Broken Constitution

Great article in the LA Times.

His point is that the Constitution is totally dysfunctional for a variety of reasons:

1. The electoral college, which leads candidates to write off big states and pander to little ones or swing states.

2. There is no means of removing a President unless he's criminal.

3. Lame Duck presidents stay in power.

4. Supreme Court Justices stay forever.

And I want to add another: The electoral districting. It's astonshing to me that with the Dems so far ahead in every metric and on every issue, they might not win, because only a few districts are actually competitive thanks to gerrymandering. In no other rational system does that happen--where a massively unpopular party actually retains power.

Sure, ridings can be gerrymandered a little in Canada--push a line a bit further west to get more rich people, etc--but if you look at one of our electoral maps, the lines are straight. Or more straight than the crazy shapes of districts here.

That is an impediment to change and democracy. When incumbents get to pick the voters, rather than voters picking their representative, democracy dies.