance. The opinions of 90% Americans have very little impact on if Congress will make laws about that particular issue.
Money does. They serve their donors not the American people. And their donors largely want status quo.
Local and Direct Action on the other hand works and is achievable. Women's suffrage, interracial marriage, and marriage equality all started with local grassroots movements before they were enshrined into law nationwide. More recently it's been marijuana which started with a few states legalizing it and is now widespread even in red areas. It wouldn't surprise me if it is federally de-scheduled soon. That was all made possible by it first being legalized in colorado and then in many many other states.
I think local action in other states can certainly pave the way, but I don't think local action in my state will make any headway at all until we're already at the point where people are seriously discussing federal mandates. They're just too dug in and entrenched.
The other option would be if the GOP imploded to the point where a concerted push by non-GOP voters could overcome the gerrymandering and voter suppression tactics in order to get a Democrat elected as governor and hopefully a majority of the state senate as well. At that point local pressure might be enough to get the RCV ban repealed and with even further pressure RCV or STAR voting enacted. I think that's less likely to occur than a federal mandate though.
Ultimately though, no matter the exact mechanism of achieving it every state is going to need to enact proportional voting if it's going to have any hope of fixing our politics, and for that I still think we'll need a federal mandate, whether the majority of states have adopted it at that point or not.
Of course, I don't deny that federal action is needed. I just think that historically local action builds momentum towards federal action. One federal action that is needed is a repeal of the outlaw of multi-member house districts. There is a 1967 federal law that requires single member districts. It was supposedly passed because of the fear that southern states might resort to winner-take-all at-large elections to dilute the voting strength of newly-enfranchised blacks in the South.
Even if RCV may not be feasible right now that doesn't mean that there isn't something that could be pushed for instead like a independent redistricting committee to fight gerrymandering or a minimum wage increase. Enough GOP voters will vote for good ballot measures to make them pass simply because there is no D or R attached. You only need to look at pro abortion access ballot initiatives to see that. Even Ohio amended their constitution to protect abortion access via ballot initiative.