Undemocratic NY

The Buffalo News periodically publishes an article that spells out a truth that the public needs to know about but doesn't grasp. Even after reading the article.

The article in question brought up the issue of Republican control over the NY Senate even though Democrats outnumber Republicans in the state by nearly a 2 to 1 advantage. The article soes not tell us the number of registered voters, or those registered outside of those two parties.

So how does a small group of people seize control over the state government and its agenda in the face of a potential majority opposition?

Gerrymandering.

It's that simple. The corporate leadership of the Republican Party have a better grasp on Leninism, the concept of a vanguard party, and the works of Saul Alinsky than the Democrats and the left opposition do. And because of that they know how to game the system so that they can control the state government during the census years when the redistricting of the state must occur.

Because they know all this and (more importantly) do it – they control the fate of the state, for better or ( or more likely) worse.

And the same corporate controllers that own the Republican Party also donate heavily to the Democratic Party, so it is very unlikely that they will ever mount any sort of opposition to the status quo.

So how do we break this lock on power that the corporate controlled powers that be have?

We force a vote on proportional representation and keep pushing the issue until they relent.

It's a very simple concept. If a party reaches a certain threshold of voters – 5% is the standard that I have seen across Europe and I believe that Canada uses the same standard – they receive that percentage of representation in the government. This could be both in the Assembly and Senate. Though I see no reason why we would need both chambers under this system.

This would open the doors to the alternatives to the two corporate parties and the third parties could run their own candidates rather than being stuck endorsing the two major parties and hoping to get them to listen to anything the third parties say. (I'm thinking of the Working Families Party and Conservative Party. Both are basically additional lines for the Democrats and Republicans respectively.)

This would help break the corporate hold on power because there would be too many parties to control. The Republicans would not only have to campaign against the left, they would have to deal with the Constitution Party and those pesky Libertarians that don't exactly fit into the conservative mold but fit into the smaller government is better routine.

The Democrats would have to deal with the Republicans and their ilk and also deal with the Green Party and the various socialist parties that we have here in NY. So the lock that they have on the left would be broken and people that are tired of the Democrats making promises and failing to keep them would have somewhere else to turn to.

And yes, it would be messy during the election season.

But I would not call the discussion of the various ideas a mess.

It's actually called “democracy.”

And I think we could use some about now.