[LWVNM Action] Action Digest, Vol 35, Issue 12

Tue Sep 20 11:01:26 MDT 2022

Here is the scholars' letter to Congress along with the list of the 214 scholar signatories, including Jason Scott Smith of the UNM Department of History. He is a specialist in the "history of capitalism and political economy".
https://medium.com/@scholars-redistricting-reform/open-letter-to-congress-to-end-single-member-congressional-districts-and-adopt-proportional-97ad1cf6aa2e

Kathleen M. Burke

    On Tuesday, September 20, 2022, 10:27:10 AM MDT, action-request at mailman.swcp.com <action-request at mailman.swcp.com> wrote:  

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Today's Topics:

  1. Scholars Ask Congress to Scrap Winner-Take-All Political
      System (Kathleen Burke)
  2. Re: Scholars Ask Congress to Scrap Winner-Take-All Political
      System (Barbara Calef)
  3. Re: Scholars Ask Congress to Scrap Winner-Take-All Political
      System (Jeanne Logsdon)

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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2022 15:57:00 +0000 (UTC)
From: Kathleen Burke <kathleenmariaburke at yahoo.com>
To: "action at mailman.swcp.com" <action at mailman.swcp.com>
Subject: [LWVNM Action] Scholars Ask Congress to Scrap Winner-Take-All
    Political System
Message-ID: <1806028434.190112.1663689420741 at mail.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Excerpted from the New York Times, here below from the Election Law Blog:

?Scholars Ask Congress to Scrap Winner-Take-All Political System?
September 20, 2022, 7:53 amalternative voting systemsRICK HASEN
New York Times:

If there?s one thing we know about America?s creaking democracy, it?s this: Whenever it seems fundamentally broken, people get together to try to fix it.

That?s happening now. We?re living through one of the United States? periodic bursts of reformist energy, with various groups pushing to alter the structure of our elections even as ? or rather because ? millions of voters on both sides of our partisan divide question the integrity of the system.

The latest entry is a roster of more than 200 American political scientists who have put forward a sweeping proposal to change the way the United States has conducted its federal elections for nearly 250 years.

In?a sharply written open letter to Congress?published on Monday and shared in advance with The New York Times, the scholars tell lawmakers, ?It is clear that our winner-take-all system ? where each U.S. House district is represented by a single person ? is fundamentally broken.? They call on Congress to ?adopt inclusive, multimember districts with competitive and responsive proportional representation.?

The list of signatories includes nine of the 18 living U.S.-based winners of the?Johan Skytte Prize, a prestigious Swedish award that has become a kind of unofficial Nobel for political science: Robert Axelrod, Francis Fukuyama, Peter J. Katzenstein, Robert Keohane, David D. Laitin, Margaret Levi, Arend Lijphart, Philippe C. Schmitter and Rein Taagepera.
?Our arcane, single-member districting process divides, polarizes and isolates us from each other,? the professors write. ?It has effectively extinguished competitive elections for most Americans, and produced a deeply divided political system that is incapable of responding to changing demands and emerging challenges with necessary legitimacy.?

Kathleen M. Burke

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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2022 10:02:24 -0600
From: Barbara Calef <bfcalef at gmail.com>
To: Kathleen Burke <kathleenmariaburke at yahoo.com>, LWVNM Action
    <action at mailman.swcp.com>
Subject: Re: [LWVNM Action] Scholars Ask Congress to Scrap
    Winner-Take-All Political System
Message-ID:
    <CAOurJ_Ztg8WVK0f9kjT4wTa1rt9vRhaNQnC4oK5x6OTawkM4dg at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

This was Lonna Atkeson's recommendation (and Kathy Campbell's as well).

Barbara

On Tue, Sep 20, 2022 at 9:57 AM Kathleen Burke via Action <
action at mailman.swcp.com> wrote:

> Excerpted from the New York Times, here below from the Election Law Blog:
>
> ?Scholars Ask Congress to Scrap Winner-Take-All Political System?
> September 20, 2022, 7:53 amalternative voting systemsRICK HASEN
>
> New York Times:
>
> If there?s one thing we know about America?s creaking democracy, it?s
> this: Whenever it seems fundamentally broken, people get together to try to
> fix it.
>
> That?s happening now. We?re living through one of the United States?
> periodic bursts of reformist energy, with various groups pushing to alter
> the structure of our elections even as ? or rather because ? millions of
> voters on both sides of our partisan divide question the integrity of the
> system.
>
> The latest entry is a roster of more than 200 American political
> scientists who have put forward a sweeping proposal to change the way the
> United States has conducted its federal elections for nearly 250 years.
>
> In a sharply written open letter to Congress
> <https://medium.com/@scholars-redistricting-reform/open-letter-to-congress-to-end-single-member-congressional-districts-and-adopt-proportional-97ad1cf6aa2e> published
> on Monday and shared in advance with The New York Times, the scholars tell
> lawmakers, ?It is clear that our winner-take-all system ? where each U.S.
> House district is represented by a single person ? is fundamentally
> broken.? They call on Congress to ?adopt inclusive, multimember districts
> with competitive and responsive proportional representation.?
>
> The list of signatories includes nine of the 18 living U.S.-based winners
> of the Johan Skytte Prize, a prestigious Swedish award that has become a
> kind of unofficial Nobel for political science: Robert Axelrod, Francis
> Fukuyama, Peter J. Katzenstein, Robert Keohane, David D. Laitin, Margaret
> Levi, Arend Lijphart, Philippe C. Schmitter and Rein Taagepera.
> ?Our arcane, single-member districting process divides, polarizes and
> isolates us from each other,? the professors write. ?It has effectively
> extinguished competitive elections for most Americans, and produced a
> deeply divided political system that is incapable of responding to changing
> demands and emerging challenges with necessary legitimacy.?
>
>
>
>
> *Kathleen M. Burke*
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Action mailing list
> Action at mailman.swcp.com
> https://mailman.swcp.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/action
>
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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 20 Sep 2022 16:26:49 +0000
From: Jeanne Logsdon <jlogsdon at unm.edu>
To: LWVNM Action <action at mailman.swcp.com>, Kathleen Burke
    <kathleenmariaburke at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [LWVNM Action] Scholars Ask Congress to Scrap
    Winner-Take-All Political System
Message-ID:
    <SJ0PR07MB863265EB6372FE99A2EA12FBCE4C9 at SJ0PR07MB8632.namprd07.prod.outlook.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Do we know whether the LWV will support the idea?

Jeanne

From: Action <action-bounces at mailman.swcp.com> On Behalf Of Barbara Calef via Action
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2022 10:02 AM
To: Kathleen Burke <kathleenmariaburke at yahoo.com>; LWVNM Action <action at mailman.swcp.com>
Cc: Barbara Calef <bfcalef at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [LWVNM Action] Scholars Ask Congress to Scrap Winner-Take-All Political System

  [EXTERNAL]
This was Lonna Atkeson's recommendation (and Kathy Campbell's as well).

Barbara

On Tue, Sep 20, 2022 at 9:57 AM Kathleen Burke via Action <action at mailman.swcp.com<mailto:action at mailman.swcp.com>> wrote:
Excerpted from the New York Times, here below from the Election Law Blog:

?Scholars Ask Congress to Scrap Winner-Take-All Political System?
September 20, 2022, 7:53 amalternative voting systemsRICK HASEN

New York Times:

If there?s one thing we know about America?s creaking democracy, it?s this: Whenever it seems fundamentally broken, people get together to try to fix it.

That?s happening now. We?re living through one of the United States? periodic bursts of reformist energy, with various groups pushing to alter the structure of our elections even as ? or rather because ? millions of voters on both sides of our partisan divide question the integrity of the system.

The latest entry is a roster of more than 200 American political scientists who have put forward a sweeping proposal to change the way the United States has conducted its federal elections for nearly 250 years.

In a sharply written open letter to Congress<https://medium.com/@scholars-redistricting-reform/open-letter-to-congress-to-end-single-member-congressional-districts-and-adopt-proportional-97ad1cf6aa2e> published on Monday and shared in advance with The New York Times, the scholars tell lawmakers, ?It is clear that our winner-take-all system ? where each U.S. House district is represented by a single person ? is fundamentally broken.? They call on Congress to ?adopt inclusive, multimember districts with competitive and responsive proportional representation.?

The list of signatories includes nine of the 18 living U.S.-based winners of the Johan Skytte Prize, a prestigious Swedish award that has become a kind of unofficial Nobel for political science: Robert Axelrod, Francis Fukuyama, Peter J. Katzenstein, Robert Keohane, David D. Laitin, Margaret Levi, Arend Lijphart, Philippe C. Schmitter and Rein Taagepera.
?Our arcane, single-member districting process divides, polarizes and isolates us from each other,? the professors write. ?It has effectively extinguished competitive elections for most Americans, and produced a deeply divided political system that is incapable of responding to changing demands and emerging challenges with necessary legitimacy.?

Kathleen M. Burke

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End of Action Digest, Vol 35, Issue 12
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