(Note: parts of this post are taken from a post I made last summer.)

Last week, I mentioned that in a winner-take-all, one-representative-per-district system, ending gerrymandering and moving towards a politics-blind method of drawing district boundaries would ease my concerns of two-party duopolistic power, with politicians beholden to themselves more than the citizenry they are supposed to serve.

There are two problems with the scheme I described however: 

First, to the extent that geographic constituencies need to be defined in order to improve the odds of particular groups of interest being represented, a politics-blind redistricting plan would likely erode those groups’ potential influence.

Second, it does nothing to my theory that two-party rule is an artifact of how we determine political representation.

In this day and age, I have to wonder whether it still makes sense for legislative representation to be based solely on geography.   As more of us forge connections that aren’t necessarily constrained by geography, you have to wonder if geography is the best basis to allocate political power.

For example, even though I live in northern Connecticut, I’m at least as interested in the affairs of folks in Boston and New York (the two cities I telecommute to), in southern Alabama (due to family ties), or in assorted other jurisdictions around the country (due to the nature of my work).

However, many of my political concerns — potential government involvement in catastrophe insurance on the coasts, bolstering the changing economy in Alabama’s Wiregrass region, or traffic/transportation related issues around Boston and New York — probably won’t rank terribly high on a list of priorities for my Connecticut-based Congressman.

So why must we be limited to the idea that we can vote for one candidate who happens to reside in the same general geographic region as we do?

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that we live in a jurisdiction represented by 10 legislators, 10,000 voters, two major parties (”D” and “R”) and two minor parties (”G” and “L”).  Today, that legislature would likely take its members from 10 districts (A-J), where election results could look something like this:

Candidates R-A, R-B, D-C, R-D, R-E, D-F, D-G, R-H, D-I, and D-J are elected, giving us a legislature made up of 5 R’s and 5 D’s.   In aggregate, the legislature would look sort-of-kind-of like the political leanings of the entire jurisdiction (if the L’s are assumed to be like R’s, and the G’s are assumed to be like D’s), but it does have the unfortunate side effect of many voters potentially being unserved by the representative from their district.   Minor parties are completely unrepresented in the legislature.

If I could wave a magic wand, I’d be very tempted to revise the world so that in this example jurisdiction, we’d maintain 10 legislators, but have only half as many geography-based districts.  Voters could still vote for only one candidate, but candidates may run in multiple districts.   The ten legislators would be made up of the top vote-getter in every jurisdiction, plus the top five vote-getters who weren’t otherwise elected.  (And, in the event of retirement/etc., the replacement would come from the next-highest vote-getter, etc.)

So, my example jurisdiction described above, might end up looking like this:

With the votes cast, we have ten representatives elected:

We have 4 D’s, 4 R’s, and both the G’s and the L’s were able to gather enough votes to elect a candidate each by running one candidate each across all five districts, rather than splitting their votes.  Thus the legislature is more representative of the political makeup of the jurisdiction than under a traditional one-representative-per-district scheme.

Also, you have more potentially satisfied voters, since more folks had “their” candidate elected, thus reducing the problem of citizens feeling disenfranchised because of the “don’t blame me; I didn’t vote for him” syndrome.

One criticism that you might have with this example is that fewer candidates ended up running for office, and almost everybody was elected, making this not much of a contest.  However, I think this is more of an artifact of presenting a simplified example than an honest flaw.

It’s true that the major parties would likely get into some heavy-duty statistical analysis to develop strategies of who should run in how many districts to optimize their results.  If the parties were able to maintain their duopoly of power, then this would make it difficult to have a legislature that was appropriately responsive to the people.

However, the ability for a particular candidate to gather votes from multiple districts opens the doors for third parties to play a role, as well as special-interest offshoots of the major parties.

For example, for some voters race or ethnicity matters.  It’s easy for me to imagine an “African-American Democrats” caucus or a “Latino Republican” faction running candidates across multiple districts, to obtain votes from interested voters.  This has the happy side-effect of potentially alleviating systemic racial discrimination, the combating of which has been the cause for some mighty funkily-shaped districts under the current system.

Perhaps a Conservative Christian group would splinter off from the GOP to offer up its own slate of candidates, as could a LBGT special interest group.  Even Cindy Sheehan could work to get herself on the ballot countrywide to get a seat in Congress, rather than opting to pick a fight with Nancy Pelosi in an ultra-liberal district.

Because of the potential for rather specific groups to get candidates elected, and because of the reduced influence of geography, I can see porkbarreling being slightly less attractive, as well as perhaps a bit of an erosion in the tendency of the legislative sessions degenerating into a sequence of party-line votes, regardless of the range of opinions held by the folks being governed.

And, because voters could conceivable elect officials from anywhere, you’d eliminate another gripe I have with the way Congress currently operates.  Today, if there’s a bill being considered in committee that I’d like to comment on, as an ordinary citizen, I have to hope that my local representative is on the committee.  If he/she isn’t, then I may be out of luck since the members of the committee have no real incentive to listen to me.   However, under this system, I should be able to attract the attention of at least a few committee members, since they could conceivably be interested in my support next election, regardless of where I live.

This is not a change I’d ever realistically expect to see happen.  I suspect that too many people in the country are too entrenched in the idea of having a single representative from the oddly shaped box that was drawn on a map that just happens to contain their home. And, of course, our politicians have no desire to see such reform, as it rather intentionally erodes their lack of accountability and their entrenchment of power.

But I can dream, can’t I?

With primary season all but over, attention will soon be turning towards the November general elections — not just the Presidential race, but also those few down-ticket races that are actually expected to be competitive.

We’re heading into the time of year that armchair pundits like me like to vent our frustrations with the entrenched duopoly in the U.S. political arena.

I can accept that a two-party political system is probably a necessary artifact of how our government is set up — that a system where the chief executive and individual legislators are determined individually on a winner-take-all basis would likely stabilize with two approximately-equally-influential parties…since the “approximately-equally-influential” criterion would likely be difficult to achieve with more political parties.

Having only a few political parties of significance is not necessarily a bad thing, particularly when you compare against the wackiness that can arise from having a large number of parties.   However, having only a few parties opens the door to stagnation, I think, especially if the freshness of the political climate deteriorates to the point where many (most?) elected officials only seek to acquire and maintain power, rather than to serve the best interests of their constituents.

Gerrymandering is one way that elected officials can pursue a power-driven agenda.   If you can pick your voters, you potentially maximize your reelection chances, and therefore can, within some limits, act as you wish, rather than to the benefit of your constituents and the country as a whole

If our politicians wish to do more than just pay lip-service to the notion of “change”, I’d like to see them address one of the fundamentals — ending gerrymandering.

I’ve seen many different schemes addressing how district boundaries should be drawn.  My personal favorite (perhaps because it just popped into my head several years ago) is a simple one: legislative district boundaries should be drawn in such a way as to minimize boundary lengths while maintaining approximately equal populations.

Such a system will tend to create circular, bulls-eye shaped districts, and will tend to keep communities in the same districts (subject to the limitations imposed by the “equal population” requirement).  It’d end the practice of drawing long, irregularly shaped districts drawn primarily to maximize the strength of one particular party, or to divide a population supporting an opposing party.

Unfortunately, it would also end the practice of drawing districts to optimize minority representation in legislative bodies.  However, considering that practice has often been abused for political gain, perhaps that is a tolerable casualty.

Of course, there are likely better ways to ensure a diversity of opinion and representation in a legislative body.  I’ll explore that in next week’s installment.

Once upon a time, I was a card carrying Libertarian.  The idea of a political party whose views fit my own socially liberal, economically conservative perspective was very appealing…at least until I realized that LP activists lacked realism.

That’s the reason I tend to describe myself as a “small ell-libertarian” or a centrist.

One of the factors that drove me away from the LP and back to a land of relative sanity is the tendency for some Libertarians to be so anti-government that they sound almost anarchist.

While I am definitely opposed to large, invasive, inefficient government…I’m not so sure that a small, minimalistic government is a good idea either.

There is a definite role for government in society.  Certain services and functions of government are a good thing for society in general, and probably shouldn’t be farmed out to for-profit privatization.  Exactly which services and functions those are is a subject for a debate beyond the scope of this article, but I submit that they exist.

I wonder if the problem many of us perceive with government isn’t that it’s “too big”.  I wonder if the problem is that the government is “too visible”.

I would love to have a government that was invisible — one that operated so smoothly and efficiently that one hardly notices it in operation except in those hopefully rare circumstances where one has to come into contact with it.

Think about it — what portion of your complaints with the government entail either intentional headline-grabbing on the part of certain government officials, or certain government operations being broken or horribly inefficient, or certain government bureaus seemingly extending their power beyond what is actually necessary to do their jobs?

Like big-ell Libertarians, I want the government to leave me alone.  However, I don’t think that that desire necessarily devolves to a near-anarchy of minimal government.  Instead, I wish for a government that was invisible, yet effective…one which I could trust to ignore completely if I so chose.

I know, it’s an overly idealistic, horribly unrealistic and impractical desire of mine…but I can wish, can’t I?

One of the greatest characteristics of the American federal government is the system of checks-and-balances imposed on the three branches by the founding fathers.  The notion that if one part of the government gets too out of control, the others have a means to impose sanity is a powerful one, which has generally kept Washington from getting too nutty over the past couple of centuries.

Unfortunately, the founding fathers didn’t contemplate the formation of political parties.  As a result, there is always the potential that one part of the American political duopoly can gain control of both the Executive and the Legislative branches, and potentially the Judicial as well.  A single political agenda wielding power over both houses of Congress and the White House can go a long way towards bypassing Constitutional checks on power.

Consider, for example, the excesses of the first six years of the current administration…or the excesses of the first two years of Bill Clinton’s White House.

I have said before, and I will continue to say, that I am happiest with the government when no one political party controls both chambers of the Legislative branch, and the Executive branch.

I’m aware that some folks are concerned that divided government inevitably leads to gridlock.  If I can indulge in a little bit of flippancy… gridlock is the point.

Seriously, I have a healthy distrust for politicians.  Yes, I know that many, if not most, politicians are fine, upstanding individuals.  However, the demands imposed by fundraising to be elected and reelected, the need to support partisan goals in order to gain support for your own interests, and the general corrosive influence of spending so much time in political circles rather than the real world leads to a climate where too much shenanigans can be created.

In theory, a divided government — with the two major parties controlling different parts of the government — should be a potentially effective check on such shenanigans.  It is, after all, in one party’s interest to highlight and block the other’s antics.  If each party accomplishes nothing but the blocking of the other party’s bad ideas…the country is probably the better for it.  Lock the politicians inside the beltway, and let the rest of us lead our lives free from their interference. 

Despite my cynicism towards day-to-day political antics, there are things that the government needs to accomplish.  There are generally enough bright, good folks in elected offices belonging to both parties that I have faith that should something need to be done, it will be done in a bi/non-partisan manner.

I could wish for some sort of Constitutional change to ensure divided government…but frankly, imposing such a certainty would likely lead to some other forms of abuse and gaming, including a further solidification of the Democrats’ and Republicans’ duopoly on political power.

Instead, I’m going to have to hope that more voters will see the sanity and logic of imposing the check-and-balance of divided government as they consider who they will vote for on Election Day.

During my last year of college and my first year in the “real world”, I went on a Heinlein reading kick.  I read everything of his that I could get my hands on.

One of the ideas that stuck with me from that phase was that of “National Service” from Starship Troopers.  While I’m not sure I’d go to the full extent Heinlein takes the concept in the book, the idea of volunteering a year or two of your time to society as you transition to adulthood, in return for certain benefits as an adult has a certain appeal to me.

Maybe that’s because of a lingering interest I had in the military.  As a teenager, I very seriously considered joining the military, in part to address questions of how I was going to pay for college.   And since then, I’ve encountered many people who would be interested in contributing their time to National Guard duty, to assist in disaster recovery and other manpower needs…but are unwilling to enlist due to the potential of true military involvement.

We’ve had incarnations of national service-like constructs before in America.   Consider the FDR’s CCC, which made work for the unemployed.  Consider also attempts such as the Peace Corps and Americorps, both of which might suffer a bit from limited benefits and the granolaish associations with the programs.

So, I would love to see the creation of a national service corps — a decently-funded program by which Americans can contribute their skills to the country as a whole, and by which simple manpower can be organized and mobilized for domestic, peacetime needs, without the threat of being summoned overseas to be shot at.

Considering the concerns we have in this country in which the solutions are impaired by a lack of manpower, there should be plenty that a designated pool of talent could be drawn upon to resolve.

Perhaps such tasks could be as simple as augmenting/relieving the National Guard for border patrol support and sandbagging duties.   Some folks believe that the illegal immigration problem is fueled by demand for labor to fill jobs that no American will voluntarily take; perhaps having a pool of labor to draw upon would resolve that.  And, of course, there are concerns about being unable to find teachers or doctors willing to serve in challenging environments (remote towns, inner cities), which could be addressed as part of a national service program.

Yes, there are already programs or constructs to address all of those concerns.  However, it seems to me that they suffer somewhat due to their balkanized nature.  One program, efficiently run, should be able to draw a larger talent pool to fill a broader variety of needs.

Heck, I can even imagine my being drafted for a couple of weeks a year to go bolster ranks of federal analysts.   The Federal Part-Time Actuarial and Statistical Corps, anyone?

I understand that many people might be uncomfortable with the concept of National Service.  I myself am not a fan of the idea of compulsory volunteerism.  National Service also seems uncomfortably close to a resumption of the draft.  And my expressing interest in the creation of a National Service Corps does require me to table my general distrust of any expansion of government’s involvement in our daily lives.

But thinking about how the draft of the 40’s and 50’s lead to a mixing of society — folks of different economic backgrounds and from different parts of the country rubbing elbows in ways that hadn’t previously been common — and considering just how much debt lower- and middle-income young adults incur to get a good start in independent life….  well, maybe a national service program wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Last week, I expressed concerns about the politicization in the identification of judges and attorneys general, and pondered about the potential drag on society from political motivations trumping objective justice.

Another area of the judicial system that I worry about is just how overloaded the entire system seems to be, and how slowly the wheels of justice move.

This is a subject I have a personal interest in, thanks to what my family has been through in the past several years, after my wife was disabled in a car accident. 

For example, it took just shy of 3 years for Social Security disability payments to start up.  Two thirds of that time was just spent waiting, for my wife’s case to move up through a very long queue on the docket, before it could be reviewed by an Administrative law Judge.

Then there’s the lawsuit associated with the accident itself.  We’re scheduled to go to finally go trial this October, 6½ years after the accident.   True, our case is a little unusual, but the slowness with which the wheels of justice have turned has been remarkable.

Tort reform is a popular subject for those of us in the insurance industry to prattle on about, when talking about what’s wrong with the country.  And, while I do share many of my colleagues’ concerns about excessive awards, jurisdictions in which rulings tend to be biased against industry, and the degree of influence trial lawyers associations seem to have… I wonder if a decent part of the problem is structural.

Considering the speed with which the world moves today, shouldn’t we be attempting an objective look to the mechanics with which the legal system operates?

Yes, easing the drag caused by the presence of some frivolous lawsuits on the docket would help “real” cases move forward faster, but surely we have enough creativity in this country to look at how the legal system can be made to operate more efficiently, without significantly impairing the prospects of fairness for all parties involved.

One of the biggest sources of silliness I see in America today is just how litigation-happy our society seems to have become.

Yes, there is no question in my mind that when a person, business, or other entity errs and harms another, indemnification is in order.  The threat of punitive damages is a handy incentive for Big Business to not behave badly.   And I don’t, as a matter of principle, share conservatives’ fear of “activist judges”.

However, some of the, um, “creative”  legal theories espoused by some judges, and the grandstanding by certain attorneys general is certainly sufficient to give even well-behaved businesses a healthy sense of paranoia, and a desire to avoid admitting wrongdoing except when absolutely necessary.

No, AG offices and the judiciary aren’t the sole cause of litigation madness in this country.  But they do play a role, I think.

Maybe it’s my imagination, but casual observation has me wondering about a correlation between how judges and AGs are selected, and their respective nuttiness.   After all, when political motivations are in play (such as a desire to be reelected, or a desire to support the leader upon whom your appointment depends), they do expose one to the potential for less-than-purely-objective thought.

Here in Connecticut, we’re treated to quite a bit of entertaining grandstanding by Attorneys General, both by what we see from our own AG Blumenthal, plus the entertainment that can be derived by watching Massachusetts’ AG at work.   Previously, we also had the regional entertainment of New York’s former AG Spitzer.

And while I have personal reason to be thankful for the tenacity of Blumenthal’s office, I can’t help but wonder how much of his antics are politically motivated, rather than a promotion of justice and the rule-of-law in the state.

So, I’m left wondering — should we, as a society, be looking for more objective ways to select our Attorneys General and our judges?

Perhaps moving to a system where such individuals were identified by bipartisan/nonpartisan committee, and appointed to terms detached from our current election cycles would promote a bit more stability, fairness and predictability.

It may be boring, but sometimes boring is good for society.

Like last week’s post, this week’s topic is another on my list which I should have probably made a few notes on.  Like crime last week, there are many potential education sub-topics I could write about….and I will once again resort to a bullet list. 

• One of the more recent annoyances I’ve witnessed (admittedly from the outside, since I don’t have kids) in the past several years is a seeming over-reliance on standardized testing to measure kids’ educational progress.
   
  I do actually agree with the principle that if money is being spent on school programs, some proof should be required that the investment is worthwhile; but in the time that school systems have gone too gung-ho with testing, folks seem to have forgotten that the only thing standardized tests measure is the ability to take standardized tests.
   
• I do have to give President Bush some credit for seeking to prevent learning-disabled children from being left behind in the push to improve school systems.  However, from what I’ve seen and heard here in Connecticut, school systems being obliged to add support for disabled students have had to withdraw support for programs for gifted students.  This potential drag on the best and brightest of the upcoming generation seems rather counterintuitive to me.
   
• I have seemingly conflicting concerns on the subject of teacher pay.  On the one hand, the pittance we pay teachers in this country is appalling.   Personally, I’d love to be a teacher, but I’m not sure that I’d be comfortable trying to provide for my family on a teacher’s salary; thus, I became an actuary instead.  I’m sure that there are many other professionals who have similar thoughts.
   
  On the other hand, one of my recurring gripes with my local school system is the contractually-obliged annual raises that are granted with seemingly little improvement.  What is it that teachers unions have against pay-for-performance?
   
• Looking on to college — is it my imagination, or has college  become ridiculously expensive in the past couple of decades.  I was lucky enough to eke out of school without debt by scholarships, odd jobs, and finishing my degree in 3 years; however, it seems like recent graduates are coming out of university up to their eyeballs in debt.   Perhaps some thought should be given to alternative funding schemes…or perhaps American society needs to start asking if a 4-year university education really necessary for most jobs?

When I outlined the topics I wanted to cover in my “Centrist’s Platform” series of articles, “crime” was one of the topics on the list.

Unfortunately, when it came time to sit down and write this week’s post…I’ve been left wondering exactly what I was going to say…if I even had more than just a topic picked out.  That’s not a good thing, because there are so many sub-topics that could be touched upon….none of which seem to burn brightly in the sky of current events.

Consider the following:

• Earlier this year, headlines were blazing with the statistic that prison population had crept above 1% of the total population of the country — a higher rate than is seen in most other countries.  Is this a problem, or is it a statement about our culture?  How much of it is a testament to a lack of mental health and social services in certain communities, I wonder.
   
• The death penalty is usually a topic that can provoke heated debate.   Personally, I’m extremely uncomfortable with it. I think it’s entirely appropriate for perpetrators of certain heinous crimes to be completely excluded from the benefits from and support of society, which is something that can only really be achieved with banishment or execution.  I’d prefer banishment, but that isn’t practical in today’s world. 
   
  Also, certain apparent inequities in the awarding of the death sentence, leave me questioning whether justice is being applied equally to all.  Plus, if my tax dollars are going to be used to permanently remove someone from society, I want to be d*mn sure that the person really is guilty.
   
• Requiring judges to adhere to certain minimum sentencing requirements is something else I’m extremely uncomfortable with.  I can appreciate the need to foster some consistency, but real life is far more complex, filled with shades of grey, than any black-and-white legal text can attempt to prescribe for.  I’d prefer that judges have the authority to take into special circumstances, or even sometimes prescribe some form of creative, alternative sentence when the situation warrants.
   
• “Three strikes” laws and restrictions placed on where sexual offenders may live after they’ve served their sentence have a definite appeal to most Americans.  However, they always leave me wondering — if a person has paid his/her debt to society, shouldn’t they be treated the same as any other person?  Or, if a released convict is deemed “too risky” and therefore must have restrictions placed upon him/her after release — why the heck are they being released to begin with?

And the list could go on.

However, really, all that I want from a politician when it comes to crime is a sense of realism and fairness, rather than an inclination to pay lip service to the subject for political gain, without really thinking their stances through.