The Biggie In Taking Our Country Back Is To Rescind Amendment XVII

The two houses of Congress are both “representatives of the people” since the passage of Amendment XVII a century ago. Only one house should be representing the people. The other house, the senate, is supposed to represent the states. A century ago, the amendment told the state governments to pack up their reps and vacate Washington, D.C. What little excuse there had ever been for calling the national government a federation, was gone. The D.C. government thereby transformed itself into an empire over the inert state governments.

The succeeding century has been a disaster, legislative wise. The only reason the Founders gave the senators six-year terms and the house members two-year terms was because the house members were essentially the appointers of the senate members. Senate members were to act as more mature councilors who would act as a brake on sharp changes of legislative direction. They were to be the more deliberative body.

Now, let’s throw a few jokers into the shuffle of the cards. That’s exactly what the states did in 1789 as they assigned two representative bodies to a newly unified people. One body of reps should have been enough. So, should the state assembly reps be appointing U.S. Senators or should the U.S. house be appointing the senators. At this point, logic is lost and absolute nonsense takes over. The states bungled the setting up of the system.

Meanwhile, the U.S. house was incrementally increasing its district populations from an original of 40,000 to 700,000, thereby losing any pretense of local control by the electorate over their reps.  Democrats and Republicans began originating the reps and voters could only choose between two foreigners. It was in the middle of this two century trend that the U.S. senators made their big move to partisanship in the evolving system. They quietly pushed Amendment XVII to its passage without either party taking a position on it. The Founders had provided no mechanism for their popular election. They became freelancing politicians not unlike loose cannons on the deck in the D.C. government.

We have lost the few virtues of our system because of outright fraud and deceit. We have never had the pleasure of living under the federated system that should have been set up.

Let’s rewrite No. XVII and establish the elusive federation instead of sabotaging it. It should say that the U.S. house should be the grand assembly of the houses of the fifty states. Every person should be living in a standardized grid of home districts of somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000.  Our present five make-believe reps should be elected to the new single grid of reps. The new set of reps should have full authority to operate the federal system of fifty-one governments. They will hold a convention in their state, and elect all state officers. Then, as one body, they will elect the two national executives. 

If we want to take our country back, let’s follow the above instructions. Look carefully and you will find all of the above in the original Constitution.

Federalism’s Machinery Has Never Been Assembled Properly

We have never known real federalism, the ultimate machinery that organizes sovereign states to act as one. What the thirteen states created in 1789 was a new nation consisting of 13 states and a union of peoples determined to make the new nation work no matter how it was assembled. This union of peoples was not the federation we like to think we have.

We have never interpreted the Constitution as a sketchy, partial outline of its deeper implications as it discusses Electoral Colleges and Congressional Districts. We totally scorn Electoral Colleges and have allowed Congressional Districts to degenerate into shameful conglomerates of partisan politics. When those two mechanical parts are fully understood and integrated into their proper places in the federation, this nation will have the federalism that the Constitution attempted to create.

We avidly follow the quadrennial conventions of the two major parties. One of those conventions always produces the next President. A select few people run those conventions. Grassroots voters have to jump through hoops to participate. The Founders had exactly the same thing in mind as they designed the Electoral College, except that the Founders wanted all voters to participate in choosing their President. And, with true federalism, the Founders would have all voters choosing their state officials, also.

Electoral Colleges are the grassroots voters’ state conventions, and their national convention. Their elected reps were supposed to go to those places first after they were elected. The Founders wanted those reps to have full responsibility for the running of the federation.  Therefore, they were to complete the election process and come up with a full set of state and federal officials for the next four years before adjourning.  This process takes political parties almost entirely out of their proposed system.  The only partisan infections at the conventions would have been sent there by local districts.

The second vital part is the Congressional District which furnishes the people who go to the Electoral Colleges. Tragic experience has shown that diluting a district of 40,000 persons by adding 660,000 more persons, destroys local people’s ability to make intelligent choices of reps. This forces them into political parties and destroys the system the Founders intended. Students of government should be watching for results from districts of varying populations. What size district produces the more competent reps for that district? It is a more critical number than the ones guiding the Congresses of the past.

To rectify the errors of the past, and actually form a working federation, this nation needs one common set of home districts of a size somewhere between 30,000 to 50,000. County Election Departments, or their equivalent, should have  the responsibility for setting up and maintaining these local, standard districts. Their reps will rule their respective States as well as their nation. County governments should fill state senate seats.  State governments should fill the senate seats in D.C.

Just as soon as this nation can get this system of reps and their national conventions to elect officials, the people can begin to rebuild it. 

Abraham Lincoln Spoke Inaccurately at Gettysburg

Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address used an inaccurate concluding phrase about a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. He would have been more technically correct had he phrased about a government of two peoples, by two peoples, and for two peoples. One of those two peoples sends their rep to a state government. The other of those two peoples sends their rep to the national government. Strangely, those two peoples are the same politically bi-polar, schizophrenic person, required to send two reps instead of the one that could have done the job.

This unfortunate electorate was organized in 1789 as a double electorate having two separate personalities. We have been forced to act schizophrenically for over two centuries. We are actually organized as two bodies politic, when we should have been organized as one body politic. What the voter has in mind in choosing a state rep is quite different from what the voter is thinking in the choice of a national rep. The partisan appeals of the two campaigns are from different perspectives. The so-called cultural divide can be seen by looking in the mirror.

We are like the farmer walking by his field of newly mown hay and hoping the rains wait until it cures. Then continue walking along his corn field hoping it rains before the leaves curl.

Whenever state governments see fit to reorganize us as one body politic whose rep sits in both places, we will no longer act schizophrenically. 

We-the-People Need Fifty-One Federated Houses

We need to live in families and self-sustaining communities such as counties or cities. But those counties or cities need to live in their own associations which culminate in States attempting to work together as a union.

We-the-people operate a hands-on system of running our own affairs up through the operations of our county/city governments. Beyond that point, counties and/or cities should be using our representatives to build a pyramid of federated houses.  That pyramid has never been properly set up.

Our system is in big partisan trouble because it has never been set up properly. Federated Houses will build the proper pyramid. Federated Houses is a newly coined phrase that needs further explanation. The Constitution calls for a nation that is organized into Congressional Districts. What it does not call for is a nation that is organized into two, three, four, or five sets of districts. Yet the people are actually contending with five districts per voter. When they are able to get rid of four of those districts, they should end up with one local home district. The Founders called it a Congressional District.  It becomes the basis for building Federated Houses.

The Constitution says that it should be no smaller than 30,000 people. Using that figure, the election departments of counties and/or cities should organize their people into one such districting system. It would result in the creation of about 10,000 districts and fifty-one Federated Houses. Each State would have its House of Representatives. Washington, D.C. would have its grand assembly of the fifty houses as its House of Representatives.

There is one other Constitutional requirement that gets rid of partisanship. Those 10,000 reps should be holding conventions in their respective states, at which they nominate and elect all state officials. They should meet as a national convention to do the same for the federation’s executives.

Federated Houses are what this nation needs to calm it down and establish a synchronized system of governing.

Washington, D.C. Is A Failed System For Lack of Proper Design

Washington, D.C. was supposed to be the place where the Fifty States would join together in the formation and execution of International Policy.  In other words, Washington, D.C. was to handle matters outside the sovereign borders of every state, while the states handled matters inside their borders.

The Constitution purported  to give sufficient instructions for the States to accomplish this purpose.  All fifty states have signed on to that Constitution and should feel bound by it. The Constitution purports to establish a representative republic. It purports to unite all the nation’s people as one body politic in the determination of foreign policy. It purports to allow fifty bodies politic to independently rule their states.

The unsolved problem has always been, “How can fifty bodies politic be joined together to act as one body politic?” Put that question to an eleventh grade American History class or to any adult discussion group. Corporation lawyers should be laughing at the stupidity of such a question. Yet, for over two centuries we Americans have not found the answer.  Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. blunders along on its downhill slide.

Whenever the Fifty States decide to create equal bodies politic (districts of the same population) for their own governing, and State Senates composed of county/city government reps, they will be emulating the Founders’ design.

This qualifies the House of Representatives of every State to join with their counterparts from all other States in one Grand Assembly that is called The United States House of Representatives. They are accompanied by two Senators each, whom they have chosen to take to D.C. with them. The soft-spoken original Constitution has been saying that since 1789.

Representative Government: the Unsolved Puzzle

The United States is a representative government.  The United Nations is a representative government.  Russia is a representative government. And so is China and maybe a hundred other nations are representative governments.

In the United States, you and I and every other voter, each have five reps who claim to be representing us, personally. Not a single one of them actually do represent us. Rather, they are reps of some political party with which we voters are compelled to establish a relationship. If we want to participate in the governments of our state and nation, we fall in line and do as we are told.

Is this the governing system that the Founders thought they were establishing? Has the world of nations fallen in line with the Founders’ ideas of how people can set up their own representative systems? Or is every nation simply mocking the failed system that the U.S. flaunts as being authentic? What would we have to do to make ours authentic? Better yet, what have we done to destroy authenticity?

Whatever authenticity we had at the beginning was based on the Congressional District that had no more than 40,000 people. How did the Founders come up with 40,000? Good question. Would 20,000 have been better? Who knows?  When the optimum number is finally determined, the nation can have an authentic representative system. They will shop around their manageable local district and choose a rep without any assistance from a political party.

The representative system lost whatever authenticity it had as its corrupt reps expanded their districts by a factor of seventeen times and sometimes distorted their boundaries ridiculously.  Nor were the states any help as they created all the extra, unneeded districts. One standardized set of districts can run the entire federal system of fifty-one governments.

The world’s phony representative systems need to get rid of their partisanship. The way to get rid of partisanship is to reduce the size of each district to the point that local voters can competently use the neighborhood gossiping system to locate their reps. If free and fair elections are held, those reps will be locally derived and authentic.  That is the key to having governments of the people, by the people, and for the people. If County Election Departments were empowered by their State Governments to set up and supervise a system of such districts throughout the nation, the voters would happily abandon their divisive partisan elections system. They would happily tell their five impotent reps where to go.

All State Houses of Representatives Should Be Sitting In Washington, D.C.

State Governments have nobody to blame but themselves for the bullying coming out of Washington, D.C.

State Governments have never properly used the Congressional District.

The Constitution says that a Congressional District should have a population of at least 30,000 people.

If every State would organize its people into Congressional Districts of that size, the people of this nation would all be equally represented, whether at their own State Capitols or in D.C.  That one set of reps should be doing the entire job of governing all fifty-one governments of the Federation of States.

The election departments of county governments should be finalizing the setting up of these districts.  Experience has proven that the reps are too corruptible to do it.

Then, let’s restore the original U.S. Senate by rescinding Amendment XVII, which has raised havoc with the Constitutional system for a century. Incidentally, State Governments, likewise, should have similar Senates representing their counties.

The district reps, elected by the grassroots electorate, should hold conventions in their respective states. They should choose all the State Officers with whom they will be working.  Those fifty conventions of reps should reconvene as one body and choose the President and Vice-President.

Study the original Constitution of 1789. Compare it with the above suggestions. The suggestions are in line with the original Constitution. We can have a true Federation of the States as originally intended. Talk to your state rep. Remind the rep that the state constitution is inferior to the U.S. Constitution which calls for a single set of districts for the intended Federation of States. We have wandered in the wilderness long enough.