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Old 06-26-2015, 06:20 AM   #1
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Don't Let The Average Age of Senators Fool You

Average age of Senate is second oldest ever, at 61.

I hate these pro pols who spend 30+ years in their positions, believing their wisdom and leadership is crucial for us.

Wish more of them wanted to RE.


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Old 06-26-2015, 07:16 AM   #2
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I agree. I don't believe that "Senator from the great State of..." should be a career. Instead of term limits, I'd establish a mandatory retirement age for all elected and appointed Federal employees. Tie it to the maximum SS age, which is currently 70. That would generate more turnover and perhaps reduce the acrimony associated with political appointments that must pass through the Senate. Civil servant worker bees would be exempt, of course.

While I was King, I'd also get rid of gerrymandering and I'd get the money out of politics (no idea how on that one.)
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Old 06-26-2015, 08:16 AM   #3
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I agree. I don't believe that "Senator from the great State of..." should be a career. Instead of term limits, I'd establish a mandatory retirement age for all elected and appointed Federal employees. Tie it to the maximum SS age, which is currently 70. That would generate more turnover and perhaps reduce the acrimony associated with political appointments that must pass through the Senate. Civil servant worker bees would be exempt, of course. ...
I'm about as critical of Congress as you can get, but I don't think term limits, or age restrictions are of any help at all. The party in power will just put up someone new, with the same puppet strings attached.

Some smart, powerful, motivated people might go into politics after a successful career - age limits would work against attracting these people.

These would just be 'feel good' measures, IMO.


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While I was King, I'd also get rid of gerrymandering and I'd get the money out of politics (no idea how on that one.)
Now you are talking! In fact, just yesterday we were in Chicago, and a young man was collecting signatures. I was already determined to 'just say no' before I even heard whatever wacky thing he was protesting, and go about our business, but as we approach we hear "Hello, I'm collecting signatures to outlaw gerrymandering in Illinois - we want to put a referendum on the ballot to make an amendment to the Constitution".

I did a mental 180 - yes, I will sign that! DW signed as well. I thanked the man, wished him well. I need to find out how to support this measure myself.

I mentioned to the young man that I had just read an article in "The Economist" on the subject (and Illinois was used as an example) - there was a great line in the article "In a Democracy, the voters choose their Representatives. With gerrymandering, the Representatives choose their voters".

An amendment is the only way we will get this - the pols certainly aren't going to give up power on their own.

Power to the People!

How to rig an election | The Economist

edit/add, more info that this is even worse today:

Quote:
Until the 1990s, legislators had to draw districts using coloured pens on acetate sheets spread out on big maps on the floor. Computers appeared in the 1990s, but only big, sophisticated ones could handle the demographic data, putting the cost beyond all but a few states.

Now the Census Bureau puts out digitised maps, called TIGER/Line files. New geographic information systems for mapping and analysing demographic data cost only a few thousand dollars, work on ordinary Windows operating systems, and can draw up partisan maps automatically. This has turned gerrymandering—sorry, redistricting—from an art into a science.
-ERD50
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Old 06-26-2015, 08:32 AM   #4
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I mentioned to the young man that I had just read an article in "The Economist" on the subject (and Illinois was used as an example) - there was a great line in the article "In a Democracy, the voters choose their Representatives. With gerrymandering, the Representatives choose their voters".
That is a great quote. I also live in Illinois so I will find a way to sign the petition. FWIW I think that gerrymandering can be solved, although I'm not sure that just setting up independent commissions will do the trick. I'm thinking some hard rules that state the districts must follow existing boundaries such as county lines, will be needed. But I'd support just about any idea at this point.
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Old 06-26-2015, 08:56 AM   #5
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I'd like to see Congress lift its limitation of 435 seats in the House of Representatives, which Congress passed in the 20th century. Now each member of the House represents an average of 700,000 people. In 1900, each member represented about 190,000. The voice of the single constituent is clearly diminished in that environment.

The limitation also has produced some notable distortions in proportional representation. In Montana, a single representative is the voice of 900,000 people, while in Wyoming, only 500,000 have a congressman.

I wasn't around in 1911 to hear the arguments for a representational limit, but it has served to concentrate power in the chamber and diminish the individual's access to their legislators.
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Old 06-26-2015, 09:24 AM   #6
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Mathematically, something like "The distance units of a district's boundary may not exceed 10 times the square root of the number of area units within it." So, for example, a district of 1 square mile could not have a boundary length greater than 10 miles; if a district were square shaped, its boundary would be 4 miles long. I do not know that 10 is the "best" multiplier. I'd like to know the value for current districts, I suspect some are much higher than 10.
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Old 06-26-2015, 10:28 AM   #7
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Mathematically, something like "The distance units of a district's boundary may not exceed 10 times the square root of the number of area units within it." So, for example, a district of 1 square mile could not have a boundary length greater than 10 miles; if a district were square shaped, its boundary would be 4 miles long. I do not know that 10 is the "best" multiplier. I'd like to know the value for current districts, I suspect some are much higher than 10.

*SNORT*

You have to keep in mind that Congresscritters are terrified of mathematics. Note, for example, how taxes and things like the ACA subsidies are constructed in tiers and tables of thresholds. Mere linear equations are too much for them. Now you want to toss in a square root? They'd probably measure one side in the wrong direction, get a negative number, and when they took the square root their pointy little heads would explode.


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Old 06-26-2015, 01:19 PM   #8
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...their pointy little heads would explode.
Sounds good to me.
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Old 06-26-2015, 02:35 PM   #9
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That is a great quote. I also live in Illinois so I will find a way to sign the petition. FWIW I think that gerrymandering can be solved, although I'm not sure that just setting up independent commissions will do the trick. I'm thinking some hard rules that state the districts must follow existing boundaries such as county lines, will be needed. But I'd support just about any idea at this point.
We have an independent redistricting commission here in Arizona and I think it's worked well since its passage in a referendum. The politicians though have been relentless in trying to get rid of it and there is a case now at the US Supreme Court which will be decided Monday. There's a very good chance that redistricting commissions will be found to violate the Constitution as the latter gives the responsibility for “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives" to the state legislatures. If so, we'll be back to gerrymandering, probably on steroids.
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Old 06-26-2015, 04:15 PM   #10
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You have to keep in mind that Congresscritters are terrified of mathematics.
Probably true, for most of them.
But there must still be a few with the gumption to take an unequivocal stand on the matter.

From 1897 (Alas, it did not pass at final reading):
Quote:
ENGROSSED HOUSE BILL No. 246

A Bill for an act introducing a new mathematical truth and offered as a contribution to education to be used only by the State of Indiana free of cost by paying any royalties whatever on the same, provided it is accepted and adopted by the official action of the Legislature of 1897.

Section 1
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana: It has been found that a circular area is to the square on a line equal to the quadrant of the circumference, as the area of an equilateral rectangle is to the square on one side. The diameter employed as the linear unit according to the present rule in computing the circle's area is entirely wrong, as it represents the circle's area one and one-fifth times the area of a square whose perimeter is equal to the circumference of the circle. This is because one fifth of the diameter fails to be represented four times in the circle's circumference. For example: if we multiply the perimeter of a square by one-fourth of any line one-fifth greater than one side, we can in like manner make the square's area to appear one-fifth greater than the fact, as is done by taking the diameter for the linear unit instead of the quadrant of the circle's circumference.

Section 2
It is impossible to compute the area of a circle on the diameter as the linear unit without trespassing upon the area outside of the circle to the extent of including one-fifth more area than is contained within the circle's circumference, because the square on the diameter produces the side of a square which equals nine when the arc of ninety degrees equals eight. By taking the quadrant of the circle's circumference for the linear unit, we fulfill the requirements of both quadrature and rectification of the circle's circumference. Furthermore, it has revealed the ratio of the chord and arc of ninety degrees, which is as seven to eight, and also the ratio of the diagonal and one side of a square which is as ten to seven, disclosing the fourth important fact, that the ratio of the diameter and circumference is as five-fourths to four; and because of these facts and the further fact that the rule in present use fails to work both ways mathematically, it should be discarded as wholly wanting and misleading in its practical applications.

Section 3
In further proof of the value of the author's proposed contribution to education and offered as a gift to the State of Indiana, is the fact of his solutions of the trisection of the angle, duplication of the cube and quadrature of the circle having been already accepted as contributions to science by the American Mathematical Monthly, the leading exponent of mathematical thought in this country. And be it remembered that these noted problems had been long since given up by scientific bodies as insolvable mysteries and above man's ability to comprehend.
https://www.agecon.purdue.edu/crd/lo...na_pi_bill.htm
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Old 06-26-2015, 04:40 PM   #11
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I'd like to see Congress lift its limitation of 435 seats in the House of Representatives, which Congress passed in the 20th century. Now each member of the House represents an average of 700,000 people. In 1900, each member represented about 190,000. The voice of the single constituent is clearly diminished in that environment.
I have read that idea elsewhere, and I agree that the current size of congressional districts is larger than it should be. Wikipedia has this to say about the 1929 Reapportionment Act that froze this size at 435 seats. It also says that the 1929 act did not restate the requirement that districts be contiguous, compact, and equally populated. Hmm...

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Then, in 1920, the Republicans removed the Democrats from power as the Whigs had done in 1838, taking the presidency and both houses of Congress. Due to increased immigration and a large rural-to-urban shift in population from 1910 to 1920, the new Republican Congress refused to reapportion the House of Representatives with the traditional contiguous, single-member districts stipulations because such a reapportionment would have redistricted many House members out of their districts.[7][8] A reapportionment in 1921 in the traditional fashion would have increased the size of the House to 483 seats, but many members would have lost their seats due to the population shifts, and the House chamber did not have adequate seats for 483 members. The Reapportionment act of 1929 did away with any mention of districts at all. This provided a solution to the problem of threatened incumbents by allowing the political parties in control of the state legislatures to draw districting lines at will and to elect some or all representatives at large.
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Old 06-28-2015, 06:25 AM   #12
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Sounds good to me.

+1

Now if I could just figure out what gerrymandered district I'm in...
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Old 06-28-2015, 07:20 AM   #13
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I attended a live music event on Saturday and people were there collecting signatures for the petition to stop gerrymandering, so I signed up. It looked like they were getting lots of signatures so I hope this initiative moves forward.
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Old 06-30-2015, 08:47 AM   #14
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I attended a live music event on Saturday and people were there collecting signatures for the petition to stop gerrymandering, so I signed up. It looked like they were getting lots of signatures so I hope this initiative moves forward.
I did some research and recollecting on this, and there is some bad news, and a little good news - some links:

Bruce Rauner should make fair maps his ultimate goal

http://ballotpedia.org/Illinois_Inde...mendment_(2014)

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On June 27, 2014, Judge Mary Mikva threw the redistricting amendment, as well as the term limits amendment, off the ballot, saying it was unconstitutional. .... it contains not a single structural or procedural change to Article IV,
I don't understand the legal issue of 'structural or procedural', but that was enough for this IL SC judge to throw it out. I've been reading that maybe a better way is for the current Governor to use it as a bargaining chip in negotiations, trying to get the legislature to just pass it in exchange for other things. I think that is a very long shot though.

The good news - this news seems to have been buried under the more topical Fed SC decisions:

Supreme Court Backs Arizona's Redistricting Commission Targeting Gridlock : The Two-Way : NPR

Quote:
A large part of the debate over the case hinged on one word: "legislature."

From the Constitution's clause on elections:

"The times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof."
The two sides have argued over whether "legislature" in the clause can be interpreted to refer to voters who enact a law via ballot initiative.

When the case was argued back in March, the Arizona Legislature's lawyer, Paul Clement, said, "The whole idea of the Constitution was that we're going to form a republican government, that we can't have direct democracy."
Quote:
Arizona's Independent Redistricting Commission was formed 15 years ago, after the state's voters approved Proposition 106 and amended the state's Constitution to take redistricting power away from the Legislature (which later filed suit).
While I'm happy with the outcome, I do have some reservations about how the SC came to this. It does seem that the Constitution puts the power in the hands of the state legislatures. I technically agree with the dissenting vote that this should require a Federal constitutional amendment. But I'll take it!


Also, though the petition may not have teeth, it could be a good thing in terms of getting the issue in front of the public?

-ERD50
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Old 06-30-2015, 02:49 PM   #15
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- there was a great line in the article "In a Democracy, the voters choose their Representatives. With gerrymandering, the Representatives choose their voters".



Remember, the U.S. is a representative republic, not a democracy.

A democracy is majority rule... a republic is not.

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Old 06-30-2015, 02:54 PM   #16
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"The average age of Senate is second oldest ever, at 61."

That's a decade younger than the average age of the Rolling Stones....
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Old 06-30-2015, 06:41 PM   #17
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While I'm happy with the outcome, I do have some reservations about how the SC came to this. It does seem that the Constitution puts the power in the hands of the state legislatures. I technically agree with the dissenting vote that this should require a Federal constitutional amendment. But I'll take it!
I agree with this sentiment. After the ruling was announced, a friend posted a picture on FB of Arizona's districts and they're pretty normal looking so perhaps independent commissions are the answer. Maybe there's hope for Illinois and the other heavily gerrymandered states after all.
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Old 07-02-2015, 03:18 PM   #18
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Maybe there's hope for Illinois........
You're kidding, right?

(Spoken by a long time resident of both Chicago and the suburbs.)
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