@SethBorman @JacobAShell More partisan outcomes. What about more partisan governing?
Is it because of district size or because one serves for 6 years and the other for 2?
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Bricklin Samuel
6.6K posts
@Brksamurai1 @JacobAShell Smaller districts yield more partisan outcomes. This is readily apparent when looking at the difference between the house and senate.
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EC critics' unwillingness to try out an argument like "Here's what we're willing to offer rural states to buy them out of the contract" and preference for adolescent footstamping ("I'm so smart, why don't rural states see how smart I am??")
Slazac 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇹🇼🌐@TrueSlazac
Arguing about the electoral college is a baffling experience because none of the arguments people have against the popular vote is addressed by the electoral college, it's like they don't understand how their system works
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@MbarkCherguia Billy the Kid. Soon to be played by Timothee Chalomet... Kidding lol.
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@SethBorman @JacobAShell Does it amplify partisanship?
There would be a lot more pressure to fit in the partisan mold when you have to please a broad constituency than a smaller group who has some narrow self interest.
And maybe committee assignments would not be as important either...
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@Brksamurai1 @JacobAShell You're taking a body that operates on consensus and using smaller districts that amplify partisanship. Then you're splitting up committee assignments across 5x as many people. The EU Parliament works like this, and is essentially run by party bosses, not elected members.
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@SethBorman @JacobAShell Who says Congress will work less well?
You just assumed that.
I never said they wouldn't work better. If people felt they were better represented, if they were more in touch with their representative it would likely be mutual.
435 isn't some magic number determined by God.
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@Brksamurai1 @JacobAShell So Congress would work less well, but people wouldn't mind because it would feel like it worked better?
If you want to make it better you'd be focusing on staff and not members.
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@SethBorman @JacobAShell The purpose for increasing the number of reps would be to increase how represented people feel.
They would be more likely to know them, be able to work with them and know if they are a good person, know they understand their needs.
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@Brksamurai1 @JacobAShell The point of adding reps would be to make it easier to file a request, right? So if they don't go up... why bother?
You're arguing that MacDs sells the same amount of FF no matter how many stores they have, in which case they really only need one, right?
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@SethBorman @JacobAShell They would get the same number of requests. The number of Representatives would change, the number of requests would remain flat.
Does McDonald's tripling the number of employees increase the demand for french fries? No.
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@Brksamurai1 @JacobAShell Why would they be able to help with those things? Do you think DoS would jump up when the Rep from the CA-239th district called them about a passport? Because if they didn't, he could call a more senior Rep who could talk to a committee member?
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@SethBorman @JacobAShell You could always talk to your rep, or at least his staff.
What do you need? Your passport expedited? Your Social Security file corrected? All the administrative stuff your reps staff used to do.
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@Brksamurai1 @JacobAShell Great. Now I can talk to my rep. But what can my rep do for me?
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@SethBorman @JacobAShell Well if there are four times as many districts there are 1/4th as many voters and your rep would have to be much more responsive to the concerns of their constituents and because they cover a narrower geographical area their constituents concerns might over lap a little more.
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@Brksamurai1 @JacobAShell Why would that make Congress more useful or functional? So you can talk to your Rep and he can brings things up with the Speaker if he ever gets to meet him?
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@FamilyFuedBob @JacobAShell Okies if you already know what I am talking about, doesn't that mean you already know what I am talking about?
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@Brksamurai1 @JacobAShell There are 535 voting members of Congress now. Do you mean the House?
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@RyanBoyko81 @AlexanderPayton It's probably a mix.
In my state, Ohio there was a big fight over gerrymandering.
But it was impossible to be better for Democrats than 10-5 and or worse than 13-2 the compromise was 12-3 and Democrats were outraged it wasn't 11-4.
That was the fight 12-3 vs 11-4.
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@Brksamurai1 @AlexanderPayton Diff states have diff #s of state reps per capita. Is gerrymandering less of a force in states with more reps per capita?
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“There's no good civic argument for the electoral college,” but then immediately “it was arguably necessary to ensure the ratification of the Constitution.”
That is a good civic argument! It was necessary to secure the buy in of smaller states, and probably continues to be.
James Surowiecki@JamesSurowiecki
There's no good civic argument for the electoral college. It was arguably necessary to ensure the ratification of the Constitution, but it's an anti-democratic device that gives some American citizens far more voting power than others, based purely on where they live.
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@RyanBoyko81 @AlexanderPayton It would make the effect of the Gerrymandering more unpredictable.
Imagine if a Gerrymandering scheme would be thrown off by an apartment complex being condemned or a new housing development being built.
The less populous the district the harder it is to Gerrymander.
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@Brksamurai1 @AlexanderPayton I kind of agree though in this era of extreme gerrymandering uncapping it might not work as well as hoped. That said I’m not against doing so. I’m also for abolishing the EC as I have been since gaining political consciousness in the early 90’s.
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@RyanBoyko81 @AlexanderPayton Capping it at 435 worsened: The electoral college, Gerrymandering, political corruption, political apathy, and voter disconnect, congressional approval ratings.
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@RyanBoyko81 @AlexanderPayton So you are trying to turn my logic on its head by saying that because we have changed so many things we must change so many other things. And don't realize how insane it sounds.
The most broken thing was capping the House of Representatives.
It increases the effects of the EC
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@agraybee On the last point you would have to attract a diverse group of 100 additional people to a town that only was interesting enough to attract 1500 to begin with...
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@agraybee City dwellers opinion on the issues will be the prevailing thought.
That is great until you try to put a bus system in a town of 30,000, try to build low income housing in a town that has an okay trailer park, try to integrate a town where 95% of a town's 1500 people are white.
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They keep saying "but the cities will have all the power" without realizing this is an irrelevant argument when the EC is proportional. The states with the major cities have more electoral votes.
Cameron 🇺🇸 🗽🦅@CameronCorduroy
an extremely potent midwit test is whenever people brainlessly copy-paste Senate justifications onto conversations about the Electoral College the EC doesn't reward small states or rural states, it rewards whatever states happen to have a 50/50 partisan split
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@RyanBoyko81 @AlexanderPayton So you have removed and restacked all these pieces and think just removing the EC is the one more will not cause it to fall?
Anyway you can make the Electoral College more irrelevant by letting the number of Congress members increase instead of keeping it fixed at 435.
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@Brksamurai1 @AlexanderPayton Exactly. We started applying Constitutional protections to state govs too, dictated expansion of suffrage & end of slavery to states, started directly taxing individuals & directly electing senators, capped the House, etc & now you think the Jenga hasn’t changed re EC reasoning?
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@Godel_number @xwanyex Mentally sound Joe Biden had no problem winning the 50,000+ or so Catholic suburban philly voters. 20,000 or so Hamtramck, MI voters
Kamala Harris could not win them.
It's about appealing to enough different types of voters.
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@xwanyex In what sense does the electoral college actually empower states? How does handing all the power in presidential elections to like 50k people in Pennsylvania enhance states rights more broadly?
I used to also be pro EC, but eventually I realized it was pure contrarian impulse.
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I just like the idea of states and state power and while it’s true that removing the electoral college wouldn’t have any of the big effects debunked in his tweet, it would just be another step toward federal government supremacy.
Slazac 🇪🇺🇺🇦🇹🇼🌐@TrueSlazac
Arguing about the electoral college is a baffling experience because none of the arguments people have against the popular vote is addressed by the electoral college, it's like they don't understand how their system works
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@LarryRothfield @carney @JacobAShell @powellAtlantic How does a popular vote campaign get a candidate to campaign in Providence instead of Boston?
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@carney @JacobAShell @powellAtlantic Campaigns don't focus on small states. They focus on swing states.
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Ive said this elsewhere, that if the EC and Senate system were scrapped, then rural states would need to be given something else to compensate them for the loss. Dems’ unwillingness to see this issue as a give-and-take, and insistence upon instead dressing up a potential power grab as a “fairness” issue, means the anti-EC push isnt going anywhere and status quo will prevail.
James Surowiecki@JamesSurowiecki
There's no good civic argument for the electoral college. It was arguably necessary to ensure the ratification of the Constitution, but it's an anti-democratic device that gives some American citizens far more voting power than others, based purely on where they live.
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