Fixing Democracy

For this discussion topic, I recently came across the Vox article (linked below) by Ian Millhiser entitled, “11 ways to fix America’s fundamentally broken democracy,” that I thought would be a good touch point for this round of our online discussions.  Please read through the recommendations presented by Millhiser.  Once you have done so, pick one or two of the reforms he suggests and critique them for a) their ability to “fix” democracy as he contends, and b) comment on whether you think these reforms’ impacts would move government in a more liberal or conservative direction. Here is the link to the article:  https://www.vox.com/21336225/voting-rights-senate-electoral-college-gerrymandering-supreme-court  (Links to an external site.) For the most part, Milhiser proposes a  set of procedural reforms, implying that democracy is broken because of the procedures that we use.  Ultimately, however, changing the rules can change the substantive outcomes of the democratic process (moving policy away from, or closer to, the will of the people or in one policy direction or another).  One thing to note is that rule changes can help certain groups within a contemporary constellation of interests, but future preferences may change and the rules could move policy away from the very groups’ preferences that felt the rule change would help them at the time.  In short, don’t just think about what groups or interests would be aided now, but also how these rule changes would play out decades from now.