**Disclaimer about my handle below
While there are some things that Biden can do right away, there is not the political capital to pass major healthcare reform, expand SCOTUS, have major climate change legislation, or have major immigration reform, etc. There should be, but there isn’t, and the Democratic party will continue to struggle until there is election reform. Gerrymandering needs to end, the electoral college needs to be diminished, D.C. needs representation in congress, and we need to approach universal suffrage.
- Gerrymandering – We cannot rely on the GOP controlled statehouses to fix this; in fact, we can rely on them to give the GOP an even bigger advantage for the next congressional election. In 1929, there were 48 states and about 15 million voters. Congress passed and POTUS signed into law the Reapportionment Act of 1929, giving the United States 435 representatives. There were ~150M voters and 50 states in the 2020 election and we still have 435 house members. That means gerrymandering is fairly easy as there are so many people per representative. It also means that the small states have outsized representation. Take 435 to 1500, and you virtually end the ability to significantly gerrymander, you create a high percentage of competitive districts, and congress better represents America. You also create more moderates, which will help the GOP not be batshit crazy. The hurdle is Mitch McConnel, and while that is fairly large, if you can convince a large swath of the American people that this would strengthen both parties, I think we could get bipartisan support. This should be the first act of election reform that congress enacts as it is fairly low hanging fruit and would immediately pay benefits.
- D.C. - We need to consistently remind the American people that the U.S. citizens living in D.C. don’t have congressional representation. At the very least, DC should get a house district and should get to vote in another states Senate elections (Virginia?).
- Universal Suffrage – Voter Id is probably here to stay, so we need to do everything we can to make sure that we get IDs in all voters hands. We need to pass laws that set basic standards on election access. For example, any states that have incidents of 5 hour lines in minority areas should lose some Federal government funding. Maybe we should enact a negative poll tax (IOW a small refund for those that vote), and the new DOJ needs to go after disenfranchisement very aggressively.
- Electoral College – We have no way of ending it; none, but reapportionment may help the electoral vote to more closely match the popular vote in some circumstances. (it doesn’t on the current map as both parties pretty equally share large states, and the Democrats currently run up the popular vote in CA and NY. OTOH, ME and NE are fairly conservative states (NE is very much), and have proportional electors. Again, maybe Federal funds could be dangled to encourage this practice; I don’t know, but its worth a shot.
If we can get election reform, we can get build a momentum that helps usher in a much better political system. Let me know what you think.
** My handle is RightleaningMod, and while that was a good description of me when I joined in 2010, it is no longer an accurate moniker. The last GOP POTUS candidate I voted for was John McCain in 2008, and I wasn’t that excited about him. Anyway, I get a lot of push-back from folks here about my name, so I wanted to make that clear that I am a democrat despite my name. I do tend to be an independent thinker, highly against group-think, and sometimes even lean towards a contrarian, so just assume anything I say not aligning with progressive orthodoxy is that rather than right wing talking points.