John Dingell, a former Michigan Democratic congressman who served nearly 60 years in office, wrote Tuesday that the Senate and electoral college should be abolished because of the “disproportionate influence” they award to smaller and less-populated states.
Dingell, whose wife Debbie now holds his Detroit-Ann Arbor seat, added that the “worst” reason for the decline of American politics is the “Trumpist mindset.”
“These jackasses who see deep state conspiracies in every part of government are the minority of a minority,” he wrote in “The Atlantic.”
He said other reasons for America’s decline included Ronald Reagan’s “folksy” assertion that the government is “not here to help” and the multiple wars that have been waged since the 92-year-old initially took office in 1958.
He called for the elimination of money in political campaigns, suggesting that they be publicly funded, and called for automatic voter registration at age 18 that would also be free of “voter ID, residency tests [or] impediments of any kind.”
In calling for the abolition of the U.S. Senate as it is composed today, he noted how the Great Compromise that formed the two houses — one on a more republican (sic) basis that gave each state two votes, and another on a democratic (sic) construction that allowed the population to determine representation — was supposed to balance the wants of a state like Rhode Island against a larger, more populated state.
Dingell said Wyoming as a whole has fewer people than his single congressional district in the Detroit area.
“With my own eyes, I’ve watched in horror and increasing anger as that imbalance in power has become the primary cause of our national legislative paralysis,” he said.
