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covid19 potentially opening door to proportionally equitable representation?

bernorange

By bernorange
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bernorange

bernorange 8348

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I was skimming the DT Coronavirus thread and saw a reference to this story:

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The entire state legislature of Georgia is being urged to self-quarantine after a state senator who participated in a vote on Monday has tested positive for the coronavirus.  ...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/entire-georgia-state-legislature-urged-to-self-quarantine-after-positive-coronavirus-test/ar-BB11pwm6

I got to thinking about the drive for many businesses and industries right now to implement systems for remote working as people are trying to stay home because of covid19.  I haven't really heard anything about governments (state or federal) trying to implement the same, but I wonder if examples like Georgia might get some inertia moving. 

If covid19 ends up forcing governments to build out and normalize the use of remote working technology - like holding legislative sessions via some structured webex type system, perhaps some real good might come from it.  Because that foundation would make it feasible to re-establish proportionally equitable representation.

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The framers of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights intended that the total population of Congressional districts never exceed 50 to 60 thousand. Currently, the average population size of the districts is nearly 700,000 and, consequently, the principle of proportionally equitable representation has been abandoned.
...

https://thirty-thousand.org/

Suddenly, having more legislators wouldn't be a problem.  They don't need to occupy the same physical space.  Running for office would be cheaper and legislators would be more accountable to their constituents.

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Huckleberry

Huckleberry 32704

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I hope so but I doubt it. @bernorange you know I have been in favor of this change for a very long time. Fewer constituents per legislator means a legislator who is more responsive to their constituents. And a very nice byproduct is that it makes it a whole lot more expensive for well-moneyed interests to buy off enough legislators to guarantee passage or rejection of a bill.

Concentration of wealth, increasing population, and stagnant number of representatives is a triple whammy that makes oligarchy more possible in a representative republic.

Edited by Huckleberry
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bernorange

bernorange 8348

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* bump *

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The House’s vote on Friday to allow lawmakers to work from afar will fundamentally change how Congress operates.
...
... With Friday’s party-line vote, 217 to 189, as long as the public health emergency persists, lawmakers from Alaska to Florida need not leave the safety of their own homes to question witnesses at a hearing, sign subpoenas or vote on legislation.

The new rules immediately allow for any member to vote remotely by giving precise, binding instructions to a proxy who is able to be present on the House floor. They also provide, pending certification, for a process in which lawmakers will eventually be able to cast their votes technologically from home, either via a secure online portal or a video conferencing system.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/15/us/politics/remote-voting-house-coronavirus.html

This is a huge step.  As of the moment, it's supposedly a temporary measure (without a specific end date), but much like private sector business embracing work from home as the new normal, it might end up sticking. 

 

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gmr548

gmr548 16517

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There really isn't a reason, in this day and age, that we can't do better than 1:750,000 or whatever the ratio is right now. We don't have to have tens of thousands of seats in the house, but even expanding to something like 3,500-5,000 would bring us down below 1:100,000, which is in line with, say, the Austin City Council. *pauses, thinks about whether or not you want the federal government to be comparable to CoA in any way*.

You can still assemble that group physically in DC for one-off occasions like State of the Union or Inauguration too. Plenty of arena/convention space that can be used temporarily, retrofit the house chambers to be more of a dense auditorium for the long haul. The cybersecurity concern is valid given how outdated/neglected a good chunk of federal technology infrastructure is, but we are/are going to be looking at a decent amount of laid off coders that will work for relatively cheap. Now is the time for such a project.

It'd make congress more accessible, both to constituents and candidates. It'd sure as fuck make congress younger. It'd make it logistically more difficult to buy votes, and you'd actually have a chance for some minor third party blocs to emerge, which could help make things less polarized.

Keep the senate at 100 seats if you want. The point is equal representation for each state, who cares what the number is. But the house should expand dramatically.

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hobbes2702

hobbes2702 12847

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I don’t understand why we don’t have legislators that work remotely with maybe a few committee heads in Washington. It would allow them to have much more equitable representation and it would also force representatives to live in and be apart of the community they represent. They would work from their district office and can do Webex or zoom or whatever for any meetings.

Edited by hobbes2702
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bernorange

bernorange 8348

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Republicans in the House are planning to challenge in court a proxy voting procedure Democrats pushed through earlier this month for colleagues who are in quarantine or otherwise housebound during the coronavirus pandemic, according to three Republican officials.

The first proxy votes are set to be cast this week when the House considers several pieces of legislation, including modifications to a popular loan program for small businesses and an extension of the federal government’s surveillance authority.

During House debate on the rule change, which would enable a single lawmaker to cast votes on behalf of up to 10 colleagues, Republicans had denounced the move as unconstitutional.

Democrats, led by Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, cited opinions from constitutional law experts in support of the change. At least 50 Democrats have filed with the clerk’s office saying they plan to use the system this week.

A House Republican aide said Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy will be the lead plaintiff along with other House members and four constituents in the suit against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House officials.

The GOP likely faces an uphill climb in a lawsuit because the Constitution lets the House set its own rules.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-26/gop-plans-court-challenge-to-house-move-to-allow-proxy-voting?srnd=premium

I know most people are focused on other issues of the day, but I really think in the decades to come that history could judge this as a pivotal issue that changed the status quo in DC.  We'll see.

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27-25

27-25 2040

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On 5/16/2020 at 10:17 AM, elfenix said:

Need to fix districting. I don't trust assholes with server farms and exabytes of data to draw districts in any sort of equitable manner.

We need to do that as well, agreed.  But having more reps and thus more districts lessens, if ever so slightly, the effectiveness of gerrymandering.

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Guest Lobo

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In 1950, not all that long ago, a U.S. Representative represented about half of what a current Rep. does as the nation has roughly doubled in that timeframe (obviously there are subtle exceptions in there for states with just 1 rep., etc.)  They did that in 1950 without regular access to planes (what planes were available were slow and rare).  They did it with many households in their district not having telephones and even fewer with televisions.  There were obviously no computers, no internet, no fax, none of that.  There were ample trains (real convenient for an Oregon Congressman to get to/from D.C.), there were radio addresses broadcasted locally when the Congressman was back home in the district reporting on what went on in D.C. last session, and there were regular mass mailings and newspaper columns saved for guest appearances by the Congressman.  They somehow managed to represent and service nearly 400,000 citizens in their districts without almost any of the tools used today.  They can go home between D.C. and back again all within one day.  They can reach out to all their constituents multiple times a day via myriad platforms and technologies.  There is no shortage of ways for us to reach them, or for them to reach out to us.  

The problem isn't they represent too many people, it's that they just represent the same few hundred in each district.  A huge start would be compressing the campaign cycle.  Freeze out all activities until 90 days prior so they do their fucking jobs in the interim.  

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FondrenRoad

FondrenRoad 4378

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4 minutes ago, Lobo said:

 

The problem isn't they represent too many people, it's that they just represent the same few hundred in each district.  A huge start would be compressing the campaign cycle.  Freeze out all activities until 90 days prior so they do their fucking jobs in the interim.  

The real problem is that they represent a national platform and don't represent their district at all.  They come back to the district to sell you that national platform every 2 years, but they don't ask or care what their constituents want that may differ from that national platform.  And they only pretend to care during election season.  I would love to see a representative that actually represents. "We have this bill coming up, let me see how my constituents feel about it before I vote on it."

We need to see representative become a "local" election. 

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bernorange

bernorange 8348

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* bump *

~~~

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... U.S. Congressman Sean Casten (IL-06) introduced a package of legislation to increase the size of the House and Senate, as well as restore the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to better align with Article III of the US Constitution.

The package, named “A Common Sense Vision for American Democracy” would:

  • Establish 12 at-large senators to be elected through a nationwide system of ranked choice voting
  • Add approximately 138 additional Members of the House (if it had been implemented after the 2020 census)
  • Change the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and create a 13-judge multi-circuit panel to hear cases where the United States or a federal agency is a party

This is the first attempt by a sitting Member of Congress to enact this type of reform. There have been no attempts in Congress to expand the Senate or reinstate the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. The last time the House was expanded was in 1911. After an inability to settle disputes over reapportionment after the 1920 Census, the size of the House was arbitrarily locked in place at 435 in 1929.

An overview of A Common Sense Vision for American Democracy can found below, including bill text and section-by-sections of the legislation.
...

https://casten.house.gov/media/press-releases/casten-introduces-legislation-increase-size-house-and-senate-change-scotus

Pending:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/643

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SydneyCarton

SydneyCarton 47884

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1 hour ago, bernorange said:

* bump *

~~~

https://casten.house.gov/media/press-releases/casten-introduces-legislation-increase-size-house-and-senate-change-scotus

Pending:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/643

Great common sense reforms, proposed by a democrat. Naturally it has no chance of ever being passing. It probably won't even be brought up for a vote. Lol at the Senate passing a low that reduces the power of each current senator. 

Also, I'm sure the Republicans will scream about the outrageous cost of paying for a ton more house and senate members.

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