Big Plans Require Preliminary Work - Let's Do That Work!
On an almost daily basis, I read here on DU about huge ideas that many people think are sorely needed. I agree with those needs, but there is so much that must be done before we can make such ideas happen.
For example, I read a thread today about the need to re-design how the Senate is composed and elected. I don't disagree with that at all, but such a thing would require a Constitutional Amendment, which is impossible in our current situation. Completely impossible. All it takes is a quick read of that part of our Constitution that deals with amending the Constitution to understand that.
I read almost daily about the need to fix our voting system on a nationwide basis. Of course we need to do that. Again, though, we are facing a daunting challenge just to get a new Voting Rights Act passed through Congress. We simply do not have a large enough majority in the Senate, particularly, to make doing that easy, or maybe even possibly. Under our Constitution, the states, individually, control elections. That is a real problem. Fixing that also requires a Constitutional Amendment.
Two examples. There are many, many others. We need to revise the Electoral College system, for example, to ensure that no Presidential Election can be subverted by some crazy autocrat. Another Constitutional Amendment issue, with the same problem of a Constitutional Amendment being impossible currently.
Here is the bottom line: We need to do many things to fix a system that has some very, very difficult problems. To do any of those fixes though, we must do some things first. We need to focus on those things, and put our energies toward them, before we can begin planning to fix them. Here are those first steps. We can begin working on each of them today. We must begin today and focus tightly on these goals, before we can even think about goals that require something like a Constitutional Amendment:
1. Increase the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives. That does not mean that we need to win every district in every state. It means that we need to find and focus on districts that can be converted into Democratic districts in 2022. There are a number of such districts. We should focus our attention on those and work tirelessly to elect Democrats in them. If every state converted just one district from Republican to Democratic representation, we could accomplish that goal. More would be better, but that would be sufficient.
2. Establish a Democratic majority of at least 60 in the Senate. We have 50 Democratic Senators now, but we have all observed that not all 50 can be counted on for every bill that needs to be passed. We can do this as well in 2022, but it will take a concentrated effort to accomplish that. Without a majority of 60, our bills can be blocked by the Republicans. Almost all of them. We really need a majority of 67, but that will take more than one election to accomplish since only 1/3 of the Senate must stand for election every two years.
3. Establish Democratic majorities in the state legislatures of at least 38 states. Why? Because 3/4 of the states must ratify any Constitutional Amendment. That's going to be a difficult task, and is one that must be done by Democrats in their respective states.
Unless we can accomplish those three things, every goal we have to accomplish things that require more than just an Executive Order can be made impossible by the House and Senate Republicans. It's not a difficult thing to understand, really. Neither is the solution difficult to understand. We cannot demand Constitutional Amendments unless we are able to make them happen. We CAN, however focus on establishing the fundamental requirements to make those big ideas happen. We can do that.
Let's Do Those Things First! Once We Do, Discussing Major Changes Is Worthwhile.
= new reply since forum marked as read
I guess talking about it is good enough....
