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When Obama was President his first two years Democrats had clear majorities of both houses. But that fool was obsessed with “bipartisanship”. He acted as if t

When Obama was President his first two years Democrats had clear majorities of both houses. But that fool was obsessed with “bipartisanship”. He acted as if the political norms of the 70s had not changed. Also, they haven’t even tried to fight for the things I mentioned.

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
In Obama's first term, the parties were not nearly as ideologically sorted as they were today. There was a Democratic majority of 257 in the House, yes, but 54 of those were members of the explicitly conservative Blue Dog Coalition. They wouldn't have agreed to vote for sweeping partisan reforms.
- skhunted 2y ago
  I think they would have gone for updating the number of a Representatives. But they didn’t even try to do such things. Obama kept trying the make a deal with Republicans and acted like it was the 1970s. In the end he saw what his efforts were worth when Republicans refused to even vote for his Supreme Court nominee.
  - prepend 2y ago
    Changing number of representatives would require a constitutional amendment and that wouldn’t have passed with enough states. I don’t think number of representatives matters as it’s mostly representative of population. If the ratios are the same then I don’t think 435 vs 4035 matters.
    - skhunted 2y ago
      Changing number of representatives would require a constitutional amendment… You are wrong on this. You should look up Reapportionment Acts. The number of Representatives does matter in an electoral system and for other reasons. A Representative from California represents far more people than one from North Dakota. This is a major power imbalance in both electoral matters and in matters of federal legislation. The number of Representatives hasn’t been updated in a 100 years.
    - kelnos 2y ago
      > Changing number of representatives would require a constitutional amendment No, the size of the House is determined by Congress; a century ago they decided to cap it at the current number, and never increase it since then, regardless of population increase. > I don’t think number of representatives matters as it’s mostly representative of population That's not the case, though. A quick look at constituents per representative across states is all it takes to see how stark that is. It's extra important because the number of electoral votes each state gets is dependent upon their number of representatives.

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago

In Obama's first term, the parties were not nearly as ideologically sorted as they were today. There was a Democratic majority of 257 in the House, yes, but 54 of those were members of the explicitly conservative Blue Dog Coalition. They wouldn't have agreed to vote for sweeping partisan reforms.

skhunted 2y ago
I think they would have gone for updating the number of a Representatives. But they didn’t even try to do such things. Obama kept trying the make a deal with Republicans and acted like it was the 1970s. In the end he saw what his efforts were worth when Republicans refused to even vote for his Supreme Court nominee.
- prepend 2y ago
  Changing number of representatives would require a constitutional amendment and that wouldn’t have passed with enough states. I don’t think number of representatives matters as it’s mostly representative of population. If the ratios are the same then I don’t think 435 vs 4035 matters.
  - skhunted 2y ago
    Changing number of representatives would require a constitutional amendment… You are wrong on this. You should look up Reapportionment Acts. The number of Representatives does matter in an electoral system and for other reasons. A Representative from California represents far more people than one from North Dakota. This is a major power imbalance in both electoral matters and in matters of federal legislation. The number of Representatives hasn’t been updated in a 100 years.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    > Changing number of representatives would require a constitutional amendment No, the size of the House is determined by Congress; a century ago they decided to cap it at the current number, and never increase it since then, regardless of population increase. > I don’t think number of representatives matters as it’s mostly representative of population That's not the case, though. A quick look at constituents per representative across states is all it takes to see how stark that is. It's extra important because the number of electoral votes each state gets is dependent upon their number of representatives.