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Which is why we need 10x as many Senators and House Reps across the board. The original consideration for the House was 1 in 30k voters; its now closer to 1 in

Which is why we need 10x as many Senators and House Reps across the board. The original consideration for the House was 1 in 30k voters; its now closer to 1 in 600k. The Senate was supposed to be elected by the Senate of the state they came from, until the 17th amendment was passed. We used to admit new states into the union every 4 years on average, until the 1960s; we haven't admitted a new state in almost 65 years. The first and foremost problem in the United States is a lack of representation. Look to those overrepresented to see why.

godzillabrennus 3y ago
Yay, more overhead for more bureaucracy, that’ll fix things… Maybe we could instead support a veto branch? Run it like jury duty where people get randomly chosen to go to DC for 1-4 years. Those people have to vote to decide if they veto a bill before it goes to the president for signature. Try and pass bad policy through that system… corporations would be pissed…
- RyanAdamas 3y ago
  Poo pooing more representation is an odd stance. Especially because of.... money? This country has never stopped spending money no matter how much austerity is discussed. We do have a bureaucracy problem and that begins with the unions and ends with greater oversight from more accountable representatives. >Randomly chosen How long before that gets hijacked? Nothing is random and gaming random chance systems is a specialty of a whole group of industry con-artists.
  - credit_guy 3y ago
    > Nothing is random As far as I know jury duty is by random selection, and it's one of the fundamental building blocks of our democracy, and in my opinion it's a well functioning one.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      It’s quasi-random - never register to vote and you’ll probably never be called. And as the joke goes, you’ll be judged by a jury of people who couldn’t get out of jury duty.
- Swenrekcah 3y ago
  I've long suspected that the best election system would use randomness. The thing is we need a whole bunch of great people for parlimentary work. But nobody can know all of them well enough to vote for them. But if every voter was randomly assigned a limited collection of candidates some months ahead of the election, they could make a very well informed vote on those specific candidates. If there are 100 million voters, 1000 parliament seats and 10,000 candidates then every voter could be assigned let's say 20 candidates and 4 votes to distribute among them. With a 50% participation rate you'd get about 100,000 inspections of each candidate which should be more than enough. The best part is that this system completely eliminates personality cults.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    The problem with any random system is that it exasperates the existing problem; the unelected assistants become the true power behind the throne. For a random system to work it would have to randomly appoint people for life or at least long enough terms that they can actually learn how to implement what they want.
    - Swenrekcah 3y ago
      good point
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Unlimited terms have their own problems.
- mikecoles 3y ago
  That's an interesting idea. I'd keep it to a year to reduce the corruption chances. How would the "Here's $100k if you vote yes on passing this bill along" be detected though. How can it be detected in our current system?
mydriasis 3y ago
I have genuinely never heard this perspective, that sounds like a fantastic idea and a great way to breathe some life into the government!
jmclnx 3y ago
In a way you are partly correct. Most Senators tend to have been Congress people first IIRC. The issue is with the artificial limit on the House of Representatives. The limit of 435 Reps skews the numbers. House of Representatives is suppose to be 1 Rep per a fixed number of people. But Congress put a hard limit of 435, that means Small States have more people per Rep than Large States. For example, Wyoming has 1 Rep for 480900 people. California has 1 rep per 736000 people. To be fair and agree with the original intent of the US Constitution, California should have about 82 Reps instead of 53. Texas for that matter should really have 52 Reps instead of 36 has it as now. The way it is now it has one rep per 700279 people. Fixing that limit should solve a lot of problems
keepamovin 3y ago
I like your comments! Keep on here :)
stevesearer 3y ago
More representatives also reduces the overall importance of any individual representative. Potentially it would also make way for additional political parties as more granular viewpoints would be represented. I’ve wondered what practical difference rolling back the 17th amendment would have. One concept it might re-establish is that of each state as an entity whose viewpoint should be heard (at the level of the state government). I suppose it would also be an additional check between states and people?
RhysU 3y ago
Why was 1 in 30K correct? Also, https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/congressional-apportionment/about/computing.html https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/congressional-ap... is more subtle than I expected.
- RyanAdamas 3y ago
  Generally we attribute a greater sense of civil government functionality to the people who actually fought to create it for us. In this context, these folks believed that for an engaged citizenry and a government reflective of their values and lifestyle, an apportionment of 1 per 30k voters was functionally appropriate. Whether it is correct, I don't specifically know - but, I sure would like to find out. ;)
  - RhysU 3y ago
    The original text provides a bound not an equality: "The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand...". They didn't want too much direct representation but apparently didn't worry about too little. That said, I have never dug into the history and I am taking the text at face value.

godzillabrennus 3y ago

Yay, more overhead for more bureaucracy, that’ll fix things… Maybe we could instead support a veto branch? Run it like jury duty where people get randomly chosen to go to DC for 1-4 years. Those people have to vote to decide if they veto a bill before it goes to the president for signature. Try and pass bad policy through that system… corporations would be pissed…

RyanAdamas 3y ago
Poo pooing more representation is an odd stance. Especially because of.... money? This country has never stopped spending money no matter how much austerity is discussed. We do have a bureaucracy problem and that begins with the unions and ends with greater oversight from more accountable representatives. >Randomly chosen How long before that gets hijacked? Nothing is random and gaming random chance systems is a specialty of a whole group of industry con-artists.
- credit_guy 3y ago
  > Nothing is random As far as I know jury duty is by random selection, and it's one of the fundamental building blocks of our democracy, and in my opinion it's a well functioning one.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    It’s quasi-random - never register to vote and you’ll probably never be called. And as the joke goes, you’ll be judged by a jury of people who couldn’t get out of jury duty.
Swenrekcah 3y ago
I've long suspected that the best election system would use randomness. The thing is we need a whole bunch of great people for parlimentary work. But nobody can know all of them well enough to vote for them. But if every voter was randomly assigned a limited collection of candidates some months ahead of the election, they could make a very well informed vote on those specific candidates. If there are 100 million voters, 1000 parliament seats and 10,000 candidates then every voter could be assigned let's say 20 candidates and 4 votes to distribute among them. With a 50% participation rate you'd get about 100,000 inspections of each candidate which should be more than enough. The best part is that this system completely eliminates personality cults.
- bombcar 3y ago
  The problem with any random system is that it exasperates the existing problem; the unelected assistants become the true power behind the throne. For a random system to work it would have to randomly appoint people for life or at least long enough terms that they can actually learn how to implement what they want.
  - Swenrekcah 3y ago
    good point
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Unlimited terms have their own problems.
mikecoles 3y ago
That's an interesting idea. I'd keep it to a year to reduce the corruption chances. How would the "Here's $100k if you vote yes on passing this bill along" be detected though. How can it be detected in our current system?

mydriasis 3y ago

I have genuinely never heard this perspective, that sounds like a fantastic idea and a great way to breathe some life into the government!

jmclnx 3y ago

In a way you are partly correct. Most Senators tend to have been Congress people first IIRC. The issue is with the artificial limit on the House of Representatives. The limit of 435 Reps skews the numbers. House of Representatives is suppose to be 1 Rep per a fixed number of people. But Congress put a hard limit of 435, that means Small States have more people per Rep than Large States. For example, Wyoming has 1 Rep for 480900 people. California has 1 rep per 736000 people. To be fair and agree with the original intent of the US Constitution, California should have about 82 Reps instead of 53. Texas for that matter should really have 52 Reps instead of 36 has it as now. The way it is now it has one rep per 700279 people. Fixing that limit should solve a lot of problems

keepamovin 3y ago

I like your comments! Keep on here :)

stevesearer 3y ago

More representatives also reduces the overall importance of any individual representative. Potentially it would also make way for additional political parties as more granular viewpoints would be represented. I’ve wondered what practical difference rolling back the 17th amendment would have. One concept it might re-establish is that of each state as an entity whose viewpoint should be heard (at the level of the state government). I suppose it would also be an additional check between states and people?

RhysU 3y ago

Why was 1 in 30K correct? Also, https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/congressional-apportionment/about/computing.html https://www.census.gov/topics/public-sector/congressional-ap... is more subtle than I expected.

RyanAdamas 3y ago
Generally we attribute a greater sense of civil government functionality to the people who actually fought to create it for us. In this context, these folks believed that for an engaged citizenry and a government reflective of their values and lifestyle, an apportionment of 1 per 30k voters was functionally appropriate. Whether it is correct, I don't specifically know - but, I sure would like to find out. ;)
- RhysU 3y ago
  The original text provides a bound not an equality: "The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand...". They didn't want too much direct representation but apparently didn't worry about too little. That said, I have never dug into the history and I am taking the text at face value.