The voice chakra grants the people the ability to stand up and declare what changes they want to see in the country. In our representative democracy system, our elected officials are supposed to write, pass, and validate laws, while the media should serve as a watchdog to these powers, on behalf of the people. Unfortunately our do-nothing congress and comically biased corporate media is the result of a plutocracy that is controlled by the mega rich and powerful.
Why is this chakra broken?
The revolving door
National parties
Corporate media
Billionaires
The revolving door
The Buckley v Valeo ruling says money = speech, while the Citizens United v FEC ruling allows corporate PACs, lobby groups, and big money bundles to fund our politicians. This has allowed fossil fuel tycoons Charles and David Koch (combined net worth over $100 billion) to spend hundred of millions of dollars on politicians. Money gives candidates a huge advantage in winning elections. When they win, these politicians turn around and represent the interests of those powerful groups that funded them, by denying climate change and spending over $20 billion on fossil fuel subsidies. What’s worse is, when these bought politicians leave Congress, they tend to get swooped up by lobby groups for their insider knowledge.
National parties
US elections operate on a winner-take-all system where the voters really only get to choose between two parties: Democrat or Republican. These national parties are also bought – 3/4th of Democratic National Committee (DNC) money comes from just 17 donors. Unfortunately, voting 3rd party (e.g. Green) hurts the chance that your preferred major party candidate (e.g. Democrat) will win.
Corporate media
Multi-billion dollar mainstream media companies depend on ad revenue, which can make them beholden to certain public figures, individuals, or corporate interests. For example, CNN asked for an upfront commitment of $300,000 to run ads during the Democratic Primary debates, and many of those companies have an agenda and a vested interest in who gets elected. These loyal establishment lapdogs – CNN, MSNBC, and FOX – are terrible at their jobs, while actual watchdog whistle-blowers like Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden are punished for telling the truth about our government. No wonder public trust in mass media is down to 41 %.
Billionaires
Most 2020 Presidential candidates announced their bid in early 2019. Billionaire Tom Steyer (net worth $1.6 billion) hops into the race in July and has spent $100 million to flood the TV with his ads. As of January 2020, he’s 1 of 6 candidates to continuously make it onto the debate stage. Mega-billionaire Mike Bloomberg (net worth $60 billion) enters the race in late November, doesn’t care about getting onto the debate stage, doesn’t care about competing in the first 4 states. He drops a cool $200 million, and jumps to 4th place in the polls (9 % nationally). You can’t buy these politicians…but they can certainly buy the election
Get the money out of politics
Under Bernie Sanders’ anti-corruption plan, we would:
End super PACs
Change donation rules
Close the revolving door
Watch the watchdogs
End super PACs
Prevent large corporations from spending unlimited money on elections with a constitutional amendment.
Change donation rules
Ban all corporate donations for presidential inaugurations, the Democratic Party Convention, and the DNC. Additionally, the DNC cannot take money from lobbyists.
Limit all individual donations to $500, and publicly fund National Party Conventions by strengthening the Federal Campaign Act.
Close the revolving door
Put a lifetime lobbying ban on national party chairs and former members of Congress.
Watch the watchdogs
Ban advertising on corporate media networks during presidential primary debates. We should also implement transparency laws so that we all know the ownership structure and funding sources for these media companies. Also, we can just stop watching mass media, and go for independent media instead.
Reform our election system
Once we get the money out of politics, we’ll want to ensure that our elections are fair and represent the needs of the people. Here are several ideas, many from Andrew Yang:
Rank choice voting
Publicly fund elections
Modify the electoral college
Make elections accessible
Make elections fair
Grant statehood
Reduce gerrymandering
Secure our democracy
Rank choice voting
Rank choice voting allows us to rank the candidates. If your top candidate gets little support, your vote may get kicked to your 2nd choice, or 3rd, until your vote contributes to a competitive candidate. This allows smaller parties to be competitive, which makes the field more diverse and more representative of the general public.
Publicly fund elections
With publicly funded elections, the government would give each citizen $100/year to donate to elections, use it or lose it.
Modify the electoral college
The electoral college encourages presidential candidates to focus their campaigns on the few swing states that tend to decide elections. The needs of people in other states are easily overlooked. If we outright eliminate the electoral college, presidential candidates would just shift their focus from swing states to densely populated cities. The majority of rural and suburban areas will be overlooked. Therefore, states should distribute their electoral points proportionally based on how their population voted. This forces candidates to campaign in every state and fight for every electoral point they can get.
Make elections accessible
Automatically register people to vote when they reach the eligible age to avoid the complicated requirements of their state. States that have implemented this policy have more than 60 % increase in voter registration.
Make election day a holiday and offer tax breaks to companies that pay their employees to vote. This ensures voter turnout despite economic status. We can also lower the voting age to 16. Delaying when a person first votes has been shown to decrease the likelihood of that person becoming a regular voter.
Make elections fair
Replace the useless FEC with the Federal Election Administration, an actual law enforcement agency that ensures fair elections.
Grant statehood
Make Washington DC and Puerto Rico a state to ensure taxation with representation.
Reduce gerrymandering
Have judges draw fair district lines by reducing the “efficiency gap” to less than 7 % in their districts.
Secure our democracy
Our elections are vulnerable to cyber hackers that can rig the vote. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that 21 states were targets in the 2016 election. We can eliminate this threat by using paper ballots or a paper trail to ensure that every vote was counted accurately. Alternatively, we could go in the other direction and have Americans vote with their mobile devices, with blockchain validation.