What Americans Want

Washington, D.C. – Senator Ron Johnson (WI) today commented on President Obama's inauguration:

“The American people Republican redistricting elected divided government. They want the President and Congress to work together to address the serious challenges facing our nation.”

There, fixed that for you, Senator.

I am sick of both sides claiming that, "The American people want this, the American people want that," in their press releases. It strongly implies all of the American people agree on something and, as we all know, that just isn't the case for anything. There are more than 42 of us, some of the American people will support and oppose just about anything. If you want to make a genuine argument, cite quality polling with publicly released data.

Using conclusive statements for persuasion as Senator Johnson's staff did in this case is just offensive.

Electoral Votes and Districts

Governor Walker and RNC Chair Priebus want to split electoral votes based on who won congressional districts. Given the gerrymandering that occurred in 2010, this means WI would go from sending all electoral votes to the Democratic presidential candidate to giving over half to the Replublican presidential candidate.

In principal, I could agree to that if the senate electoral votes were split among the top two vote getters unless one person won 2/3 of the congressional votes. The state would always end up 6/4 as things stand and the majority of folks probably wouldn't have to deal with all the adds anymore. That gives you most of what you want, right?

But here's what I want in return: eliminate districts and make the WI Assembly a party-proportional election every two years.

So, the Republicans get some presidential electoral votes due to the congressional seat gerrymandering but the people get an Assembly that actually matches the way Wisconsinite votes were cast instead of what we have now. Deal?