AARoads Forum

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/1036681001

New California has declared independence from the rest of it. Current California would be reduced to Sacramento, San Francisco, LA and San Diego metro areas. New California would be the New California.

Puerto Rico has had movements in the past (but turned down) and DC also wants the 51st state designation. Thoughts?

I personally am in support of California splitting. Puerto Rico is up to them but DC should not become a state. The founders did not want DC to become part of a state or a state itself because it is the country's capital.

April 1st came early in 2018...

If it is to happen it would probably take away electoral votes from the Democratic Party.

Also it will change the makeup of the House and Senate slightly but probably not that much.


iPhone

Quote from: Papa Georgio on January 16, 2018, 08:55:38 PM
If it is to happen it would probably take away electoral votes from the Democratic Party.

Also it will change the makeup of the House and Senate slightly but probably not that much.


iPhone

Senate probably more than house because each state has 2 senators vs each state is garunteed only 1 state rep the extras are divided porpotionaly. Electoral votes is a different story.

Quote from: Hurricane Rex on January 16, 2018, 09:06:17 PM
Senate probably more than house because each state has 2 senators vs each state is garunteed only 1 state rep the extras are divided porpotionaly. Electoral votes is a different story.

Yeah but it would still be even (102 I believe) so it should function fine.


iPhone

DC as a state could work.  You could pull a Vatican City and keep all the federal buildings as part of a federal district while the land surround them becomes part of the State of New Columbia.  The President would also be mayor of the federal district, just as the Pope is also King of Vatican City.  A new set of ordinances pertaining to the federal district would be drafted by both houses in Congress, signed into law by the President and codified in the Code of Federal Regulations.

Quote from: Hurricane Rex on January 16, 2018, 08:51:54 PM
The founders did not want DC to become part of a state or a state itself because it is the country's capital.

Because of DC's proximity to the capital compared to the other states.  The airplane sort of rendered that point moot.

Also, if we're playing "the founders didn't want it," we may as well go back to letting state legislatures elect Senators.

I still say that the top five  metro areas should be their own states.  Otherwise the heavily blue urban areas have too much pull over heavily red rural areas, at least when it comes to state politics.

Nationally, I would think things would still tend to balance out.

The capitals of Mexico and Australia are not states; they're their own district the same way Washington DC is. The US is not alone in having its capital not be part of a state.

Quote from: inkyatari on January 17, 2018, 09:31:10 AM
I still say that the top five  metro areas should be their own states.  Otherwise the heavily blue urban areas have too much pull over heavily red rural areas, at least when it comes to state politics.

Nationally, I would think things would still tend to balance out.

New York could split into two, as could Chicago. If Los Angeles, DFW, or Houston split, you would have a state completely surrounded by another (especially DFW, where it would be surrounded by Texas on all four sides and not a combination of another state and ocean). I could see California or Texas split into two in a way that includes more than just the metro area.

If California, Texas, New York, and Illinois each split into two, does that mean New England goes from 6 states to 2 (CT/RI/MA and VT/NH/ME)?

I'm completely ignoring how Senate composition and electoral college bias will change in this post.

Where would the capital be located, and what would the postal code for the new state be? Surely it can't be NC, because the Tar Heel State already has it! But I do like the idea of splitting the state in half, and it's been forever since they first talked about doing that, it seems.

I wish I was a billionaire so I could redraw state boundaries to help my political party.

What a bunch of ridiculous bullshit.

Quote from: triplemultiplex on January 17, 2018, 09:50:45 AM
I wish I was a billionaire so I could redraw state boundaries to help my political party.

What a bunch of ridiculous bullshit.

The rural section is seceding from the urban section, right?

It won't help the Republicans. New California still went for Clinton 57-43. Both states would be Democratic in the Electoral College, Democrats would get two extra senators, and the House makeup wouldn't change much because they aren't statewide.

Quote from: Henry on January 17, 2018, 09:34:57 AM
Where would the capital be located, and what would the postal code for the new state be? Surely it can't be NC, because the Tar Heel State already has it! ....

I've wondered the same thing about the abbreviation when people in DC talk about statehood under the name "New Columbia." Poses the same problem. Maybe they recognized that, as the most recent statehood discussion I saw proposed calling it the "State of Washington DC."

CURRENT politics are, well, current.  I am not really THAT old (well maybe I am) and multiple states have changed from solidly this to solidly the other or to "swing" in my lifetime and back.  California was a solidly Republican state not that long ago.  In 20 or 30 years, who knows what will be what. 

Now, that said, if you look at the electorial map with shading by counties (multiple sites have these on line) and at election results in California for other races, it is clear that the voices of the productive people inland are being drowned out by the coastal elites.  A similar situation exists all over the country, in most states with big cities in fact.  This is a problem more with the state government than federal politics, as it must be frustrating to be governed by people who have no idea about your needs.

In the broadest terms, really Florida and California should be divided into several states, as they are simply too big to govern properly and have different areas with vastly different economies and thus needs and wants from government. 

DC cannot be made a state without a Constitutional amendment approved by all 50 states.  That will never happen.

Quote from: inkyatari on January 17, 2018, 09:31:10 AM
I still say that the top five  metro areas should be their own states.  Otherwise the heavily blue urban areas have too much pull over heavily red rural areas, at least when it comes to state politics.

Nationally, I would think things would still tend to balance out.

Well, with agriculture evolving from small farms towards larger industrialized business, and mining becoming more automated and more overseas, fraction of urban population grows and will keep growing. This is more about being able to find compromise between interests of different groups than dividing states. Compromise, an art lost over time...

Quote from: SP Cook on January 17, 2018, 10:22:27 AM
DC cannot be made a state without a Constitutional amendment approved by all 50 states.  That will never happen.

Actually, 38 states.  An amendment must be ratified by three-quarters of the states (either the legislature or by convention) to become effective after it has been approved by two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate (or two-thirds of State Legislatures).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_States_Constitution

QuoteThe Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

Quote from: SP Cook on January 17, 2018, 10:22:27 AM
DC cannot be made a state without a Constitutional amendment approved by all 50 states.

Actually it can. You don't need a constitutional amendment to make D.C. a state.

Even then, a constitutional amendment only needs 38 states to pass, not all 50.

It's a shame the productive people in the cities are being drowned out by suburban and rural elites.

Actually it is 50.  Read the last clause of Article Five. 

... no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. 

Thus changing the Senate from "two per state" to "two per state, plus two for this non-state" requires the consent of EVERY state. 

Likewise, DC may not be given a vote in the House, because Article One, Clause One provides that "The House ... shall be composed of Members chosen .... by the people of the several states".  Thus changing the House from "members chosen by the states" to "members chosen by the states, plus people from this non-state" would require a amendment, in this case the regular one, 38 states.

Likewise, Section Eight of Article One makes the existance of DC mandatory, and, as happened with Arlington, should Congress take some parts of it out of DC (the so-called "Vatican solution") it would retrocede to Maryland.

Quote from: 1 on January 17, 2018, 09:56:31 AM

Quote from: triplemultiplex on January 17, 2018, 09:50:45 AM
I wish I was a billionaire so I could redraw state boundaries to help my political party.

What a bunch of ridiculous bullshit.

The rural section is seceding from the urban section, right?

Actually, that's not their plan at all. If you look at the map in the USA Today article, you'll see that they put Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Clara and Contra Costa Counties in "New California." Those counties alone give them 14 million people, and while I can see including those Southern counties, as they do lean toward the conservative end, I don't understand the two Bay Area counties being included - they're heavily urban, heavily liberal, and it slices it one metropolitan area between two states in an awkward fashion - in fact, the map looks like one of the Gerrymandered districts from North Carolina. All I can figure, at least with Santa Clara County, is it's a blatant grab for the Silicon Valley economic engine to help fund the new state.

If their goal was to balance the power away from the "coastal/urban elite" (which, by the way, is as uninformed and unhelpful a term as any of the rural/redneck monikers out there, and does nothing to actually move the discussion forward), then why include six of the ten most populous counties and two of the four largest cities in the new state?

Quote from: 1 on January 17, 2018, 09:32:20 AM
The capitals of Mexico and Australia are not states; they're their own district the same way Washington DC is. The US is not alone in having its capital not be part of a state.

Quote from: inkyatari on January 17, 2018, 09:31:10 AM
I still say that the top five  metro areas should be their own states.  Otherwise the heavily blue urban areas have too much pull over heavily red rural areas, at least when it comes to state politics.

Nationally, I would think things would still tend to balance out.

New York could split into two, as could Chicago. If Los Angeles, DFW, or Houston split, you would have a state completely surrounded by another (especially DFW, where it would be surrounded by Texas on all four sides and not a combination of another state and ocean). I could see California or Texas split into two in a way that includes more than just the metro area.

If California, Texas, New York, and Illinois each split into two, does that mean New England goes from 6 states to 2 (CT/RI/MA and VT/NH/ME)?

I'm completely ignoring how Senate composition and electoral college bias will change in this post.

New York and Illinois would be a prime canidate for splitting, Texas is undecided for me. I don't think New England would change much though.

Quote from: SP Cook on January 17, 2018, 11:31:13 AM
Actually it is 50.  Read the last clause of Article Five. 

... no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate. 

Thus changing the Senate from "two per state" to "two per state, plus two for this non-state" requires the consent of EVERY state.

As DC lacks senators at this juncture, just as a territory, then the equal suffrage is a moot point.  If made a state, then DC would have to have two senators plus the appropriate number of representatives.  Again, your point is moot.

Quote from: SP Cook on January 17, 2018, 11:31:13 AM
Likewise, DC may not be given a vote in the House, because Article One, Clause One provides that "The House ... shall be composed of Members chosen .... by the people of the several states".  Thus changing the House from "members chosen by the states" to "members chosen by the states, plus people from this non-state" would require a amendment, in this case the regular one, 38 states.

Likewise, Section Eight of Article One makes the existance of DC mandatory, and, as happened with Arlington, should Congress take some parts of it out of DC (the so-called "Vatican solution") it would retrocede to Maryland.

Again, a constitutional amendment in accordance with Article 5 could address this.  It wouldn't be the first time such an amendment was made changing the original constitution.  Read up on a few others, starting with Amendment 12, and continuing through Amendment 27.

The water rights issues from the Sierras alone make splitting up California a non-starter. 

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 17, 2018, 12:41:36 PM
The water rights issues from the Sierras alone make splitting up California a non-starter. 

Those water rights are a knot tied up in a corundum, mixed up in a clusterfuck.

In Oregon we have seen how MJ and gas fueling laws have been able to be dealt with on a county level perspective.  Cities get to weigh in on MJ and gun laws as well.  Sometimes the policy is Demo, sometimes it is GOP.  This kind of deal seems to help when there are widely varying views in one state.

Rick

Quote from: abefroman329 on January 17, 2018, 09:27:21 AM

Quote from: Hurricane Rex on January 16, 2018, 08:51:54 PM
The founders did not want DC to become part of a state or a state itself because it is the country's capital.

Because of DC's proximity to the capital compared to the other states.  The airplane sort of rendered that point moot.

Also, if we're playing "the founders didn't want it," we may as well go back to letting state legislatures elect Senators.

That sounds like a good idea actually.

Quote from: 1 on January 17, 2018, 09:32:20 AM
The capitals of Mexico and Australia are not states; they're their own district the same way Washington DC is. The US is not alone in having its capital not be part of a state.

In Mexico, there has not been such a thing as the Distrito Federal since January 2016.  Mexico City is prevented by the Constitution from becoming a state, but it is now considered a "federal entity," which is the same designation given to states.  It now or will shortly have its own congress, draft its own constitution, elect municipal mayors and councils, be eligible for state and municipal funding from the federal government, etc.  The federal government will continue to have its seat in Mexico City per the Constitution, and it will also fund the health care and education systems there, but in a great many respects Mexico City is now indistinguishable from any other state.

Quote from: SP Cook on January 17, 2018, 10:22:27 AM
Now, that said, if you look at the electorial map with shading by counties (multiple sites have these on line) and at election results in California for other races, it is clear that the voices of the productive people inland are being drowned out by the coastal elites.

Those maps are meaningless, since counties have wildly different populations.  I'm sure it's really impressive to you to see ten red counties and one blue county, but that one blue county could have a larger population than all ten combined.

California should split up becasue no state should ever have 55 electoral votes too much power for one state in the electoral college.

Quote from: inkyatari on January 17, 2018, 09:31:10 AM
I still say that the top five  metro areas should be their own states.  Otherwise the heavily blue urban areas have too much pull over heavily red rural areas, at least when it comes to state politics.

It's the opposite for national politics - since blue voters are concentrated in cities and red voters are spread across the rest of the state, and electoral districts have to have an equal number of residents, you could have a situation where a state is 50% blue voters and 50% red voters, but has 3-4 times as many red Members of Congress as blue Members.

Quote from: dvferyance on January 17, 2018, 02:12:47 PM
California should split up becasue no state should ever have 55 electoral votes too much power for one state in the electoral college.

Texas has 38, should we split up Texas?  Or is it OK because those 38 will always go to the Republican candidate?

Quote from: abefroman329 on January 17, 2018, 02:15:36 PM

Quote from: dvferyance on January 17, 2018, 02:12:47 PM
California should split up becasue no state should ever have 55 electoral votes too much power for one state in the electoral college.

Texas has 38, should we split up Texas?  Or is it OK because those 38 will always go to the Republican candidate?

I was afraid this was going to get too political. I should have also made the point that California has more people than Canada. Can a state government still function on it's own with such a huge population? The new state of Jefferson proposal would still leave California with about 49 electoral votes that is still more than Texas. New York never had 55 electoral votes during it's peak.

Quote from: Brandon on January 17, 2018, 12:50:20 PM

Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 17, 2018, 12:41:36 PM
The water rights issues from the Sierras alone make splitting up California a non-starter. 

Those water rights are a knot tied up in a corundum, mixed up in a clusterfuck.

Not to mention the Colorado River watershed and the rights there.  You start carving up California and that becomes even more a disaster. 

Quote from: dvferyance on January 17, 2018, 02:23:25 PM

Quote from: abefroman329 on January 17, 2018, 02:15:36 PM

Quote from: dvferyance on January 17, 2018, 02:12:47 PM
California should split up becasue no state should ever have 55 electoral votes too much power for one state in the electoral college.

Texas has 38, should we split up Texas?  Or is it OK because those 38 will always go to the Republican candidate?

I was afraid this was going to get too political. I should have also made the point that California has more people than Canada. Can a state government still function on it's own with such a huge population? The new state of Jefferson proposal would still leave California with about 49 electoral votes that is still more than Texas. New York never had 55 electoral votes during it's peak.

But Canada is still able to operate under the single government? 
Leaving electoral college thing aside, are there any other fundamental issues with government of entity with 40 million people?
If anything, that may include internal restructure with counties and/or megacities  getting more authority within the state, as counties further away from big cities do have different priorities than LA or SF area. It may be somewhat close idea to some NYS laws not applying to either NYC or "cities over 1 million" (still NYC) - and city taking over those matters.

Quote from: Papa Georgio on January 16, 2018, 08:55:38 PM
If it is to happen it would probably take away electoral votes from the Democratic Party.

Also it will change the makeup of the House and Senate slightly but probably not that much.


iPhone

Because of this reason, I can't see any splitting or merging of existing states ever happening.  The party that the split would hurt would filibuster the act in Congress (and splitting states would require Congressional approval.)

New York should split into two, along the 42nd parallel.

This could, but would not have to, be done in conjunction with splits in other states, such as California.

Hell no No way that's going to happen where Sacramento and Solano counties would be fractured for two California's  also how will water deals come into play.

Quote from: bing101 on January 17, 2018, 04:22:59 PM
Hell no No way that's going to happen where Sacramento and Solano counties would be fractured for two California's  also how will water deals come into play.

That's where the Water Rights Clusterfuck^TM comes into play.

All I know is that I am tired of the way that illinois is governed, making those of us not in the chicago metro have little say in statewide politics.

Quote from: inkyatari on January 17, 2018, 05:11:09 PM
All I know is that I am tired of the way that illinois is governed, making those of us not in the chicago metro have little say in statewide politics.

FIFY.  Even those of us supposedly in the Metro Chicago (Will, Kane, McHenry) lack any real say.

How will roads be funded? Also how will Solano County residents get to work?

I notice the map shows that if someone from Solano county wants to drive to the Bay Area or Sacramento they have to cross state borders twice to get to their destination like Sacramento and San Francisco. This has to be poorly executed.

Let's face it, greater Chicago has most of Illinois's population.

I would like Puerto Rico to become a state eventually. I would also like to see all the pacific territories and Hawaii become one state called the Pacific Union (or PU).

Quote from: abefroman329 on January 17, 2018, 02:15:36 PM

Quote from: dvferyance on January 17, 2018, 02:12:47 PM
California should split up becasue no state should ever have 55 electoral votes too much power for one state in the electoral college.

Texas has 38, should we split up Texas?  Or is it OK because those 38 will always go to the Republican candidate?

There's no guarantee if Texas were split up, all the successor states would be red states.  There's a substantial liberal population in Texas and dividing the state might bring it out.  LBJ, arguably the most liberal president ever, was from Texas...

Quote from: kkt on January 17, 2018, 07:39:07 PM

Quote from: abefroman329 on January 17, 2018, 02:15:36 PM

Quote from: dvferyance on January 17, 2018, 02:12:47 PM
California should split up becasue no state should ever have 55 electoral votes too much power for one state in the electoral college.

Texas has 38, should we split up Texas?  Or is it OK because those 38 will always go to the Republican candidate?

There's no guarantee if Texas were split up, all the successor states would be red states.  There's a substantial liberal population in Texas and dividing the state might bring it out.  LBJ, arguably the most liberal president ever, was from Texas...

The state with Austin and San Antonio would vote democrat.

Quote from: Roadgeekteen on January 17, 2018, 06:38:55 PM
I would like Puerto Rico to become a state eventually. I would also like to see all the pacific territories and Hawaii become one state called the Pacific Union (or PU).

How about the U.S. Virgin Islands they should be considered for 51st state status.

Remember Obama's "57 states" comment?  It would be next to impossible to get that many but we could get Puerto Rico as one.  Is there enough in common with the Virgin Islands, which were bought by the USA from Denmark in 1917, with the former Spanish colony won by the USA in the Spanish-American War?  Doubtful and given the tiny population of the Virgin Islands, I would see them remaining as a territory. 

Guam and the Northern Marianas would seem logical to merge but that will never happen since the Guamians remember the Japanese atrocities from WW2 vividly while the Northern Marianas was a League of Nations mandate given to Japan since Germany (the original Great Power owner) and their Central Powers partners lost WW1.  These two groups do not like each other. That also makes for two tiny populations getting 4 Senators and 2 Reps, which is overproportionate.  Kiss this idea goodbye.

American Samoa would be another case of too few people. Heck, there's more of us in Coos County than there is on those islands!  Looking at the tiny islands like Wake. Johnson and Midway shows hardly any people living on them so they are out as well.

Puerto Rico or bust for the 51st state is what the situation looks like to me and the short term odds of that are lousy since the Puerto Ricans are in debt up to their eyeballs and anyone they send to Congress would be Demo.  Clear up their debts and wait for a Demo cycle, then see if there is a majority on that island and among the current 50 states to admit them would be the most likely path for them to become #51.

Rick

Anyone wanna hear a good idea?

Make L.A. County it's own state.

Dredge up land along the coast, wrap it southeast to O.C. and north to Ventura, and make that part of the rest of California, effectively marooning the new state in.

Watch as people lose their s**t over it.

There. Problem solved.

Quote from: inkyatari on January 17, 2018, 09:31:10 AM
I still say that the top five  metro areas should be their own states.  Otherwise the heavily blue urban areas have too much pull over heavily red rural areas, at least when it comes to state politics.

Nationally, I would think things would still tend to balance out.

Rural states tend to be over-represented in Congress. You are guaranteed two senators and one representative, no matter your population. The two-senators thing is by design (because the Senate is intended to put the brakes on populous states), but the House representation throws everything out of whack. There are only 435 representatives, no matter what. That means, in the case of states with very low population, like Wyoming, you end up with a representative with far fewer constituents than a rep in a higher-population state. For example, Oklahoma has 9.3 million residents and 5 House seats, meaning each rep has 780,000 people they represent. Wyoming has 585,000 people in the whole state, all of which share one rep, so one voter's say is more influential in Wyoming than it is in Oklahoma (since they have 195,000 people fewer that their vote has to compete against).

This would be simple to fix, by increasing the size of the House until the average population of one congressional district was 585,000, but the House chamber is too small to fit the appropriate number of representatives. Which is the original reason they put the cap at 435 in the first place–the House did not want to appropriate money to build a larger chamber. Decades later, due to population growth patterns nobody really saw coming when that rule was passed, it's causing these imbalance issues, which of course have deeper, if subtle, implications on policy in a 21st-century America.

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 18, 2018, 07:00:50 AM

Quote from: inkyatari on January 17, 2018, 09:31:10 AM
I still say that the top five  metro areas should be their own states.  Otherwise the heavily blue urban areas have too much pull over heavily red rural areas, at least when it comes to state politics.

Nationally, I would think things would still tend to balance out.

Rural states tend to be over-represented in Congress. You are guaranteed two senators and one representative, no matter your population. The two-senators thing is by design (because the Senate is intended to put the brakes on populous states), but the House representation throws everything out of whack. There are only 435 representatives, no matter what. That means, in the case of states with very low population, like Wyoming, you end up with a representative with far fewer constituents than a rep in a higher-population state. For example, Oklahoma has 9.3 million residents and 5 House seats, meaning each rep has 780,000 people they represent. Wyoming has 585,000 people in the whole state, all of which share one rep, so one voter's say is more influential in Wyoming than it is in Oklahoma (since they have 195,000 people fewer that their vote has to compete against).

This would be simple to fix, by increasing the size of the House until the average population of one congressional district was 585,000, but the House chamber is too small to fit the appropriate number of representatives. Which is the original reason they put the cap at 435 in the first place–the House did not want to appropriate money to build a larger chamber. Decades later, due to population growth patterns nobody really saw coming when that rule was passed, it's causing these imbalance issues, which of course have deeper, if subtle, implications on policy in a 21st-century America.

First of all, you realize you're talking about a total of maybe 10 seats being oh-so-disproportional?  This issue may be a good subject for a term paper, but nowhere close to endangering the system.
Second, as long as congress districts are restricted to state boundaries, there is no way to improve ratios without increasing congress size to 4-digits.
Simple: South Dakota has 1.5x population of WY, and also has 1 seat. Once you increase chamber size to 1 per WY population, SD either is underrepresented by a factor of 1.5 if they have 1 seat, or over-represented   by 1.5, if they have 2 seats.
You need to give WY 2 seats and SD 3 seats to make things work. That means 1200 representative total, give or take. Can we afford 3x increase in pork?
And we didn't try to make it fair for AK and ND yet.

But in total, currently seven single-representative states have an average representation of 1:753k (2010 census numbers) - compared to 1:708k average for 50 states. Those 7 states would probably get 8 seats if pooled together. So most rural states are UNDERrepresented overall.
On a same spreadsheet, 20 least populated states have 46 seats - but should have 45 at average representation rate. 25 least populated states are 71 seats and a touch below average with 71.124 expected seats.  Are you sure there is a problem?

Truly fair solutions include either crossing state lines (gerrymandering brought to a new level), fractional votes (imagine tragedy of a bill defeated by 0.05 votes!) or 4-digit (better 5-digit) congress headcounts.

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 18, 2018, 07:00:50 AM

Quote from: inkyatari on January 17, 2018, 09:31:10 AM
I still say that the top five  metro areas should be their own states.  Otherwise the heavily blue urban areas have too much pull over heavily red rural areas, at least when it comes to state politics.

Nationally, I would think things would still tend to balance out.

Rural states tend to be over-represented in Congress. You are guaranteed two senators and one representative, no matter your population. The two-senators thing is by design (because the Senate is intended to put the brakes on populous states), but the House representation throws everything out of whack. There are only 435 representatives, no matter what. That means, in the case of states with very low population, like Wyoming, you end up with a representative with far fewer constituents than a rep in a higher-population state. For example, Oklahoma has 9.3 million residents and 5 House seats, meaning each rep has 780,000 people they represent. Wyoming has 585,000 people in the whole state, all of which share one rep, so one voter's say is more influential in Wyoming than it is in Oklahoma (since they have 195,000 people fewer that their vote has to compete against).

This would be simple to fix, by increasing the size of the House until the average population of one congressional district was 585,000, but the House chamber is too small to fit the appropriate number of representatives. Which is the original reason they put the cap at 435 in the first place–the House did not want to appropriate money to build a larger chamber. Decades later, due to population growth patterns nobody really saw coming when that rule was passed, it's causing these imbalance issues, which of course have deeper, if subtle, implications on policy in a 21st-century America.

I like this idea.  Pass a law that the size of the House of Representatives = Total population of US / Population of smallest state, then adjust the size every 10 years after each Census.  You can never eliminate disproportionality as others have noted, but this reduces it quite a bit.  The only way to completely eliminate disproportionality is to have districts cross state lines but that's not realistic.

Quote from: cabiness42 on January 18, 2018, 09:06:42 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 18, 2018, 07:00:50 AM

Quote from: inkyatari on January 17, 2018, 09:31:10 AM
I still say that the top five  metro areas should be their own states.  Otherwise the heavily blue urban areas have too much pull over heavily red rural areas, at least when it comes to state politics.

Nationally, I would think things would still tend to balance out.

Rural states tend to be over-represented in Congress. You are guaranteed two senators and one representative, no matter your population. The two-senators thing is by design (because the Senate is intended to put the brakes on populous states), but the House representation throws everything out of whack. There are only 435 representatives, no matter what. That means, in the case of states with very low population, like Wyoming, you end up with a representative with far fewer constituents than a rep in a higher-population state. For example, Oklahoma has 9.3 million residents and 5 House seats, meaning each rep has 780,000 people they represent. Wyoming has 585,000 people in the whole state, all of which share one rep, so one voter's say is more influential in Wyoming than it is in Oklahoma (since they have 195,000 people fewer that their vote has to compete against).

This would be simple to fix, by increasing the size of the House until the average population of one congressional district was 585,000, but the House chamber is too small to fit the appropriate number of representatives. Which is the original reason they put the cap at 435 in the first place–the House did not want to appropriate money to build a larger chamber. Decades later, due to population growth patterns nobody really saw coming when that rule was passed, it's causing these imbalance issues, which of course have deeper, if subtle, implications on policy in a 21st-century America.

I like this idea.  Pass a law that the size of the House of Representatives = Total population of US / Population of smallest state, then adjust the size every 10 years after each Census.  You can never eliminate disproportionality as others have noted, but this reduces it quite a bit.  The only way to completely eliminate disproportionality is to have districts cross state lines but that's not realistic.

There is no disproportionality per se. What gets people agitated is that small states have higher representation in electoral college, especially since last presidential election. But that is because of +2  votes for each state - as number of electors for state = number of representatives + 2 senators.  If the goal is to level that out, either "+2" has to be abolished (good luck), or "+2"  has to be drowned in number of representatives. If there were, say, 10,000 representatives - 100 senator votes wouldn't play a role.

House districts were originally supposed to have 30,000 people.  That would be small enough to campaign door-to-door, and representatives and constituents could really know each other.  Advertising money would not play a dominating role in campaigns.  However, the total size of the house would be unwieldly large.

Quote from: kalvado on January 18, 2018, 09:14:55 AM

Quote from: cabiness42 on January 18, 2018, 09:06:42 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 18, 2018, 07:00:50 AM

Quote from: inkyatari on January 17, 2018, 09:31:10 AM
I still say that the top five  metro areas should be their own states.  Otherwise the heavily blue urban areas have too much pull over heavily red rural areas, at least when it comes to state politics.

Nationally, I would think things would still tend to balance out.

Rural states tend to be over-represented in Congress. You are guaranteed two senators and one representative, no matter your population. The two-senators thing is by design (because the Senate is intended to put the brakes on populous states), but the House representation throws everything out of whack. There are only 435 representatives, no matter what. That means, in the case of states with very low population, like Wyoming, you end up with a representative with far fewer constituents than a rep in a higher-population state. For example, Oklahoma has 9.3 million residents and 5 House seats, meaning each rep has 780,000 people they represent. Wyoming has 585,000 people in the whole state, all of which share one rep, so one voter's say is more influential in Wyoming than it is in Oklahoma (since they have 195,000 people fewer that their vote has to compete against).

This would be simple to fix, by increasing the size of the House until the average population of one congressional district was 585,000, but the House chamber is too small to fit the appropriate number of representatives. Which is the original reason they put the cap at 435 in the first place–the House did not want to appropriate money to build a larger chamber. Decades later, due to population growth patterns nobody really saw coming when that rule was passed, it's causing these imbalance issues, which of course have deeper, if subtle, implications on policy in a 21st-century America.

I like this idea.  Pass a law that the size of the House of Representatives = Total population of US / Population of smallest state, then adjust the size every 10 years after each Census.  You can never eliminate disproportionality as others have noted, but this reduces it quite a bit.  The only way to completely eliminate disproportionality is to have districts cross state lines but that's not realistic.

There is no disproportionality per se. What gets people agitated is that small states have higher representation in electoral college, especially since last presidential election. But that is because of +2  votes for each state - as number of electors for state = number of representatives + 2 senators.  If the goal is to level that out, either "+2" has to be abolished (good luck), or "+2"  has to be drowned in number of representatives. If there were, say, 10,000 representatives - 100 senator votes wouldn't play a role.

AND - the EC means that candidates *must* pay attention to the medium and small states in order to win.  No EC (ie, direct popular election) means that flyover country will become FLYOVER COUNTRY, to be completely forgotten and raked over the coals with no fears of repercussions (ie, traditionally 'blue' West Virginia going 4-1 'red' in the 2016 election).  The candidates will put all of their resources into the major media markets only.  Fargo?  Is that a place in Germany?

Mike

Quote from: kkt on January 18, 2018, 10:42:01 AM
House districts were originally supposed to have 30,000 people.  That would be small enough to campaign door-to-door, and representatives and constituents could really know each other.  Advertising money would not play a dominating role in campaigns.  However, the total size of the house would be unwieldly large.

And besides, how much would it co$$$$$t to rebuild the Capitol to hold such a body?

:-o

Mike

Heck, even CT can be split into two states: BridgeHartHavenBury, and the rest of the state.  The former is an almost as far left as California faction, while the rest of the state tends to lean center-right.  Unfortunately, the people in those 4 cities where most are on the dole have elected officials that have turned our state into a state that people are fleeing from like an erupting volcano, and businesses avoid like The Plague (GE jumped ship, Amazon basically laughed at our proposals for their second headquarters), and each is in a separate congressional district so our delegation is among the hardest left in the union.   

Quote from: kkt on January 18, 2018, 10:42:01 AM
House districts were originally supposed to have 30,000 people.  That would be small enough to campaign door-to-door, and representatives and constituents could really know each other.  Advertising money would not play a dominating role in campaigns.  However, the total size of the house would be unwieldly large.

Maybe having a House that size wouldn't be a bad thing.  With over 7,500 Representatives, maybe it might not be so clubby, and we might cut down on the buddy-buddy back-door shit.

Quote from: Brandon on January 18, 2018, 11:31:05 AM

Quote from: kkt on January 18, 2018, 10:42:01 AM
House districts were originally supposed to have 30,000 people.  That would be small enough to campaign door-to-door, and representatives and constituents could really know each other.  Advertising money would not play a dominating role in campaigns.  However, the total size of the house would be unwieldly large.

Maybe having a House that size wouldn't be a bad thing.  With over 7,500 Representatives, maybe it might not be so clubby, and we might cut down on the buddy-buddy back-door shit.

Read up on the New Hampshire legislature.  It's the third-largest legislative body in the world, behind only the UK Parliament and the US Congress.  Since there are so many elected officials, annual pay is a tiny travel stipend, meaning that most legislators are college students, retirees, and others who are able to perform this duty and still survive on money they make elsewhere.  I leave it to you to determine whether it's a success or failure.

I think the Perkins Union is going to be the 51st state.

Quote from: kkt on January 18, 2018, 10:42:01 AM
House districts were originally supposed to have 30,000 people.  That would be small enough to campaign door-to-door, and representatives and constituents could really know each other.  Advertising money would not play a dominating role in campaigns.  However, the total size of the house would be unwieldly large.

With roughly 320 million people in the US now, the size of Congress would be 10,666 members.  Add staff, and at current overpaid salaries, that would be one huge tax liability.

Quote from: kalvado on January 18, 2018, 07:57:11 AM
First of all, you realize you're talking about a total of maybe 10 seats being oh-so-disproportional?

Population of California is 39.5 million ÷ 53 seats = 745,283. So there's 53 seats that are disproportionately under-represented compared to Wyoming (a good deal more than 10).

Interestingly, this math shows that a district in Oklahoma (a red state) is more under-represented than one in California (a blue state), so it appears to be hurting both sides of the aisle.

Quote from: mgk920 on January 18, 2018, 10:42:53 AM
AND - the EC means that candidates *must* pay attention to the medium and small states in order to win.  No EC (ie, direct popular election) means that flyover country will become FLYOVER COUNTRY, to be completely forgotten and raked over the coals with no fears of repercussions (ie, traditionally 'blue' West Virginia going 4-1 'red' in the 2016 election).

We already are completely forgotten. No Presidential candidate in their right mind would ever visit Oklahoma, since all 77 counties have voted for the Republican in three consecutive elections (the last Democrat Oklahoma voted for was Lyndon B. Johnson). We are a waste of time, so our interests don't factor in at all to Presidential politics.

On the other hand, without the Electoral College, the Democrat could hit up Norman and downtown Oklahoma City to try to pick up some votes, since each one would actually count toward the national total.

Quote from: mgk920 on January 18, 2018, 10:49:08 AM

Quote from: kkt on January 18, 2018, 10:42:01 AM
House districts were originally supposed to have 30,000 people.  That would be small enough to campaign door-to-door, and representatives and constituents could really know each other.  Advertising money would not play a dominating role in campaigns.  However, the total size of the house would be unwieldly large.

And besides, how much would it co$$$$$t to rebuild the Capitol to hold such a body?

:-o

Mike

I've seen it suggested that votes of the full House could be handled through teleconferencing. Speeches to the House could be done by uploading videos to the Congressional website (they're often done by shouting into an empty House chamber anyway, the aim being to get them transcribed into the Congressional record). Much of the House's important business is done in smaller committees like the Ways and Means Committee anyway.

Turn on C-SPAN sometime–it is not quite as boring as its reputation–and ask yourself if what you're seeing really needs to be done in person in 2018.

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 18, 2018, 05:43:25 PM

Quote from: kalvado on January 18, 2018, 07:57:11 AM
First of all, you realize you're talking about a total of maybe 10 seats being oh-so-disproportional?

Population of California is 39.5 million ÷ 53 seats = 745,283. So there's 53 seats that are disproportionately under-represented compared to Wyoming (a good deal more than 10).

California has 1:702,905 representation rate (2010 census data) compared to 1:708,376 target. As such, CA is overrepresented by almost 0.8% compared to average!
As long as there is a limited number of representatives (lower than a total population), you can always find states with the greatest deviation and claim the rest of the states are under (or over)represented.

Quote from: KeithE4Phx on January 18, 2018, 05:29:03 PM

Quote from: kkt on January 18, 2018, 10:42:01 AM
House districts were originally supposed to have 30,000 people.  That would be small enough to campaign door-to-door, and representatives and constituents could really know each other.  Advertising money would not play a dominating role in campaigns.  However, the total size of the house would be unwieldly large.

With roughly 320 million people in the US now, the size of Congress would be 10,666 members.  Add staff, and at current overpaid salaries, that would be one huge tax liability.

If 30k people are to pay for  one representative with about $1M/year budget (current number is a bit higher, though), it is only $30 per person - noticable, but not back breaking. And if we're talking telecommute, work from home becomes an option...

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 18, 2018, 05:43:25 PM
I've seen it suggested that votes of the full House could be handled through teleconferencing. Speeches to the House could be done by uploading videos to the Congressional website (they're often done by shouting into an empty House chamber anyway, the aim being to get them transcribed into the Congressional record). Much of the House's important business is done in smaller committees like the Ways and Means Committee anyway.

Turn on C-SPAN sometime–it is not quite as boring as its reputation–and ask yourself if what you're seeing really needs to be done in person in 2018.

I'm sure the voting could be handled.  However politics requires face-to-face contact, to do negotiations, to build trust and find common ground, or to find weaknesses and intimidate.

And with 10,000 legislators, a smaller body would need to be making the actual decisions.  Right now we have sort of an unfortunate seniority system for getting on the powerful committees.  That rewards the career politician, which is not necessarily in the national interest.

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 18, 2018, 05:43:25 PMI've seen it suggested that votes of the full House could be handled through teleconferencing.

Yeah, they started talking about that after 9/11.  Trouble is, there's no way to authenticate that it's actually the Member of Congress placing the vote.

Quote from: theroadwayone on January 18, 2018, 03:57:33 AM
Anyone wanna hear a good idea?

Make L.A. County it's own state.

Dredge up land along the coast, wrap it southeast to O.C. and north to Ventura, and make that part of the rest of California, effectively marooning the new state in.

Watch as people lose their s**t over it.

There. Problem solved.

Heck put a wall on Yolo, Solano and Sacramento counties :D and make Sacramento pay for the wall on these three counties. These three counties are always the source of the scapegoat everytime some lobbyist and superpac tries to convince the rest of California why the state needs to be split from Sacramento Delta's water deals to Vallejo recovering from bankruptcy as the source for the scapegoating.

Always thought that a small increase in the House of Representatives would be a good idea (if gerrymandering were removed from the picture).  I had the number 499 in mind, up from the present 435; it would make the majority an easy-to-remember 250.  I'm sure the additional seats would likely come from the West Coast, the growing areas of the Mountain States, and the Gulf Coast and/or southern Texas; it would likely shake out reasonably evenly between the existing two parties (would be nice to have a few independents in there for good measure!), with (R) getting much of the mountains and gulf and (D) continuing to dominate the West Coast.  Not a drastic change (a bit under 15%) but probably one that would afford a bit more representation to areas that are currently shorted! 

Quote from: abefroman329 on January 19, 2018, 10:51:43 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 18, 2018, 05:43:25 PMI've seen it suggested that votes of the full House could be handled through teleconferencing.

Yeah, they started talking about that after 9/11.  Trouble is, there's no way to authenticate that it's actually the Member of Congress placing the vote.

Well, there is–public/private key encryption technology is one option. I mean, we've always had a (lower-tech) way to authenticate Presidential nuclear launch orders, and that's a lot more difficult to roll back than a House vote.

Quote from: sparker on January 19, 2018, 06:59:25 PM
Always thought that a small increase in the House of Representatives would be a good idea (if gerrymandering were removed from the picture).  I had the number 499 in mind, up from the present 435; it would make the majority an easy-to-remember 250.

Gerrymandering is an entirely different kettle of fish; one the Supreme Court is planning on looking into soon. I would hope that's a problem everyone would be interested in resolving, since even if your team is drawing the lines now there's nothing to guarantee that will always be the case.

I wouldn't think adding 65 more representatives would rebalance things enough to have much of an effect. Something like 1000 reps would put a bigger dent in the problem.

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 20, 2018, 06:12:37 AM
I wouldn't think adding 65 more representatives would rebalance things enough to have much of an effect. Something like 1000 reps would put a bigger dent in the problem.

And what exactly you see as a problem?
under/over-representation is a small mathematical glitch in a grand scheme of things; true question is quality over quantity. And with politics becoming more and more of a family business, more job opportunities for  family members is not an answer.
I for one see single elected person per voting area as a biggest issue in polarizing the system.

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 20, 2018, 06:12:37 AM

Quote from: abefroman329 on January 19, 2018, 10:51:43 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 18, 2018, 05:43:25 PMI've seen it suggested that votes of the full House could be handled through teleconferencing.

Yeah, they started talking about that after 9/11.  Trouble is, there's no way to authenticate that it's actually the Member of Congress placing the vote.

Well, there is–public/private key encryption technology is one option. I mean, we've always had a (lower-tech) way to authenticate Presidential nuclear launch orders, and that's a lot more difficult to roll back than a House vote.

Right, but you're talking about one authentication process that may never need to be used and one that will need to be used several times a day while Congress is in session.  Plus this was almost 17 years ago, when BlackBerrys were shiny new technology and little more than glorified two-way pagers.

Historically, Congress has admitted states in pairs to keep the balance of power.  Slave state and a free state, even the last pair admitted Alaska is mostly on the libertarian wing of the Republican party and Hawaii is mostly Democratic.  Now, however, the obvious candidates for admission would all probably lean left-wing:  Puerto Rico, DC as a state, Guam.

Quote from: kkt on January 22, 2018, 06:06:56 PM
Historically, Congress has admitted states in pairs to keep the balance of power.  Slave state and a free state, even the last pair admitted Alaska is mostly on the libertarian wing of the Republican party and Hawaii is mostly Democratic.  Now, however, the obvious candidates for admission would all probably lean left-wing:  Puerto Rico, DC as a state, Guam.

Negative. Guam is heavily military and extremely conservative. (Which makes it ideal to pair with PR.)

Quote from: Road Hog on January 22, 2018, 10:12:33 PM

Quote from: kkt on January 22, 2018, 06:06:56 PM
Historically, Congress has admitted states in pairs to keep the balance of power.  Slave state and a free state, even the last pair admitted Alaska is mostly on the libertarian wing of the Republican party and Hawaii is mostly Democratic.  Now, however, the obvious candidates for admission would all probably lean left-wing:  Puerto Rico, DC as a state, Guam.

Negative. Guam is heavily military and extremely conservative. (Which makes it ideal to pair with PR.)

Split California up like the proposal and it also can make a good pair with Puerto Rico or DC

Quote from: kalvado on January 20, 2018, 09:23:36 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 20, 2018, 06:12:37 AM
I wouldn't think adding 65 more representatives would rebalance things enough to have much of an effect. Something like 1000 reps would put a bigger dent in the problem.

And what exactly you see as a problem?
under/over-representation

Thank you for answering your question for me.

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 23, 2018, 01:20:37 AM

Quote from: kalvado on January 20, 2018, 09:23:36 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 20, 2018, 06:12:37 AM
I wouldn't think adding 65 more representatives would rebalance things enough to have much of an effect. Something like 1000 reps would put a bigger dent in the problem.

And what exactly you see as a problem?
under/over-representation

Thank you for answering your question for me.

I am still confused why you see that as a problem.
anyway, lets try to look at the numbers again:

5 smallest states have population (in thousands, 2010 census) of 563; 625; 672; 710; 814;
As of right now they have 1 representative each, some are underrepresented by your metrics, some are over.
You propose to set ratio to 1:smallest state. Which would make 4 out of these states underrepresented by your metrics. An intentionally discriminatory policy towards flyover states  given the distribution of population.

Or you have any other ideas?

Because I feel that an ideal representative democracy–which we should aspire to be, or else what's the point in having an America to begin with–would count each citizen's vote equally and identically. (This is a core belief that I am not interested in changing, and also a legal principle that the Supreme Court has affirmed in cases such as Reynolds v. Sims, among others.) Malapportionment by even 1 person, then, would inherently be a violation of that ideal. Obviously, for practical reasons, that ideal cannot realistically be achieved exactly, due to the fact that decimal values of representatives can't happen under the Constitution, if nothing else.

A proposed House with 1000 representatives is intended as a concession to the reality that a House with perfect apportionment would be considered too large to be workable by a number of people. Personally, if something like 10,291 representatives (a number I have seen quoted as ideal, but which I have not verified the math on) is necessary for perfect apportionment, I say give us 10,291 representatives and damn the other consequences; the new problems are worth solving as they come up in order to obtain perfect apportionment. However, I know that this is not an opinion most people share, so I threw the number 1000 out there as an example of how we could get a lot closer to perfect apportionment than we are now without making the House 23 times the size as it is now.

I acknowledge that it is very strange to see instances of compromise as part of the political process, but I sometimes like to be different ;) One should not make perfect the enemy of the good, after all.

10,291 may be ideal now, but I assume that number would change after each census.

There's also this option:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rangevoting.org%2FUSsplitLine.png&hash=127ebce32ce11a9bf408b86a32d1f4efef1d252b)

This method of drawing districts is mathematically defined, so there is no gerrymandering. (This uses 2000 census data, but the method would be the same.)

Of course, this ignores state lines, which is impractical because voters in different states will have different stands on federal issues, based on how they interact with state-level policy. As an example which comes to mind, look at the district which spans California, western Arizona, and far southern Nevada. While voters in this region might well be culturally and politically similar, their positions on, e.g. the 2017 tax law might be vastly different due to the way the law changes federal deductions due to state and local taxes, and the differences in state-level tax policies among the three states. The rep for that district would have a hell of a time figuring out the wishes of their constituents and what would ultimately be the best for their district as a whole.

Quote from: 1 on January 24, 2018, 05:30:25 AM
10,291 may be ideal now, but I assume that number would change after each census.

There's also this option:

(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rangevoting.org%2FUSsplitLine.png&hash=127ebce32ce11a9bf408b86a32d1f4efef1d252b)

This method of drawing districts is mathematically defined, so there is no gerrymandering. (This uses 2000 census data, but the method would be the same.)

Reminds me...
We have a university campus built across city lines. In fact, there are at least 2 minicipalities, and at least 3 fire departments serving certain dorm complex.For voting, students have to go down to room number - and in certain cases down to bed location within the room, to make sure they can vote in correct district... Mathematically correct - but not to meaningful..

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 24, 2018, 05:25:50 AM
Because I feel that an ideal representative democracy–which we should aspire to be, or else what's the point in having an America to begin with–would count each citizen's vote equally and identically. (This is a core belief that I am not interested in changing, and also a legal principle that the Supreme Court has affirmed in cases such as Reynolds v. Sims, among others.) Malapportionment by even 1 person, then, would inherently be a violation of that ideal. Obviously, for practical reasons, that ideal cannot realistically be achieved exactly, due to the fact that decimal values of representatives can't happen under the Constitution, if nothing else.

A proposed House with 1000 representatives is intended as a concession to the reality that a House with perfect apportionment would be considered too large to be workable by a number of people. Personally, if something like 10,291 representatives (a number I have seen quoted as ideal, but which I have not verified the math on) is necessary for perfect apportionment, I say give us 10,291 representatives and damn the other consequences; the new problems are worth solving as they come up in order to obtain perfect apportionment. However, I know that this is not an opinion most people share, so I threw the number 1000 out there as an example of how we could get a lot closer to perfect apportionment than we are now without making the House 23 times the size as it is now.

I acknowledge that it is very strange to see instances of compromise as part of the political process, but I sometimes like to be different ;) One should not make perfect the enemy of the good, after all.

OK, at least this is a clear position I can argue with. :sombrero:
And my answer would be - you're trying to find an exact mathematical solution to a political problem - which may not have an exact mathematical solution to begin with. And you're proposing a formal solution, which does not address core problems.

Mathematically, you're trying to find a greatest common divisor  for a set of 50 numbers. And in most cases such GCD is unity, in other words direct democracy is the only way to achieve strictly equal representation. Which is impractical for many reasons, and that is why representative democracy exists. SO you have to accept some tolerance to make things work - and we can start negotiations on what is that tolerance. your number 10294 means one per 30k representation (number coming from early US history)- and would still result in up to 2% under/overrepresentation if districting restricted by state lines. Currently we have maximum of 25% overrepresentation for RI, and 40% underrepresentation for MT; down to +/-10% if you remove 10 most outlying seats. SO do you think 2% is OK?

But most people believe that representative democracy has bigger problems than some vote inequality - which has to mostly level out at the end of the day with "yes" or "now" votes being split about equally to over- and under-representing representatives. "Winner takes it all" is be a bigger concern.

Quote from: kalvado on January 24, 2018, 08:52:47 AM
"Winner takes it all" is be a bigger concern.

Here's my personal solution that keeps the Electoral College but gets rid of the winner takes all system: Proportional EC Votes
Basically, rather than each state being "winner takes all", the candidates only get the portion of the popular vote that they won in each state. However, any partial/split votes would go to the loosing candidate. For example, if State A had 10 EC Votes, and Candidate B got 53% of the vote, Candidate C got 45% of the vote, and Candidate D got 8% of the vote, then Candidate B would get 5 of State A's electoral votes, Candidate C would get 4 of State A's electoral votes, and Candidate D would get 1 of State A's electoral votes. This system would allow for more people's voices in states that normally swing one way to be hear more easily (like California or Alabama), since it seems like one of the major problems people have with the Electoral College now is that most people aren't really too interested in voting because they live in a state that's either solidly red or solidly blue. It could also lead to more aggressive campaigning across the US as a whole since even the smaller states could help decide an election. Of course, we'd also have to get rid of the "first past the post" system and let whoever gets the most EC votes be the president.

Of course, other changes that I'd make would be to make Election Day a national holiday (and have any non-essential organizations shut-down) so people can more easily go and vote, make it so that everyone who's a US citizen is automatically registered as soon as they turn 18, while also making voting a requirement (with the penalties for not doing so being not able to take advantage of various federal programs, like Student Aid or Medicare).

Quote from: freebrickproductions on January 24, 2018, 09:37:58 AM
also making voting a requirement (with the penalties for not doing so being not able to take advantage of various federal programs, like Student Aid or Medicare).

No. No no nonononono

The first thing you'd have to do is to make all ballot access rules standard nationwide so that people actually have choices.  You would also have to make write in votes simpler.  In illinois, you have to pay a $25 fee in each electoral district in which you'd like to be on the ballot.  National or statewide races make this prohibitively expensive.

The act of not voting is a vote.  In most elections these days, I do not vote in most races on the ballot, and once I didn't vote at all because I didn't like any of the choices that were handed to me. Not voting, IMHO is a first amendment protected form of protest.

As far as standardizing ballot access nationwide, good luck with that.  First, I don't expect most states would be up for that, and then my fear is that instead of crappy ballot access laws that throw horrible hurdles up for third parties on the state and local levels, the two party duopoly could implement those nationwide.

I should post my experience with the Illinois Libertarian Party during their ballot access drive a few years ago.  It is because of my experiences, plus having heard of similar stories by friends in the Illinois Green party that I pledged to never vote for an establishment party ever again.

Quote from: freebrickproductions on January 24, 2018, 09:37:58 AM

Quote from: kalvado on January 24, 2018, 08:52:47 AM
"Winner takes it all" is be a bigger concern.

Here's my personal solution that keeps the Electoral College but gets rid of the winner takes all system: Proportional EC Votes
Basically, rather than each state being "winner takes all", the candidates only get the portion of the popular vote that they won in each state. However, any partial/split votes would go to the loosing candidate. For example, if State A had 10 EC Votes, and Candidate B got 53% of the vote, Candidate C got 45% of the vote, and Candidate D got 8% of the vote, then Candidate B would get 5 of State A's electoral votes, Candidate C would get 4 of State A's electoral votes, and Candidate D would get 1 of State A's electoral votes. This system would allow for more people's voices in states that normally swing one way to be hear more easily (like California or Alabama), since it seems like one of the major problems people have with the Electoral College now is that most people aren't really too interested in voting because they live in a state that's either solidly red or solidly blue. It could also lead to more aggressive campaigning across the US as a whole since even the smaller states could help decide an election. Of course, we'd also have to get rid of the "first past the post" system and let whoever gets the most EC votes be the president.

Of course, other changes that I'd make would be to make Election Day a national holiday (and have any non-essential organizations shut-down) so people can more easily go and vote, make it so that everyone who's a US citizen is automatically registered as soon as they turn 18, while also making voting a requirement (with the penalties for not doing so being not able to take advantage of various federal programs, like Student Aid or Medicare).

EC is one thing; 435 is similar- but another...

Quote from: freebrickproductions on January 24, 2018, 09:37:58 AMHere's my personal solution that keeps the Electoral College but gets rid of the winner takes all system: Proportional EC Votes

IIRC, two states presently do such: Maine & Nebraska(?).

Quote from: inkyatari on January 24, 2018, 10:13:17 AMThe act of not voting is a vote.  In most elections these days, I do not vote in most races on the ballot, and once I didn't vote at all because I didn't like any of the choices that were handed to me. Not voting, IMHO is a first amendment protected form of protest.

I'm assuming that you're referring to one that actually shows up at the polls to cast their vote... even if they leave every spot on the ballot blank when they turn it in.  Is that correct?  If so, I agree with you 100%.  Official non-votes do get counted in the overall totals.  In contrast, one not bothering to go to the polls at all to cast their non-vote(s) does not (and IMHO should not) count.

Not sure about other states, but every voting machine in PA has an option where one can cast a proverbial None of the Above vote; it's actually worded I choose not to vote for any listed candidate.  It's usually located at the lower-right portion of the touch-screen ballot.

Quote from: PHLBOS on January 24, 2018, 11:14:14 AM

Quote from: freebrickproductions on January 24, 2018, 09:37:58 AMHere's my personal solution that keeps the Electoral College but gets rid of the winner takes all system: Proportional EC Votes

IIRC, two states presently do such: Maine & Nebraska(?).

....

They don't quite use "proportional" votes. Rather, each of those two states awards electoral votes by congressional district and then awards the remaining two electoral votes (the ones that correspond to their Senate seats) to whichever candidate wins statewide. I'll use Maine as an example. The state has two congressional districts, so four electoral votes. In 2016, Clinton won Maine's first congressional district by about 15%, Trump won Maine's second congressional district by about 10%, and Clinton won the statewide vote by about 3%. Clinton therefore got three electoral votes from Maine and Trump got one. It's not a proportional system because it's winner-take-all in each district (and statewide as to the other two electoral votes). If it were proportional, the Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and Bill Weld presumably would have received an electoral vote because they got 5% of the statewide vote in Maine in 2016.

Nebraska does it the same way–they split their electoral vote in 2008 (four for McCain, one for Obama).

---

Quote from: PHLBOS on January 24, 2018, 11:14:14 AM
....

Quote from: inkyatari on January 24, 2018, 10:13:17 AMThe act of not voting is a vote.  In most elections these days, I do not vote in most races on the ballot, and once I didn't vote at all because I didn't like any of the choices that were handed to me. Not voting, IMHO is a first amendment protected form of protest.

I'm assuming that you're referring to one that actually shows up at the polls to cast their vote... even if they leave every spot on the ballot blank when they turn it in.  Is that correct?  If so, I agree with you 100%.  Official non-votes do get counted in the overall totals.  In contrast, one not bothering to go to the polls at all to cast their non-vote(s) does not (and IMHO should not) count.

Not sure about other states, but every voting machine in PA has an option where one can cast a proverbial None of the Above vote; it's actually worded I choose not to vote for any listed candidate.  It's usually located at the lower-right portion of the touch-screen ballot.

The issue of voting in only some elections, or not voting, can be relevant when state law requires a candidate to receive a majority of votes to be elected. "Non-votes" have caused issues and controversy in the past. See Gutierrez v. Ada, 528 U.S. 250 (2000) (https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/528/250/case.html). (I was involved in drafting an amicus brief in that case; the Supreme Court's opinion cites several of the cases we cited and none of the cases cited by the party our client was supporting.) The case involved the gubernatorial election in Guam, where a statute provides that in order to win, a candidate must obtain a majority of votes cast in that election; if none does, a runoff election is required. One gubernatorial candidate received a majority of votes cast in the governor's race in 1998 but did not receive a majority of votes on all ballots cast in the entire general election–that is, some people left the gubernatorial section blank. The losing candidate sought a writ of mandamus ordering a runoff election; both the federal district court in Guam and the Ninth Circuit agreed that "a majority of votes cast in any election" meant a majority of all ballots cast in the general election, even ballots with no vote at all for governor (there was no "None of the Above" option). The Supreme Court unanimously reversed, finding that the statute's plain meaning, especially when wording in various parts of the statute were compared, meant the candidate has to obtain a majority of the votes cast in the gubernatorial race.

Quote from: inkyatari on January 24, 2018, 10:13:17 AM

Quote from: freebrickproductions on January 24, 2018, 09:37:58 AM
also making voting a requirement (with the penalties for not doing so being not able to take advantage of various federal programs, like Student Aid or Medicare).

No. No no nonononono

The first thing you'd have to do is to make all ballot access rules standard nationwide so that people actually have choices.  You would also have to make write in votes simpler.  In illinois, you have to pay a $25 fee in each electoral district in which you'd like to be on the ballot.  National or statewide races make this prohibitively expensive.

The act of not voting is a vote.  In most elections these days, I do not vote in most races on the ballot, and once I didn't vote at all because I didn't like any of the choices that were handed to me. Not voting, IMHO is a first amendment protected form of protest.

As far as standardizing ballot access nationwide, good luck with that.  First, I don't expect most states would be up for that, and then my fear is that instead of crappy ballot access laws that throw horrible hurdles up for third parties on the state and local levels, the two party duopoly could implement those nationwide.

I should post my experience with the Illinois Libertarian Party during their ballot access drive a few years ago.  It is because of my experiences, plus having heard of similar stories by friends in the Illinois Green party that I pledged to never vote for an establishment party ever again.

I fully support efforts to get more third parties on the ballot, and participating in debates, particularly at the national level.  I won't vote for any of them, but I think they should have a forum.

Quote from: freebrickproductions on January 24, 2018, 09:37:58 AM
However, any partial/split votes would go to the loosing candidate.

This would create a strange incentive where it would be better to lose a close race than to win it.  Imagine presidential candidates campaigning against themselves in Florida (or any small state like Wyoming, where the majority of the electoral votes would almost always go to the loser because the winner would need to win by a landslide).

Quote from: PHLBOS on January 24, 2018, 11:14:14 AM
In contrast, one not bothering to go to the polls at all to cast their non-vote(s) does not (and IMHO should not) count.

Agreed.  I was always taught "if you don't vote, don't complain" (as in, not voting is equivalent to voting for whoever wins).  Thus I've never understood the point of boycotting elections or why one would use a boycott as a reason to ignore the vote.

Evidently most people disagree with this, because I can think of a couple high profile votes where boycotts were considered reasons for deeming the results illegitimate and either ignoring them or condemning the implementation.

Quote from: vdeane on January 24, 2018, 02:07:29 PM

Agreed.  I was always taught "if you don't vote, don't complain" (as in, not voting is equivalent to voting for whoever wins). 

That, too, is BS.  What if I'm not given someone who I can, in a clear conscience vote FOR? In that case I have more right to complain than someone who does vote.
It just encourages the "lesser of two evils" mentality.  I don't vote for the lesser of two evils. I blame that attitude for where we are today.

Quote from: inkyatari on January 24, 2018, 02:15:28 PM

Quote from: vdeane on January 24, 2018, 02:07:29 PM

Agreed.  I was always taught "if you don't vote, don't complain" (as in, not voting is equivalent to voting for whoever wins). 

That, too, is BS.  What if I'm not given someone who I can, in a clear conscience vote FOR? In that case I have more right to complain than someone who does vote.
It just encourages the "lesser of two evils" mentality.  I don't vote for the lesser of two evils. I blame that attitude for where we are today.

Nearly every major office has more than two candidates.

Around here, all ballots have a write-in option for every race, so people usually just write in Bugs Bunny or something if they don't have anyone they like in the race.  Of course, we're in NY, which usually has a plethora of third parties on the ballot (some of which are just cross listings of the major party candidates, some of which are not) for major offices.

Quote from: cabiness42 on January 24, 2018, 02:37:15 PM

Quote from: inkyatari on January 24, 2018, 02:15:28 PM

Quote from: vdeane on January 24, 2018, 02:07:29 PM

Agreed.  I was always taught "if you don't vote, don't complain" (as in, not voting is equivalent to voting for whoever wins). 

That, too, is BS.  What if I'm not given someone who I can, in a clear conscience vote FOR? In that case I have more right to complain than someone who does vote.
It just encourages the "lesser of two evils" mentality.  I don't vote for the lesser of two evils. I blame that attitude for where we are today.

Nearly every major office has more than two candidates.

Still, it's possible that I don't like any of the candidates.

Quote from: vdeane on January 24, 2018, 02:38:12 PM
Around here, all ballots have a write-in option for every race, so people usually just write in Bugs Bunny or something if they don't have anyone they like in the race.  Of course, we're in NY, which usually has a plethora of third parties on the ballot (some of which are just cross listings of the major party candidates, some of which are not) for major offices.

Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland said he wrote in his father for president in 2016 because he refused to vote for Trump, would never vote for Clinton, and didn't want to vote for one of the third-party candidates. (Hogan's father, who died in 2017, was a former congressman from Maryland.)

But in terms of the idea of "requiring people to vote," I think that might require a constitutional amendment because I'm fairly confident that under all existing jurisprudence, a statute requiring you to vote would almost certainly run up against First Amendment issues.

Quote from: vdeane on January 24, 2018, 02:38:12 PM
Around here, all ballots have a write-in option for every race, so people usually just write in Bugs Bunny or something if they don't have anyone they like in the race.  Of course, we're in NY, which usually has a plethora of third parties on the ballot (some of which are just cross listings of the major party candidates, some of which are not) for major offices.

New York, from what I understand, has less restrictive ballot access laws than Illinois does.  Until this last summer, to run for an upticket office, a political party had to run someone in each of the major races, otherwise no spot on the ballot for those who really DO want to run. Fortunately the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the Full Slate law. We still have to get an ungodly amount of signatures to get on the ballot than the entrenched parties do.

In Illinois, if you want to write in someone, a candidate must declare themselves as a write in candidate, and pay the $25 fee to each electoral district that they will be running in.  Otherwise, you can only select what's on the ballot.

Quote from: bing101 on January 17, 2018, 11:28:45 PM

Quote from: Roadgeekteen on January 17, 2018, 06:38:55 PM
I would like Puerto Rico to become a state eventually. I would also like to see all the pacific territories and Hawaii become one state called the Pacific Union (or PU).

How about the U.S. Virgin Islands they should be considered for 51st state status.

Such a small populous on the islands.

Quote from: 1995hoo on January 24, 2018, 11:23:31 AM

They don't quite use "proportional" votes. Rather, each of those two states awards electoral votes by congressional district and then awards the remaining two electoral votes (the ones that correspond to their Senate seats) to whichever candidate wins statewide. I'll use Maine as an example. The state has two congressional districts, so four electoral votes. In 2016, Clinton won Maine's first congressional district by about 15%, Trump won Maine's second congressional district by about 10%, and Clinton won the statewide vote by about 3%. Clinton therefore got three electoral votes from Maine and Trump got one. It's not a proportional system because it's winner-take-all in each district (and statewide as to the other two electoral votes). If it were proportional, the Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and Bill Weld presumably would have received an electoral vote because they got 5% of the statewide vote in Maine in 2016.

Under what mathematical system does 5% of 4 round to 1?

Quote from: GaryV on January 24, 2018, 05:06:37 PM

Quote from: 1995hoo on January 24, 2018, 11:23:31 AM

They don't quite use "proportional" votes. Rather, each of those two states awards electoral votes by congressional district and then awards the remaining two electoral votes (the ones that correspond to their Senate seats) to whichever candidate wins statewide. I'll use Maine as an example. The state has two congressional districts, so four electoral votes. In 2016, Clinton won Maine's first congressional district by about 15%, Trump won Maine's second congressional district by about 10%, and Clinton won the statewide vote by about 3%. Clinton therefore got three electoral votes from Maine and Trump got one. It's not a proportional system because it's winner-take-all in each district (and statewide as to the other two electoral votes). If it were proportional, the Libertarian ticket of Gary Johnson and Bill Weld presumably would have received an electoral vote because they got 5% of the statewide vote in Maine in 2016.

Under what mathematical system does 5% of 4 round to 1?

The prior post discussing proportional allocation said something about if there were a split vote it would go to the losing candidate. I was assuming that hypothetical system applied for purposes of this discussion.

Parliamentary democracy would allow for more political parties to be involved.  Governing coalitions have to be formed so when there is no meeting of the minds, the parliament is dissolved, the prime minister steps aside and a short election campaign is conducted with the hope that the next batch in office can git 'er done.  Italy was famous/infamous for changing governments rapidly but they still managed to function as a nation.  The president then becomes Head Of State unless there is a constitutional monarch in the mix but it is upon the prime minister/chancellor to handle the affairs of governing along with whatever coalition they piece together.

Rick

Another fun thing about parliamentary democracies is that if they cannot pass a budget, there's none of this government shutdown or continuing resolution business–the parliament is instantly dissolved, new elections are held, and the process repeats until the electorate finds someone who can pass a budget.

Do keep in mind, though, that a parliamentary democracy alone doesn't guarantee the relevance of third parties. It does help quite a bit, but any first-past-the-post system will favor a two-party state. You need something else like preference voting or proportional representation to really give third parties any meaningful power.

It doesn't help that the US system was designed for a country with no political parties and they later had to be shoehorned into the system when they developed. See, for example, the complete mess that was the 1796 election.

Quote from: kalvado on January 24, 2018, 08:52:47 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 24, 2018, 05:25:50 AM
Because I feel that an ideal representative democracy–which we should aspire to be, or else what's the point in having an America to begin with–would count each citizen's vote equally and identically. (This is a core belief that I am not interested in changing, and also a legal principle that the Supreme Court has affirmed in cases such as Reynolds v. Sims, among others.) Malapportionment by even 1 person, then, would inherently be a violation of that ideal. Obviously, for practical reasons, that ideal cannot realistically be achieved exactly, due to the fact that decimal values of representatives can't happen under the Constitution, if nothing else.

A proposed House with 1000 representatives is intended as a concession to the reality that a House with perfect apportionment would be considered too large to be workable by a number of people. Personally, if something like 10,291 representatives (a number I have seen quoted as ideal, but which I have not verified the math on) is necessary for perfect apportionment, I say give us 10,291 representatives and damn the other consequences; the new problems are worth solving as they come up in order to obtain perfect apportionment. However, I know that this is not an opinion most people share, so I threw the number 1000 out there as an example of how we could get a lot closer to perfect apportionment than we are now without making the House 23 times the size as it is now.

I acknowledge that it is very strange to see instances of compromise as part of the political process, but I sometimes like to be different ;) One should not make perfect the enemy of the good, after all.

OK, at least this is a clear position I can argue with. :sombrero:
And my answer would be - you're trying to find an exact mathematical solution to a political problem - which may not have an exact mathematical solution to begin with. And you're proposing a formal solution, which does not address core problems.

Mathematically, you're trying to find a greatest common divisor  for a set of 50 numbers. And in most cases such GCD is unity, in other words direct democracy is the only way to achieve strictly equal representation. Which is impractical for many reasons, and that is why representative democracy exists. SO you have to accept some tolerance to make things work - and we can start negotiations on what is that tolerance. your number 10294 means one per 30k representation (number coming from early US history)- and would still result in up to 2% under/overrepresentation if districting restricted by state lines. Currently we have maximum of 25% overrepresentation for RI, and 40% underrepresentation for MT; down to +/-10% if you remove 10 most outlying seats. SO do you think 2% is OK?

But most people believe that representative democracy has bigger problems than some vote inequality - which has to mostly level out at the end of the day with "yes" or "now" votes being split about equally to over- and under-representing representatives. "Winner takes it all" is be a bigger concern.

Yes, I'd say that 2% malapportionment is a lot better than 40%. As I said before, 0% would be ideal, but that may be mathematically impossible, and practical concerns do place a big damper on what can be done realistically. But I'd support anything that would get the number closer to 0%.

I agree that first-past-the-post causes a lot of really stupid side-effects that are probably more important to solve (such as making third parties nearly irrelevant, as discussed above).

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 24, 2018, 09:11:38 PM
Do keep in mind, though, that a parliamentary democracy alone doesn't guarantee the relevance of third parties. It does help quite a bit, but any first-past-the-post system will favor a two-party state. You need something else like preference voting or proportional representation to really give third parties any meaningful power.

rangevoting.org (http://rangevoting.org) (note: the website is heavy on mathematics)

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 24, 2018, 09:11:38 PM

Yes, I'd say that 2% malapportionment is a lot better than 40%. As I said before, 0% would be ideal, but that may be mathematically impossible, and practical concerns do place a big damper on what can be done realistically. But I'd support anything that would get the number closer to 0%.

I agree that first-past-the-post causes a lot of really stupid side-effects that are probably more important to solve (such as making third parties nearly irrelevant, as discussed above).

Traditional way to negotiate that - if 2% is OK, then what about 5%?
ANd you were talking about 0.5% in CA as a show stopper before..

But here is a bigger example of non-representation:
Libertarian party got 3% of popular vote during last presidential election. How many representatives in congress do they have?

Quote from: kalvado on January 25, 2018, 08:16:48 AM
Libertarian party got 3% of popular vote during last presidential election. How many representatives in congress do they have?

None, because the Presidential vote is separate from the House/Senate vote.

If every state was proportional, Gary Johnson would have gotten 4 electoral votes (2 from CA, 1 from TX, 1 from NY), Jill Stein 1 (from CA), and Evan McMullin 1 (from UT).

Quote from: kalvado on January 25, 2018, 08:16:48 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 24, 2018, 09:11:38 PM

Yes, I'd say that 2% malapportionment is a lot better than 40%. As I said before, 0% would be ideal, but that may be mathematically impossible, and practical concerns do place a big damper on what can be done realistically. But I'd support anything that would get the number closer to 0%.

I agree that first-past-the-post causes a lot of really stupid side-effects that are probably more important to solve (such as making third parties nearly irrelevant, as discussed above).

Traditional way to negotiate that - if 2% is OK, then what about 5%?
ANd you were talking about 0.5% in CA as a show stopper before..

But here is a bigger example of non-representation:
Libertarian party got 3% of popular vote during last presidential election. How many representatives in congress do they have?

Apples and Oranges.  Congress can get 100% of the Democratic vote, but that doesn't mean diddly on which party the President is from.

Quote from: 1 on January 25, 2018, 08:23:07 AM

Quote from: kalvado on January 25, 2018, 08:16:48 AM
Libertarian party got 3% of popular vote during last presidential election. How many representatives in congress do they have?

None, because the Presidential vote is separate from the House/Senate vote.

True, but it still influences how easy it is for third parties to get on the ballot for those seats.  In many states, again going back to ballot access laws, the percentage of votes a party gets for the presidential race determines what kind of ballot access the party has for all offices downticket.

Here in illinois, the entrenched parties need 2,000 petition signatures to get major offices (president, governor, senate, etc.) on the ballot, whereas third parties need five times that many signatures - the number of signatures needed by third parties is actually worse in local races.  Had Gary Johnson gotten 5% of the vote in Illinois, the Illinois Libertarian Party would have been able to conduct ballot access initiatives under the rules for the entrenched parties.  Make no mistake, we have very limited funds, and between the collection of signatures, in conjunction with defending them almost wiped out what little money we had at the time.


The illinois Libertarian Party a few years ago, during the governor's race, needed 25,000 signatures to get on the ballot.  We collected 42,000. The gop challenged 22,000 (and they tried every trick in the book to get them all disqualified.)  The gop had paid staffers and college republican groups come down to Springfield to challenge.  Everyone that came down to help the Libertarian party HAD TO TAKE SICK OR VACATION DAYS OFF OF WORK, AND UNLIKE THE gop OPERATIVES, WE DIDN'T GET PAID. Both sides had to hire lawyers, but the state gop had millions to help.  We had thousands of dollars. On the first day (I helped out the second day of challenges,) the head gop operatives were so belligerent that the Illinois board of elections KICKED OUT THE 3 most dickish gop operatives.

When I went to help defend the signatures, fortunately most of the day the person who the gop had against me was a college republican who didn't care or want to be there, so it was smooth sailing in the morning. At one point the judge that was assigned to my group said "I don't see why we're doing this.  This is a waste of time!"  In the afternoon, a higher up in the college republican groups was put at my table.  He was bringing up the most outlandish challenges.  One family had each family member sign, but only the first put their entire address down.  The next three used " marks.  THE IDIOT ASKED WHAT THOSE MARKS WERE AND TRIED TO HAVE ALL FOUR SIGNATURES DISQUALIFIED OVER THAT.  At a seperate access hearing in chicago, a friend of mine who collected the most signatures had each one of his petitions challenged because the gop charged he didn't live where it said he lived on the petition (each page of each petition has to have residency information of the circulator at the top.) He was able to easily squash this by bringing mortgage statements, bills, and so on.

There were also reports of threats made by gop operatives towards people who signed the LP petitions.  There's also a case of one that was intimidated by the gop through the use of an agent of an Alsip security firm.  From what I understand he was harassing a circulator, WITH HIS GUN ON FULL DISPLAY THE WHOLE TIME.  Oh, this security firm?  It is owned by the head (at that time) of the Alsip area gop.  More information on this:  http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2014/08/il-gop-bullies-libertarian-petitioners-as-they-plea-for-term-limit-ballot-access.html

Based on my own experience, it seems to me that the whole electoral system is designed to keep the entrenched parties in power.  I still vote, but my experiences in the Illinois electoral system have soured me on the whole voting process. I'm very close to never voting again.

Quote from: 1 on January 25, 2018, 08:23:07 AM

Quote from: kalvado on January 25, 2018, 08:16:48 AM
Libertarian party got 3% of popular vote during last presidential election. How many representatives in congress do they have?

None, because the Presidential vote is separate from the House/Senate vote.

If every state was proportional, Gary Johnson would have gotten 4 electoral votes (2 from CA, 1 from TX, 1 from NY), Jill Stein 1 (from CA), and Evan McMullin 1 (from UT).

Same people are voting in both elections; and it is only reasonable to assume that 3% of population would vote for  third party in congress. Yes, those are different elections - and yes, existing rules of winner per area make those 3% minority party impossible.
No, that is not the way it absolutely has to be. It is just another rounding error built in existing set of rules.

Quote from: inkyatari on January 25, 2018, 09:30:11 AM
Based on my own experience, it seems to me that the whole electoral system is designed to keep the entrenched parties in power.  I still vote, but my experiences in the Illinois electoral system have soured me on the whole voting process. I'm very close to never voting again.

That's exactly how the vote suppressors want you to react!

Quote from: inkyatari on January 25, 2018, 09:30:11 AM
Based on my own experience, it seems to me that the whole electoral system is designed to keep the entrenched parties in power.  I still vote, but my experiences in the Illinois electoral system have soured me on the whole voting process. I'm very close to never voting again.

That's what Mike wants us to do.  Fuck Mike.

Quote from: kkt on January 25, 2018, 10:14:10 AM

Quote from: inkyatari on January 25, 2018, 09:30:11 AM
Based on my own experience, it seems to me that the whole electoral system is designed to keep the entrenched parties in power.  I still vote, but my experiences in the Illinois electoral system have soured me on the whole voting process. I'm very close to never voting again.

That's exactly how the vote suppressors want you to react!

Quote from: Brandon on January 25, 2018, 10:17:14 AM

That's what Mike wants us to do.  Fuck Mike.

It's how the system is designed. Until an independent board can have a shot at the ballot access rules, nothing will change.  The entrenched parties will not give up their power.

Politics works best when the final vote comes down to a dichotomous choice.  It just does.  You can find plenty of examples in the USA, and elsewhere, where the TINY number of people that cannot (actually will not) find a home in one of the two great historical parties are the margin of victory for the person further from their views. 

Therefore it is clearly in the public interest to keep fringe parties off the ballot.  In the USA we mostly use high signature numbers, which is good.  Personally I like the British system of requiring a meaningful deposit which the candidate loses to the government if he does not get a legitimate %age of the vote. 

The main political reform needed in this country is fair districting.  Starting with eliminating the racist gerrymandering we require of the South.  Just draw the districts about even, a city and its hinterland and let the chips fall where they may.

Quote from: kkt on January 25, 2018, 10:14:10 AM

Quote from: inkyatari on January 25, 2018, 09:30:11 AM
Based on my own experience, it seems to me that the whole electoral system is designed to keep the entrenched parties in power.  I still vote, but my experiences in the Illinois electoral system have soured me on the whole voting process. I'm very close to never voting again.

That's exactly how the vote suppressors want you to react!

Personally, this is more the fault of the media than anything.  The only way most people get their news is from local and national news networks and shows.  If they're not giving Libs and other 3rd party candidates any air time, people aren't going to know about them or be familiar with them.

Quote from: SP Cook on January 25, 2018, 10:31:36 AM


Therefore it is clearly in the public interest to keep fringe parties off the ballot. 

Disenfranchising people is never a good option.

Quote from: inkyatari on January 25, 2018, 10:42:14 AM

Quote from: SP Cook on January 25, 2018, 10:31:36 AM


Therefore it is clearly in the public interest to keep fringe parties off the ballot. 

Disenfranchising people is never a good option.

Actually I still hope that with more power to Tea Party and alike on republican side and most liberal ones on democratic side - a central group composed of more moderate people on both sides would eventually emerge. And that has a potential to become a major party - not a fringe one.

As I like to joke with truth, democracy is the best government money can buy.  The real opposite would be the 19th century Russian Empire.  Absolute monarchy and politics is not allowed.  No one can buy the Tsar after all!  The more folks that get involved in governing, the lower the common denominator.  I'd rather deal with the mistakes of one person than the mistakes of many with corruption added in to further sour the soup of the social order.  Absolute monarchy is how human affairs were governed for millennia.  Not until the Great War brought the end of so many dynasties and empires did we see a change from this system.  By and large it worked and did so well enough that the Roman Empire and it's successor, the Byzantine Empire, endured until 1453. 

A camel is a horse designed by a committee.

Rick

I don't know what "moderate" means, other than the common usage by Big Media, which is "won't admit to agreeing with his political party because the folks back home don't". 

In any event no one is "disenfranchised" by keeping fringe parties off the ballot.   Rather they are enfranchised, as they become the most important swing voters, rather than casting a meaningless protest vote that will acomplish nothing.

Quote from: SP Cook on January 25, 2018, 01:48:23 PM


In any event no one is "disenfranchised" by keeping fringe parties off the ballot.   Rather they are enfranchised, as they become the most important swing voters, rather than casting a meaningless protest vote that will acomplish nothing.

Trying not to get angry here..

First the VOTER is disenfranchised.  YOu're doing the "lesser of two evils" routine.  In other words, you're saying that I should vote for the person with whom I disagree on 98% of the issues, otherwise the person I disagree with 99% of the time will get elected.  Despite the fact that there's someone running that I agree WITH 99% of the time.  This is not a meaningless vote.  Indeed, the only meaningless or wasted vote is one not cast in a clear conscience.  Had I voted for the two entrenched candidates that ran this last time, I could not feel good about myself because I do not like either, nor do I like their policies.

Let's look at this a different way.

In the next statewide Illinois elections, for the office of comptroller, there will (hopefully) be at least three candidates running for office.  Two entrenched party candidates that have no accounting experience, or someone I know personally who is a CPA.  In your scenario, I should vote for a candidate who is politically connected rather than someone who is qualified?  How does that make sense?

Or, one more way...

I should vote for stalin, otherwise hitler would win, despite the fact that Buddha is running.

I'm pretty sure "moderate" is intended to mean voters who are "in between" the two major parties and favor a blending of both.

As for the duopoly, it has the effect of limiting the scope of debate.  In Europe, for example, there are a lot more ideas on the table.  The reason?  More political parties.  In the US, anything that isn't a mainstream idea within either the Democrats or the Republicans is automatically branded "fringe" and not talked about by politicians and the media.  There are also quite a few bipartisan consensuses (such as allowing interstates to be tolled, or allowing self-driving cars with little government oversight), and if you disagree with them, you have no voice.  The system also locks up voters such that many elections are already decided.  There shouldn't be a single office anywhere in the country where the primary is more influential than the general, but they're everywhere (in fact, I can count on my hands the number of races I've voted on in my entire life where that wasn't the case; not elections, individual races).  Many if not almost all of the frustrations on both the right and left are caused by these effects.  And if competition is good for free markets, I'm not sure why it wouldn't be considered good for politics.  Duopolies cause similar problems in both.

I fail to see how someone who's views are completely different from both parties is "enfranchised" by the two party system.  Someone who's views are outside the system isn't going to bounce between the parties.  They're going to vote third party or not vote at all.

I don't believe a vote for a third-party candidate is "wasted." Some states grant ballot access without need for a petition if a party's candidate gets a certain percentage of the vote, and I think I read for federal purposes a party is entitled to matching funds if their candidate gets 5% of the national vote. A person might well decide to vote for a third-party candidate he knows can't win if he doesn't like either of the major-party candidates and wants to see more parties gaining access. Obviously, third-party and write-in candidates have even won on occasion. (In recent memory, Jesse Ventura's campaign for governor comes to mind. Lisa Murkowski was elected to the Senate in 2010 as a write-in candidate after losing the Republican primary, and Anthony Williams won the 2002 DC Democrat mayoral primary as a write-in candidate for reelection after he was removed from the ballot due to irregularities with a bunch of signatures on his petitions.)

Lately I feel like both major parties have largely turned into parodies of themselves.

Either way, I hardly think "it just does [work better]" is a convincing argument in favor of anything, much less only allowing two parties access to the ballot.

I have a feeling this is coming soon for this thread.... (https://acurazine.com/forums/images/smilies/padlock.gif)

"Moderate," like "centrist," is in the eye of the beholder.  Rarely are self-described moderates moderate, and rarely are self-described centrists in the center.

Quote from: 1995hoo on January 25, 2018, 02:33:06 PM

Lately I feel like both major parties have largely turned into parodies of themselves.

I have a feeling this is coming soon for this thread.... (https://acurazine.com/forums/images/smilies/padlock.gif)

That first paragraph is an understatment.
I can also feel a good chance of a lock coming.

Quote from: kalvado on January 25, 2018, 08:16:48 AM

Quote from: Scott5114 on January 24, 2018, 09:11:38 PM

Yes, I'd say that 2% malapportionment is a lot better than 40%. As I said before, 0% would be ideal, but that may be mathematically impossible, and practical concerns do place a big damper on what can be done realistically. But I'd support anything that would get the number closer to 0%.

I agree that first-past-the-post causes a lot of really stupid side-effects that are probably more important to solve (such as making third parties nearly irrelevant, as discussed above).

Traditional way to negotiate that - if 2% is OK, then what about 5%?
ANd you were talking about 0.5% in CA as a show stopper before..

But here is a bigger example of non-representation:
Libertarian party got 3% of popular vote during last presidential election. How many representatives in congress do they have?

This is what I really wish everybody would understand.  A lot of people didn't vote because they couldn't stand either major party choice and felt that a vote for the Libertarian candidate was a wasted vote because he couldn't possibly win.  However, if even just 7% of the electorate that stayed home due to the awful choices had decided to go out and vote for the Libertarian candidate, he would have gotten 10%.  Still no electoral votes so it may seem like a wasted effort but hitting that 10% mark gets people's attention.  Then maybe in 2020 the Libertarian candidate gets 15%, and so on.

The stranglehold on the two-party system isn't going away overnight.  It's going to take a concerted effort by a lot of people over a long period of time to build up a third party.

My mom sometimes says she wishes she'd voted for Anderson in 1980 but that it would have been a wasted vote. I always tell her that if everyone who says that had voted for him, he'd have had a good chance of winning. You shouldn't base your vote on what you think everyone else may do.

Quote from: 1995hoo on January 26, 2018, 09:17:02 AM
My mom sometimes says she wishes she'd voted for Anderson in 1980 but that it would have been a wasted vote. I always tell her that if everyone who says that had voted for him, he'd have had a good chance of winning. You shouldn't base your vote on what you think everyone else may do.

Exactly!

Quote from: vdeane on January 25, 2018, 02:23:25 PM

I fail to see how someone who's views are completely different from both parties is "enfranchised" by the two party system.  Someone who's views are outside the system isn't going to bounce between the parties.  They're going to vote third party or not vote at all.

:clap: :clap: :clap:

Quote from: cabiness42 on January 26, 2018, 09:12:29 AM
The stranglehold on the two-party system isn't going away overnight.  It's going to take a concerted effort by a lot of people over a long period of time to build up a third party.

But when it does, it might become one of the two major parties, with a once-major party disappearing once it loses that status. The Republican Party started off as a third party, but wound up displacing the dying Whigs.

Quote from: SP Cook on January 25, 2018, 10:31:36 AM
Politics works best when the final vote comes down to a dichotomous choice.

No.

Adults should be allowed to make informed decisions. Since we're forced to endure an 18-month cycle of the candidates, with 3-4 years between selections (depending on office), there's obviously no rush.

Dichotomous choices are great when forcing a child to pick between two things because they'll take all day for a decision, and you're in a hurry.

Getting back on (er, off) topic, that's like saying we can only talk about Interstates and US Routes.

Quote from: formulanone on January 26, 2018, 02:26:16 PM

Quote from: SP Cook on January 25, 2018, 10:31:36 AM
Politics works best when the final vote comes down to a dichotomous choice.

No.

Adults should be allowed to make informed decisions. Since we're forced to endure an 18-month cycle of the candidates, with 3-4 years between selections (depending on office), there's obviously no rush.

Dichotomous choices are great when forcing a child to pick between two things because they'll take all day for a decision, and you're in a hurry.

Getting back on (er, off) topic, that's like saying we can only talk about Interstates and US Routes.

2-4 years.

Quote from: cabiness42 on January 26, 2018, 09:12:29 AM

  However, if even just 7% of the electorate that stayed home due to the awful choices had decided to go out and vote for the Libertarian candidate, he would have gotten 10%.  Still no electoral votes so it may seem like a wasted effort but hitting that 10% mark gets people's attention.  Then maybe in 2020 the Libertarian candidate gets 15%, and so on.

More than that, hitting that threshold means that in most states the third party is not considered a third party anymore, and are on equal ground legally with the other parties, when it comes to ballot access.

Quote from: Hurricane Rex on January 16, 2018, 08:51:54 PM
https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/1036681001

New California has declared independence from the rest of it. Current California would be reduced to Sacramento, San Francisco, LA and San Diego metro areas. New California would be the New California.

Puerto Rico has had movements in the past (but turned down) and DC also wants the 51st state designation. Thoughts?

I personally am in support of California splitting. Puerto Rico is up to them but DC should not become a state. The founders did not want DC to become part of a state or a state itself because it is the country's capital.

Agree on all three points, most people do not realize or know why DC was never intended to be a state.  The founders did not want any state to interfere with the Federal Government.  That is the very short reason.  Of course by the 10 Amendment the Federal Government was limited to the powers that were spelled out in the Constitution, all else reserved for the states.  We see how that has gone. 

Quote from: leroys73 on February 22, 2018, 11:06:38 PM

Quote from: Hurricane Rex on January 16, 2018, 08:51:54 PM
https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/1036681001

New California has declared independence from the rest of it. Current California would be reduced to Sacramento, San Francisco, LA and San Diego metro areas. New California would be the New California.

Puerto Rico has had movements in the past (but turned down) and DC also wants the 51st state designation. Thoughts?

I personally am in support of California splitting. Puerto Rico is up to them but DC should not become a state. The founders did not want DC to become part of a state or a state itself because it is the country's capital.

Agree on all three points, most people do not realize or know why DC was never intended to be a state.  The founders did not want any state to interfere with the Federal Government.  That is the very short reason.  Of course by the 10 Amendment the Federal Government was limited to the powers that were spelled out in the Constitution, all else reserved for the states.  We see how that has gone. 

Most people who graduated from high school know that's why Congress carved a Federal district out of Maryland and Virginia.  However, a lot has changed since then.  The balance of power between federal and state would not allow any state to interfere with the federal government.  We have our military headquarters and our chief spy agency and our chief codemaking and codebreaking agency in states, as well as many other agencies and all three airports service the Federal district.  No state interferes.  The founders also did not anticipate how many people would be living in the federal district.  They should have representatives in congress and in the senate.

Most people who graduated from high school know that's why Congress carved a Federal district out of Maryland and Virginia.  However, a lot has changed since then.  The balance of power between federal and state would not allow any state to interfere with the federal government.  We have our military headquarters and our chief spy agency and our chief codemaking and codebreaking agency in states, as well as many other agencies and all three airports service the Federal district.  No state interferes.  The founders also did not anticipate how many people would be living in the federal district.  They should have representatives in congress and in the senate.
[/quote]

I must disagree with your first sentence.  You need to get out in the general population more. 

Quote from: leroys73 on February 26, 2018, 10:23:59 PM


Most people who graduated from high school know that's why Congress carved a Federal district out of Maryland and Virginia.  However, a lot has changed since then.  The balance of power between federal and state would not allow any state to interfere with the federal government.  We have our military headquarters and our chief spy agency and our chief codemaking and codebreaking agency in states, as well as many other agencies and all three airports service the Federal district.  No state interferes.  The founders also did not anticipate how many people would be living in the federal district.  They should have representatives in congress and in the senate.

I must disagree with your first sentence.  You need to get out in the general population more.
[/quote]

It also isn't taught too well at my high school as DC is on our name the states test.

DC deserves more local control than it has, especially removing Congressional oversight of its city functions. I can imagine your reaction to having your local decisions subject to automatic conditional approval from another body would not go over well with most people here. And that's what DC deals with. Congress gets the automatic ability to say yes or no to everything the city government does, no questions asked. Why should they have that ability?

Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on February 27, 2018, 02:24:56 AM
DC deserves more local control than it has, especially removing Congressional oversight of its city functions. I can imagine your reaction to having your local decisions subject to automatic conditional approval from another body would not go over well with most people here. And that's what DC deals with. Congress gets the automatic ability to say yes or no to everything the city government does, no questions asked. Why should they have that ability?

The seat of government of the US needs to be able to run without local interference. EVERYTHING that DC does, from the timing of traffic lights to the days that garbage is collected and from the penalty for murder to the temperature to which the Jacuzzi in your apartment complex is heated has an impact on the government of the US. Some things, more than others, of course. That's not true of the Jacuzzi in Sacramento or the timing of the traffic signals in Austin or the penalty for murder in Tallahassee or the day on which garbage is collected in Springfield.

Quote from: michravera on February 27, 2018, 11:09:36 PM

Quote from: TheHighwayMan394 on February 27, 2018, 02:24:56 AM
DC deserves more local control than it has, especially removing Congressional oversight of its city functions. I can imagine your reaction to having your local decisions subject to automatic conditional approval from another body would not go over well with most people here. And that's what DC deals with. Congress gets the automatic ability to say yes or no to everything the city government does, no questions asked. Why should they have that ability?

The seat of government of the US needs to be able to run without local interference. EVERYTHING that DC does, from the timing of traffic lights to the days that garbage is collected and from the penalty for murder to the temperature to which the Jacuzzi in your apartment complex is heated has an impact on the government of the US. Some things, more than others, of course. That's not true of the Jacuzzi in Sacramento or the timing of the traffic signals in Austin or the penalty for murder in Tallahassee or the day on which garbage is collected in Springfield.

The best solution is not realistic due to constitutional and political concerns, but ideally the size of DC would shrink to exclude areas that are mostly residential and have little or no Federal agencies.  I agree that the seat of the Federal government needs to have some level of control over the core of the city that it doesn't need in any other city or state, but there are a lot of parts of DC where that control is unnecessary.  Ultimately, once you turn 18 you have a choice whether or not to live in DC and know what the rules are when you make that choice.  If having the Federal government involved in your local laws bothers you that much then you can always move to MD or VA.

In the 1770s, I'm sure some Englishmen were saying that once you Americans turn 18 if being able to vote for your representative in Parliament is important to you, you can always move back to England and try to find a non-rotten borrough.

Quote from: kkt on February 28, 2018, 10:20:46 AM
In the 1770s, I'm sure some Englishmen were saying that once you Americans turn 18 if being able to vote for your representative in Parliament is important to you, you can always move back to England and try to find a non-rotten borrough.

Of course, everybody who lives in D.C. is five miles or less from Maryland and/or Virginia. For most people, that's long walking distance.

Many people living in D.C. moved there from someplace else. Of those who were born in D.C. and never left, probably most of them have moved from one place to another within D.C., and could easily have moved instead to one of the close-in suburbs if voting representation in Congress really mattered to them.

Quote from: nexus73 on January 24, 2018, 07:48:43 PM
Parliamentary democracy would allow for more political parties to be involved.  Governing coalitions have to be formed so when there is no meeting of the minds, the parliament is dissolved, the prime minister steps aside and a short election campaign is conducted with the hope that the next batch in office can git 'er done.

On coalitions - not necessarily: the UK has only 'needed' two post-WW2. And the current Tory-DUP alliance would only have been needed if 1) Sinn Fein took their seats in Westminster or 2) the DUP were happy with Prime Minister Corbyn. Neither would be the case, but May decided that she needed a formal pact. OK, both the Tories and Labour would be at least 2 parties in countries with parliamentarians elected proportionately by party rather than individuals and thus are coalitions, but the same is true for the GOP and Dems in the USA.

Also you don't want to end up like Germany, etc where elections barely change the Government. One party leader in one country took an important job for about 30 years as his party won roughly 5% and held enough power that they were always needed (with the price being the leader keeping his cabinet position). As elections barely change a thing, instead of politicians vs politicians, it becomes politicians vs people - as seen by the rise of the far Left and far Right across Europe who want to challenge the status quo.

I have ten people representing me in the EU parliament (which were allocated proportionately by party in order of where the party has listed them - putting parties above people and stopping independent candidates). I'm more politically aware than most, and my region has the big names top of their parties list (as the biggest UK region, and 10 seats on offer, its hard for the top name not to be elected), but I can only name three of them and can't remember what the party split was in 2014. I think two of them (ie the Labour ones) are part of the permanent governing 'grand coalition' of Centre-right, Centre-left and Centre party groupings (all committed to EU-nationalism, and federalism) and the other nine in different opposition groupings (the Greens, whatever UKIP called themselves, and the EU-skeptic centre right grouping that the Tories formed when they got fed up of being blacklisted from speaking in the Parliament for not being pro-Brussels).

As for parliaments being disposed and elections held if a coalition can't be formed - nope. Belgium didn't have elections to fix it's years without a Government - merely they found a PM to form a government every time they were needed to ratify something from the EU, with the government doing that one pro-EU thing and then collapsing as pro-EU was the only thing there was a majority for. Germany merely had elections as a possibility if a grand coalition failed, and Mutti wasn't planning on one. That's a Westminster-style feature.

Quote from: kalvado on January 25, 2018, 08:16:48 AMBut here is a bigger example of non-representation:
Libertarian party got 3% of popular vote during last presidential election. How many representatives in congress do they have?

UKIP got 12.6% of the national share in 2015, but merely one seat of 650.

Also their narrow geographical spread gave the SNP 56 seats off a 4.7% share (winning almost all the Scottish seats by winning just under half the Scottish vote), but the Lib Dems 8 seats off 7.9%.

That's the problem with FPTP. It was worst in the UK in 2005 where Blair got a massive majority on a lower %age than Cameron got in 2010 when he didn't win a majority in the Commons.

Quote from: kkt on February 28, 2018, 10:20:46 AM
In the 1770s, I'm sure some Englishmen were saying that once you Americans turn 18 if being able to vote for your representative in Parliament is important to you, you can always move back to England and try to find a non-rotten borrough.

No - try to find a rotten borough. Your vote (assuming you were a land-owning male, over-21, and all that) counts for more if there's only a couple of dozen electors electing two MPs than if there's a whole county.  :-P

With the Hurricane Maria disaster and the accusations of unequal treatment, there's renewed interest in Puerto Rico's statehood for the purpose of equal status.  Puerto Rico's congressional delegate has introduced a bill.  It has 37 co-sponsors, the majority of which are Republican.  If the people vote for it, in an election that's taken seriously, I'm in favor.  This is the longest we've ever gone without a new state.  That by itself isn't a reason to add a new one, but I don't think we should stagnate and fall into acceptance of 50 as the "correct" number of states that can never change.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/28/politics/puerto-rico-statehood-bill/index.html (https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/28/politics/puerto-rico-statehood-bill/index.html)

Quote from: kkt on February 28, 2018, 10:20:46 AM
In the 1770s, I'm sure some Englishmen were saying that once you Americans turn 18 if being able to vote for your representative in Parliament is important to you, you can always move back to England and try to find a non-rotten borrough.

The XXVIth Amendment, that lowered the legal voting age from 21 to 18, has only been around since 1971.

Quote from: PHLBOS on June 29, 2018, 09:48:48 AM

Quote from: kkt on February 28, 2018, 10:20:46 AM
In the 1770s, I'm sure some Englishmen were saying that once you Americans turn 18 if being able to vote for your representative in Parliament is important to you, you can always move back to England and try to find a non-rotten borrough.

The XXVIth Amendment, that lowered the legal voting age from 21 to 18, has only been around since 1971.

Yeah, someone finally figured out that it was kind of hypocritical that 18 was old enough to be sent to die in Vietnam but not old enough to vote.

The PR statehood bill gets introduced every year.  The current congresswoman is just better at PR (no pun intended) than her predecessors. 

The thing that has changed is that large numbers of people fleeing PR's disfunctional government have moved, the majority to Florida and Georgia.  With Florida having been the largest swing state for at least 20 years and no signs of that changing, doing things for PR, be it statehood or passing laws on whatever subject to try to fix the mess there, has suddenly become very important to Florida politicians, and to people running for President.

PR's dysfunctional government?  That may be part of it, but the exodus kicked into high gear also due to the miserable federal response to Maria.

Quote from: Rothman on June 29, 2018, 12:11:05 PM
PR's dysfunctional government?  That may be part of it, but the exodus kicked into high gear also due to the miserable federal response to Maria.

Well, not having electric for many months will do that.

But that's not all completely the government's fault.  They're not the ones installing the power lines.

Plus there's the fact that PR's current fiscal mess was basically caused by the current special status.

Quote from: jeffandnicole on June 29, 2018, 12:53:32 PM
But that's not all completely the government's fault.  They're not the ones installing the power lines.

Actually, they kinda are (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_Electric_Power_Authority).

California in even number years there's always a ballot initiative about splitting California into different parts. But in the last three Tim Draper was behind the 2014, the 2016 and 2018. Another version was to make California leave the USA.  Note the Draper editions involved that California become 3 or 6 parts though. However that proposal always gets shot down Downtown Sacramento and gets diverted over to the water debates or the immigration debates.

Texas is another state where the same sort of stuff gets discussed in even number years. But that gets called off for similar reasons though.

Well if this current ballot things gets all the way, we could see a 51st and 52nd state! :awesomeface:

This year's California ballot there will be a vote on a proposition to gain state legislative approval to split the state to three. So there is a possibility for it to pass but I imagine it will be quite small for reasons we already discussed (water rights, divisions of certain counties in Southern California, and others.)

EDIT: Another big issue to deal with is the state's higher education system. There are 10 UCs, and many more CSUs and CCCs which reside in all three proposed states, so how would residency be dealt with?

Quote from: roadman65 on July 01, 2018, 12:08:28 AM
Well if this current ballot things gets all the way, we could see a 51st and 52nd state! :awesomeface:

The vote in California isn't the last step.  It would need Congressional approval and that's never happening.  One party would be at a Congressional representation disadvantage by any state splitting and would block it.

Quote from: cabiness42 on July 10, 2018, 09:05:29 AM

Quote from: roadman65 on July 01, 2018, 12:08:28 AM
Well if this current ballot things gets all the way, we could see a 51st and 52nd state! :awesomeface:

The vote in California isn't the last step.  It would need Congressional approval and that's never happening.  One party would be at a Congressional representation disadvantage by any state splitting and would block it.

Democrats would get up to 4 extra Senate seats. Republicans have a chance at getting about 15-20 electoral votes ("Southern California" leans blue; it isn't solid). It seems like those two might cancel each other out.

Quote from: 1 on July 10, 2018, 01:50:49 PM

Quote from: cabiness42 on July 10, 2018, 09:05:29 AM

Quote from: roadman65 on July 01, 2018, 12:08:28 AM
Well if this current ballot things gets all the way, we could see a 51st and 52nd state! :awesomeface:

The vote in California isn't the last step.  It would need Congressional approval and that's never happening.  One party would be at a Congressional representation disadvantage by any state splitting and would block it.

Democrats would get up to 4 extra Senate seats. Republicans have a chance at getting about 15-20 electoral votes ("Southern California" leans blue; it isn't solid). It seems like those two might cancel each other out.

That's kinda what I've been saying, but no one seems to buy it.

Quote from: webny99 on July 10, 2018, 10:51:40 PM

Quote from: 1 on July 10, 2018, 01:50:49 PM

Quote from: cabiness42 on July 10, 2018, 09:05:29 AM

Quote from: roadman65 on July 01, 2018, 12:08:28 AM
Well if this current ballot things gets all the way, we could see a 51st and 52nd state! :awesomeface:

The vote in California isn't the last step.  It would need Congressional approval and that's never happening.  One party would be at a Congressional representation disadvantage by any state splitting and would block it.

Democrats would get up to 4 extra Senate seats. Republicans have a chance at getting about 15-20 electoral votes ("Southern California" leans blue; it isn't solid). It seems like those two might cancel each other out.

That's kinda what I've been saying, but no one seems to buy it.

Chances are it'll fail in November;  very few or even no CA Democrats, coastal or not, will vote for it; it'll be just like any statewide issue and be decided in the coastal urban regions (I'm predicting at worst 47-53 against).  On the slight chance there's a general low turnout and every inland voter shows up and things go the other way, any Congressional makeup even vaguely resembling the current one won't take the chance of at least 2 and perhaps 3 additional senators on the D-side of the aisle.  The way the divisions play out, there are suburban moderate-to-liberal subregions in even the ostensibly conservative Southern California segment -- and it's likely both parties will elect to maintain the status quo if nothing else than to avoid the "gerrymandering" label being applied to their districting efforts, particularly in regards to those districts which would cross the new state boundaries. 

But I don't think it'll come to a Congressional head -- it'll lose right here in-state. 

Quote from: sparker on July 11, 2018, 12:20:14 AM
But I don't think it'll come to a Congressional head -- it'll lose right here in-state.

Well, yeah, that's a given. But we can always theorize.

That one billionaire who keeps trying break up California needs a new hobby.

The state should have a ballot initiative to kick out that annoying bastard.

Quote from: triplemultiplex on July 11, 2018, 09:58:30 AM
That one billionaire who keeps trying break up California needs a new hobby.

The state should have a ballot initiative to kick out that annoying bastard.

But on the other hand, at 40 million people CA may be too big to state. Basic idea behind administrative subdivisions is that people in certain areas have common interest and can control their lives themselves, delegating only certain powers to bigger government. That is municipal-county-state-federal ladder  in US, and pretty similar systems in many other countries. With 40 million people, CA is more than Canada or Australia, and interests may be not that homogeneous within the area. So idea of subdividing CA may have some sense. It can come as multiple states, or as another layer of government between state and county (yes, a big legal change, but not against common sense) or something else. I wouldn't be surprised if that eventually happens with bigger states  - TX and NY subdivision is discussed as well.

How did you switch to Cyrillic characters, and is that what you meant to do?

I have sometimes thought California would be better served by larger counties, able to carry on some regional planning functions.  There are nine counties that are classically considered the S.F. Bay Area because they actually touch the Bay, plus a couple more that are now serving as bedroom communities.  So there's an agency that does regional planning but it has no taxing authority and no one votes for its leaders.

Quote from: kkt on July 11, 2018, 04:46:00 PM
How did you switch to Cyrillic characters, and is that what you meant to do?

I have sometimes thought California would be better served by larger counties, able to carry on some regional planning functions.  There are nine counties that are classically considered the S.F. Bay Area because they actually touch the Bay, plus a couple more that are now serving as bedroom communities.  So there's an agency that does regional planning but it has no taxing authority and no one votes for its leaders.

It would take a major political effort to emulate the Portland Metro model, which features the parameters described above, in California.  The hands-down king of density within the state, San Francisco, is its own county as well -- and has no predilection for sharing its internal authority with a body encompassing a larger regional perspective. The inverse is also true; cities such as San Jose, with variegated developmental tracks geared toward the needs of the individual neighborhood -- but with a reputation for instituting planning efforts in a virtual vacuum (and being thus perceived as "not playing well with others") would, if dominating a regional entity "with teeth" (the largest incorporated entity with an active planning agency tends to do this, as evidenced by the city of Portland's dominance of Metro), draw resentment from the smaller regional cities (this occurred in the planning stages of the area's LR network, which focuses on downtown SJ while skirting or ignoring a number of smaller cities and towns).  When it's perceived that a "big dog" is hogging the agenda -- or will tend to do so if given the opportunity -- other jurisdictions become protective of their autonomy and prerogatives.  And being a relatively prosperous part of CA, often these jurisdictions, while not always able to go "hog wild" with their own plans, at least are usually able to accomplish just enough to placate their residents -- or at least keep the apparatus in business.     

Quote from: sparker on July 11, 2018, 12:20:14 AM
On the slight chance there's a general low turnout and every inland voter shows up and things go the other way[...]

It'd be a slight chance in any other year. But low turnout in 2018? Not happening.

Quote from: Scott5114 on July 11, 2018, 06:14:03 PM

Quote from: sparker on July 11, 2018, 12:20:14 AM
On the slight chance there's a general low turnout and every inland voter shows up and things go the other way[...]

It'd be a slight chance in any other year. But low turnout in 2018? Not happening.

Yeah, I for one am expecting it to be a high-turnout year, and given the other factors at play, that will probably harm the bill's already basically non-existent chances.
Suffice to say that this will probably get a lot of hype, but there will be a multitude of more important things to watch.