NationStates

San Lumen wrote:

United Muscovite Nations wrote:Upper houses aren't meant to represent the majority of people, they are meant to represent minority interests.

In a state like Nevada 75 percent of the population resides in Clark County other 15 percent in Reno. That's 90 percent of the population in two counties out of seventeen. if you went back to the previous system you would have 90 percent of the population being represented by four people out of 34. Thats if you want two senators per county. How could that body claim to have any legitimacy to speak for the majority of the State?

It's not supposed to. Senates are meant to represent minorities.

San Lumen wrote:

Kernen wrote:New Hampshire's huge House (400 members, an average of 1 representative for every 2000 people) incentivizes local government rule, since its extremely hard to build large blocs in the state government. Planning, zoning, and nearly all taxation are handled on a local government level, usually sub-county.

The result is that the state government only really acts when the state is the only body that can effectively deal with a problem. It is not the first line of legislative defense.

As far as I know zoning and planning is largely a local issue in New York as well. I could be wrong though

Those were just the examples that came to mind since I work with them most often. New York's state government is far more intrusive compared to New Hampshire's. It could do with more localized control.

San Carlos Islands wrote:

Ostroeuropa wrote:
How purist are you taking this?
Because despite what I just said, even the constituency system has outliers, with some Mps representing only 13,000 voters because of the geographic isolation of the constituency like the Island constituencies (to avoid the impracticality of having a constituency be a bunch of Islands and some of the Mainland, with their vastly differing interests and issues). The overwhelming majority represent about 50,000 though, and those exceptions are few and far between.

You will never get a system that adequately represents people equally, only a rough approximation.

To back this up...

The Isle of Wright constituency (Largest) has 110,697 folks while the Na h-Eileanan an Iar constituency (Smallest) has 21,769. I'm not a fan of that.

I see no excuse for Wright not having two representatives, but Na h-Eileanan seems unavoidable.

San Lumen wrote:

Diopolis wrote:All blue voters in a given state should be assigned one particular district, with a single polling booth open only at 2 AM- 3AM and located at the bottom of the state's largest lake. All other districts should be reliably red.

That is not physically possible and obvious nonsense. Can you give a actual response instead of sheer absurdity?

I'm sure every state has a scuba diving elections judge.

United Muscovite Nations wrote:

San Lumen wrote:
In a state like Nevada 75 percent of the population resides in Clark County other 15 percent in Reno. That's 90 percent of the population in two counties out of seventeen. if you went back to the previous system you would have 90 percent of the population being represented by four people out of 34. Thats if you want two senators per county. How could that body claim to have any legitimacy to speak for the majority of the State?

It's not supposed to. Senates are meant to represent minorities.

Ok and lets use Delaware now. It only has three counties therefore you'd have six senators in the State Senate. 60 percent of the population is in New Castle County. The four people from the other two counties would be more powerful than the Governor and every other statewide office.

San Lumen wrote:

United Muscovite Nations wrote:It's not supposed to. Senates are meant to represent minorities.

Ok and lets use Delaware now. It only has three counties therefore you'd have six senators in the State Senate. 60 percent of the population is in New Castle County. The four people from the other two counties would be more powerful than the Governor and every other statewide office.

You're missing the point. The Senate's job is to block legislation that would be harmful to the minority. It approves, but rarely proposes, legislation. It's a check on the majority's power. If you changed the senate to proportional representation, there would be no need for the senate.

There's also a serious difference, between city and rural areas, on how much regulation is necessary. Cities tend to require a lot of regulations, since the dense population creates a great deal of interpersonal friction. So the cities have to regulate noise, nuisance, traffic flows, and even weapon use to a much greater degree than rural populations, who are much more insulated from each other, need to concern themselves with. That creates a fundamental difference in how governance is ideally executed between the two. Imputing an urban approach to, to use a clear example, firearm use in a rural area makes no sense. If you pop off a few shots in your back yard in the sticks, you affect nobody. If you do it in the city, you affect a lot of people. Different approaches are necessary, but without minority protections, that difference is generally ignored. New York remains an excellent example.

United Muscovite Nations wrote:

San Lumen wrote:
Ok and lets use Delaware now. It only has three counties therefore you'd have six senators in the State Senate. 60 percent of the population is in New Castle County. The four people from the other two counties would be more powerful than the Governor and every other statewide office.

You're missing the point. The Senate's job is to block legislation that would be harmful to the minority. It approves, but rarely proposes, legislation. It's a check on the majority's power. If you changed the senate to proportional representation, there would be no need for the senate.

And what if they decide they dont want to give anything to Wilmington (the states largest city) and decide to block anything related to New Castle County as whole because the other four senators disagree with its politics?

And because New Castle is strongly Democratic the state legislature would be as well.

San Lumen wrote:

United Muscovite Nations wrote:You're missing the point. The Senate's job is to block legislation that would be harmful to the minority. It approves, but rarely proposes, legislation. It's a check on the majority's power. If you changed the senate to proportional representation, there would be no need for the senate.

And what if they decide they dont want to give anything to Wilmington (the states largest city) and decide to block anything related to New Castle County as whole because the other four senators disagree with its politics?

And because New Castle is strongly Democratic the state legislature would be as well.

What if New York City voted to give themselves whatever they want and block anything for the rural New York counties? Balancing interests is good, even if it is not perfectly democratic in practice.

Kernen wrote:

San Lumen wrote:And what if they decide they dont want to give anything to Wilmington (the states largest city) and decide to block anything related to New Castle County as whole because the other four senators disagree with its politics?

And because New Castle is strongly Democratic the state legislature would be as well.

What if New York City voted to give themselves whatever they want and block anything for the rural New York counties? Balancing interests is good, even if it is not perfectly democratic in practice.

Because that is not what happens now nor will it even with the change in control of the State Senate next week.

San Lumen wrote:

United Muscovite Nations wrote:You're missing the point. The Senate's job is to block legislation that would be harmful to the minority. It approves, but rarely proposes, legislation. It's a check on the majority's power. If you changed the senate to proportional representation, there would be no need for the senate.

And what if they decide they dont want to give anything to Wilmington (the states largest city) and decide to block anything related to New Castle County as whole because the other four senators disagree with its politics?

And because New Castle is strongly Democratic the state legislature would be as well.

What if NYC wanted to block funding to rural parts of NY State under your system? Who would stop them?

San Lumen wrote:

Kernen wrote:
What if New York City voted to give themselves whatever they want and block anything for the rural New York counties? Balancing interests is good, even if it is not perfectly democratic in practice.

Because that is not what happens now.

So why expect it to happen the other way?

San Lumen wrote:

Kernen wrote:
What if New York City voted to give themselves whatever they want and block anything for the rural New York counties? Balancing interests is good, even if it is not perfectly democratic in practice.

Because that is not what happens now.

Yes it is, funding for rural areas is terrible.

United Muscovite Nations wrote:

San Lumen wrote:And what if they decide they dont want to give anything to Wilmington (the states largest city) and decide to block anything related to New Castle County as whole because the other four senators disagree with its politics?

And because New Castle is strongly Democratic the state legislature would be as well.

What if NYC wanted to block funding to rural parts of NY State under your system? Who would stop them?

Its not going to happen as it does not happen now nor will it when Democrats take control of the State Senate next week

United Muscovite Nations wrote:

San Lumen wrote:
Because that is not what happens now.

Yes it is, funding for rural areas is terrible.

What aren't you getting?

San Lumen wrote:

United Muscovite Nations wrote:What if NYC wanted to block funding to rural parts of NY State under your system? Who would stop them?

Its not going to happen as it does not happen now nor will it when Democrats take control of the State Senate next week

Then why do you think it will happen when the other side controls it?

United Muscovite Nations wrote:

San Lumen wrote:
Its not going to happen as it does not happen now nor will it when Democrats take control of the State Senate next week

Then why do you think it will happen when the other side controls it?

Because of the rural/urban divide. What is your rural county not getting currently? You have a representative do you not?

San Lumen wrote:

United Muscovite Nations wrote:Yes it is, funding for rural areas is terrible.

What aren't you getting?

Roads, hospitals, jobs, etc. We had a big government plant but it got moved to a big city and now we have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country and our drinking water is poisoned because the government won't pay to clean up their waste.

United Muscovite Nations wrote:

San Lumen wrote:
What aren't you getting?

Roads, hospitals, jobs, etc. We had a big government plant but it got moved to a big city and now we have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country and our drinking water is poisoned because the government won't pay to clean up their waste.

And why did it get moved? Im sorry the government isnt cleaning up the water. You obviously dont have effective representatives. Thats not the fault of urban representatives ignoring you. Changing the system to PR or MMP or going back to state senates by county would not change that.

San Lumen wrote:

United Muscovite Nations wrote:Roads, hospitals, jobs, etc. We had a big government plant but it got moved to a big city and now we have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country and our drinking water is poisoned because the government won't pay to clean up their waste.

And why did it get moved? Im sorry the government isnt cleaning up the water. You obviously dont have effective representatives. Thats not the fault of urban representatives ignoring you. Changing the system to PR or MMP or going back to state senates by county would not change that.

It got moved because only 8,000 people live here, so we don't decide elections. "we" don't have a representative, the general area, which includes dozens more communities does.

United Muscovite Nations wrote:

San Lumen wrote:
And why did it get moved? Im sorry the government isnt cleaning up the water. You obviously dont have effective representatives. Thats not the fault of urban representatives ignoring you. Changing the system to PR or MMP or going back to state senates by county would not change that.

It got moved because only 8,000 people live here, so we don't decide elections. "we" don't have a representative, the general area, which includes dozens more communities does.

Ok well your community is not the only one in the district. It did not get moved because of your population.

San Lumen wrote:

United Muscovite Nations wrote:It got moved because only 8,000 people live here, so we don't decide elections. "we" don't have a representative, the general area, which includes dozens more communities does.

Ok well your community is not the only one in the district. It did not get moved because of your population.

It does matter. Mass government doesn't work, majorities are nebulous and non-existing. Local governments should have as much say as the state and federal government, if not more, because local governments are the ones whose interests are actually affected when something like this happens. Do you think our representative, who has over 300,000 constituents, really gives a rat's ass if a town of 8000 has water that's unfit for human consumption?

United Muscovite Nations wrote:

San Lumen wrote:
Ok well your community is not the only one in the district. It did not get moved because of your population.

It does matter. Mass government doesn't work, majorities are nebulous and non-existing. Local governments should have as much say as the state and federal government, if not more, because local governments are the ones whose interests are actually affected when something like this happens. Do you think our representative, who has over 300,000 constituents, really gives a rat's ass if a town of 8000 has water that's unfit for human consumption?

There are some things local government cannot do. A representative represents all not just some. They should care that water is unfit for consumption.

San Lumen wrote:

United Muscovite Nations wrote:It does matter. Mass government doesn't work, majorities are nebulous and non-existing. Local governments should have as much say as the state and federal government, if not more, because local governments are the ones whose interests are actually affected when something like this happens. Do you think our representative, who has over 300,000 constituents, really gives a rat's ass if a town of 8000 has water that's unfit for human consumption?

There are some things local government cannot do. A representative represents all not just some. They should care that water is unfit for consumption.

What incentive do they have to care? They will win no matter what.

There shouldn't be a representative, we should decide what we do on a grassroots level instead of having trustees make our decisions for us, regardless of how bad those decisions are.

United Muscovite Nations wrote:

San Lumen wrote:
There are some things local government cannot do. A representative represents all not just some. They should care that water is unfit for consumption.

What incentive do they have to care? They will win no matter what.

There shouldn't be a representative, we should decide what we do on a grassroots level instead of having trustees make our decisions for us, regardless of how bad those decisions are.

So just have local government and no state government?