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. 

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.