The recent King hearings got me to thinking about power and the way it is allocated in the United States government. I know, most would write about the implications on civil rights, especially in the Muslim community in this case, (and I may still) but I am struck by the fact that if the Democrats had maintained the Majority in the House, this would never have occurred in the 112th Congress.
With the rise of the Tea Party and partisan politics and ideologies growing evermore divided, I’ve thought constantly about the Electoral College and its role in our Presidential election process. The Tea Party states that it is the voice of the everyday average American, who is angry about the direction our country is going in, and who plans on “putting America back on track”. If this is true, there’s a parallel to be drawn between the Tea Party and the “average American” voters of when our country was founded. Interestingly enough, the Framers put the Electoral College in place because they did not trust the electorate to decide the direction the country should go in.
Which led me to ponder the U.S. governmental apparatus and how our country is run? The Founding Fathers did a phenomenal job setting up the beginning structure of our government over 200 years ago, foreseeing many of the possible pitfalls our democracy could face. However, are there elements of our government that may be outdated in our currently political climate? Or are these institutions our saving grace?
The method in which the President of the United States is elected is not democratic in nature, and what's more is that the inclusion of the Electoral College actually structures the Constitution to take votes away from the populace. It is understood that the creation of the Electoral College had a distinct purpose when the Framers were creating and drafting our Constitution. In those times, the average man was not an educated man and the Framers wanted to ensure that the person in power was qualified to lead this country. However, in the present time, the Electoral College is a way for influential people to elect who they want into power. Election of the President Article II Section 1 established the Electoral College, and this institution gave each state a number of electors relative to its representation in Congress. However, we must recognize that because each state has two senators this is not proportional to population. State legislators could choose whatever methods they saw fit to appoint electors and were granted permission to use their own judgment to choose the President. This boils down to two people from each state deciding for the whole state who should be America's next President- and that does not fit into the definition of democracy.
However, we all know that the Constitution of the United States has not been completely democratic from the very beginning. The United States has an extensive history of not granting basic civil and human rights to many of its people. Due to these acts of discrimination, people of color, women, the gay community, and many other disenfranchised groups are at a disadvantage in the American political system. It is clear why this is undemocratic because democracy involves people having the same power to affect change through their vote. Now, if certain groups are denied basic human and civil rights such as voting, this completely alters the political landscape and hands over power to one dominant group and takes away power from several other groups. This is turn causes those groups to end up in lower socio-economic classes do to this uneven distribution of power. It is important to not just HAVE the right to vote, but to EXERCISE it as well.
Which is why, even though the Electoral College has an immense amount of power in the Presidential election, I choose to vote, and I rally others to do so as well. You cannot complain about a democracy if you do not engage it. It may not be a voting year nationally or even statewide, but civic engagement is a full-time job.
0 comments:
Post a Comment