Voters are disengaged and disillusioned by the one-party fiefdoms that deny meaningful representation to any alternative political views – particularly here in the north-east where 28 out of 30 MPs are Labour, at least until the general election.
MTV itself was an early adopter of meaningful representation across categories of race, gender, and sexuality; "Real World," which assembled widely divergent twentysomethings, broke the mold of cable television decades ago.
But the civil liberties lawyers argue that a broad review is necessary because the arrangement has not addressed systemic failings that unconstitutionally leave tens of thousands of defendants without meaningful representation in every part of the state.
The law, the most ambitious effort since Watergate to reduce the influence of big donations on the political process, set up an immediate conflict between the goals of free speech and what its supporters called "meaningful representation," the ability of those who do not make large contributions to have their voices heard.
Combine that with the trend for more efficient aggregation of news - a link when one link is enough, or a gallery when that explains the story better - and we have a more efficient and more meaningful representation of the news we need to know about.
In February, the New York County Lawyers Associationn, of which I am president, sued Governor Pataki and the state to ensure that children and the indigent in family and criminal proceedings get the meaningful representation guaranteed by the federal and state Constitutions.
"Our goal is fair and meaningful representation," said Glenn D. Magpantay, the director of the democracy program at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is seeking an increase in the number of Assembly districts that are largely Asian-American to four, from one.
The defendants did not appear to have meaningful representation by defence attorneys, and hearing a case in four days on such serious charges seems inherently rushed and likely insufficient to satisfy the defendants' right to a fair trial," Ms Barr added.
Politicians represent particular places, not ideas or industries or genders, and so if you are a Somalian-born American working in Paris for Nissan, you live in a democracy but without meaningful representation, with no public servants driven to take up your battles.
