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If — here's hoping, and I dare to hope — if we not only get a Harris presidency but Dem control of both houses of Congress, let's light a hell of a fire under our reps to slam the door shut on right-leaning minoritarian rule in the US.
•That• is how we end up not fighting fascism by the skin of our teeth in every singly election in the near/medium term.
From @sysadmin1138: #uspol
https://ngmx.com/@sysadmin1138/112889505930426171
To be clear, by “minoritarian rule,” I mean the situation where a specific subset of the country that is substantially less than a majority still manages to win elections & control policy.
What stops that? Things like…
- a new and stronger VRA (we were so close, but for Manchin & co)
- a (more) proportional Senate
- ending the filibuster
- ending the EC (or finishing the NPVIC)
- SCOTUS reform
- etc etc
@inthehands I’m all for these ideas, but how are you planning to get the necessary constitutional amendments passed?
@provuejim
None require a constitutional amendment except (1) the proportional senate (but see downthread re majority filibuster) and (2) fully abolishing EC instead of using NPVIC.
@inthehands SCOTUS reform can be done with a bare majority? If so, cool, but. I’ll bet the current SCOTUS won’t agree. Of course SCOTUS invented their authority to judge the constitutionality of legislation over 200 years ago. In school I was taught that was a good thing, now I’m not so sure.
@provuejim
Basic reform requires either 60 votes or filibuster elimination, I believe. Either way, no constitutional amendment needed; it’s only an act of Congress.
Matthias Wiesmann @provuejim @inthehands Most democracies have a constitutional court, and it is a good thing, because it acts as a safeguard. The problem of the US implementation is, in my opinion, common law – most democracies in the world use civil law, so their constitutional courts cannot make stuff up, if it is not explicitly written, it is not there. In most countries things like abortion or gay marriage are *not* decided by the courts, but by some legislative change.