Friday, February 9, 2018

Constitutional Changes - Voting

Dear Friends,

If we are to achieve true equality of opportunity in the United States, each person must have the same influence on who represents them.  The Constitution of the United States establishes a very undemocratic way to determine federal elected officials.  First let's look at a few interesting facts.
The population data is from the 2010 census.  The official site is here.  I found the Wikipedia site (here) easier to use.  When people refer to the population of the United States, they are generally referring to the people in the 50 states plus the District of Columbia.  The people who live in American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands don't even count and of course get no representation.  I note that Puerto Rico has a population that is about the same size as that of Oklahoma or Connecticut.

The population of the United States including the 50 states and the District of Columbia is 308,745,538.  Since the District of Columbia does not get any voting members of Congress, I would reduce the population by the 601,723 people who live in DC.  So the number of people living in the 50 states who actually have representatives in Congress is 308,143,815.  There are 100 voting members of the Senate.  If they were divided equally, each Senator would represent 3,081,438 people but of course that is not the case.  Wyoming is the smallest state by population (563,626), and each of the two Senators from Wyoming represent 281,813 people.  California is the largest state by population (37,253,956) and each of its two Senators represent 18,626,978 people.

The same issue exists with members of the House of Representatives.  There are 435 voting members of the House of Representatives.  They represent a total of 308,143,815 people, so if all were equal each Representative would represent 708,377 people.  However, every state gets one Representative.  The sole representative from Wyoming represents only 563,626 people, while each of the 53 Representatives from California (on average) represents 702,905 people.  If you combine both the House and the Senate, each of the 3 representatives to Congress from Wyoming represents just 187,875 people, while each of the 55 representatives to Congress from California represents 12,417,985 people.  This is clearly not equal representation.  I should also note that the 601,723 people in Washington DC have no voting representation in the House or the Senate while the 563,626 in Wyoming have 3 voting representative, two Senators and one member of Congress.

Of course the same is true for the election of the President since it is done by the electoral college which is based on virtually the same system.  There are 538 electors in the college, three for each state plus the District of Columbia.  For reasons that escape all understanding each state can determine how its electors will vote with many choosing a winner take all approach.  As the general electorate becomes more divided politically and those lines are also geographic we can expect more times when the President will be elected after losing the popular vote.

The failure of our voting system in recent years is made clear by the fact that in the last 4 Congressional elections (2010, 2012, 2014 and 2016) the Democrats have won a greater percentage of the votes than the percentage of seats in the House of Representatives they have won.  This difference often referred to as a "seats bonus" is the topic of an article by Molly Reynolds (here) that is very interesting talking about the 2016 election.  She writes:
First, while Republicans, as of this writing, received a plurality of votes cast for Congress nationwide this year—49.9 percent, again according data from the Cook Political Report—they received a greater share, 55.2 percent, of the seats. Democrats, as a result, won a smaller share of seats than they did votes: 44.8 percent of seats as compared to 47.3 percent of the votes. (These numbers may change as final vote tallies are updated.)
This differential is a result of the Constitution's undemocratic approach to voting as well as gerrymandering.

It seems clear that there are several amendments that must be made to the Constitution.  

1. The electoral college must be eliminated so that the President and Vice President are elected by a direct popular vote.
2.  The Senate seats must be done by population not state.  Smaller states could join together with adjacent states to gain enough people to get one of the 100 Senate seats.
3.  Congressional districts must be drawn in a non-partisan manner, i.e. no gerrymandering.  Also a state that does not have enough population to get one of the 435 seats must join with other states to reach the threshold.
4.  All American citizens must have a Senator and a Representative.  That means that Washington DC, American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands must be included in our system of representative democracy.
5.  The qualifications to vote must be set in the Constitution and not left to partisan state legislatures, so that all voter suppression is eliminated.
6.  The Constitution must say that money is not speech and therefore not protected by the First Amendment.  All political contributions must include the name, etc. of the person making the contribution and only real live citizens of the United States can make contributions.  Contribution limits should be established on a per person per year in the aggregate to all candidates, parties, PACs, etc.  The campaigns must be funded by the government and all campaigns must receive equal media coverage.
7.  Election Day must be a holiday and multiple ways of voting must be available to all.
8.  Lying, including reckless disregard for the truth, in a political campaign must be a felony.

I am sure there are other amendments, and there are many details that need to be put in place, but these would be a good start.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal


Monday, February 5, 2018

Villefranche-sur-mer Winter 2018 - 8

Dear Friends,

A lot has happened since I last posted.  Last Friday, we went by train with some friends to Ventimiglia (Ventimille in French), Italy.  It is about a 45 minute train ride from Villefranche just into Italy.  When we got to the train station in Villefranche, we needed one more ticket, but of course there was nobody there and the ticket dispenser did not work.  We boarded the train anyway and when the conductor came around we explained the problem even though she had not asked to see our tickets.  She did not think it was a problem, but we were nervous the whole time.

Here we are happily in Ventimiglia without having a problem about the lack of one ticket.


The reason for our trip was to visit the very famous and very large Friday outdoor market.  It goes on for miles with stand after stand.  Some are repetitive and some are completely unique.  There was no way I could get a picture so here is one I found on the internet.  The white lines are all stands.


You can find all kinds of clothes, toys, kitchen utensils, purses, shoes, watches, jewelry, etc.  You can also find some cheeses and salted fish.


In the 1.5 hours that we wandered around the stalls without getting to all of them, we bought a couple of things.  If you like open air markets, you must visit this one.

Ventimiglia is also famous for its indoor food market.  Think of the biggest farmers' market you have ever seen and multiply it by lots.  Again, I could not get a picture nor could I find one that did the size justice, but here is one from the internet.


There were beautiful fruits and vegetables of all kinds as well as nuts, candies, pastries, fish, poultry, meats, etc.  I have decided to spare you the picture of the skinned rabbit with head still on and eyes intact. 

Of course the other reason for going to Ventimiglia is to eat.  In fact the first thing we did after leaving the train station was to make a lunch reservation.  Here is where we ate.


It doesn't look like much from the outside, but we had a great lunch.


We took a slightly later train home since we had to have a two hour lunch.  This time we all had tickets.  The ride home was interesting, however, because when we crossed the border from Italy back into France a number of French police and military boarded the train.   We were never asked for our tickets, but we did have to show our passports.  The person who asked for ours clearly was not looking for people like us.  As soon as he saw the the US passports, he moved on without so much as opening them.  There were several people who were not so fortunate as they were marched off the train.  They all had much darker skin than we did.  Apparently the area is known as a place where immigrants enter without documentation.

As soon as we got home, we had to start packing as we needed to change apartments on Saturday.  We were the first to rent this apartment for January so we have it in January for so long as we keep coming.  The people who first rented the apartment in February and March have the same deal, so we needed to move out as they were arriving.  So we packed everything up.

Saturday morning Danny a nice, strong guy who works for our landlady arrived exactly on time to move our stuff to the new apartment.  We each carried one load of light things for the two block walk to our new apartment, while Danny and our landlady carried the rest in several trips.  I will provide more about the new apartment later.

We had to leave almost immediately so that we would not be late for Saturday morning pétanque.  It was a big group this Saturday with 8 players, 4 girls and 4 boys.  Naturally it was boys against the girls.  The girls jumped off to a big lead of 9 to 3.  The first one to 13 wins.  There was lots of kibitzing and measuring to see who was closer (got the point).


The girls were mean and aggressive.  Jane once hit my ball out of the way when it was the closest to the couchonnet (the little ball that is the target) and left her's getting the point.  It was a great shot, but not very nice to her poor husband.  In any case the skill of the boys finally prevailed.  Here are the winners!!!


After going to the Saturday market to restock our new kitchen, we returned to our new apartment.  The view is even more incredible than from our old one as it is about 180 degrees, high up and right by the water.



Our apartment is the one on the top floor of the yellowish/orangish building that sticks out closest to the water.  As a point of interest, you may recall that a sailboat sunk in the wind storm a couple of weeks ago.  It is still there. You can see the mast in the foreground of the picture.

This apartment is smaller than our old one, and the kitchen is particularly small.  Nevertheless, we were able to prepare a delicious dinner for our first night.  Here we are having used up almost all of the counter as well as the stove top as we dish up.


And here is the final gourmet delight - faux filet; sautéed mushroom, onions and leeks; roasted tomatoes; fresh broiled asparagus; baked (literally in the oven as there is no microwave) potatoes with crème fraiche and of course some red wine.


So all in all we had a busy but fun weekend.  Now it is Monday, and we need to study our French which we have sadly neglected for the long weekend.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal