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. 

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.    

The Basic Constitutional Issues That Scholars Refuse To Discuss: Part 2

There is a down side to the hope and optimism for better governing as explained above. We have now lived exactly one hundred years under two of the most destructive Constitutional Amendments that could have been conceived. They are numbers Sixteen and Seventeen.  Sixteen paves the way for bleeding the free enterprise system to death by income taxing. Seventeen totally changed the job descriptions of senators, and raises questions about senators’ value in the system.

Alone, those two amendments have spun America into a downward spiral that is about to crash us.  They were designed to do what they are doing. They were passed by lying and deception. Their supporters want to destroy what the Founders tried to build, and establish their own power base by force. They are constantly on watch for opportunities to  shut down the American Way.

You can blame Progressive Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Progressive Democrat Woodrow Wilson and all their ilk for these two destructive amendments. They must be rescinded.  The partisanship cancer must be removed from the body politic. Home districting will empower local voters to take charge of their own destiny. Otherwise, Western Civilization is needlessly doomed.

The Basic Constitutional Issues That Scholars Refuse To Discuss

The foremost issue is federalism, and the failure of the States to achieve federalism.  During the nation’s first hundred years, the States were represented in the U.S. Senate, but only the people were represented in the U.S. House of  Representatives. Apparently, the States could not figure out how to put their own reps into the U.S. House. If States could have figured out that problem, federalism would have been achieved.  The Constitution would have been a success. Well, almost a success, except for one other thing. The States run all elections through their county elections departments. But the responsibilities of county elections departments should come to an abrupt end just as soon as all local officials are elected. Unfortunately, States have not figured that one out either.

We have this thing called “representative government” where the whole election process is constitutionally supposed to change gears and enter into a completely separate system of elections.  They are Electoral College elections, over which the county elections departments should have no jurisdiction at all. The Electoral Colleges do their first jobs at their respective State Capitols, followed by their second job at their National Capitol. When both jobs are done, these colleges will have organized themselves into legitimate working bodies and conducted their own conventions that will have both nominated and elected all executive officers of the entire Federation of the Fifty States. Republicans, Democrats, et al leave their partisan labels outside the door, and follow the wishes of the local district which sent them.

The Founders wisely planned that only a body of elites would manage all the affairs of the Federation. States, from the beginning, have bungled and mangled this constitutional plan for creating a true Federation. They should have said to themselves in the beginning, “Now before we start implementing this Constitution, we must reorganize our people into the Congressional Districts required by the Constitution so that the one elected body of people’s reps are qualified to sit in any legislative body to which they are sent. Thereby, every State Legislature will move right on into the U.S. House of Representatives as well.” Those instructions are just as valid today as two and a quarter centuries ago.

We are one people, deserving one local rep to take care of all governing (for a 2-year term) above the county/city level. Of all the crying and fussing over civil rights, all of us without exception should have that civil right to a local rep of our own. This nation needs upwards of 10,000 of such reps. That is 10,000 Home Districts (Congressional Districts) in which all elections are local contests no more exciting than a shopping trip. The three senators and two house members each of have now, can go take a hike.  The Founders Congressional District is all we need.

Political Scientists, this writer has been evolving this idea for eighty-six years, or since I was age ten.   

A Belly Full of Laws. Will We Ever Get Enough? Who Knows All of Them?

There is a law of diminishing returns, like how much chicken can a person eat? So government by the people has seen lawmakers grinding out laws for two and a quarter centuries.  Are laws like fried chicken?  Must we keep them coming? 

What is the purpose of representative government?  Better yet, what is the purpose of a representative?  Suppose there is another way of looking at a representative.  Suppose he/she just hangs out in the home district, and hardly goes anywhere else.  What would that job be like?

The Constitution says (suggests?) that a district’s population should be no less than 30,000.  Congressmen have corruptly expanded it from hardly more than 30,000 to 700,000, and have made it literally useless to the people.  Suppose we go back to 30,000, thereby creating reps who can honestly say what every community is thinking. For a nation of over 300,000,000, that’s over 10,000 reps.

Provide each of those 10,000 reps with modern communications devices, and they can “assemble” in whatever groupings they wish within a matter of minutes. They can transport themselves electronically to their State’s or Nation’s House of Representatives while sitting at their home office.

We have become a nation operated by poll takers.  These 10,000 reps are the most reliably informed political body that could be found for poll takers.

Poll takers ask the reps.  The reps ask the poll takers. Twitter and Facebook get involved.  They can discover the sense of 10,000 communities in a matter of hours. It is a most sensitive system for discovering the will of the people.  Every two years, a refreshed base of reps keeps the system accurate.

Imagine a John Boehner lording over his House in contrast to the above!  Or magine a Harry Reid lording over his Senate in contrast to the above! The above would replace their system with qualified State reps who could sit at both places, as well as elect the U.S. Senators. Today’s electorate is bewildered. There is no way for it to participate as a single body politic until it gets its Home Districts.  

The Governmental Units Keeping Western Civilizations Alive

Partisanship is killing Western Civilization.  It launches a person’s rational way of thinking into a mode of irrational thinking.  Common sense goes out the window.  Partisanship happens under the pretense of self-governing, as a people are asked to make unreasonable choices about candidates they know nothing about.

When a people of a local community are asked to elect one of their own to take charge of a local office, the process is a no brainer.  But when those same people are asked to elect someone to a state-wide office, they don’t have a clue about those candidates’ local community reputations. It is emotionally traumatic to even be asked to make a ballot choice under those circumstances. Exacerbating that situation further, the two parties organize mud-slinging campaigns. Such “elections” are tantamount to barbarism. 

The contrast between local vs. state/federal elections is like day and night.  Local elections are intelligently conducted. The others are nasty ordeals. That is why it is said that all elections are local.  Because people deal intelligently with local issues, and irrationally with cleverly contrived state/national issues. That is why the county system stands out as the last great hope of Western Civilization.  It is the highest form of a civilized self-governing system.  Politicized representative systems are nothing more than make-believe self-governing.  

Did the Founders think about this problem? Yes.  Did the Founders have a solution for it? Yes. Would their solution have solved our problem? Emphatically yes! There is no need at all for us to go through the election ordeals that we go through. The Constitution is a far greater instrument of government than anybody has given it credit for. It was supposed to unite the people as one body politic, as well as unite the states as one federation. 

It has failed in both respects. The states treat their people as two bodies politic, thereby creating two legislative bodies with a legal system to arbitrate between the two. It is total nonsense. What the Constitution was saying to the States in 1789 was, “Let’s become one body politic of equalized Congressional Districts. This will give everybody a home district with a rep handling all affairs of State.

Reps will operate the governments of the States in which they reside; then operate the foreign policy work of the States jointly at the nation’s capitol. This will destabilize state legislatures until a satisfactory size of common districting can be worked out. The U.S. House of Representatives will take whatever number of reps that the states finally decide to send. Meanwhile, states must expeditiously set up standardized home districts.”

Those hypothetical instructions went out in 1789. We are now a nation of one hundred times as many people, and the same unfulfilled instructions still apply. The nation ignores the Founders’ convictions about local districting and the Electoral College.  The local district has been consolidated into one that is seventeen times larger. The Electoral College lies damned and essentially unused. Each of us have five useless reps instead of the Founders’ ONE useful rep.

Everybody can find one person to blame for this mess. That person is your local state representative who swore to uphold the above described constitution.  But they have no vision of what must be done to turn the Constitution’s failures into successes. Ironically, state reps would become the movers and shakers of the entire system, if only they had the vision to act. 

The Founders’ Constitutional method of keeping all elections local and civilized and out of the hands of partisans, is the Electoral College. It is the natural enemy of partisans, so naturally the partisans hate it. The Electoral College does in a civilized manner, the same thing that partisans do in a barbaric manner.

The people properly elect the ones going to the Electoral College. At that gathering of electors, the secret balloting system prevails. Roberts Rules of Order prevails. The electors set their own agenda regarding campaigning and public access. Such colleges should be electing the executive officers of all fifty-one governments of the federation.  Every elector will work closely with the people of the district, if the elector wants reelection.  The college’s secret voting will be repeated until the winning candidate gets a majority.

Historians cannot let us forget one of the first Presidential elections, when the runner-up was named Vice President. The two contenders were worst enemies. Experience should bring adaptations for a better performance next time. Unfortunately, experience brought shyster politicians who subverted the college’s function.

Western Civilization would be alive and well in this country if: (1) We lived in a single grid of local districts, and (2) We were allowing Electoral Colleges to operate as intended.  Since we are doing neither, it is dying.

Americans Do Not Trust Their Congress

Ninety-three percent of those recently surveyed said that they do not trust the U.S. Congress.  Actually, it is a poorly designed instrument of government. To say that it represents the people is simply not true. Even as a poorly designed instrument of government, individual members of Congress should have held themselves to a higher standard of personal integrity. 

The Founders were openly doubtful that their brief little Constitution could work among non-Christians.  If today’s Congress were to pass a law against spitting on the sidewalk, it would necessarily have a hundred times more words than the entire Constitution. We live in a paradox having ten times the lawyers of any other society, yet in a nation of Christians claiming to have other means of settling disputes.

Now, to the higher ethical standards our lawmakers should have been observing. Number one is their unfaithfulness to a community size Congressional District of about 40,000 persons, to which they were originally assigned. In a district that size, people can “shop” among candidates just as they “shop” for all their other necessities of life. At each 10-year census, the crooked lawmakers have expanded their districts (and their power) until each district now has 700,000 persons.

These crooked reps have designed their own districts, each gobbling up sixteen other districts that should have their own reps. They horse trade and re-arrange constituencies among themselves, disregarding their duty to a particular constituency. The district may end up looking like a snake or horse shoe. The result of these shenanigans is that most local communities in these humungous districts are represented by foreigners.

The second problem with Congress is that it was never set up as the single law making body of a united people. The Constitution is brief.  It didn’t come with a 300-page manual about how the people shall run their new federation. If those who set up the system in 1789 could have had access to such a manual, it would have told them to first get their own houses in order. Adapt their own governments to the same district that was to rule the federation. Equalize all of their districts in all of their States to conform with the Congressional District idea.

Try to imagine what a smooth-running synchronized system we would have, if all the people were organized into one set of Home Districts (Congressional Districts). One rep from each district should be doing all the governing of the entire federation of fifty-one governments. The fifty Governors and the President would coordinate their calling up of the reps for duty at their respective capitols.

The much maligned Electoral College (fifty-one of them) should employ these Home District Reps as the “electors” who choose all the executive officers of the fifty-one governments. The Founders profoundly feared partisanship such as has deadlocked Congress, and is spreading hate and fear among us.  

We grassroots voters were never expected to run the governments of the federation. The Founders assigned that job to the Congressmen. These “congress people” have never been fully conceptualized.  To run a nation of over 300,000,000 persons, divided into districts of 40,000, requires 8,000 reps.

Would you rather blunder into another civil war, or reorganize the representative system into Home Districts? This November, as you choose your state rep for the next two years, you should be demanding that your rep comply with his superior Constitution which wants his/her people put into one set of home districts. Such a change will put the reps of the fifty states into the U.S. Congress, thereby eliminating the U.S. Congress that satisfies seven percent of the people.

The U.S. Senate is a disgrace since Amendment XVII was passed in 1913. It is easy to conclude that the senators themselves engineered that passage. When the amendment is rescinded, and home districting is accomplished, the people of the local districts will finally be in charge for the first time in the nation’s history.

One  more detail is apropos: Once the home district idea is established, each local county government, or its counterpart, should be put in complete charge of a district’s administration. The district and its boundaries should not be administered by a rep or any combination of reps.  

The Original Constitution Was Improperly Implemented

The people of the United States do not know how to set up a representative system of governing.  They have never been able to do so.  If they had pondered the uses of the congressional district more extensively, they would have solved the puzzle.

The Constitution of 1789 was an adequate governing instrument. It was to guide persons in setting up a workable federation of states. Since the Constitution did not succeed in creating the federation, it has reverted to a cherished and revered document whose state government enforcers have no power to enforce it. The Supreme Court became the fall-back cajoler as it has whimsically opined about it.

What would have succeeded in creating a real, genuine, working federation of states? Answer: If the States will ever show the good sense to adopt a single standard set of  h o m e  d i s t r i c t s  for all their people, their people will be able to operate all fifty-one governments with one set of reps.

Instead, the districting mess the States have contrived is unbelievably redundant. It creates reps for humungous, useless districts with all manner of pecking orders. Yet States are somehow unable to create a single local rep that serves one local community. Ironically, it is the State Governments who have tied their own hands. For over two centuries, they have failed to see the original congressional district as their key to federation.

Constitutionally, the grassroots voters were to directly operate their local governing districts, up through the County level governments.  At that point, grassroots voters were to turn over all governing of the federation, including the nomination and election of its officers, to their elected reps. However, reps have abused their freedom to set district sizes and boundaries. Counties should be supervising the setting up and maintenance of the boundaries of these districts.

Suppose the fifty State Governments decided to do themselves a favor.  Suppose they all just happened to adopt the same 40,000 size HOME DISTRICT. Suppose they repealed Amendment XVII, and restored the original U.S. Senate.  State officials would be swarming over Washington, D.C.  D.C. would be theirs.

Reform Number One:

Whereas, there are fifty-one constitutions with fifty-one unique organizations of the electorate in a nation that is trying to become more united;

And whereas, the Founders thought their proposed government’s success depended upon a single set of equally populated districts of about 40,000 each;  

And whereas, the reps from those districts have engaged in boundary wars that have created personal fiefdoms;

And whereas, each district rep has arbitrarily enlarged his domain to 700,000 each, thereby depriving sixteen other local communities of their reps;

And whereas, local electorates have been forced away from their locally derived reps and into unwanted partisan activities;

Now therefore, we demand that our respective States shall reconcile their inferior constitutions’ to the superior constitution that they have all signed. And that, having done that, they fill the seats of the U.S. House of Representatives with the exact same reps who fill the seats of their State Assemblies.

Reform Number Two:

Whereas, this nation operated for over a century with a U.S. Senate composed of reps from state governments;

And whereas, this nation has operated since 1913 with a U.S. Senate composed of reps from state partisan organizations, thanks to Amendment XVII;

And whereas, the on-the-job loyalty of U.S. Senators underwent a major shift;

Now therefore, Amendment XVII must be repealed and the Founders’ purpose for senators restored.  States, likewise, should have counties filling their senate seats.

Reform Number Three:

Whereas, the intent of the Electoral College was to have a more elite body of electors choosing all the executives officers of the new federation;

And whereas, fifty-one sets of officers will be elected by such assemblies;

And whereas, the reps themselves as electors may need some constitutional latitude to organize and do their jobs properly;

Now therefore, be it resolved that the electorate step out of the way and allow their elected reps complete autonomy in the selection of the executive officers with whom they will be working (and/or impeaching) during their respective terms in office.

The above three reforms will, for the first time in our history, create a workable federation of states governed by approximately 8,000 home districted reps.  Each two-year-term rep will be bossed by his/her district’s majority rule. Their local county election departments will manage the process. 

No membership in any partisan organization will be required for voting at any opening of the polls. The reps will be in a working relationship with their district constituents at all times, whether in their electoral activities or in subsequent legislative activities.

The “Congress” referred to by the Founders in their Constitution was a theoretical body of “people’s representatives” plus “representatives of the States.” Since such a body had not yet been created, Its various possibilities were still in limbo at the end of the Constitutional Convention.  The Northern States and Southern States and little states and big states, all had reasons to fear each other in any power sharing arrangement. But they feared outside nations even more. What they ended up creating was neither horse nor donkey, but an unviable mule. The one more perfect union of people needs a more perfect union of governing reps.

What a great day it will be in America, when the people are able to send to Washington, D.C. the same officials who run their state governments. We will finally have transformed contentious governing into coordinated governing.

The More Perfect Union of Home Districts, Term Limits, and Nonpartisanship

This union of states was clobbered together.  Even In this 21^st Century, it is still just clobbered together. The union that was expedient in 1789 has drifted along with little self-analysis. Its scant three million people have become over three hundred million people.  We are a nation whose collective conscience is full of contradictions.  Although all voices should be equal, religious organizations cower in fear at all the intimidations thrown at them by political organizations.

All voters are cruelly placed in multiple state and federal districts, all of which are far too large.  Such a complicated system drives the voter into partisanship and despair.  We have always governed ourselves quite well within our local communities. But our attempts to organize local communities into a nation state deserve a grade of D-.  

A local community can easily elect one of its reputable leaders to represent it in the legislative halls of a nation state.  But no, states cannot understand what their U.S. Constitution means by ordering one set of equalized districts. That one set of reps can handle the entire representative system of the people.

What are political parties, really, but self-organized gangs which have embedded themselves into our system.  They are the natural enemies of Electoral Colleges. Political parties will lose their influence just as soon as every local community has its own rep, and that rep collegiately nominates and elects all the officers associated with the federation of states.  It works like this:

A local community of 40,000 people chooses one of its leaders to represent it for a two year term.  Constitutionally, that rep is the community’s only contact with the federal system. That rep joins with fellow reps to nominate and elect all elective state officials.  That rep joins with fellow reps to nominate and elect all elective federal officials. That rep joins with fellow reps to run the state’s legislative assembly.  That rep joins with fellow reps to run the house of congress. After two years, the local community evaluates that rep at the polls. A county government chooses its state senator, and thereby creates a state senate. A state government chooses its federal senator, and thereby creates a federal senate. The local community chooses a rep, and thereby creates two electoral colleges plus two houses of representatives.  The people sit back and relax, confident that they can make adjustments every two years. It is their civil right to do this but their states will not allow it. The Founders created a civil right to a home district.

Instead, states force every household of every local community to have five reps, two of which are statewide. The other three are from humungous districts, all having different ranks and pecking orders. The local congressional district, for example, has 700,000 people, up from its original 40,000 people.

If States continue refusing to equalize and standardize their people into one set of home districts, some force is going to set up its own system.  That force will be beyond any orderly control.  State governments and their people have everything to gain, and nothing to lose by acting before such a force takes over.    

This orderly change makes the term limit problems go away. Dependency on Democrats and Republicans goes away. Big money and big press also lose their influence. The home district is the congressional district but with a different name.  If everybody were assigned to a home district of 40,000 (the original size of the Founders’ district), their eight thousand reps would rule everything above the county government level. 

This collection of personal consciences would become the nation’s conscience. The poll takers would be constantly probing that conscience.  Together, they would become a mutual education society, enabling both the reps and their poll takers to act more intelligently.  The nation’s pulse would be on constant display.

The federal constitution is superior to state constitutions.  Where a state’s constitution conflicts with it, the federal one should prevail. The goal of having a more perfect union calls for one uniform set of districts, not fifty one odd ball sets of districts into which our states have put us.   We-the-people are psychologically tortured over voting decisions we should not have to make. All because the States do not know how to set up and run the federation of their dreams.

Direct democracy by the people manages local communities very well.  The federal system should be using representative democracy. The voters step aside and allow their reps to run the system.  But States have never agreed on the common grid of local districts that can run the entire federation. Where there is no vision, the people suffer. Our federation has remained inert. The fifty states are strangely allied with their nation state, all being too stupid to federate.

When States structured their double system of representation in 1789, they created a districting mess. We are not two bodies politic.  We are one body politic being forced by our states to act as if we were two bodies politic.  It would be so simple to set up a grid of equal local districts and allocate them among the states. The reps produced by that one grid are the sum total of all the reps needed to run the federal system from the county level up the pyramid. 

Gigantic egos, putting themselves first, stand in the way of doing it. Only submissive egos allow gigantic egos to stand in the way.

Let’s get our ducks all in a row and synchronize this system into the federation it should be.  Even with home districting the reps should not set or adjust boundaries. That job belongs to the counties in which the districts are located.  Counties know their fractional share of the total population and can work with adjoining counties in setting up and managing these home districts.

Let’s get our double lawmaking out of its constant stream of jurisdictional disputes in the courts.  The delegates who signed the Constitution went back home unaware that they had agreed to home districting.  They were all thinking inside their own little boxes.  That has not changed.  

Ask any State Rep about this.  The answer you will get goes something like this: ”I took an oath to abide by my constitution which has its own districting system.” These state reps see no need to abide by a superior constitution.  They are caught up in the same schizophrenia that forces one body politic to act as if it were two.

It's time to love the Electoral College!

The Electoral College is the alternative to partisanship.  Democrats and Republicans particularly are disdainful of it because it constantly reminds the people that there is an alternative to partisanship. However, Democrats and Republicans have so abused it in election law that its real purpose has been forgotten. 

The Electoral College was to have been not only the nominating convention for the federation’s executive officers, but also the final choosers of the federation’s executive officers.  These executive officers of the federation include all the Constitutional Officers of the fifty states, plus the President and Vice-President.

If the nation were “home districted” as implied by the Founders in their “Congressional District Idea,” everybody would have one home district headed up by one elector/legislator.  That elector/legislator would, immediately upon election, take over the operations of the Federation of States.  That district would be about the size of the original one (40,000), which adds up to a total of 8,000 districts for the nation. Each district rep would enjoy a common pecking order with the other 7,999.  We would become a nation of equals.

The Constitution says that a district should not be less than 30,000, but it makes clear that the federation’s governing belongs to its rep and not to its people. A look at the way the Founders set up the elections system should be convincing:  They set up three levels of voting competence. (1) The people were to elect their reps for two-year terms.  (2) The Reps were to elect their executive officers for four-year terms.  (3) And the reps, when organized as assemblies, were to elect their own “watchdogs” (the senators) for six-year terms.   

At that point, the Founders delivered their constitution to the State Governments for “implementation.”  Did the States equalize the districting of their new “more perfect union” to give their citizens a common legislative body that could operate the entire federation? Has anybody ever thought about doing it in the last two and a quarter centuries? Sensibly sized “home districting” and use of Electoral Colleges would go a long way to healing our sick, partisan un-federated “union”.

Create Home Districting for the Federation

The partisan quagmire that is about to crash the system stems from a failure of the States to properly organize their people.  What the people most need is a sensibly sized “home district” and their one rep who takes over all governing duties in their behalf.  This nation has never known the tranquility that such as system could bring to it.

Only the State Governments are able to reorganize their people into sensibly sized home districts.  Inexplicably, States have never seen fit to do so.  Their myopic legislatures feel bound by their State Constitutions, while at the same time they fail to see that they are contradicting their Federal Constitution’s call for Congressional Districts.  The two constitutions should be reconciled in favor of the more dominant Federal Constitution.

The Federal System requires a common set of districting.  Otherwise, it simply will not work.  It is not working now and never has worked.  What is working now are two clashing systems of States vs. the Federal Government.  The people are caught in the middle and are being driven insane as they try to satisfy the voting demands made upon them by the two clashing systems.

Whenever the State Legislatures see fit to abandon their districting system in favor of a “commonly agreed upon size of Congressional District” to also run their State Governments, the people can have their sanity back.  One set of “home districts” of 40,000 each creates 8,000 reps.  With those 8,000 reps, let’s return to the original plans laid out in the Constitution.  Let them elect the executives of the federal system, Governors, President, et al.  And, tranquilly, make all of our laws.

Did The U.S. Senate Perform A Coup On The Body Politic A Century Ago?

Simple Logic Points That Way. 

Amendment XVII to the United States Constitution is most puzzling. It quietly, and without any fanfare, removes the remaining vestige of State Government influence from Washington, D.C., and effectively dissolves any further pretense of federating the States. 

Or, to phrase the action more dramatically, the amendment blew up the federation and firmly installed popular government throughout Washington, D.C.   State Governments were sent packing, with their tails between their legs.  From now on, we-the-people will run our own national government and you state governments can sit there on the sidelines and wither away as we incrementally diminish your importance.

One hundred more years have passed since that time.  Those conspirators knew exactly what they were doing, and achieved it beyond their wildest dreams.  Not only have we-the-people been misled out of the single districting system the Founders thought they were putting us in, but we have been misled out of our states, also.

We have been led into a totally partisan system of statewide elections where meaningless districts are piled on top of each other.  Our so-called reps are chosen for us by partisan conventions, as we dutifully go to the polls every two years to rubberstamp what the partisans did for us.  We are all being “schooled” in the new lockstep that is destined to drive out whatever remaining free spirits who are still among us.   Our lives are becoming more somber, more desperate, as a cacophony of exhortations presses us from all sides.

The Founders thought they were setting us up in districts of about 40,000 people each.  We should be living as communities of 40,000 people live.  Let the neighboring communities do what they want.  We will do what we want.  We are a nation of 8,000 such communities.

We each have our unique governing systems: County, Township, Town, City, or whatever.  Whether 400, 4,000, 40,000, or 400,000 people per community, “equality of governing voices” is the rule for operating the federation of states.  We need to adapt whatever size community we are in, to that rule.  But our local communities, of whatever size, should continue to function as integral communities.

The Founders designed an elections system of equalized voices, all coming from what would today be 8,000 local districts.  All political actions of whatever nature were to originate from those local districts via their local reps.  But the States have consistently refused to organize their citizens into such a set of districts.

Meanwhile, the saboteurs find ways to throw monkey wrenches into the system (Amendment XVII).  Pure logic says the amendment was a conspiracy by the senators themselves to escape the districting system of elections and become blatant politicians. If so, their terms should be shortened to 4 years, one being elected each two years.  Or, really, does the nation need a U.S. Senate?  Eight thousand reps totally committed to their districts’ welfare, should be quite stable.

The Useless, Nest-feathering U.S. Senate (since 1913)

The U.S. Senator of 1789 through 1913 represented the wishes of three successive bodies of his state legislators.  He could defy his back-home political base through maybe one term or two terms because they couldn’t do anything about it.  But if he was still being uncooperative as the third wave of back-home legislators came into office, he would be replaced.

The Founders had designed the U.S. Senate to act with a wider perspective than that of the U.S. House.  Legislation had to pass through both perspectives. Then the disaster of 1913 came, when a most misrepresented Amendment XVII was slipped into place.  It completely disrupted the system.  The U.S. Senators became loose cannons on the deck, shooting wildly with no real purpose.

The Constitution had provided for an elections system that divided the electorate into three levels of sophistication.  The grassroots would elect their two-year term representatives.  Those representatives, in turn, would collegiately elect all of the Constitution’s four-year term executives. After which the reps would organize themselves as a legislative body and choose the six-year term senators.  This carefully crafted system was blown apart when Amendment XVII blandly announced that the grassroots will now elect the senators.

Today, the U.S. Senators stubbornly say “No” to whatever the House proposes.  They are doing it to what would have been the third wave of their bosses prior to 1913.  Today, they get away with it with impunity. Not only that, but they have blackmail powers over all their state officials.  The States should militantly nullify Amendment XVII.

A Bitter Historical Note.  Amendment XVII should have focused on the U.S. House, and should have qualified all state legislators to sit in both places.  That would have brought the States fully into their Federation, and would have made whole, the entire dysfunctional system.

It might be interesting to search the archives for some very damning evidence of a possible conspiracy among the ninety-six U.S. Senators themselves to convince the electorate that Amendment XVII was a good idea.  Neither Republicans nor Democrats committed their party to a position on the amendment---which is reason enough to raise one’s suspicion that the “world’s most deliberative body” was deeply involved in gaining its passage.