All I Want for Christmas is Proportional Representation

Christmas is the time to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ – or not, if you so choose. But thank God I live in a country where the choice to do so is protected by its constitution. The Constitution also protects my choice to express how I feel about my country; allowing me to either fly the American flag from my front porch, or burn it in protest. And thank God I live in a country with such economic freedom, where - in case of an emergency - I can purchase soy eggnog and ground nutmeg at 3 o’clock in the morning.

But it doesn’t follow that when it comes to deciding on a congressional representative, I have two choices: Republican or Democrat. While there may be more than two choices listed on the ballot, it always goes that in a winner-takes-all voting system, there is only room for two parties: Two very large parties that ideologically sit at the center of each side of the spectrum, trying to appease everyone.

In a typical plurality-majority election, it goes typically goes like this: One of two candidates from the two major parties is elected, leaving those who voted for the losing candidate(s) without a voice. And when you consider that only 41% of the eligible voting population made it to the polls in 2006, even less of the population is being represented in Congress.

These large parties will never be able to please everyone. The evidence lies in the complaints of the more lefty-Democrats like Dennis Kucinich who say the congressional Democrats haven’t done enough to stand up to President Bush this year. During campaign season, each candidate makes his or her rounds making promise after promise, most of which s/he is not able to keep because… well, in reality, it’s nearly impossible to keep all of those promises.

And we’ve seen parties split and finger-point as a result of one particular faction of a party taking a hold of the steering wheel. The Bush administration and the neo-conservatives have abandoned the fiscal conservatives, libertarians, and even religious conservatives because of their foreign policy mistakes.

It’s time to retire the plurality-majority system. This Christmas, I’d love to see a little proportional representation under the tree – even if it’s for local or statewide elections.

And since my birthday is so close to Christmas - and I normally get combined gifts this time of year anyway – my second request is for Election Day to be held on Saturday. As someone who depends on the Dallas Area “Rapid Transit” to get to and from work each, I can’t imagine those who depend on public transportation have enough time to get to the polling place before it closes at 7:00pm.