Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
1 hour ago, bolverk said:

 

One way to think about it is that the Electoral College system, itself, is one big gerrymander. The elections ARE rigged.

Yes... the knowledge that a resident of ND, for example, has like 8x the voting power on a federal level than I do is just bullshit. Electoral College = Federal Gerrymandering is a great way to phrase it.

Posted
3 hours ago, David Dennison said:

I wonder why they're so unpopular.

It's a mystery.

 

I know that Bernie is an independent - however, why is Bernie forcing D senators to take this vote?

It only forces you to piss someone off in your state. I may actually agree with the policy but taking these votes when they have zero chance to pass may have negative ramifications as you try to win seats in 2026.

You can’t enact better policies until you have a majority.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted (edited)
21 minutes ago, bolverk said:

 

One pet idea that I've held for the past 20 years and think could get the ball rolling on some reforms would be to increase the number of representatives, which used to happen regularly with each Census as the nation's population grew. Congress capped the number of House seats at 435 in the 1920s. So, when the nation was founded, the typical rep served 35,000 people. By 1910, that had grown to 1 rep per 210,000, while in 1950 it was 345,000. In 2000, it had risen to 650,000, and today, it stands at over 760,000.

Adding a bunch of seats would break up these massive districts that allow our unrepresentative State legislature (which has the same population growth problem) to manipulate these massive districts that span from Denton to Dalhart or San Antonio to El Paso, that emphatically do not represent "communities of interest" while also increasing the cost of elections and almost guaranteeing that your representive does not have you and your neighbor's best interests in mind.

I don't know if the Texas Constitution allows for an expansion of the State Lege, but the US Congress absolutely could pass a law allowing expansion to happen. 

My pet idea is to fracture Congress so instead of one member per district we would have multiple sub-Congressional bodies with one member per body per district, where each body more or less has the same "jurisdiction" as the current Congressional committees. That would in theory allow each district to send someone who truly represents its interests at a greater granularity.

For example, a Houston district can send a pro-Oil MAGA guy to the Energy body and anti-MAGA pro-Immigration guys to the Homeland Security body, the Foreign Affairs body, and the Judiciary body.

Edited by chainsaw
  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
4 hours ago, David Dennison said:

And progressives have no choice but to vote for them unless they want to help Republicans by voting for a third party.

It sucks.

Which goes back to, if you supported the formation of a third party those 19 "democrats" who voted against bernie's bill, you'd have room for more democrats that would have voted for that bill. 

 

Posted
3 hours ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Corruption is so deeply ingrained in the American electoral system that you'd have to blow everything up and start from scratch for a 3rd party to have a legit chance. 

I'm still convinced the electoral college is the most harmful apparatus in our national politics, and it will continue to prevent any progress being made. Truly the stupidest shit I've ever seen. 

 

 

I deeply disagree.  Unless you are talking about blowing everything up and starting from scratch, this time without an EC, then I could see it depending on the re-archituring of the nation.

Posted
26 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:

I deeply disagree.  Unless you are talking about blowing everything up and starting from scratch, this time without an EC, then I could see it depending on the re-archituring of the nation.

What even is your position here? You seem to be just disagreeing to be contrarian. These points are barely contested by anyone, anywhere.

Posted (edited)
25 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

What even is your position here? You seem to be just disagreeing to be contrarian. These points are barely contested by anyone, anywhere.

The position is that for a representative democracy and federal system to work as a federation of (United) States, then it makes sense to have the system we have.

If you want to re-architect the system (burn down and build from the ground up, as you or someone else suggested was the way to break free from the chokehold of a two-party system) then I can see doing away with the EC for something else that might a) be deemed more appropriate for 2025 and b) something that would need buy-in or ratification.

Maybe just the former small-state resident in me (Live Free or Die!), but I find it personally distasteful to have agreed and entered into a political system and construct with an architecture undergirding the federal system of states that was agreed to and then completely changing the system to a population system where 3 or 4 states effectively run the rest of the 46-47. I won't use "pull the rug" or "bait and switch" as granted it's been 250 years, but it's definitely not something to be undertaken lightly.

Edited by Vegas64
Posted
17 minutes ago, Vegas64 said:

The position is that for a representative democracy and federal system to work as a federation of (United) States, then it makes sense to have the system we have.

If you want to re-architect the system (burn down and build from the ground up, as you or someone else suggested was the way to break free from the chokehold of a two-party system) then I can see doing away with the EC for something else that might a) be deemed more appropriate for 2025 and b) something that would need buy-in or ratification.

Maybe just the former small-state resident in me (Live Free or Die!), but I find it personally distasteful to have agreed and entered into a political system and construct with an architecture undergirding the federal system of states that was agreed to and then completely changing the system to a population system where 3 or 4 states effectively run the rest of the 46-47. I won't use "pull the rug" or "bait and switch" as granted it's been 250 years, but it's definitely not something to be undertaken lightly.

Again, I'd start with a single, simple act by Congress to increase the number of representatives for everyone, including smaller states: a) making them more "in touch" and accountable to their *local* constituents because that was what was intended initially at the country’s founding, b) softening the effect of gerrymandered districts, and c) increasing the chance of other electoral reforms through constitutional means.

  • Like 1
Posted
2 hours ago, bolverk said:

Again, I'd start with a single, simple act by Congress to increase the number of representatives for everyone, including smaller states: a) making them more "in touch" and accountable to their *local* constituents because that was what was intended initially at the country’s founding, b) softening the effect of gerrymandered districts, and c) increasing the chance of other electoral reforms through constitutional means.

I love this, it's actually quite brilliant.

Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, Hank Kingsley said:

Corruption is so deeply ingrained in the American electoral system that you'd have to blow everything up and start from scratch for a 3rd party to have a legit chance. 

I'm still convinced the electoral college is the most harmful apparatus in our national politics, and it will continue to prevent any progress being made. Truly the stupidest shit I've ever seen. 

 

 

It never once worked the way that Mr. Madison thought it would. It should have been trashed when we we started directly electing senators. 

It wouldn't be much of a problem if states weren't mostly winner take all and if we had far more representatives in the house. But it's been winner take all in pretty much all states ever since political partisans realized how much of an advantage it would give their party in the early 1800s.

It's really kind of incredible to think about how naive the Framers were about factionality. Even as they descended into factionality. 

Edited by elfenix
  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 2
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted
59 minutes ago, elfenix said:

It never once worked the way that Mr. Madison thought it would. It should have been trashed when we we started directly electing senators. 

It wouldn't be much of a problem if states weren't mostly winner take all and if we had far more representatives in the house. But it's been winner take all in pretty much all states ever since political partisans realized how much of an advantage it would give their party in the early 1800s.

It's really kind of incredible to think about how naive the Framers were about factionality. Even as they descended into factionality. 

Our entire constitutional framework needs to be restructured. 

Unfortunately, Constitution worship in this country borders on the fanatic and that makes actual reform absent a complete collapse of the American experiment hard to imagine.

Posted
11 hours ago, David Dennison said:

Unfortunately, Constitution worship in this country borders on the fanatic

Merely the word Constitution is worshipped like the word Bible. Then the worshippers run off and use merely the word to justify malign acts that neither document condones or promotes.



×
×
  • Create New...