One Day on Mars

'His policies are following a whirlwind of approval from pollsters,' Mortimer continued. 'Systemwide economic growth and a strong defense against inter-system competition of market goods and commerce due to cheaper products from the Colonies seems to be a big successful hot button for the American voters.' Mortimer leaned back in his chair and scribbled some notes on a pad in front of him.

'That seems to be how the American people feel about it anyway,' Britt Howard, the show's host and anchor for the Earth News Network (ENN) at the New York City anchor desk, replied. 'It would appear that a 'Buy American' policy has been the unofficial cry of the Alberts administration and indeed the president has lobbied extremely hard to increase the tariffs on all imports from the four extra-solar colonies. There has also been a push from the White House to tax the goods and services coming from the Separatist Laborers Guild on the Martian Reservation. This policy has also seemed to not only be broadly accepted by the American public, but the latest polls show that the public is overwhelmingly for higher taxation on the Reservation Workers' incomes and businesses,' Britt Howard continued, and then nodded across the round table at the only female on the panel.

'Well, I have to say that I think this will cause the wedge to be driven even deeper between the actual states here in Sol's System and the Separatists on the Reservation at Mars and the colonists at Proxima Centauri, Ross 128, Lalande 21185, and Tau Ceti,' Alice St. John of the System Review replied. As the youngest member and with her shoulder-length black hair and more modern dress and demeanor, she was often used to express the radical dissenting voice on the panel. After all, Alice never minded showing the tiniest hint of her cleavage or any restraint when calling one of the 'elder reporters' on something that she thought was utter bullshit. Fortunately for Alice, she was smart and pretty and therefore what little bit of radical viewership the Earth News Network had liked her and so she was able to keep her job secure.

'The Colonies have shown little interest in supporting these new White House policies since, on the surface at least; they appear to be nothing more than the statement that the citizens on the Reservation and in the Colonies are second-class citizens with little voice,' she continued.

'I agree, Alice. That does seem to be the present view of the radical Republicans and the Independents. They are campaigning on the platform that the Reservation should become a state and so should the Colonies. But since there is no longer an electoral college, making those territories states will do little to overturn any major population majority votes. The people of those regions already get to vote. Calling them members of a new state wouldn't really matter, would it? Most feel that this is just a ploy of the GOP to usurp power from the other two parties again. And the radical Republicans claim it would enable Americans to 'take back' their country.'

'Careful, Walt. That sounds a little revolutionary.' Britt laughed. Of course neither he nor Walt would think that any members of the United States of America could ever consider such an archaic concept any longer. Civil wars and revolutions were things of the past. Oh, there were terrorist skirmishes but not all-out war.

'Well, in that case, Walt,' Alice replied, 'wouldn't you have to agree with the Separatists and the Colonists that they have no voice and that their votes really do mean very little? With no electoral votes the measly few percent of the popular vote they have is easily swayed by, say, the New African bloc, or the Mexican votes or the Chinese votes or the Indian Nationalist votes or the Luna City votes. There are strings of other special interest groups much larger than the few million Separatists or the Colonists. A few percent voting bloc is no longer a large enough piece to really sway the elections of anything one way or the other.'

'Ha, ha. Alice, I most definitely wouldn't go that far. This is still a democracy and the majority status rules,' the elder reporter Walt Mortimer said jocularly. 'The guidance of our forefathers tell us that 'majority rule' is best. And in the end every vote counts.'

'Come now, Walt. Every vote counts? Oh sure, every vote gets counted. But there is a large difference in the nuances of the two statements,' Alice corrected her colleague. She held her composure well but she grew a bit red in the face with anger at the seasoned reporter's judicious use of incorrect statements as facts. 'And 'majority rule' isn't history at all. In fact, the United States was actually designed as a republic and the electoral college was created to prevent an uneducated majority rule. Our forefathers actually feared the thought of majority rule once the majority grew complacent and learned how to vote themselves power, hence the electoral college.'

'This isn't a history debate, but I recall there also being an issue of voting technology as a factor in driving the need for an electoral college. People walked or rode horseback to vote on a piece of paper in their general elections. The states counted the votes and then the representative from the electoral college would travel to Washington to cast his distribution of electoral votes based on the general vote.'

'Okay, I have to comment on that.' Steam nearly escaped from Alice's ears as she approached the boiling point. She kept her composure, almost, and that is what her radical fans liked about her, emotions. 'Walt, that is just not true historically. Oh, the geographical representation was considered, but not for that reason. The Founding Fathers who are now known as the 'Framers of the Constitution' didn't doubt public intelligence of the time. They feared it could happen in the future and that the electoral college could help prevent it in from happening but it was not the issue of the day. Instead, what they feared most was the problem of the 'favorite son' scenario.' Alice paused for a second to see if there was recognition of the scenario from her colleagues' faces. She saw nonplussed poker faces, which meant they were probably having their AIs download backup information for them and summarize it to them as quickly as possible. So she sighed and continued.

'The 'favorite son' scenario is that without sufficient information about the candidates running for president from outside their state, locals have no reason to vote for an outsider and would most likely cast their votes for the 'favorite son' from their own hometown region. The local boy would always win the local election over a stranger from out of town; that was the fear. The worst fear was that no president would ever be elected with a popular majority of the votes to govern the whole country without bitterness from other regions. Another fear was that the popular majority choice of president would always be from the largest and/or most densely populated states which would pretty much render the votes of the smaller states superfluous and irrelevant. Does this sound familiar to anyone here? Deja vu anyone?' Alice threw up her hands.

'Well, be that as it may, and it may be a topic for a full show sometime,' Britt interjected himself into the debate with an attempt to stall Alice's soliloquy. 'The main issue for today is that the Separatists and the citizens in the four colonies do seem to have little desire to support this administration or its policies. In fact the governors of Tau Ceti and from Lalande 21185 have issued statements that their lawyers believe that President Alberts' new tariffs proposal to the Congress is in violation of the Inter-System Free Trade Agreement and that they are indeed seeking appeals of the policies through the Supreme Court.'

'Well, I think that is the right course of action, or perhaps, the only real course of action that could be taken from a colonial standpoint.' Mortimer replied magniloquently. 'If they don't like the law either challenge its constitutionality or rally Congress to change it or the president to veto it. The Supreme Court is their best shot.'

'Walt, again, is that really true? From a colonial perspective what did the original colonists of the thirteen colonies of the United States do when faced with similar impositions from England?' Alice once again began explaining history to the elder reporter who had long been accused of being a mouthpiece for the DNC and biased but only the GOP extremists would ever say such a thing.

'Goddamned rightwing nut!' President of the United States of America William Alberts sat in his West Wing office of the White House watching