November 5, 2006
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Political philosophy - Socrates_Cafe's latest
1. Traditionally, Legislative representation has been from a geographic district. Is this the best way to insure fair representation of all voters?
From time to time this question arises in all representative governments. Geographic based representation has much merit under certain conditions: The voting citizens should all have a sense of community and think of themselves as a homogeneous group. The area represented should be fairly compact with a small enough population that the representative can get a sense of his constituents' needs, desires, and thinking on most important subjects.
Geographic based representation does not work well with a large multi-group area or one with a large minority. In such a case fairly large numbers of constituents may not be fairly represented, or at least feel that they are not.
If the representative is to represent a large number of voters or a large area, it is certain that he cannot know the feelings of most of those he represents.
In order to prevent this, various political tricks have been used - the most notorious being the Gerrymandered district where boundaries are drawn to include all members of a minority in a single district.
An example is the 23rd congressional district in Florida where the district is sort of dumbbell shaped with the two parts separated by several miles and linked by a narrow strip running down a railroad track. This gives South Florida's Black population a sort of guaranteed seat while removing the responsibility of representing them from other nearby districts.
Representation by special Interest is another type suggested. For a brief time in the late nineteenth century France experimented with syndicalism (Representation by labor unions and guilds), but this didn't work out very well. currently in Iraq, parliamentary representation seems to be mostly by tribal and religious affiliation; a fairly common type of representation in non-democratic countries.
Representation by social class is an old tried and true method that was much used in monarchies and aristocratic- based governments.
In the Soviet Union representation was a sort of stair-step affair with local soviets electing representatives who in turn elected district representatives who in turn elected regional.... and so on up to the Supreme soviet. While this looked good on paper, it was subverted because the entire power resided in the Communist Party which took all its orders from the top down - including who could run for office at each level.
Currently, here in the U.S. most Congressional representative districts include in excess of 600,000 people, far too many for any sort of personal association, so organized groups resort to lobbying; spending millions in the process and sort of guaranteeing that we will have an oligarchic- based representation which pays little heed to the wishes of its geographic base - indeed spends much time and money trying to persuade them to the special interest's viewpoint.
How could, or should, this situation be reformed?
Comments (4)
I am in awe of your command of the subject of government and democracy/oligarcy, etc. Our system would be a good one, I think, if the representatives were from a smaller area but, would that send too many representatives/senators to congress. Almost seems like there are too many there now.
It is so hard to know the people who are running for office, that I think a lot of people just give up and vote the party or for someone who seems to hold the same views. I have felt frustration at trying to communicate with my representatives, by email and letter, only to get a form letter back regarding social security, which was not what I'd written about. I think a lot of people feel that same frustration.
I don't have a suggestion as to a better form of government. I wish I did - supposing someone would listen if I did. In fact, until G.W. Bush got elected to his second term, I was sort of apolitical - not much interested. I guess I've changed. I'm thinking about what my political philosophy is, or should be, in order to post on my site. I'll let you know when I've got it figured out - lol.
Peace.
Reform is certain if members of both houses of congress are limited to a total of six years of service, after which they would no longer be eligible for re-election. Elimination of the professional politician is the ticket. Unfortunately, there is no way to do this unless the politicians themselves vote for it. Not likely.
What is the problem with the experienced politician? Wouldn't they have a better chance of dealing with special interest groups who try to apply undue pressure? If you look at our political history, I think you'll find most of the problems and blunders came from inexperience or incompetence.
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