Article V of the United States Constitution gives power to the states and Congress to amend the document. This has been used throughout American history, such as the 13th amendment that abolished slavery, the 19th amendment that gave women the right to vote, and the 22nd amendment that limits the president to two terms. This power has almost always been used to give power from the government to the people.
That is why I love the Constitution; it grants power to the people, and if that power is insufficient, it’s changed. To this day, there are those campaigning for more amendments.
Whether it’s an Equal Rights Amendment, or any number of other proposals, I believe that Zane Gustafson’s proposal for a 28th amendment would be the best, as it will show the two-thirds of Americans who think our democracy is dying, that it can be changed.
To me at least, it’s clear as day that freedom of democracy in the United States is lackluster. Despite not having voter identification or too many voting restrictions, the voting power of individuals is almost completely irrelevant. While we are a democracy, and voting is still encouraged, your vote, regardless of political party alignment, doesn’t matter.
The United States Senate is a large factor into your vote lacking irrelevance. The Senate was made as a way for the remaining aristocracy and wealthy to keep their power in the government, while protecting the rights of the individual states. As well as making sure that the “untrustworthy” and “dangerous” views won’t make it into the government. To fix this, every state gets two senators to represent them in the government.
Why does the existence of the Senate mean your vote doesn’t matter? Voting power. Voting power is how close someone’s vote is to another’s. This includes various factors like population, competition, party, etc. Voting Power is usually used to determine how stable and functional a democracy is. In this context, we use it to highlight the insane differences between voters across the United States.
In Wyoming, they have a population of about 588 hundred thousand, and two senators. That means that the population per senator in Wyoming is much much smaller than a state with a higher population. Take California, which has a population of about 40 million, and two senators, making 20 million people per senator. By using voting power per-person and saying that one person means one vote, we see that in states like Wyoming, the average voter has 1049% voting power (meaning they are worth 10.4 votes per person), while the average voter in California has 16% voting power, or less than a tenth of a vote.
This idea that your vote means more in certain states inevitably leads to a biased system, and the Senate isn’t the only example of what Zane Gustafson calls “voter inequality.”
Your vote also doesn’t matter because of the existence of competitive and non-competitive districts. On average, only 10% of Americans live in districts that are considered competitive. Less than 30 million people live in competitive districts, and even fewer live in areas giving them a 100% voting power.
Right now, less than 5% of people in Texas live in competitive districts; the rest live in republican areas. Despite the fact that there are 8.1 million registered democrats, and 6.6 million registered republicans, the state has not voted democrat since 1976.
In California, under 15% of people live in competitive areas, and despite the fact that over a third of Californians are republicans, democrats control almost the entirety of the state legislature.
If you don’t live in a competitive area, your vote has no effect. The electoral college also keeps a two party system, and therefore is anti-democratic and keeps third parties out of office. Some argue that without the electoral college, a president could be elected without the full support of everyone, yet if we have ranked choice voting, the president will still have over 50% of the votes.
To fix this, we would have to amend the Constitution with a 28th amendment. We would need to abolish the Senate and give all powers to the House of Representatives. It is the most undemocratic system in our nation, and it’s blocking legislation from The House, judicial appointments, and executive treaty-making. Abolishing the Senate would rid voting power inequality.
It would also have to change the way congressional elections work. In order to bring democracy back, we would have to redraw every district to give them five members and expand Congress to 695 seats. Each district in a state will have close to the same population. California would have 17 districts, while Colorado would have three.
Every single election would use ranked choice voting. To get one winner, you need 50+one, meaning it would be a multimember district. If you have five members, to get one winner, you need 18%. Third parties like the Green or Libertarian parties would get votes, as people could vote for these parties without the fear of their vote not counting.
The power to impeach the president will be given to Congress, which would impeach the president at a 60% vote.
The Supreme Court’s system needs to be rewritten. We need term limits for the members of the Supreme Court and Congress. This proposal by Zane Gustafson says the following:
- The Supreme Court needs to be expanded to 21 members.
- Cases shall be decided by a randomly assigned panel of nine justices.
- Supreme Court members must have a term limit of 21 years, and cannot be re-elected.
- Congressional members will have a term limit of four years, and will have a three term limit.
This entire system change would allow the government to be closer aligned with its constituents, allow voting power equally to all, and empower the people.
