Having taught in the community college system for 25 years, and approaching old age, it is still the topic that energizes me. I’ve just finished writing an 11 page critique of the mess that is teaching English, specifically writing, and am sending it off to The Atlantic Monthly for a look. Interested? If you are I’ll email it, but if not won’t waste your time.. Anyway, how to get the confused and disorganized electorate to take action against failed, traditional government bodies, from school boards to the federal government seems an impossible task. The crazy Teapartiers “think” that’s what they’re doing, that lunatic egomaniac Sarah Palin leading a group that is up front about not having a leader. These people would impeach Jesus. George G

Don’t expect anything from us activists. We can’t even stop the most
obvious of local pork barrel boondoggles. Despite our efforts, the mindless
and useless OAC and Central Subway projects are moving ahead. Our arguments,
and our credentials are impeccable. But no one listens. The Chronicle
yawns as it trips lightly over the surface of the issues it purports to
cover. The Examiner swipes at the problem from time to time. The agencies
circle the wagons and stone-wall. The local politicians go to ground. Our
Washington representatives, blissfully ignorant, take their cues from the
likes of Gavin Newsom and Steve Heminger.

If the rest of the country is squandering its federal handouts as
thoroughly as the Bay Area is, the U.S. truly is headed toward bankruptcy.

Gerald C

Until the millions of dollars funneled through lobbyists and special interest groups is removed from the political process, I’m afraid the will to change this cannot and will not be found.

Virginia had 10 times as many people as Delaware. California has 69 times as many people as Wyoming. But does that explain a governing system that increasingly looks like a joke?

Assume that the Senate and the House had both proportionately represented population, anytime before or after the direct election of Senators. What would have changed to prevent gerrymandering Senate districts that did not prevent gerrymandering House districts?

How would proportionate representation in the Senate and the House have likely changed our history as a nation after the constitution became the law of the land? The constitution itself was the product of dissatisfaction with the articles of confederation and the product of several great compromises among thirteen young states.

WOULD a Federal Government with a proportional Senate and House HAVE: a) tempered the internal divisions that have divided Americans since i) each colony’s founding? ii) since the Constitution became the law of the land? b) ended slavery earlier? b) ended abuses of Native Americans earlier? c) avoided civil war? d) better balanced corporate vs. State and Federal government competition following the civil war? e) better aligned voting – one human being, one registered voter, having one vote per office/per ballot measure matched with electoral campaign financing solely funded by registered voters and/or public funding, that purposefully excluded non-voters and legal fictions, f) changed Supreme Court rulings that upheld slavery and protected corporations against Federal and State governments’ efforts to reign them in? g) tempered ideological swings in politics and governing? h) reduced three majority standards for legislatures – simple majority for legislation, three fifths for ending filibuster, and two thirds for budget passage to one majority standard, i) exercised greater oversight of gigantic financial behemoths that more than once have nearly destroyed our system of capitalism and j) changed the relatively greater unity of Republicans as compared with the relatively lesser unity of Democrats?, k) tempered our internal contradictions; in sum, the multiple plagues of politics and of governing after an election?

Your second starting point is post-war America and California state government, a marriage of civic infrastructure with private capital and human ingenuity.

A forty member State Senate and an eighty member Assembly cannot be faulted for disproportional representation. Where is an analysis, a history – generally agreed to by politicians, public administrators, academics, active civic citizens – that identifies landmarks of California’s descent from it post-war ‘high’ to its 2010 ‘low’.

Your essay makes brief references to corporate governance and behavior. Comparing public governance and corporate governance, how is the decline in Federal and State governance, that you attribute to disproportionate representation in the upper legislative chambers, fundamentally different from one small, narrow interest holding much more stock(votes) in a given corporation than one large, broad interest holding much less stock(votes)? How many corporations have governed themselves more wisely in the interests of stockholders? bondholders? employees? consumers of their products? the residents of their cities? counties? state? the citizens of the USA? as compared with how wisely the governments of American cities? counties? states?, the nation? have governed themselves in the interests of their residents and citizens?

Canada achieved independence from Great Britain without revolution and national union without civil war. How did the American revolution and civil war mark our politics and governing? Have American politics and governing recovered from them? Is America’s international agenda taking too much from America’s domestic agenda, bringing us down as they did Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, the USSR and others. Finally, are there other large federal republics in the world more governable that the USA is?

Peter D. Reimer

I believe that the larger point is to have representation by people who have as their first purpose something other than to get re-elected, something tantamount to what is good for the country in the context of what is good for their state. Some greater notion than that of Ben Nelson who only wanted to be bought, or Mary Landrieu (sp?) likewise, among so many others.

Elliott C

I think we as a country, are in such denial of what a Real National Emergency we are faced with that it’s more than most can comprehend, let alone begin to face and deal with. One of the most tragic examples of poor leadership is when Nancy Pelosi took George W. Bush’s impeachment off the table. And recently, her counter part, Harry Reid said recently, that the health care bill was on hold until maybe next month or there abouts.

And why can’t President Obama declare a Presidential Order to cancel “don’t ask, don’t tell”? So many in the Military are being harmed by this problem.

I do not know where I’d begin to fix this mess, if I were King. I think Obama is on the right track as he attempted to start something positive by confronting the Republicans in their own camp last week but I think they just don’t have a clue.
It’s still business as usual. Dig their heels in and fight to maintain their ideology which wants “this President to fail”! PERIOD! And to hell with anything else. They have theirs and that’s all that counts. I do think though, that there are many of us who are really angry at what’s going on. Unfortunately, those in Congress on the Federal level and state legislatures, are sensing this anger, but don’t really know what to do about it. I think that they’re only afraid of being voted out of office but nothing more that that. Business as usual has become the norm for such a long time, that now that the chips are really down, they just don’t know how to function. Besides, they’re ONLY politicians and not business people, who would be so much better suited to deal with the daily ins and outs of how to run the business of government. All they can do is lie and cheat. After all, Isn’t that all there is to do?

Joel S