8 ms·

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. 435 seems really arbitrary and worse that it was put into law by the same people that yield more power by limiting

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. 435 seems really arbitrary and worse that it was put into law by the same people that yield more power by limiting the number of their peers. It's really something that should be constitutional. Most bills are drafted in committee anyway, I'm not sure everyone needs to be sitting in the same room in 2018. More representatives would also mean more local involvement, e.g. your city might actually have their own federal representative. Also the campaigning would be less intense since you have less to gain for your dollar.

rukittenme 9y ago
I think the Senate is the major bottleneck. No matter the number of representatives you just have to bribe 50 senators.
- stochastic_monk 9y ago
  I’m surprised by how little money it takes to buy senators.
  - dfee 9y ago
    In your experience, what was the price you had to pay to buy a majority?
  - Anon1096 9y ago
    The whole concept of "buying" a politician isn't a very truthful way to frame what happens anyway. No politician votes in a way they weren't biased towards already just due to campaign contributions.
    - philwelch 9y ago
      Indeed; people and organizations just contribute to the campaigns of people who already happen to support the policies that benefit them. Sometimes there's a sense of reciprocity, and sometimes there's small-scale corruption (e.g. Corporation X donates money to the campaign of Mr. Congressman, who in turn votes for an appropriations bill where the Pentagon orders 10 million units from Corporation X), but it doesn't seem to influence individual opinions on broad-scale policy. It's not as often that people get elected on an animal rights platform and then start taking money from Big Fur and turn around and vote for clubbing baby seals or something like that. Big Fur just saves their money and donates to the pro-seal-clubbing candidate in the first place.
      - stochastic_monk 9y ago
        It's less to do with the fact that they're accepting money from causes they are sympathetic toward and more related to the fact that they are now under an obligation to continue supporting the causes they've received money from or stop receiving donations, against the wishes of their constituents. See, for example, the tax bill of 2017.
- drewmol 9y ago
  A bill must be passed in identical form by both house & senate before it can be signed by the president. So 50-60 bribes could still be used to prevent new legislation, but much more money would be required to promote new legislation. Increasing the house size (growing w population, 1 rep per max 30,000 people as was once the case) would have likely prevented lots of the policy atrocities that have been passed in the last ~100 years. The electoral college is based on the number of congress members, so it would also limit the likelihood of the elected president losing the popular vote.
philwelch 9y ago
It would definitely be an improvement. It also makes gerrymandering super hard. It's just a huge change that could happen at any time and completely throw off the government.
- blorsh 9y ago
  The only real solution to gerrymandering is to use a minimally-complicated algorithm. The algorithm need not actually determine the districts. It can instead simply rate proposals, allowing a contest to be held. The highest scoring proposal submitted at least 400 days prior to the election is the winner, with earlier submissions winning any ties. Another improvement would be to let districts spill over state borders. One could exempt Alaska and Hawaii of course.
  - Feniks 9y ago
    Or you could just do away with it all and go for a one man one vote system. Why a vote in Kansas needs to be tallied differently from a vote in New York in the 2020 elections is beyond me.
    - rukittenme 9y ago
      Because presidential elections are not popular elections. Kansas has proportional representation in the House but is absurdly over-represented in the Senate and slightly over-represented in the Presidency. This is of course by design. The founder's obviously knew about proportional representation and they deliberately chose to disregard it. Shouldn't that give you pause to figure out why?
      - dbcurtis 9y ago
        Indeed. With our current system, rural voices are at least marginally relevant. With a purely proportional system, rural voices would not even be heard.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        The major reason is that smaller states wouldn't have joined any proposed Union that made them irrelevant, so the founders had to have things like the Senate to get them to join at all. This is, of course, no longer relevant.

rukittenme 9y ago

I think the Senate is the major bottleneck. No matter the number of representatives you just have to bribe 50 senators.

stochastic_monk 9y ago
I’m surprised by how little money it takes to buy senators.
- dfee 9y ago
  In your experience, what was the price you had to pay to buy a majority?
- Anon1096 9y ago
  The whole concept of "buying" a politician isn't a very truthful way to frame what happens anyway. No politician votes in a way they weren't biased towards already just due to campaign contributions.
  - philwelch 9y ago
    Indeed; people and organizations just contribute to the campaigns of people who already happen to support the policies that benefit them. Sometimes there's a sense of reciprocity, and sometimes there's small-scale corruption (e.g. Corporation X donates money to the campaign of Mr. Congressman, who in turn votes for an appropriations bill where the Pentagon orders 10 million units from Corporation X), but it doesn't seem to influence individual opinions on broad-scale policy. It's not as often that people get elected on an animal rights platform and then start taking money from Big Fur and turn around and vote for clubbing baby seals or something like that. Big Fur just saves their money and donates to the pro-seal-clubbing candidate in the first place.
    - stochastic_monk 9y ago
      It's less to do with the fact that they're accepting money from causes they are sympathetic toward and more related to the fact that they are now under an obligation to continue supporting the causes they've received money from or stop receiving donations, against the wishes of their constituents. See, for example, the tax bill of 2017.
drewmol 9y ago
A bill must be passed in identical form by both house & senate before it can be signed by the president. So 50-60 bribes could still be used to prevent new legislation, but much more money would be required to promote new legislation. Increasing the house size (growing w population, 1 rep per max 30,000 people as was once the case) would have likely prevented lots of the policy atrocities that have been passed in the last ~100 years. The electoral college is based on the number of congress members, so it would also limit the likelihood of the elected president losing the popular vote.

philwelch 9y ago

It would definitely be an improvement. It also makes gerrymandering super hard. It's just a huge change that could happen at any time and completely throw off the government.

blorsh 9y ago
The only real solution to gerrymandering is to use a minimally-complicated algorithm. The algorithm need not actually determine the districts. It can instead simply rate proposals, allowing a contest to be held. The highest scoring proposal submitted at least 400 days prior to the election is the winner, with earlier submissions winning any ties. Another improvement would be to let districts spill over state borders. One could exempt Alaska and Hawaii of course.
- Feniks 9y ago
  Or you could just do away with it all and go for a one man one vote system. Why a vote in Kansas needs to be tallied differently from a vote in New York in the 2020 elections is beyond me.
  - rukittenme 9y ago
    Because presidential elections are not popular elections. Kansas has proportional representation in the House but is absurdly over-represented in the Senate and slightly over-represented in the Presidency. This is of course by design. The founder's obviously knew about proportional representation and they deliberately chose to disregard it. Shouldn't that give you pause to figure out why?
    - dbcurtis 9y ago
      Indeed. With our current system, rural voices are at least marginally relevant. With a purely proportional system, rural voices would not even be heard.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      The major reason is that smaller states wouldn't have joined any proposed Union that made them irrelevant, so the founders had to have things like the Senate to get them to join at all. This is, of course, no longer relevant.