November 23, 2010 05:57 PM UTC

My County 'Tis of Thee

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• by: JO

Races for the U.S. Senate collectively took center stage in 2010. Maybe they will again in 2014, given there will again be no presidential contest that year and depending on how the political breezes flow over the next two years. This is unfortunate because these races are based on the most fundamentally undemocratic institution in our government, one that originated to protect slavery and one that should either be abolished or consigned to saying “Slow Down” to the (expanded) House (which it already tends to do). This institution, the Senate, is in turn based on a set of anachronisms that should be given one-way tickets outta town on the 12:10 FasTraks to Douglas County.

I’m referring, of course, to the states. Practically speaking, states play no useful role–except to send two people each to the Senate. IF we are to join the 21st century, albeit a decade or so late, the states need to join the Senate in Dustbinicus Historicus, the sooner the better.

Not sufficient time to explore the origins of states except to say they trace their existence to royal charters during the 18th century when no one, and I mean no one, had a clue about fly-over country. (Except, of course, the people actually living there, but that wasn’t the sort of sentiment floating around Whitehall at the time.) Those charters made some sense at the time: they revolved either around religion or … or what, the penal status of the early inhabitants? Should contemporary Americans feel constrained by the whims of a long-past English monarch whose name we’re not quite sure of? (Quick: which monarch granted the charter to William Penn to establish Pennsylvania? Looking it up is cheating.)

Once established, however, these institutions had a certain there there when it came to relating to English-speaking folks across the river. Gradually they took on some form of permanence they never deserved. It’s time to move on.

Nor do these institutions today reflect some level of popular democracy, some means of carrying out the Will of the People. In the state of Colorado, for example, do inhabitants of the eastern swath of counties really have a telling influence in Denver? Do suburbanites in Jefferson County know something about raising corn and wheat? Of course not. Counties, on the other hand, are literally close to the people. They are democracy in action.

At least since 1820, the shape and very existence of new states has reflected federal politics, and specifically politics of the Senate. You remember Maine and Missouri, don’t you? And why Maine became a separate state, detached from Massachusetts? After the Civil War, Senate politics continued to dictate the creation and admission of states, including our own, in an era when Dixiecrats still fighting the civil war made common cause with Democrats fighting class warfare. The Steady Yeoman of the Midwest was the one who could be counted on to vote Plutocratican Republican, so new states were created to keep the Senate safe.

And so, my modest proposal:

1.  Abolish states.

2.  Abolish the Senate, or at least take a lesson from the Brits and turn it into a U.S. House of Lords.

3.  Refocus practical local government functions on counties.

4. Allow counties to join regional alliances to share common costs–or even to merge. (No. 1 obviously would allow this to take place “across state lines” as might make sense to the people living there, as in eastern “Colorado” and far western “Kansas,” for example.)

5. Create regional administrative districts, based on counties, to administer federal programs.

Lastly:

–Won’t happen. Why not?

–Won’t happen tomorrow. What are we waiting for?

–Don’t like it. What’s not to like, except perhaps that it’s a change and/or that you didn’t think of it first?

–Constitution doesn’t provide for it. Then change the Constitution–or replace it if needed.

–Crazy JO, hahahaha. ‘K, how about I try to sell you this thing that you can use to read any book in the New York City public library without leaving home in Kit Carson County?