Advantages of Statehood - Part 1

I will be making many posts concerning the advantages of Statehood.  One of the most important is the ability of the State of Long Island to re-invent or re-engineer what a state government would look like in the 21st century. The problem with the USA is that all 50 states are based on models from 200 years ago and more. They just don't work and they are almost impossible to change. California has gone berserk with its initiative process. It has produced more gridlock and more nonsense.

There are some promiment people working on the concept of re-inventing government; including such people as Al Gore and Andrew Cuomo. Additionally there are many academics investigating this issue. I would hope we could attract such people to our cause.

I believe creating a 21st century State Constitution for the State of Long Island would allow us to embed such features as Instant Runoff Voting and Proportional Representation into our government. We could also create a context where County Sherriffs, elected by the people would have some real power to stop the encroachment of the central government into local affairs.

While we could not eliminate "corporate personhood," we could create viable State Constitutional restrictions which would pass US Constitutional muster.

Another idea I have is to completely re-engineer our social safety net at the State level. I'll post more on that later.