USMB Political Hackery

[Foxfyre]

I'm with the term limits idea. Serve 4 years and you can run for election to ANY office while you are currently in office. IOW you can be a representative for 4 years and a senator for 4 years and a president for 4 years but not consecutively. When you are in a job you should damnwell be doing your best to be doing that job and you can't if you're working your ass off to get elected to another job.

Someone should start a tread about term limits.

This is not it.

I think the topic will get a lot more play if members are encouraged to express their questions and concerns re keeping the current makeup of the HofR or expanding it as Samson suggests. And certainly term limits is a legitimate concern within the larger subject because most especially if more entrenched and immovable power structures might be created in a much larger elective body.

Again I haven't given any thought to this up to today, so I am interested in all the pros and cons as well as such concerns. Otherwise how do we arrive at a reasoned conclusion and an formed opinion about whether it is a good idea or not?

 

[Samson]

I am not represented at all. My representative shares none of my values and principles of what good government should be. But if the House was expanded and my more local area could choose our representative rather than us being in the much larger District 1 pool, I would have a much better chance to elect somebody who did share my values and principles of what good government should be.

I suppose we should agree on what type of representation we are discussing. If we are talking about wether they have my views or not than I have no representation either. If we are talking about just the numbers as the OP wishes, than I have representation out the ass.

The whole concept of the House of Representatives was to provide a local voice for the people in Congress. The purpose of the two-year term was to give the people an opportunity to oust the representative who did not adequately provide that voice. But when you have one representative speaking for 770,000 people spread over a large area, how could he or she possibly represent the hopes and concerns of more than a small percentage of those people?

This is my point.

I find the fact that we might need a bigger capitol building, and this might be too much of an obsticle to overcome quite amazing in light of Federal Building Programs that have been given $$Trillion$$$.

Yes, instead of prioritizing effective representation in our nation, let's build another Pentagon.

This sort of response is exactly why the US Congress is so despised, but also why US citizens are incapable of changeing the system antiquated since 1910.

 

[spectrumc01]

My vote would always be for smaller federal government. Cut the work force in half, top to bottom, whole agencies, departments and staffs. Slash the wages, co-pay on their medical benefits and the pension reductions or modification of our elected officials to the median income of those they represent. If they want a raise they need to get their constituency a raise. This would go a long way to balancing the budget in a hurry. There would be no reason to cut SS, medicade / medicare, military, space, welfare, or anything else.

 

[Wiseacre]

Effective representation is not a matter of numbers, it's an issue of the people maintaining an awareness of what's going on and making informed decisions about who they want to vote into office and who they don't. If that doesn't happen [so far it hasn't] then the number of reps running around won't make a positive difference.

 

[Samson]

Effective representation is not a matter of numbers, it's an issue of the people maintaining an awareness of what's going on and making informed decisions about who they want to vote into office and who they don't. If that doesn't happen [so far it hasn't] then the number of reps running around won't make a positive difference.

Then why have any reps?

Perhaps you'd prefer a King.

 

[Samson]

I still believe that at this point our HoR is made up of people representing our state, and not so much the individual.

Yes.

Tis is the point: The HoR is supposed to represent people.

Agreed it has become somewhat of a muddled point for most Americans to comprehend, but WE THE PEOPLE are supposed to be represented on the FEDERAL LEVEL in the HoR.

 

[mal]

I doubt this thread will get much play because it challenges the USMB membership to think beyond their usual lemming limits of following whatever partisan hack's blog they read every single fucking hour, but here goes;

The HoR has had the same number of members since 1910.

I know some of you may want me to post a link to evidence supporting my contention that the US population has grown since 1910, but let's just use our imaginations for a moment.

This population change means each US representative, Dem OR Repub, has an average 770,000 constituants.

Realistically, there is no fucking way these guys are representing this many people: No other representative body on the face of the planet has such an absurd ratio.

If you really cared about the validity or representative government, then you'd stop the political hackary, and demand that congress vote to triple the size (at minimum) the number of representatives in the HoR.

Of course, this would open wide the door for MORE that BiPartisan government....hell, we might even be able to form an effective third party: GOD FORBID!!!

peace...

 

[Wiseacre]

Effective representation is not a matter of numbers, it's an issue of the people maintaining an awareness of what's going on and making informed decisions about who they want to vote into office and who they don't. If that doesn't happen [so far it hasn't] then the number of reps running around won't make a positive difference.

Then why have any reps?

Perhaps you'd prefer a King.

The thread was about increasing the number of reps, not doing away with them. Your concept appears to be that having a lot more reps (triple) solves our problems of gov't. I don't think so.

 

[spectrumc01]

I still believe that at this point our HoR is made up of people representing our state, and not so much the individual.

Yes.

Tis is the point: The HoR is supposed to represent people.

Agreed it has become somewhat of a muddled point for most Americans to comprehend, but WE THE PEOPLE are supposed to be represented on the FEDERAL LEVEL in the HoR.

At some point you evolve or die off. We had to interpet our HoR a little differently to reflect the increase of population. If anything a major shift of power to the states and away from the federal level thus making the importance of your state rep more powerful than your federal rep.

 

[Samson]

Effective representation is not a matter of numbers, it's an issue of the people maintaining an awareness of what's going on and making informed decisions about who they want to vote into office and who they don't. If that doesn't happen [so far it hasn't] then the number of reps running around won't make a positive difference.

Then why have any reps?

Perhaps you'd prefer a King.

The thread was about increasing the number of reps, not doing away with them. Your concept appears to be that having a lot more reps (triple) solves our problems of gov't. I don't think so.

You realise the YOU are supposed to have a voice in the Federal government, right?

As astonished as I am with the seemingly bottomless pit of confusion (more representatives do NOT mean more representatives for YOU, only better QUALITY representation), it serves as a perfect reason why Americans are so disappointed in their government on the one hand, yet are too ignorant to change it on the other.

 

[Samson]

I still believe that at this point our HoR is made up of people representing our state, and not so much the individual.

Yes.

Tis is the point: The HoR is supposed to represent people.

Agreed it has become somewhat of a muddled point for most Americans to comprehend, but WE THE PEOPLE are supposed to be represented on the FEDERAL LEVEL in the HoR.

At some point you evolve or die off. We had to interpet our HoR a little differently to reflect the increase of population. If anything a major shift of power to the states and away from the federal level thus making the importance of your state rep more powerful than your federal rep.

The US Constitution gives power of the federal government over state government.

WTF are you babbling about "shift of power?" Relative representation on the state vs. federal level is irrelevant.

 

[spectrumc01]

Yes.

Tis is the point: The HoR is supposed to represent people.

Agreed it has become somewhat of a muddled point for most Americans to comprehend, but WE THE PEOPLE are supposed to be represented on the FEDERAL LEVEL in the HoR.

At some point you evolve or die off. We had to interpet our HoR a little differently to reflect the increase of population. If anything a major shift of power to the states and away from the federal level thus making the importance of your state rep more powerful than your federal rep.

The US Constitution gives power of the federal government over state government.

WTF are you babbling about "shift of power?" Relative representation on the state vs. federal level is irrelevant.

Increasing the size of the federal HoR won't fix the percieved problem of inadequate representation. What might do it would be a shift in power from the federal government back to the states. Power shift means money. As Romney alluded to during the the first debate, I believe it was, he wants to shift the responsibility of federal programs to the states. If the state reps had more power than their federal rep than it wouldn't matter because the real power is closer to home.

 

[Trajan]

I doubt this thread will get much play because it challenges the USMB membership to think beyond their usual lemming limits of following whatever partisan hack's blog they read every single fucking hour, but here goes;

The HoR has had the same number of members since 1910.

I know some of you may want me to post a link to evidence supporting my contention that the US population has grown since 1910, but let's just use our imaginations for a moment.

This population change means each US representative, Dem OR Repub, has an average 770,000 constituants.

Realistically, there is no fucking way these guys are representing this many people: No other representative body on the face of the planet has such an absurd ratio.

If you really cared about the validity or representative government, then you'd stop the political hackary, and demand that congress vote to triple the size (at minimum) the number of representatives in the HoR.

Of course, this would open wide the door for MORE that BiPartisan government....hell, we might even be able to form an effective third party: GOD FORBID!!!

I am not sure about the third party, sorry to say, I see this as making things worse, they will just ride along the same lines and have to add more spending so they can each then placate their newly apportioned constituency ...


I agree with OB on the 17th amendment btw, that was a DC power grab if there ever was one....

 

[Wiseacre]

Then why have any reps?

Perhaps you'd prefer a King.

The thread was about increasing the number of reps, not doing away with them. Your concept appears to be that having a lot more reps (triple) solves our problems of gov't. I don't think so.

You realise the YOU are supposed to have a voice in the Federal government, right?

As astonished as I am with the seemingly bottomless pit of confusion (more representatives do NOT mean more representatives for YOU, only better QUALITY representation), it serves as a perfect reason why Americans are so disappointed in their government on the one hand, yet are too ignorant to change it on the other.

I know damn well that I only get one rep for my district, I am getting the distinct impression that you are deliberately trying to piss me off. Let me rephrase to avoid further confusion: only a fucking idiot can possibly think that having 1300 reps in the HofR will lead to better quality of representation. We've already got a mess, you want to make it a bigger mess. Just what we need: more corruption, more cronyism, and a much larger Congress that is too fucked up as it is now.

 

[Foxfyre]

I suppose we should agree on what type of representation we are discussing. If we are talking about wether they have my views or not than I have no representation either. If we are talking about just the numbers as the OP wishes, than I have representation out the ass.

The whole concept of the House of Representatives was to provide a local voice for the people in Congress. The purpose of the two-year term was to give the people an opportunity to oust the representative who did not adequately provide that voice. But when you have one representative speaking for 770,000 people spread over a large area, how could he or she possibly represent the hopes and concerns of more than a small percentage of those people?

Your right. At that level they can't. However to increase the amount of representatives is not the answer either. The cost is prohibative, and the sheer size of the HoR would prove to be unruly. The constitution provides us the tools to change this, but I don't trust our politicians to fix it with the general publics intrest at heart. Term limits wouldn't work either if we are talking increasing the over all number of representatives.

I still believe that at this point our HoR is made up of people representing our state, and not so much the individual. For more specific individual representation we should focus more locally.

But the senate was designed to represent the various states. The House is supposed to be made up of the representatives of the people. If the senators and representatives have the same job, why not do away with the House and Senate and just have one bicameral body?

 

[Synthaholic]

If you really cared about the validity or representative government, then you'd stop the political hackary, and demand that congress vote to triple the size (at minimum) the number of representatives in the HoR.

That's fine with me.

Let's see if you can do the same:

How about dividing each state into equal sized squares of a grid in order to determine each district?

No more re-districting into weird shapes and sizes in order to maximize Rep/Dem votes.

 

[Trajan]

If you really cared about the validity or representative government, then you'd stop the political hackary, and demand that congress vote to triple the size (at minimum) the number of representatives in the HoR.

That's fine with me.

Let's see if you can do the same:

How about dividing each state into equal sized squares of a grid in order to determine each district?

No more re-districting into weird shapes and sizes in order to maximize Rep/Dem votes.

the dems would never go along with it..


see-

Civil Rights Division Voting Section Redistricting Information

 

[Synthaholic]

If you really cared about the validity or representative government, then you'd stop the political hackary, and demand that congress vote to triple the size (at minimum) the number of representatives in the HoR.

That's fine with me.

Let's see if you can do the same:

How about dividing each state into equal sized squares of a grid in order to determine each district?

No more re-districting into weird shapes and sizes in order to maximize Rep/Dem votes.

the dems would never go along with it..


see-

Civil Rights Division Voting Section Redistricting Information

I'm asking if Samson (and you) would go along with it.

 

[Trajan]

sorry, yes I would.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

If you really cared about the validity or representative government, then you'd stop the political hackary, and demand that congress vote to triple the size (at minimum) the number of representatives in the HoR.

That's fine with me.

Let's see if you can do the same:

How about dividing each state into equal sized squares of a grid in order to determine each district?

No more re-districting into weird shapes and sizes in order to maximize Rep/Dem votes.

Districts are based on population, not area. Districts can't be a uniform size, because population density isn't uniform.