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@Jeff, it's worth noting that the Budget bill that can pass with a simple majority does not provide funding for government operations. It's actually a pretty useless mechanism, except that they've started abusing a procedural provision that lets the majority pass tax provisions by a simple majority.

Thanks for explaining Foxcastle. I got, it is in the name of keeping the administration honest but it results in a quite tangled heap of a procedure. Is there a limit to this procedure or can go on from date to date?

In Greece, we have one budget covering all aspects of administration. The government has to pass it from parliament until 31 of October of each year and voted by simple majority (151 MPs). Theoretically in case of failure opposition can ask for a motion of censure to bring down the current government and go to elections. Actually never happened, politicians first of all look after their own interests.

For those "I like the electoral college" folks, why should how many votes you get per person be determined by how many neighbors you have? Why on earth should Wymoing get disproportionate representation? I mean would people in Wyoming object if the ratios were the other way around? Right now, it takes 520,000 Californians to make up an electoral vote, but only 140,000 Wyomans. At that ratio, California should get some 285 electoral votes. So, how about we make rural people have a more diluted vote and give California 1,100 votes so that it takes 3.7 times as many Wyomans to equal a Californian? Would you think that would be fair?

I doubt it. I think you'd recognize it as arbitrary and unjust and therefore the basis only for an illegitimate government.

The House of Representatives being capped at 435 members is the only thing wrong with the electoral college, then?

Ogion wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 24, 2018 3:13 am

For those "I like the electoral college" folks, why should how many votes you get per person be determined by how many neighbors you have? Why on earth should Wymoing get disproportionate representation? I mean would people in Wyoming object if the ratios were the other way around? Right now, it takes 520,000 Californians to make up an electoral vote, but only 140,000 Wyomans. At that ratio, California should get some 285 electoral votes. So, how about we make rural people have a more diluted vote and give California 1,100 votes so that it takes 3.7 times as many Wyomans to equal a Californian? Would you think that would be fair?

I doubt it. I think you'd recognize it as arbitrary and unjust and therefore the basis only for an illegitimate government.

They are both "arbitrary" weightings so that doesn't really matter. I don't think it's "just" or "unjust" either.
The only thing that matters is developing a functioning, efficient system for achieving the goal at hand. In this case, the goal at hand is to ensure that all states, which represent distinct societies within the Republic, have a real say in electing the chief executive official of the country.

"One-person-one-vote" is for direct democracies where everyone is a heavily-engaged member of their community, which in turn is small enough to enable a meeting of the whole population to debate issues affecting that community and a vote to settle those issues.
Our organization as a Republic is a concession to the fact that we are too big for direct democracy, and that the superior method of organizing ourselves is by states, in which we select representatives to vote on our behalf.
Given how the role of the electors in the electoral college has evolved to be little more than affirming the result of the popular vote in the state, I can see why people would argue that the electors should go, but the division of people by states itself isn't arbitrary. People in different states are a part of different societies within the Republic. Ensuring all of those societies has representation is important.
The electoral college achieves this goal as it presently exists, so while the weightings may be arbitrary, the end of the system is what it was designed to do. I think that what the system was designed to do is good, so I'm happy with the electoral college.

Ogion, those are the rules of our constitution. That wyoming has that representation is just how it falls. If you feel it unfair, move to wyoming or Mogadishu.

Ogion wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 24, 2018 3:13 am

For those "I like the electoral college" folks, why should how many votes you get per person be determined by how many neighbors you have? Why on earth should Wymoing get disproportionate representation? I mean would people in Wyoming object if the ratios were the other way around? Right now, it takes 520,000 Californians to make up an electoral vote, but only 140,000 Wyomans. At that ratio, California should get some 285 electoral votes. So, how about we make rural people have a more diluted vote and give California 1,100 votes so that it takes 3.7 times as many Wyomans to equal a Californian? Would you think that would be fair?

I doubt it. I think you'd recognize it as arbitrary and unjust and therefore the basis only for an illegitimate government.

Primarily because there is something obviously wrong with a group of people in a state who have 18 children per family, or who adopt children from every state they can, or who through other means rapidly increase the population of their state being able to dominate the lives of everyone else in the country simply because of how their citizens vote and how high their population is. If you have ever lived in a rural area and if you have ever lived in an urban area, you easily realize how different life is, and how different the problems a community faces are. You realize how at odds these two types of areas are with one another. It would not be right for one group to dominate the other, particularly at the Federal level (which is already far more powerful than was originally intended). Our system was designed to be slow, but robust. It was intended to weather the storm of rapidly fluctuating (and easily manipulated) popular opinion, while also reflecting the will of the people broadly, tempered at times with what wisdom dictates. It was not designed to give incentives for people to move to a few states to give them increased voting weight, so that a particular over-arching political ideology could be forced upon 49% of the people in the country.

If you want to propose changes to the system, you are welcome to do so. But our Republic has lasted with its current electoral structure for longer than any Democracy or Republic which controlled even a tenth of our landmass.

Ogion wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 24, 2018 3:13 am

Sorry, took too long to edit.

If your concern is the disparity in per-citizen voting power between residents of California and Wyoming, why not argue to have California split up into four states? That would seem to solve your issues, while also keeping the structure fundamentally in place.

Actually, I'd prefer California just secede, but that's another story. (Do the math. Splitting California into four states nets 6 EVs. Not the 170 or so to which California is properly entitled.

And yes, many people are proposing to fix the electoral college which is a fundamentally anti-democratic anachronism designed to make slave states feel comfortable. It has no role today.

There are several approaches, including a pact that most states award their votes to the actual vote winner. Of course, that requires a majority of Americans supporting democracy, which sadly, they don't.

The U.S> Constitution has endured precisely because it has enough flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances. I hope I need not remind anyone of the numerous abominations in the original constitution that have since been corrected?

This notion that states represent distinct "societies" is absurd in this day and age. Austin and Berkeley have a lot more in common than Austin and Lubbock do. etc. etc.

Basically, it's a ridiculous power grab. Really, the solution is to eliminate the microstates and having a rule that no state can have less than 1/435th of the nation's population. Alternatively, we could freaking build a bigger room for the House and have the wyoming rule that all congressional districts can have no more people than the size of the smallest state. That would imply a House of 615 or so members, which is entirely feasible.

I still say we should return to appointment of senators by state legislatures. And have the electoral runner up be vice president, jefferson-burr be damned.

The country would be a lot better off in the long run if we shut the federal government down and never reopened it ever again. State and Local government and the people, would adapt and go forward and create a better America, short term pain, long term gain.

CAPT Brad wants Hilary Clinton to be Vice President.

Interesting!

Tugster wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 24, 2018 5:02 pm

The country would be a lot better off in the long run if we shut the federal government down and never reopened it ever again. State and Local government and the people, would adapt and go forward and create a better America, short term pain, long term gain.

Why have a United States of America at all in that case? Why not make each state a completely independent country?

Or is that what you're advocating?

A complete shutdown of federal power would not be good, but I would like a focus on more localist policy in America.

Hillary vs Donnie at ten paces! Now that's reality TV!

Jamiet, the quickest way to kill a political career is to be the US Vice President.

Quicker than treason charges?

Just ask Nixon and HW.

Nixon was the thing that wouldn't die, except by his own hand. HW like J Adams and T Jefferson were anomalies. HW was essentially Reagan's third term. Successors to dead presidents are also special cases. The ones of note are Mondale, Humphrey, Gore. All modern Vice Presidents who tried to get the office after being VP.