I don’t know about you, but in my house we’ve developed over the years a division of labor when it comes to decorating for Christmas….my wife and kid handle the inside stuff and I handle the outside.  

Now, to be fair, we all get input on everything, inside and out, but since I’m the one doing the work, I get final say on the outside, and vice versa.  

On that note, the wife and kid put in recently that they have grown disenchanted with the lights I put on our front bushes because they don’t feel they are bright enough and don’t show up well enough.  

We’ve had them for at least 5 years and have never been particularly bright, but they get the job done in my opinion, and I’m a firm believer that if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  

(I’m also cheap and don’t like to spend money on things I don’t have to, even if it’s an inexpensive strand of lights.)  

But the whole convo got me thinking, and since I’m always thinking about our country my brain of course made a connection that I thought I’d share.  

Christmas lights have continued to improve and evolve over the years from plain white lights, to multicolored lights, to smaller bulbs, from strands where the whole thing went out if one light blew to strands that stay lit even if a few of the bulbs are blown, to LED bulbs, icicle lights, light projectors, pre-lit trees and wreaths, trees that have foot pedals to change the lights and what they do, and the list goes on.  

Why have we had all of this advancement in Christmas lights?  Because the free market encouraged and allowed for new innovations.  

Our democracy has been crying out for the same freedom to innovate, and it’s long past time we make it happen.  

Throughout our history one value and outlook that we all shared, regardless of political leanings, was that the end goal was to keep building a more perfect Union, to be better today than we were yesterday, and better tomorrow than we are today.    

The goal was never to freeze things as they were, or take us back in time, or accept the old mantra of “well this is how it’s always been done, so that’s how we have to do it”, yet that’s exactly what both parties would have us do.  

The only time either one is semi-interested in systemic reforms is when they are the party out of power, but once they win again, they lose interest and would rather focus on keeping power.   

When our country was founded the only example upon which to design our system of government was the British system, so our founders took inspiration from them.  I cannot fault them for that. They truly didn’t know better.  

But now, after almost 250 years, we know of many tried and tested steps we can take to innovate our republic away from a confrontational/zero sum style of elections to a more consensus building and collaborative approach.  

Why should we care?  Because so many of our societal and governmental problems are going unsolved for decades longer than they need to, and in many cases are symptoms of this root problem…how our system is designed to work.  

Right now it’s only working for the two big parties, to maintain their hold on the electorate, while keeping problems alive to campaign on and raise money off of, instead of solving the problems once and for all.  

If we can innovate how our leaders are elected, and how they do their work, we will all get a better product at the end of the day, including the entire world.  

It’s not about whether America was great, is great now, will be great again, always was great, etc….it’s about “are we maximizing our potential as a nation, as a people, for ourselves and for the planet?”    

For the sake of brevity, I’m not going to explain them each because I do so elsewhere on my website, but below is my grown up Christmas list for innovations that would finally start to get us all way better elected officials, and by extension a more perfect Union, across the board.  

1. Expand the US House of Representatives to 1,000 and build a new larger Capitol Building if necessary
2. Independent Redistricting Commissions to eliminate gerrymandering once and for all
3. Final Five voting (combining top 5 open primaries with ranked choice voting)
4. National Popular Vote for President & eliminate the Electoral College
5. National Presidential Primary Day
6. Take the money out of politics/public financing of campaigns
7. Line item veto constitutional amendment
8. Ease ballot access rules for new parties and independents

So when you’re putting up or taking down or just admiring some lights this holiday season, think about our country’s elections system and system of government.  

If we can do better than dim bulbs in the one, surely we can do better than dim bulbs in the other. 

And if anyone needs me, I’ll be out at stores looking for new lights to keep my constituency of 2 happy.