Your new Supreme Court nominee is....

[StrangeSox]

1 hour ago, wrathofhahn said:

1) This is nonsense the founders knew exactly what they were doing when they did it and what the ramifications were versus rural-urban and contrary to what has been posted otherwise there has always been cities and there has always been rural. If anything the divide was even greater at the time.

2) But besides all that if Democrats want change they should go through the constitution like everyone else. I tend to think it works well and democrats only seem concerned after they lose an election I didn't hear Obama after beating McCain offer to consult Republicans despite winning less 60 percent of the vote. I mean if you go straight off the vote (proportional representation) he wouldn't have had a majority in congress.

3) Where does this majoritarian streak end? Are you really advocating a system in which 14% of the counties decides how 86% of the rest of the country lives because that is the percentage of America voted for Hillary by county and don't tell me that is fair. What does Sanfran or NYC citizens know or care about what is happening in west Virginia or OK?

4) The founders designed a system where every voice would be heard and the concerns of the people living in these small states couldn't be ignored but wouldn't be given equal weight to the more populous states. That was a feature of the constitution not a bug and it was also demanded by many of these states before rejoining the union.

5) I for one think it's important that a candidate who says they want be president have national appeal beyond just California and NYC. For all this talk of Trump doing this or doing that he was a national candidate. He won roughly 2649 counties to Hillary to 503. He won 30 states to Hillary 20. Trump was a national candidate Hillary was not.

6) He deserved to be president on that basis and the EC worked exactly as the founders intended.

 

I don't know how to split things up with the new board software, so I numbered them.

1) It was a novel system based heavily on compromise between competing factions. The idea that there was a single, unified "idea" or intent or purpose is a myth. As for the rural/urban divide, I posted the census data. You're right, the divide was even greater at the time--in that we were much more agrarian and rural. A knock against the idea that the Senate and EC were meant to force candidates to broaden appeal rather than concentrate on urban areas. It's an anachronistic discussion anyway because political campaigning was nothing like it is now.

2) This...doesn't make much sense. Democrats won a majority in 2008 and thus had majority control. That is how all elections should be. That said, Obama bent over backwards for years to try to get bipartisan agreement. He kept on several Republican appointments and made more Republican appointments as the years went on (this is how we get Comey!).

The system can be changed within the constitution or outside of it. The EC was not created with modern political campaigning in mind. It wasn't created with the popular vote in mind at all. They created a system where aristocrats would appoint one of their own to govern. That didn't last very long, and we long ago subverted the "original intent" of the EC by tying it to popular vote on a state-by-state level. We can further change that by giving EV's proportionally by state, or by multiple states banding together to say "we'll all go whatever way the national popular vote goes."

None of that is anti-republican (small-r here, not the party). 

3) I do not care about counties. It is one person, one vote. Not one county, one vote. People matter, acres don't. And conversely, why should Wyoming get 40 times the say what happens nationally over a Californian? Tell me how it's fair that something like 30% of the country's population banded together in the Senate could prevent the other 70% from ever doing anything. Tell me how it's fair that a party and political ideology that routinely fails to win more votes nevertheless gets to control the government.

4) The founders designed a system by and for wealthy aristocrats. We've substantially reformed that system many times in many ways, often but not always for the better.

5) Again, people matter, not land mass. I for one think it's important that a candidate has national people beyond one specific demographic. Clinton had appeal beyond mainly white voters while Trump did not--why isn't that the criteria instead of counties? It's no more arbitrary than your love for counties, and it has the added benefit of focusing on people.

6) You've cited the Federalist Papers numerous times. Go read what they said about the EC. It wasn't about "broad appeal." It was about keeping what they feared would be dangerous incompetent ideologues out of the office. It failed in its original design intent. (It, like many of the Constitution's compromises/designs, were also about keeping slave power in control)

Edited October 10, 2018 by StrangeSox

[wrathofhahn]

On 10/10/2018 at 2:22 PM, StrangeSox said:

I don't know how to split things up with the new board software, so I numbered them.

1) It was a novel system based heavily on compromise between competing factions. The idea that there was a single, unified "idea" or intent or purpose is a myth. As for the rural/urban divide, I posted the census data. You're right, the divide was even greater at the time--in that we were much more agrarian and rural. A knock against the idea that the Senate and EC were meant to force candidates to broaden appeal rather than concentrate on urban areas. It's an anachronistic discussion anyway because political campaigning was nothing like it is now.

2) This...doesn't make much sense. Democrats won a majority in 2008 and thus had majority control. That is how all elections should be. That said, Obama bent over backwards for years to try to get bipartisan agreement. He kept on several Republican appointments and made more Republican appointments as the years went on (this is how we get Comey!).

The system can be changed within the constitution or outside of it. The EC was not created with modern political campaigning in mind. It wasn't created with the popular vote in mind at all. They created a system where aristocrats would appoint one of their own to govern. That didn't last very long, and we long ago subverted the "original intent" of the EC by tying it to popular vote on a state-by-state level. We can further change that by giving EV's proportionally by state, or by multiple states banding together to say "we'll all go whatever way the national popular vote goes."

None of that is anti-republican (small-r here, not the party). 

3) I do not care about counties. It is one person, one vote. Not one county, one vote. People matter, acres don't. And conversely, why should Wyoming get 40 times the say what happens nationally over a Californian? Tell me how it's fair that something like 30% of the country's population banded together in the Senate could prevent the other 70% from ever doing anything. Tell me how it's fair that a party and political ideology that routinely fails to win more votes nevertheless gets to control the government.

4) The founders designed a system by and for wealthy aristocrats. We've substantially reformed that system many times in many ways, often but not always for the better.

5) Again, people matter, not land mass. I for one think it's important that a candidate has national people beyond one specific demographic. Clinton had appeal beyond mainly white voters while Trump did not--why isn't that the criteria instead of counties? It's no more arbitrary than your love for counties, and it has the added benefit of focusing on people.

6) You've cited the Federalist Papers numerous times. Go read what they said about the EC. It wasn't about "broad appeal." It was about keeping what they feared would be dangerous incompetent ideologues out of the office. It failed in its original design intent. (It, like many of the Constitution's compromises/designs, were also about keeping slave power in control)

The reason why I didn't respond until now because I read this and there really is nothing to discuss. The concept of states exist for a reason and that is mainly the understanding that people living in Iowa have different life experiences, local issues, and shared values then that of someone in California.

California and NY already have an outsized role versus other states. California/New York congressmen make up 20 percent of the house, 16 percent of the electors. 4x more then the average state electorally and 5x in house. So don't tell me about the poor person in California or NY who is disenfranchised if you are a citizen of those states your local issues and shared values are already given more weight nationally then people living anywhere else in the Republic.

As far as the rest goes I just having fun because according to your one person one vote idea then why have winner take all that seems to be disenfranchising people as well and if you went off proportional representation Obama gets a simple majority in congress. You probably don't get Obamacare. You also don't get the end of slavery either because Lincoln only won slightly less then 40 percent of the vote.

Edited October 12, 2018 by wrathofhahn

[StrangeSox]

1 hour ago, wrathofhahn said:

The reason why I didn't respond until now because I read this and there really is nothing to discuss. The concept of states exist for a reason and that is mainly the understanding that people living in Iowa have different life experiences, local issues, and shared values then that of someone in California.

California and NY already have an outsized role versus other states. California/New York congressmen make up 20 percent of the house, 16 percent of the electors. 4x more then the average state electorally and 5x in house. So don't tell me about the poor person in California or NY who is disenfranchised if you are a citizen of those states your local issues and shared values are already given more weight nationally then people living anywhere else in the Republic.

As far as the rest goes I just having fun because according to your one person one vote idea then why have winner take all that seems to be disenfranchising people as well and if you went off proportional representation Obama gets a simple majority in congress. You probably don't get Obamacare. You also don't get the end of slavery either because Lincoln only won slightly less then 40 percent of the vote.

US Population: 325.7 million

California population: 39.54 million (12.1%)

New York population: 19.85 million (6.1%)

Number of California representatives: 53 (12.2%)

Number of New York representatives: (6.2%)

 

Even in the House, thanks to the hard cap of 435 representatives, the largest states are disadvantaged. They have fewer representatives than their total population percentage would indicate. And that's one particular body, which doesn't include the Senate or the electoral College. Here's a nice table summary of the number of people per representative by state. Clearly shows that the less populated states are favored even in the House. California: ~660k residents per representative. Wyoming, ~180k. 

There would still be states without the current Senate structure or the EC. We have plenty of contemporary federal systems we can easily examine to see that. We can see that you can be a democratic republic without either of those things. You're not actually putting forth any affirmative reasons why it's justified to systematically disenfranchise larger population areas and give electoral minorities control of the government. I have no doubt that there are differences between Iowa and California, though they both share very strong agricultural output! But those differences don't mean that Iowa should get outsized influence in the federal government over California. Each individual American living in California should have the same voice as each individual American living in Iowa.

Election and political outcomes would be different under different systems. I'm not sure why you think this is surprising to anyone. I am well aware of that. I'm also well aware that going to a popular vote for President and undoing other anti-majoritarian structures in our government won't guarantee that my preferred policies will win. Plenty of other republics that don't have the EC and our terrible Senate structure nevertheless still elect conservative governments. I would like reforms beyond simply changing the EC--Maine's implementation of ranked-choice voting will be interesting to watch. Hopefully other states move away from first-past-the-post systems as well, though many already force runoffs if someone is unable to get a majority in the first round. None of that is pushing for a parliamentary-style system where we don't have a directly elected President.

If we're in a more majoritarian land where the Senate has been substantially reformed, Obama would only need majorities to pass his agenda rather than a supermajority in the Senate as I'd imagine the filibuster would be gone as well. It's also impossible to predict how voting would actually look in that sort of counter-factual, but sure it's possible that the ACA doesn't get passed. That doesn't mean I suddenly drop my support for paring back anti-democratic institutions.

Even without the EC, in a first-past-the-post system, Lincoln would still have been President because we don't just combine the votes of the other candidates. We can look at LePage's wins in Maine as an example--the other two candidates split the liberal and center vote, so LePage won in a plurality. In a forced-runoff style system, he'd likely have lost in a head-to-head. In a ranked-choice system, he'd also likely have lost. Maybe Lincoln would have lost in those scenarios as well, and the stain of slavery would have continued. Then again, if not for the myriad compromises with slave powers to ensure that southern states maintained control of the federal government for decades, we likely wouldn't have the EC or the Senate in the first place! That's the danger of going down counterfactual history exercises--way too much "butterfly effect" to evaluate what would or could happen. Maybe if we don't capitulate to the slavers from the start, we don't get the better part of a century of chattel slavery followed by a bloody civil war followed by nearly a century of Jim Crow oppression.

Edited October 12, 2018 by StrangeSox

[caulfield12]

2 hours ago, StrangeSox said:

US Population: 325.7 million

California population: 39.54 million (12.1%)

New York population: 19.85 million (6.1%)

Number of California representatives: 53 (12.2%)

Number of New York representatives: (6.2%)

 

Even in the House, thanks to the hard cap of 435 representatives, the largest states are disadvantaged. They have fewer representatives than their total population percentage would indicate. And that's one particular body, which doesn't include the Senate or the electoral College. Here's a nice table summary of the number of people per representative by state. Clearly shows that the less populated states are favored even in the House. California: ~660k residents per representative. Wyoming, ~180k. 

There would still be states without the current Senate structure or the EC. We have plenty of contemporary federal systems we can easily examine to see that. We can see that you can be a democratic republic without either of those things. You're not actually putting forth any affirmative reasons why it's justified to systematically disenfranchise larger population areas and give electoral minorities control of the government. I have no doubt that there are differences between Iowa and California, though they both share very strong agricultural output! But those differences don't mean that Iowa should get outsized influence in the federal government over California. Each individual American living in California should have the same voice as each individual American living in Iowa.

Election and political outcomes would be different under different systems. I'm not sure why you think this is surprising to anyone. I am well aware of that. I'm also well aware that going to a popular vote for President and undoing other anti-majoritarian structures in our government won't guarantee that my preferred policies will win. Plenty of other republics that don't have the EC and our terrible Senate structure nevertheless still elect conservative governments. I would like reforms beyond simply changing the EC--Maine's implementation of ranked-choice voting will be interesting to watch. Hopefully other states move away from first-past-the-post systems as well, though many already force runoffs if someone is unable to get a majority in the first round. None of that is pushing for a parliamentary-style system where we don't have a directly elected President.

If we're in a more majoritarian land where the Senate has been substantially reformed, Obama would only need majorities to pass his agenda rather than a supermajority in the Senate as I'd imagine the filibuster would be gone as well. It's also impossible to predict how voting would actually look in that sort of counter-factual, but sure it's possible that the ACA doesn't get passed. That doesn't mean I suddenly drop my support for paring back anti-democratic institutions.

Even without the EC, in a first-past-the-post system, Lincoln would still have been President because we don't just combine the votes of the other candidates. We can look at LePage's wins in Maine as an example--the other two candidates split the liberal and center vote, so LePage won in a plurality. In a forced-runoff style system, he'd likely have lost in a head-to-head. In a ranked-choice system, he'd also likely have lost. Maybe Lincoln would have lost in those scenarios as well, and the stain of slavery would have continued. Then again, if not for the myriad compromises with slave powers to ensure that southern states maintained control of the federal government for decades, we likely wouldn't have the EC or the Senate in the first place! That's the danger of going down counterfactual history exercises--way too much "butterfly effect" to evaluate what would or could happen. Maybe if we don't capitulate to the slavers from the start, we don't get the better part of a century of chattel slavery followed by a bloody civil war followed by nearly a century of Jim Crow oppression.

If you add in the Iowa caucuses, NH primary, South Carolina, etc., yet more small states choosing our presidential candidates before larger states even have an opportunity to register an opinion.

[caulfield12]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/maine-faces-consumer-backlash-senator-135002653.html

Maine faces a targeted consumer boycott of tourism and lobster industries after Collins' vote for Kavanaugh...already $3 million raised for anyone who challenges her as well.

What next, Trump will approve more bailouts/subsidies for the lobster industry, like he did with the farm lobby?