The Electoral College Needs to Go!

The United States should abolish the Electoral College. The Electoral College is unfair and has multiple negative effects on the election process.

The first problem is that the Electoral College forces candidates to put all their focus toward swing states. This means that issues important to citizens in non-swing states won’t be considered in the candidates’ platforms. It also gives citizens in swing states an unfair advantage. The second problem that the Electoral College causes is that it can result in the wrong person being elected! For example in 2000 Al Gore received the most votes yet because of the Electoral College George W. Bush was given the presidency. Another big problem is that voters in smaller states have a greater influence than voters in large states due to the 2 vote minimum given to each state in the Electoral College. This means that smaller states get more votes per capita than large states, which is clearly unfair.

The final issue that the Electoral College causes is that it is impossible for a third party to gain recognition. Because you have to get the most votes in the state to get the votes in the Electoral College you have to have close to 50% of the vote in a state. Yet even the most popular third party candidates get over 30% in a state and so they get no recognition. If the Electoral College was abolished then a third party could potentially get 30% of the national vote and this would be an indicator of success and give it potential to maybe get 35% or 40% in the next election so that over time a third party could win.

If the Electoral College is continued these issues will not go away. In fact things will only become worse. In fact recently people have stopped voting in large numbers because they know that the candidate they don’t support will win no matter if they vote since most people in the state support that candidate. Although it has its problems they aren’t big enough to stir the public to support a constitutional amendment and so the Electoral College is probably here to stay.

The US has much to learn in managing health care!

Today I read an article from Daily Kos about living uninsured in Japan. The author, and American, has been living in Japan for the last five years, and for four of these years he has been uninsured. The audience for this commentary is mainly the audience of Daily Kos: politically interested liberal technophiles. However this article in particular applies to all Americans as we debate the future of our own health care system in the U.S. Although bloggers have less credibility than newspaper journalists, Daily Kos is one of the most credible online blogs in existence. And thus anything published on the Daily Kos is sufficiently credible.

The main argument that the author has to show that our health care system needs improvement is that he paid as much for his visit to the doctor without insurance as many people in the United States pay with insurance. This is very counterintuitive and astounding to me! He also disproves the fear that most Americans have over foreign healthcare (waiting in line) by stating that it took less than an hour from when he walked into the doctors office until he had his meds at the pharmacy.

I had a similar experience two years ago when I had to go to the Emergency Room in Germany. My entire visit, including a local anesthetic, cost me only $40 without insurance. That same visit in the United States would have cost me a $100 co-pay.

This commentary shows that we have much room for improvement and that healthcare is a financial problem that can be solved.

Constitutional Quandary

The New York Times recently featured an editorial about the supreme court nomination of Elena Kagen. The controversy that has surfaced in her nomination deals with Kagen’s stance on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Kagen supports the use of the Commerce Clause for the passing of federal laws regulating social problems. The conservative party however believes that these laws can not be justified using the Commerce Clause and are thus taking away rights that belong to the states.

This article was written for the readers of the New York Times. These readers include people in New York and throughout the country buying physical copies of the newspaper as well as people throughout the world who read NYTimes.com as well readers of the NYT iPhone app. As a writer for the New York Times the author has a very good credibility since the New York Times is one of the most respected American News Papers and a personal favorite of mine.

The author argues that the use of the Commerce Clause for non-commercial legislation is beneficial to our country and that the clause has been used to make some of the most important society-improving legislation in our history. He cites the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act which set a minimum wage and limited child labor – all federal laws.

I do agree with the opposition’s argument that these applications differ greatly from the original purpose of the Commerce Clause. However this does not mean that the Commerce Clause should not be allowed to be used for the passing of non-commercial laws in the future because the benefits far outweigh the risks in the situation.

The republicans should thus quit complaining about a legislative tactic that has been in use for decades just because they need an excuse not to vote for Kagen and should instead listen to the author of the article and make more laws benefiting our society.

The Debate Over Arizona Immigration Law sb1070

Today I read an article about the Debate Over Arizona Immigration Law Comes to U.S. Court from the New York Times by Randal C. Archibold.

This debate is centered on Arizona immigration law sb1070. This law would allow officers to check the immigration status of any person that they pull over or arrest. Critics of the law argue that the state of Arizona does not have the right to administer immigration status arrests since this is a right reserved for the national government.

I chose this article because it shows a current event application of the difference between enumerated and reserved rights in the regulation of immigration. Since the law is being tried in federal court the winner of the debate will most likely be the federal government. Finally I believe that the law should be annulled since “the Arizona Supreme Court has allowed race to be considered when making an immigration stop".