GregsOpinion.com

I don't want to bog down too much in a technical issue, but being the Internet techie you are, can you give me an idea what sort of accomodations might be made? For instance, should there be a separate telecom network off any internet connection to keep it more reliable and secure? Sort of a closed-circuit thing? Something that would be exclusively for their use so there's no bitching and complaing about outages during a vote or, god forbid, some Florida-esque mishap?

Ugh... Have you seen the New Hampshire house chamber? It's a mess, and since it doesn't pay anything and takes up a shitload of time, most of the representatives are college students and retirees. No professionalism at all. And if you'd applies this to Congress, you could kiss constituent services goodbye (What? "Write your congressman?" Why?).

Furthermore, if you look at Texas house races I'm sure you'll find campaign finance issues as well, so I doubt you'd even solve the problem you're aiming at.

The two issues that make it appealing to me is that once you get to a constituent size slightly below that of a Texas House Rep (don't quiz me on that precise # now ... I'm chowing down on lunch), it reaches a point where there's very little money needed to campaign. Even if certain candidates decided to raise a ton of cash, the cost of entry would be far lower than it presently is. It would be much easier for someone to make a run on a shoestring budget.

Granted, the New Hampshire example has its pitfalls. Again, I'd have to do a little more looking into how the #/Rep looks there as well. But Australia is also worth a look as I believe they have a similar concept of a small district. I'm far less worried about the professionalism aspect than I am about the policy aspect, though. What on earth does New Hampshire even have left to really vote on? (ok, so a state income tax always seems to come up) But, who would be the types to basically harbor serious issue ideas? Nutjobs like us who blog? Maybe. But who the heck says you need a Congressman who can afford a truckload of grey suits for every occassion? Why write your congressman? PRECISELY THE POINT ... why write, just walk a few blocks down and knock on his door.

The techie aspects have actually been debated for a long time, UZ. The voting mechanism has been looked at specifically to try and do away with lines at the voting machines in DC and allow members to vote from their offices if desired. The tools are there, although I'm sure there would be a flareup somewhere that would make news. Having a telephone option to run parallel might be an option, though. But just as they can wire a ranch in Crawford to be safe & secure, they don't even need that level of security for this to happen.

Interesting finds, even though I still need to dig up some more info. The best info I snagged on the British parliament size was just an alphabetical list, which I did a count off of ... doesn't account for empty seats.

Nevertheless, here's the math:

Location:      Congress:    Pop:  District Size:

USA                435     28.8M     662,068

UK                 659     58.8M      89,226

Australia          150     19.0M     126,666

Texas              150     20.8M     138,666

New Hampshire      400     1.23M       3,075

I won't go the full fledged New Hampshire route, but here's an idea ... Limit district size to either 100,000 or 125,000 ... hell, even 150,000 would be improvement. That means the Congress sizes would be (respectively): 2880; 2304; & 1920. Go ahead and do one of two things ... leave the ratio fixed and redistrict every 10 years to account for population. Or, make it some nice, tidy round number, like 2000, 2500, or whatever. Doesn't make much difference to me there.

Texas would have as many as 200+ Congressmen, the districts would slightly less than the present Texas Lege districts. Got a problem with gum'mit? Walk a few blocks and see if your Congressman's in his office.

It also alleviates the NH problem as that situation is rather extreme. Puts us closer to the UK & Australia model. Odd seeing the NH Congress site and they bill themselves as the 3rd largest body of government, right after the UK House of Commons and the US House of Reps. Imagine city council in Houston having 400 seats. That's pretty much what you got there.

"But who the heck says you need a Congressman who can afford a truckload of grey suits for every occassion? Why write your congressman? PRECISELY THE POINT ... why write, just walk a few blocks down and knock on his door."

...Because he cannot do much for you anymore. With Congress at its current size individual Congressmen can hold enough clout to get individual things done for constituents. It would be more difficult if you increased the size of the House.

But I have more problems with this -- First, I doubt it would solve the campaign finance problem. Secondly, I don't think it would be truely more democratic because it strikes me as an excuse not to give power back to state legislatures, which would be government close to the people. Even with more Congressmen, you'd still have universal mandates proceeding from a distant body.

"First, I doubt it would solve the campaign finance problem."

Not sure about this. A little too hypothetical.

As to the other points, naturally I am in agreement with Owen.

I'm actually starting to side with Greg on this one. I haven't thought it through, though, so bear with me.

If the congresspeople don't have a whole lot of power, who then would? The power doesn't exist in a vacuum, after all.

Seems to me a lot less would get done in this case. Also seems to me that might not be a bad thing.

Why am I off-base? Where would the power go?

I'll go with Alex that it is in our interest to debate this, throw around some thoughts and see what conclusions we can come to. So I'll put this out there:

I didn't think McCain-Feingold was constructed to address any problems with the function of the legislative branch, just with the process by which it arrives at power. I'm not sure there's a problem with the number of winners per se, so why fix a problem that no one's complained about? It sounds sort of like the argument Greg and others have made about Iraq (but which I think in this instance actually applies): You can't reform the election process succesfully, so let's look around for something we can reform.

Someone want to take it from here?

Alex,

I worry about government power far less when it exists at the state rather than the federal level, and I worry that adding more politicans to the mix may do little to curtail the expansion of the federal government. Accordingly, I would rather work with the current structure than create a new one that simply tacks on more people.

As for the campaign election process, I'll simply say this: I don't believe it is hopelessly corrupt, as proponents of McCain-Feingold claim, and whatever problems do exist can be mitigated by having full disclosure sans contribution limits. Let the light shine in.

Agree especially with Owen's second point.

One problem with relying on full disclosure ... wherever there is money hiding at the moment, it will go back to whatever loophole exists post-reform. Its a matter of free speech, essentially. Not gonna claim to have all the intricate possiblities thought out, but can anyone really lay down a principle of law that says EVERYTHING has to be publically disclosed? It's on that point that I agree with the M-F notion of hopelessly corrupt more than I disagree with it. To the extent that I disagree with it, its only due to the faint glimmer of optimism in my old grizzled heart.

Why fix a problem that nobody's complaining about? Well, actually, this addresses the problem of campaign finance (to the extent that there are those among us that complain about it), albeit in a very indirect way. I definitely agree that M-F addresses the process over the function. Logistical issues aside, this idea doesn't really seem to be all that much of a change in function. Likewise, I'd be concerned if I saw how this might negatively impact the rights or power of a state. I'm not seeing that point, though. The rights and powers are enumerated (or allowed by exclusion).

The main issue I see in the idea is that I think its the Senate that really comes out a winner in this, and that concerns me a little.

Presume that the myriad of dispersed Congressmen (and women) now have less demands on time, how on earth does one lobby these people? Probably by becoming more of a news disseminator, slap up a website, run a phone bank ... whichever way, I've got to think its a lot more difficult for one lobby to really have any unweildy influence on a national level. I don't foresee the problem being eliminated, just reduced (what can I say, I'm a pragmatist on occassion). If Congressmen are treating lobbyists more like the common telemarketer than they are like a crutch for talking points, ideas, etc ... then I say that's an improvement. I suspect you'd still see regional influences, say Beaumont's 10 Democrats will still be owned by Walter Umphrey. Still ... an improvement when you factor in that whole lack of influence issue.

Getting to that ... I'm not sure I see constituent service being hampered by a lack of clout or influence, either. All a congressman does when an old bittie doesn't have her check is have an aide send a letter to someone at SSI. Yes, there are more dire circumstances, but much of the need for clout for stuff like that is vastly overrated IMO.

I imagine you'd have a lot more regional caucuses, say Greater Houston area, Texas, West Houston, etc, and that'd be the main course of getting coordination on larger projects.

But simply, I have no qualms whatsoever with removing the glitz and glamor of the job one iota. I think it needs to be closer to the people, and this seems to accomplish that.

How do we see it affecting state legislatures, though? Is there an inherit need to keep those districts smaller? What? Details people, I need details!!! Agh, Friday night and I'm bloviating about a 2500 member Congress ... where did my life go wrong ... where???