Nonpartisan news and updates on legislative, legal, and grassroots efforts to reform San Diego elections.
Many people in the US are worried about the state of democracy in their state and the country at-large. However, a new report shows why there is still cause for hope even in a tremulous political environment.
Anyone who has followed the pro-voter, pro-democracy reform space for even a small period of time knows America’s political processes are flawed. It may not even come as a surprise to find out that the US is not even considered close to being the world’s role model in democracy.
It is hard to believe that 9 months after the 2020 election, we still aren’t completely done with it. Well, we are. The election results are certified. It’s a done deal at this point.
“It’s almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when you’re just howling with laughter. Laughter is a force for democracy.” - John Cleese
Independent voters have been in the forefront of a movement to change the rules of the political game in the United States. We have led efforts to open the primaries to all voters, establish independent non-partisan redistricting commissions and introduce reforms like Ranked Choice Voting to the voting process itself.
When representatives from the League of Women Voters, RepresentUs, and the Independent Voter Project first met in 2019, political insiders said it would take a miracle to bring an innovative election reform to the City of San Diego that would allow voters to “rank” four candidates in the general election, instead of choosing just one.
Every major issue America faces today—from climate change and healthcare to income inequality and student loan debt—can be traced at least in part to government policies that prioritize corporate profit over public good. Since our current political system allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money, they wield far greater influence over public policy than do individual voters or even groups of voters. This situation directly contradicts the fundamental idea that in a democracy each voter has an equal voice.
H.R. 1, named the "For the People Act of 2021," is legislation originally proposed by the House of Representatives in 2019 to fight electoral corruption and shore up our representative democracy through changes in federal election law.
Since fighting corruption is a primary concern of Represent San Diego, we've taken a keen interest in this legislation. That this bill is getting traction in the Capitol is notable because lawmakers rarely embrace changes to a system that put them in their positions of influence in the first place.
This is an independent opinion. Have one of your own? Email it to sandiego@ivn.us
Bernie Sanders’ loss of the Democratic Party’s nomination for president prompted some voters to cry out, as they have in the past, for the creation of a new party. There is merit to this idea, given that repeated attempts to fashion the Democratic Party into a force for progressive change have failed.