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It’s not hard for me to believe that people who think the best government is local do not choose to work for the federal government. Besides, Washington DC votes 95% democrat. Conservatives will self select out of living in a one party town run by their out group. I thought moving the BLM to Grand Junction was excellent policy in this regard. Why in the world should the BLM, which controls 50% of the land out west, be run by Washington bureaucrats as an absentee landlord totally divorced from the land itself?
More generally, what is the meaning of Democracy when some of the people are highly underrepresented in positions of governance? I very much doubt Democrats would be OK with the federal government being located in rural Texas.
It took me a second to realize you weren't talking about black lives mattee
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Capital area Federal employees mostly live in NoVa, and besides which, most Federal employees work elsewhere. The Capital area has a disproportionate share of fed workers, but that's neither particular surprising nor inappropriate (these agencies' leaders are supposed to be available to meet with political leadership and even occasionally each other).
What does 'underrepresented' mean? Conservatives are underrepresented in the civil service; Liberals are underrepresented in law enforcement; Hispanics are underrepresented in the House; Californians are underrepresented in the Senate; Protestants are underrepresented on the Supreme Court.
To make this more explicit: this seems like special pleading for the representation of conservative interests.
A government of, by, and for the people is a good standard by me, no special pleading necessary. Strongly disproportionate representation in the government itself (of unelected officials) runs afoul. The composition of our civil servants isn’t encoded into the constitution, or quite possibly anything, and it can easily be changed. This is in essence the same argument, as you wrote, that Democrats make for the police. They say the police aren’t members of our community, geographically or otherwise, they don’t have our values and therefore don’t serve the community. Those concerns are valid however we address them. I would do so for both the police and our federal bureaucracy.
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