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The self-proclaimed greatest democracy in the world suffers from several defects in citizen participation, some of which peculiar to itself and others common to many other democracies. Below is a list of several defects, ways to correct them, and the chances of the correction(s) proposed being passed.
1. The Senate giving small state way too much power relative to their populations.
Solution A: Abolish the Senate and make Congres unicameral. This is the most straightforward, efficient, and forward-looking solution, but also the one that has the least chances fo being passed. Thirteen states are enoguh to gut a constitutional amendment, and 34 states out of 50 have below-average populations, i.e. they benefit from their disproportionate power.
Solution B: Transfer powers from the Senate to the House à la the British Parliament in the first half of the 20th centuries (the two houses used to have equal status, but in the 1910s and again in the 1940s the House of Lords lost most of its legislative powers). This will have a slightly higher chance of being passed, but the prospects are still dismally low.
2. DC having no say in the federal government other than 3 electoral votes.
Solution: Either make DC a state, or give it full representation in Congress as if it were a state. Since DC is so heavily Democratic, this solution best be proposed when the federal government swings more to the Democrats, mainly with respect to Congress - the Democrats will be delighted to have 2 additional Senators and one more Representative.
3. The Electoral College discriminating against a) people living in large states, and b) politial minorities in states. Jim Robinson can cry for the EC till time ends, but he can't change the fact that his vote in presidential elections doesn't count because he is a Republican in safely-Democratic California.
Solution: Abolish the EC. Apart from the sizable minority of people who vote for their state's loser, there's also the issue of some states having a higher voters-for-the-winner per electoral vote ratio than others. New Hampshire's ratio in 2000 was in the 50,000 area, whereas New York's was 124,000. This solution's chance of getting passed depedns on the result of 2004: if, like 2000, the electoral vote doesn't tie in with the popular vote, then the EC will have a reasonable chance of being rid of finally, but if it doesn't then whatever remaisn of the debate about it following the 2000 fiasco will be extinguished.
4. House districts being gerrymandered to protect incumbents, so that upward of 80% of districts aren't even competitive.
Solution: Hand the redrawing of districts to a special, federal committee, 2/3s of whose members are proportionally selected by the Senate (not by the House in order to decrease the incumbent-protection incentive) and 1/3 of whose members are appointed by the SCOTUS from among geographical and cultural experts. The committee will usually be deadlocked between the Dems and the GOP, so proposals for redistricting will have to make geographical sense. It'll take
5. The plurality system in single-winner election making third-parties little more than spoilers.
Solution: Approval Vote or Condorcet. In Approval, voters can vote for as many or as few candidates as they want to, meaning that voting for one candidate has no effect whatsoever on the vote for the other candidates - hence, there's no need for strategic campaigning (e.g. the Greens not running in competitive elections) or for people to vote against their favorite candidates. In Condorcet, voters rank the candidates and the race is broken down into n*(n-1)/2 races between pairs of candidates; voting, from top to bottom, Gore-Nader-...-Bush doesn't help Gore more than voting Nader-Gore-...-Bush. Unfortunately, neither of these voting system is liable to be implemented; most politician favor plurality for selfish reasons, whereas most dissidents unfortunately favor an inferior electoral system, Instant Runoff (IRV).
6. The winner-take-all system deprives third parties of their representation in Congress.
Solution: Proportional representation, preferably national open list. It's intolerable that a large minority of the American voters isn't represented in Congress because its members live in districts with majorities they don't support - for example, Republicans in Oakland or Democrats in Dallas. Congress should be representative of all the people, not only the majority; the point of majority rule comes from the majority of the people (i.e. a majority in Congress) being enough to pass laws, as opposed to a majority of the majority of the people. While on a smaller scale, namely this of state-level PR, this has a reasonable chance of being achieved in the near future (Cynthia, where are you?...), the only way to ensure that everyone is equal under the counting process is a national system that requires a cosntitutional amendment.
7. Judges being appointed by political bodies often being incompetent or just perpetuating the legacy of unpopular presidents.
Solution: Give the ABA a formal role in the appointment of judges. For example, judges should best be appointed by three out of four bodies: the President, the Senate, the ABA, and the National Lawyers' Guild. Again, as in most ideal solutions for the USA's defects, this requires a constitutional amendment, which many unfortunately regard as tantamount to rewriting the bible.
8. Unpopular presidents being recallable only in case of impeachment.
Solution: The obvious one is, of course, to add federal recall (as well as intitiative and referendum) provisions. If, say, 8% of the eligible voters sign a petition to recall the president, then there's a recall, kind of like in California now but with a higher signature threshold for prospective candidates. This unfortuantely has a very slim chance of passing because the 2/3s majority in both houses required to amend the constitution is already enough to impeach and remove presidents - even though they may try it in case of an innocent but unpopular president.
9. People having to vote on two or three issues that they may not agree with either (or any) party completely on or that they just don't care about even though they care about others.
Solution A: Probably the most radical and also impassable one on this list, specialized legislatures. There should be 30-50 such legislatures, each dealing with one issue (e.g. health care) and having the ability to pass legislation regarding it, even though Congress can override SL legislation just like the Supreme Court can override Appeals Court rulings. People should have the right to vote in 5-7 such SLs, as well as in regular Cognressional elections; this way, they and not politicians will be able to choose the issues they care about the most.
Solution B: Slightly more mainstream, incorporate initiatives into the constitution. The main disadvantage of federal initiative is the sheer cost, even if there are initiative votes only once per year.
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