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> There would be so many representatives, that votes would have to be made based on what the person feels is right for their 30,000 voters, rather than how much
by oconnor663 10y ago
> There would be so many representatives, that votes would have to be made based on what the person feels is right for their 30,000 voters, rather than how much money they can collect from lobbyist for their next campaign.
I feel like the author pulls this conclusion out of thin air.
- gr3yh47 10y agopretty well supported by the idea that >9400 Representatives would make it a lot harder for lobbyist to sway the will of our elected officials. because a ~20x increase in the number of representatives would probably mean a roughly proportional increase in lobbying resources
- peteretep 10y agoWhen the cost of something goes up 20x, one rarely sees demand unchanged at the new price point. I don't believe influence to be so price inelastic.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- logfromblammo 10y agoThe representatives become more dependent on their party to win the election and stay incumbent, so the lobbying money shifts to the members in the party leadership who will eventually direct the other members on how they should vote. The representatives become more dependent on scheduling and organization, so lobbying shifts to those people who control the calendars and schedules. You can't have a working organization of 9400 people who all have equal power. If it isn't given an explicit hierarchy, one will form spontaneously, and lobbyists will obviously focus on the topmost layers of it. If there are 9400 targets, you don't lobby all 9400 of them. You lobby the 940 most likely to sway the vote.
- emodendroket 10y agoHow do you figure? Each person would be one-twentieth as influential and important to sway as before (assuming, probably wrongly, that there aren't blocs you can sway by targeting one or two people).
- pc86 10y agoYes and no. When a member of Congress is deciding how they feel about an issue (in the rare example where the party line hasn't already dictated it), I think it's unlikely they think about specific individual voters in their district. I know when it comes to votes on our borough council, those council members think about their neighbors, the guy down the street, etc. Now they're only representing about 2k people each, but it's not hard to imagine that if you represent 30k people, only a fraction of whom are politically active, you're much more likely to think of individual voters than if you represent over 20x as many people.
- geekamongus 10y agoThat tends to happen on personal blogs. Still, the point is that accountability is more likely to be present, and being bought off is less likely.
- lucb1e 10y agoMost blog posts', comments' and even some research papers' conclusions are similarly "pulled out of thin air", as you put it, or simply conclude what seems logical to them. It would be more interesting to hear your thoughts on why you seem to think it's wrong. Merely a "citation needed" isn't helping.
- aaron-lebo 10y agoResearch papers usually have more than a citation or two. It is the job of the person making an argument in a field with a long line of extant research to demonstrate that they understand what's been contributed before them.
- lucb1e 10y agoMany papers have been found to be non-reproducible, and from time to time I read papers where I don't see how their conclusion is logical given the data. To me that indicates that often conclusions are drawn that seem logical to the researchers, and I'm sure they make perfect sense at the time, but every once in a while they end up being wrong later.
- emodendroket 10y agoIndeed, in practice it seems that the fewer people someone represents the cheaper they are to bribe.