Politics Congress - the body you love to hate

rogue49 · Jan 3, 2013

This pretty much sums it up.
I think a good nickname for them, "The Spoilers"

Good Riddance to Rottenest Congress in History
By Ezra Klein Jan 2, 2013

On January 3rd, the 112th Congress of the United States of America finally ends. Thank God.

To properly evaluate the 112th, consider the record of its predecessor, the 111th Congress, which ran from January 2009 to January 2011. The fighting 111th passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (better known as the “stimulus”), the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”), and the Dodd-Frank financial reforms. It passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and expanded both the Serve America Act for community service and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It created significant new anti-tobacco regulations, ratified the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty, ended “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the armed forces and agreed to the 2010 tax deal, which extended the Bush tax cuts in return for the passage of middle- class stimulus.

The laws passed by the 111th Congress were controversial, particularly among Republicans. They were also big, bold initiatives that, if not always fully equal to the size of our problems, surely perched on the outer edge of Congress’s capacity to deliver solutions. Love it or hate it, the 111th Congress governed. No Congress in recent history has a record of productivity anywhere near it.
Terrible Policy

What’s the record of the 112th Congress? Well, it almost shut down the government and almost breached the debt ceiling. It almost went over the fiscal cliff (which it had designed in the first place). It cut a trillion dollars of discretionary spending in the Budget Control Act and scheduled another trillion in spending cuts through an automatic sequester, which everyone agrees is terrible policy. It achieved nothing of note on housing, energy, stimulus, immigration, guns, tax reform, infrastructure, climate change or, really, anything. It’s hard to identify a single significant problem that existed prior to the 112th Congress that was in any way improved by its two years of rule.

The 112th, which was gaveled into being on Jan. 3, 2011, by newly elected House Speaker John Boehner, wasn’t just unproductive in comparison with the 111th. It was unproductive compared with any Congress since 1948, when scholars began keeping tabs on congressional productivity.

When it ends, the 112th Congress will have passed about 220 public laws -- by far the least of any Congress on record. Prior to the 112th, the least productive Congress was the 104th, from January 1995 to January 1997. Not coincidentally, that Congress also featured a new Republican House majority determined to ruin a Democratic president in advance of the next campaign. The 104th, however, passed 333 public laws -- almost 50 percent more than the 112th. The 112th stands alone in its achievement of epic failure.

Of course, raw productivity statistics can mislead. After all, if the 112th Congress’s laws were particularly worthwhile, or if its low productivity reflected a period of political calm and economic growth, the slow rate of legislating might even be a good thing. In this case, however, the raw data mislead in the other direction. The 112th Congress wasn’t merely unproductive: It was devastatingly counterproductive.

The 112th found legislating so difficult that lawmakers repeatedly created artificial deadlines for consequences and catastrophes intended to spur them to act. But like Wile E. Coyote with his endless supply of Acme products, when the 112th set a trap, the only sure bet was that it would explode in its collective face, forcing leaders to construct yet another hair- trigger legislative contraption.
No Responsibility

The near-shutdown of the federal government in early 2011 was the first of these self-detonated disasters, the near-breach of the debt ceiling in August 2011 was the most damaging, and the fiscal cliff was the dumbest. In each case, Congress mainlined a dose of fear and uncertainty into an economy already beset by too much of both. In each case, the deadline failed to spur responsibility; instead, Congress punted on hard decisions while setting up a new deadline to supplant the old, discarded one.

In that way, the 112th ended as it began: by creating a mess it couldn’t clean up. The resolution, such as it is, of the fiscal cliff simply sets up another fight in the weeks ahead over the debt ceiling and sequestration. Continued fear and uncertainty over the impending battle is the legacy of the 112th to the nation’s economy. Thanks, guys.

As a result of its good works, the 112th Congress was the least popular since pollsters began keeping score. According to the Gallup Organization, the 112th’s approval rating fell to 10 percent in February 2011 and again in August that year. Those are the lowest readings in Gallup’s 38 years of surveying. When another polling firm, Rasmussen, asked Americans in March 2011 how they’d feel about the U.S. turning into a communist country, 11 percent said they’d approve. So congratulations, 112th: You were, at multiple points, less popular than communism.

The 112th didn’t even achieve the narrow political objective that Republican leaders sought. Insofar as there was a theory behind their effort to grind the U.S. government to a halt by making Congress a destructive force, it was that American voters would blame the failures of Washington on the party in charge of the White House, leading to President Barack Obama’s defeat. Yet Republicans were so mistrusted that, despite the previous two years of ineffectual governance and a weak economy, Obama was re-elected by a margin of five million votes, and Democrats won more votes than Republicans for House and Senate seats, as well.

The source of the 112th’s dismal performance is easy enough to diagnose. According to political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, who’ve developed a highly respected gauge of political polarization, the 112th was the most polarized Congress in U.S. history, with House Republicans exhibiting a particular leap in partisanship. Moreover, the results of the 2010 election divided power among House Republicans, Senate Democrats and a Democratic president, ensuring that party polarization would lead to political paralysis.

Unfortunately, the polarization and paralysis exhibited by the 112th Congress are functions of long-term political trends, and there’s no evidence that they’ll lift anytime soon. So while the 112th Congress was surely one of the most broken and incompetent in our history, the worst is probably yet to come.

©2013 BLOOMBERG L.P. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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redux · Jan 11, 2013

Among the first bills introduced in the 113th Congress yesterday:

To repeal Affordable Care Act (33 such attempts last Congress was not enough)

To repeal Dodd-Frank (financial reform) Act

To provide that human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization

To repeal the income tax and other taxes, abolish the IRS, and enact a national sales tax to be administered primarily by the States

To make 15 percent across-the-board rescissions in non-defense, non-homeland-security, and non-veterans-affairs discretionary spending for each of the fiscal years 2013 and 2014

To amend title X of the Public Health Service Act to prohibit family planning grants from being awarded to any entity that performs abortions

To abolish the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks, to repeal the Federal Reserve Act

To end membership of the United States in the United Nations

So whats new?--- merged: Jan 4, 2013 at 10:30 AM ---

On a positive note, there is a new beta site, Congress.gov that will eventually replace the less user friendly Thomas.

Baraka_Guru · Jan 4, 2013

The dominionists and the pseudolibertarians have been busy.

redux · Jan 4, 2013

One of the more ceremonial events in Congress to begin momentarily.

Joint Session of Congress Counts Electoral Votes | C-SPAN

Joint session of Congress received and counts the electoral votes and makes it official.

rogue49 · Jan 5, 2013

redux said: ↑

Among the first bills introduced in the 113th Congress yesterday:

To repeal Affordable Care Act (33 such attempts last Congress was not enough)

To repeal Dodd-Frank (financial reform) Act

To provide that human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization

To repeal the income tax and other taxes, abolish the IRS, and enact a national sales tax to be administered primarily by the States

To make 15 percent across-the-board rescissions in non-defense, non-homeland-security, and non-veterans-affairs discretionary spending for each of the fiscal years 2013 and 2014

To amend title X of the Public Health Service Act to prohibit family planning grants from being awarded to any entity that performs abortions

To abolish the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks, to repeal the Federal Reserve Act

To end membership of the United States in the United Nations

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Just pure stupidity and insanity.
WHY do these asshats get voted in???

Baraka_Guru · Jan 5, 2013

rogue49 said: ↑

Just pure stupidity and insanity.
WHY do these asshats get voted in???
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It really has me concerned about the future of American politics (and I'm not even American). I'm guessing (and hoping) that this is just a reel of highlights of the crazy. But what are the "real" Republicans doing? Is the party really this bad now? Is it really being overrun with dominionists and pseudolibertarians? I thought they were a minority with a loud voice. Republicans haven't had a fiscal conservative as president since Eisenhower, and he was the guy who warned Americans about the military-industrial complex.

They should think about that.

rogue49 · Jan 5, 2013

Baraka_Guru said: ↑

It really has me concerned about the future of American politics (and I'm not even American). I'm guessing (and hoping) that this is just a reel of highlights of the crazy. But what are the "real" Republicans doing? Is the party really this bad now? Is it really being overrun with dominionists and pseudolibertarians? I thought they were a minority with a loud voice. Republicans haven't had a fiscal conservative as president since Eisenhower, and he was the guy who warned Americans about the military-industrial complex.

They should think about that.
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Well, crazy-stupid is not exclusive to one party or one nation...it's just that quite a few in the GOP have been flamboyant in it lately. (and aggressive too)

What I'm hoping is that the hint of compromise and negotiation that we just recently saw...slowly expands.
It's not going to be overnight...but perhaps those shooting themselves in the foot are starting to realize the pain they are causing themselves,
much less to others...or just plain looking silly.

America has much potential in the coming years...it's a matter of we actually take advantage of it...in a balanced fashion.
But the same can be said of Europe, Japan, Brazil, Russia, India and so on...

redux · Jan 5, 2013

Steve King (R-IA), who has no love for Hispanics or Muslims, introduced a bill that would deny citizenship to children born in the US of undocumented parents....despite the fact that the bill is unconstitutional given the 14th amendment (“all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”)

The bill already has 13 co-sponsors.

Way to demonstrate that the Republican Party cares about Hispanic voters...take away citizenship from Hispanic kids who did nothing wrong but have the nerve to be born here!

Baraka_Guru · Jan 5, 2013

Charming. It's like a little National Front wing of the Republican Party.

redux · Jan 8, 2013

Current popularity of Congress:

Less popular than: cockroaches, brussel sprouts, colonoscopies, used car salesmen, Donald Trump, replacement refs, Nickleback

More popular than: Lindsay Lohan, playground bullies, lobbyists, gonorrhea, meth labs, North Korea, Kardashians

rogue49 · Feb 20, 2013

And as usual...Congress while not able to act together because they don't have a spine.
Will individually work vigorously to protect their own skin and areas.

Well, nice to know they can actually move when they put their dark souls to it.

Lawmakers protect home turf from sequester
By: Scott Wong - February 19, 2013

In some lawmakers’ minds, there’s no stopping the sequester. So they’re making a plea to the Obama administration: Just don’t cut in my backyard.

With the automatic budget cuts set to strike all aspects of the federal government March 1, members of the House and Senate are beseeching administration officials — both in private and during public hearings — to spare key programs and employment hubs back home.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) recently asked the Army Corps of Engineers’ top civilian official if she had a way to steer the looming cuts within the agency, making the case that President Barack Obama can’t boost exports by underfunding water projects along the Mississippi River. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has been huddling with top Navy officials at the Pentagon and in the Capitol about how to protect thousands of jobs at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and related contractors.

And Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) has been sounding the alarm about potential cuts to his state’s White Sands Missile Range and two national laboratories, which help manage the nation’s nuclear stockpile.

The panicked pleas from Capitol Hill offer a reminder about one big reason why Congress has failed to tame the $16.5 trillion debt: Politicians may talk a lot about tightening Washington’s belt, but they get the blame if federal pork stops flowing back home.

“I’m almost relishing the moment all these tough-talking guys say: ‘Can you help me with my base?’” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the most vocal critics of the sequester, told POLITICO.

“When it’s somebody else’s base and district, it’s good government. When it’s in your state or your backyard, it’s devastating,” he added.

While many lawmakers have been directly urging the administration to save their pet projects, others are employing an outside-in approach. During the weeklong Presidents Day recess, they tried to fire up voters to pressure Congress to strike a deal to avert the cuts.

Illinois Reps. Cheri Bustos, a Democrat, and Adam Kinzinger, a Republican, toured local defense contractor SupplyCore on Tuesday and warned of the sequester’s impact on Rockford. Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) put his national anti-sequester tour on hold, instead taking his message to local town halls in Green Valley, Sun Lakes and Phoenix this week.

For months, the retired Navy pilot has argued broadly that the across-the-board cuts would cripple the nation’s defense capabilities, but McCain mentioned one specific: “They make the Apache helicopter in Mesa, Ariz. If they cut back, it would have to be affected there.”

In all, 1,200 budget accounts across the government would be hit by the sequester if no deal is reached by the March deadline. Office of Management and Budget Controller Danny Werfel testified on Valentine’s Day that the cuts would be implemented “equally” across all programs, projects and activities within each of those accounts.

But that hasn’t stopped lawmakers from trying to figure out if agencies have any wiggle room on how to enact the cuts. At a recent hearing on Capitol Hill, Wicker warned that cuts to the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project, which manages inland waterways and flood risks, would harm the local economy and pose a safety threat.

He pressed Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works, about whether she could send a request “upstream in the bureaucracy” for more flexibility in carrying out cuts to the Army Corps.

Darcy’s response: It would be nice, but the law is the law.

In recent days, Obama administration officials have been leaning on Congress to find a fix to the sequester, offering more specifics about what exactly will be on the chopping block when $85 billion in governmentwide cuts kick in.

Customs and Border Protection would have to cut work hours by the equivalent of 5,000 Border Patrol agents, reducing security and adding to wait times at land and sea ports. More than 100,000 formerly homeless people — many of them veterans — would be kicked out of their housing or emergency shelters. The furloughing of the Department of Agriculture’s food inspectors could shut down meat and poultry plants nationwide, causing $10 billion in production losses.

Details like these — shared during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week — have put elected officials on high alert. And increasingly, lawmakers have been arguing that cutting certain programs in their state could jeopardize national security.

That could be because the law that created the sequester would allow the Defense Department to shift funds to ensure that America’s military readiness is “not degraded,” according to a White House report.

Collins, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee’s defense panel, earlier this month hosted Navy Secretary Ray Mabus in her office to voice her concerns about how the spending cuts would devastate the shipbuilding industry on the Maine-New Hampshire border. At the Pentagon last week, she hammered home that same message in a meeting with the Navy’s top official for shipbuilding, Sean Stackley.

“Maine is a state that contributes heavily to our national security. Its largest employer is Bath Ironworks, which builds naval destroyers. You can’t build a half a ship,” Collins said in an interview with POLITICO. “I’m worried about the impact on shipbuilding. I’m worried about the impact on the naval shipyard, one of our four public yards in the country that overhauls nuclear subs.”

Udall, too, has been making the national security argument — especially when it comes to the Sandia and Los Alamos national labs. The nuclear stockpiles there are managed by the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration.

“Sequestration threatens damaging cuts for New Mexico’s national labs, military facilities and border security,” Udall told top administration officials at a sequestration hearing. “If implemented, those cuts will be very damaging, I believe, to our national security.”

But there are still a good number of folks on Capitol Hill who believe the sequester won’t be the economic and defense doomsday critics are making it out to be.

“In my state, overwhelmingly, they want me to cut spending,” Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) told POLITICO. “Nobody walks into a town hall and says, ‘Mike, here are 500 projects I want you to cut.’ What they’re saying is, ‘Get this [spending] under control.’ They are very frustrated with trillion-dollar deficits.”

Graham, a defense hawk and military attorney, believes many of his fellow Republicans will be singing a different tune when the cuts start hitting close to home. It could be reminiscent of the unpopular federal commission known as BRAC that realigned or shut down hundreds of military installations around the country over the past 25 years.

“Senators are gonna be running around with their hair on fire when this thing actually hits,” Graham said in the interview. “I remember during BRAC, everybody was going crazy to make sure their base was not on the list — this is BRAC on steroids.”

© 2013 POLITICO LLC
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rogue49 · Mar 3, 2013

/nuff said.

rogue49 · Apr 1, 2013

I didn't want to put this in the GOP thread, because it is about both parties...and I didn't want to specifically turn into a bashing session about any specific party.
As the headline focuses, it does seem the media is focusing quite a bit on GOP issues lately...then again, they're giving lots of excuses to do so. But other parties have their issues too.

Actually...that gets to a question, what are your likes and dislikes about ANY party???

Poll: Top knock on GOP -- inflexible
By: Kevin Robillard - April 1, 2013 06:11 AM EDT

Democrats, Republicans and independents all had the same top complaint about the GOP in a Gallup poll released Monday: It’s inflexible.

The poll asked respondents to name two things they liked and disliked about the nation’s political parties. More cited inflexibility and unwillingness to compromise than anything else — 21 percent overall, including 26 percent of Republicans. Twelve percent said the party was “for the rich.”

At the same time, the poll offers some backing for those who say the party shouldn’t back down in continued fights with President Barack Obama. Asked what they liked about the GOP, 11 percent said they were better fiscal managers and 10 percent praised their conservative views.

One-third of Republicans couldn’t say anything negative about their party, compared to 51 percent of Democrats.

The top two complains about the Democratic Party were its spending, mentioned by 14 percent, and its inflexibility, mentioned by only 8 percent. Fourteen percent of the public praised Democrats for caring about the middle class, and 5 percent mentioned their support of social programs.

The poll of 1,020 adults was conducted March 20-21. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

© 2013 POLITICO LLC
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The GOP has a variety of things that often prevent me from voting for them, despite myself having some conservative values.
They truly don't have any better handle on fiscal matters or using government less...they just do so on different things. (despite the typical message)

The Dems are frustrating because they are inconsistent, wishy-washy, somewhat spineless at times...but they DO also fall into using government as an answer often too.
Libertarians would be great...except they go overboard with their desire to reduce government...into almost a cultish standpoint. (everything in moderation, dudes)
The Greens laughably go overboard the other way...and are so anti-business that it is untenable.
There is no Socialist party really to speak of...and they wouldn't last around the US anyway. (They aren't doing so hot in France at the moment either)
Independents...typically aren't independent, but are outliers that usually caucus with either of the big two parties, depending on their lean to left or right.

In truth, I have yet to see a pragmatic situational politician that is independent and votes for the situation and best solution...and changes as necessary. (NOT an ideal or stance)

What do you think??

rogue49 · Jul 9, 2013

Congress is still a logjam.
And the Dems are actually considering on showing some spine and breaking up that jam...at least on where the have control.

While we've seen the filibuster properly used as originally intended, through either Rand Paul's or Wendy Davis's demonstrations,
it has now become warped...

I'm actually hoping they act...let's see if it does the trick.
And cross our fingers there's no unintended consequences...even far into the future.

Hey, while they're at it...give the Prez the line-item veto.

Democrats Plan Challenge to G.O.P.’s Filibuster Use
By JEREMY W. PETERS - July 8, 2013

WASHINGTON — In a move that could bring to a head six months of smoldering tensions over a Republican blockade of certain presidential nominees, Senate Democrats are preparing to force confirmation votes on a series of President Obama’s most contentious appointments as early as this week.

If Republicans object, Democrats plan to threaten to use the impasse to change the Senate rules that allow the minority party wide latitude to stymie action.

Through the filibuster and other delaying tactics, Republicans have slowed the confirmation process as the president tries to install the team that will carry him through his second term. But Democrats and their majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, now say they have reached the point where they believe that the only way to break the logjam is to escalate the fight.

Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, one of the most outspoken members of his party in calling for new limits on the filibuster, said, “They’ve essentially said they are going to disable the executive branch if a minority of the Senate disagrees with or dislikes the president the people elect.” He added, “It’s come into a realm where it’s just unacceptable because if the executive branch can’t function, then the nation can’t respond to the big challenges it faces.”

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, is so alarmed by the threat of a filibuster rule change that he has gone on the Senate floor nearly every day the chamber is in session for the last month to warn of the consequences.

“Majorities are fleeting, but changes to the rules are not,” Mr. McConnell said recently. “And breaking the rules to change the rules would fundamentally change this Senate.”

Mr. Reid has held off on forcing the issue until now, worried that a fight over the filibuster would disrupt the delicate negotiations over immigration legislation. It is also uncertain whether at least 51 Democrats would go along with a rules revision given how cautiously senators weigh even the slightest change to how their body functions.

But with the Senate now clear of the immigration debate, having passed a comprehensive bill before its July 4 recess, Democratic leaders have said they see no reason to wait any longer.

Their plans represent a shift in strategy. Instead of picking fights over judges nominated by the president, where much of the tension has arisen this year, Democrats are likely to focus only on agency appointees. For example, they would line up a series of votes on nominees to run the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Labor Department and a politically important labor oversight board.

The rule change they would seek is intended to be limited. It would allow senators to continue to filibuster legislation and judges, but not appointments to federal agencies or cabinet posts.

Democrats believe that their argument — that a president has the right to assemble his own team of like-minded cabinet officials and other high-level policy makers — is more persuasive in the court of public opinion. They also believe that this fight could have fewer consequences for them should their political fortunes reverse and they find themselves in the minority trying to block judicial nominees from a Republican White House.

Democrats are still strategizing over how best to proceed, but the nominees they have talked about putting forward first are those for vacant seats on the National Labor Relations Board, the government entity that has become a major source of contention in the fight over confirmations between the White House and Senate Republicans.

The others are also divisive: Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Thomas E. Perez as secretary of labor and Gina McCarthy as director of the E.P.A.

“What’s particularly galling to us is there are certain vacancies that haven’t been filled not because the Republicans have anything against the nominee,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Senate Democrat. “But rather because they just dislike the agencies and they don’t want them to function.”

Republicans contend that Mr. Obama has been too heavy-handed in making some of his appointments, which have drawn scrutiny by the courts. Mr. Cordray and three of the five National Labor Relations Board nominees are, in fact, already serving because the president installed them using a backdoor maneuver known as a recess appointment, allowing him to bypass the Senate. The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Mr. Obama violated the Constitution last year when he made the three labor board recess appointments. Mr. McConnell has called those appointments an “unprecedented power grab.”

Because of the doubt the courts have cast on the legitimacy of the labor board appointments, the legality of the board’s decisions in the year and a half since Mr. Obama went around the Senate and named them is in question. So to clear up any legal ambiguities, the president has asked the Senate to confirm all five members of the board, which rules on matters like disputed collective bargaining agreements.

The potential ramifications for both parties are significant. For Democrats, filling those positions will allow the Obama administration greater certainty in enforcing labor law. And it will satisfy their supporters in organized labor who are concerned about the legal limbo clouding the labor board’s decisions.

Republicans have refused to confirm the board’s nominees on the grounds that the president never should have appointed them in the first place.

But Republicans also see a broader battle they hope will force changes from other government bodies that they believe are deeply flawed.

In the case of the watchdog Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which many Republicans voted against establishing as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street legislation, conservatives have called for an overhaul of its structure that would replace the single director with a bipartisan panel. Forty-three Republican senators have signed a letter saying they would refuse to confirm any nominee, regardless of political affiliation, as the bureau’s director.

In many ways the fight over nominees and the filibuster echoes battles in the mid-2000s when Republicans controlled the Senate and were threatening to limit the filibuster. In recent weeks, Mr. McConnell’s office has been sending around excerpts from comments made then by outraged Democrats.

“If they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate, then the fighting, the bitterness, and the gridlock will only get worse,” said one. The speaker? Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois.
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ASU2003 · Jul 11, 2013

While it might be good now, and the way it should be to give the President more power to shape the government with the mandate from the voters, it could be used for evil by political parties that want the government to fail or to reduce the size of government by purposely putting in leaders to make the agencies dysfunctional. I could see Rick Perry/Sarah Palin putting in an oil company executive as head of the EPA for instance.

loquitur · Jul 18, 2013

I'd fix Congress by changing its size and makeup. Right now these clowns are close to untouchable and that's the source of almost all the problems.

rogue49 · Jul 18, 2013

loquitur said: ↑

I'd fix Congress by changing its size and makeup. Right now these clowns are close to untouchable and that's the source of almost all the problems.
Click to expand...

The first thing I'd do is get rid of Gerrymandering.

Second, put in a rule that states that you cannot put in an amendment to that bill, unless it relates to the actual topic of the bill itself.

loquitur · Jul 19, 2013

Rogue, I think a law prohibiting gerrymandering would be useless because all it would lead to is endless arguments and lawsuits about what is and is not a gerrymander. My thought is to make gerrymandering impossible or very difficult. You do that by massively increasing the size of the House of Representatives, to something on the order of triple or more the size it is now. That will reduce the size of districts enough that gerrymandering will become much less meaningful because it's harder to "pack" a small district. (it will also make pork that much harder to get because there are so many more people fighting over the scraps and so many more people to have to persuade to go along with the mutual backscratch). Will that make the House so big as to be unmanageable? Well, as compared to what -- the way it is now? It's hardly a model of efficient, effective and principled behavior right now, so how much worse could it possibly be? If anything, the quality of what does come out will improve because it will have to get consensus of a lot more people. And I should note that having a huge House might conduce to creation of a third party.

rogue49 · Jul 20, 2013

loquitur said: ↑

Rogue, I think a law prohibiting gerrymandering would be useless because all it would lead to is endless arguments and lawsuits about what is and is not a gerrymander. My thought is to make gerrymandering impossible or very difficult. You do that by massively increasing the size of the House of Representatives, to something on the order of triple or more the size it is now. That will reduce the size of districts enough that gerrymandering will become much less meaningful because it's harder to "pack" a small district. (it will also make pork that much harder to get because there are so many more people fighting over the scraps and so many more people to have to persuade to go along with the mutual backscratch). Will that make the House so big as to be unmanageable? Well, as compared to what -- the way it is now? It's hardly a model of efficient, effective and principled behavior right now, so how much worse could it possibly be? If anything, the quality of what does come out will improve because it will have to get consensus of a lot more people. And I should note that having a huge House might conduce to creation of a third party.
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So, perhaps a nice round figure like 1000,
Just like the Senate is 100...of course, this will change if we ever get another state.
Or perhaps, a number of representative to match a smaller percentage of the population.

Well, in regards to the gerrymandering...I was thinking more in the lines of changing districting definitions and protocol.
Make it a grid over the US of complete equal portions.
Then set the criteria that it has to be a balance as equidistant from the center and congruent as much as possible and in sync with the lines of the other districts.

They also need to start taking advantage of remote voting more...to handle the increased volume.
Also, I'm getting tired of these breaks, so they can go back to their districts.
I'm sure they can set some security procedures to make sure it's the Congressperson voting. (IDs, codes, RSAs, biometrics)
They've got the money, they've got the technology.

loquitur · Jul 26, 2013

I'm thinking more like 1500 or 2000. That would give us districts of roughly 150-160 thousand people. That's small enough to minimize gerrymandering and porkbarrelling, and it would seriously force the congresscritters to keep in touch with their districts.

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loquitur Getting Tilted

rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

loquitur Getting Tilted

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