I have been warned that making this blog explicitly political could be harmful for my chances of getting jobs in the future, specifically Senator (D) from Virginia.  So I don’t know how I’m going to roll with the social commentary – I have a lot of things I want to say but you gotta be careful you know?  On the other hand, I can talk about the structure of our system.  Therefore, here follows three issues that should be dealt with to make our governmental system more equitable.

1.  Grant the District of Columbia full Congressional representation.

But wasn’t the point of DC to be the seat of government and thus unable to influence, uh, itself?  Yes.  But the times have changed.  The facts are thus: the District of Columbia is home to more Americans than the state of Wyoming, according to the 2000 census.  Yes, a couple hundred of those people are representatives from other states, but that doesn’t change the basic fact.  Wyoming gets 2 senators and 1 representative.  DC residents get a non-voting member of the House.  That’s it.  How can so many people not have a true representative?  The situation is very similar to that before the American Revolution (which makes the DC license plates bearing the logo “No Taxation Without Representation” all the more apropos) where Americans complained that they were not represented in Parliament while the English suggested that they were in fact virtually represented by the other MPs.

Basically DC residents deserve the representation.  Leave the flag alone – 50 stars has a better ring than 51.  But give them the reps.  Or cut the lines of DC down to simply the sidewalks around Federal government buildings and give the extra Congressional reps to Maryland.

Why will this not happen?  Because its a non-issue for the vast majority of Americans and because every single Congressperson would be a Democrat.  Non-starter with the current setup (or even when the Dems were in charge).

2.  Amend the Constitution to allow non-native born American citizens to be President.

Reasons in the past?  Sure.  When the Constitution was written it might have made sense – keep those crazy Brits back home.  But now it simply has no place and comes across as Nativist and xenophobic.  At least to me.  The residency requirement of course makes sense, as does a length of time as a citizen.  But if America is truly defined more by ideology than land confines, this should be a no-brainer.

Of course, if the Governator was still popular #1 and #2 could have made a nice trade.  Give the Dems a bone with a few extra Congresspersons and let Arnie become president.  C’est la vie.

3.  Reform the system of electing the President.

This could be done at the state level in order to bypass the problems of the Electoral College, or revised at a national level.  But this is too big of an issue for one post (plus I have to get to class).