Study finds State Legislatures Dominated By white Men

[Purpelia]

Because the people can't assess the individual performance of individual representatives, and vote their approval or disapproval of same, if there are fucking hundreds of them. And particularly if only one of those representatives is subject to their vote.

Which is why you don't. All you care about is the politics of the particular party and the track record of the charismatic manipulator (or small gang of them) in charge of said party. Who cares what the party pawns who are actually on the ballot have to say when they don't have a say in actual policy. They exist just to take up seats in the assembly and rubber stamp party decisions.

Single member constituencies are inherently limited that way. The power of your vote can only be exercised between a few candidates for ONE seat. What can you do to keep Bernie Sanders in the Senate, if you live in Idaho? Nothing. But you admire Bernie more than anyone in the Senate! You want to use your vote to increase his power, so he can represent you. Well that's tough shit. Move to Vermont buddy. But still your vote does nothing to increase his power. At best you can maintain it.

I haven't fully worked out an alternative. All I can tell you is that New Zealand's MMP is the best I see around. Feel free to pitch your own country's system to me though.

How about the sensible multi party political system we have here in Europe? Here a Bernie equivalent would just break off his wing of the party and start a new party to compete on the national stage.

The post was not directed to you.
You should take that context into account, then you'd see that I wasn't saying a word FOR or AGAINST party list systems.
It was a QUESTION, and answering it with questions of your own is plain rude.

It was a loaded question. And thus I answered it in the only way reasonable which is to ask why you loaded it.

[Greed and Death]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/08/politics/state-legislature-diversity-study-2020/index.html

A study from the not for profit New American Leaders has found that of the 7883 state legislators in the US 81 percent are white and 71 are male. Black legislators make up just under 10% while Latinx politicians represent about a little more than 4% and Asian Pacific Islanders about 2%. Women are about 30 percent.

I would have thought after the 2018 elections it would be much lower than that. The results were quite surprising. As to why it’s so white male dominated I do not know. Perhaps some states prefer men or men are seen as more likely to be elected?

Some progress has been made though. A record number of women are running for state legislatures this year breaking 2018’s record. Hopefully state legislatures become more diverse after this year. Here in New York both our legislative chambers has the majority caucus lead by black woman

I would assume this isn’t just a US phenomenon. I would imagine it’s the case in other countries as well though I can’t speak for them without data. Your thoughts NSG on why this is the case?

There is an issue comparing nationwide diversity to state legislature diversity. Smaller rural states tend to be less diverse and more numerous than their urban counterparts.

[Sundiata]

I'd like to see a more inclusive United States and state legislatures that reflect our diversity. I do think that the United States has a long way to go on this front, because as it stands today local, federal, and state governments tend not to invest in their citizens as much as they should.

[San Lumen]

Oh no, perfectly reasonable people are in perfectly reasonable elected positions. Good for them.

What’s your point here?

[Thermodolia]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/08/politics/state-legislature-diversity-study-2020/index.html

A study from the not for profit New American Leaders has found that of the 7883 state legislators in the US 81 percent are white and 71 are male. Black legislators make up just under 10% while Latinx politicians represent about a little more than 4% and Asian Pacific Islanders about 2%. Women are about 30 percent.

I would have thought after the 2018 elections it would be much lower than that. The results were quite surprising. As to why it’s so white male dominated I do not know. Perhaps some states prefer men or men are seen as more likely to be elected?

Some progress has been made though. A record number of women are running for state legislatures this year breaking 2018’s record. Hopefully state legislatures become more diverse after this year. Here in New York both our legislative chambers has the majority caucus lead by black woman

I would assume this isn’t just a US phenomenon. I would imagine it’s the case in other countries as well though I can’t speak for them without data. Your thoughts NSG on why this is the case?

There is an issue comparing nationwide diversity to state legislature diversity. Smaller rural states tend to be less diverse and more numerous than their urban counterparts.

For example you have states like Washington and New Hampshire which is 80% and 94% white respectively.

When you then figure in that New Hampshire has the largest house body of any state it becomes quite clear that the study might be flawed.

I’d rather see a state by state representation than compared to the national population

[Nobel Hobos 2]

You refuse to give it any thought then. I thought it was a bad sign when you replied to the first line without reading what was after it, you then blundered right through the background information I thought you might need to put yourself in the position of an American primary voter. So of course you couldn't do it.

I know about how your system works.

1. Oh do you? How many Senators does each State get (in total, not per election)?

That reply was a comment to the effect of me pointing out it's stupidities.

2. Which it seems you're not finished doing ...

Like for example the idea that people who are not registered members of a political party get to vote in what should be an internal decision on who to represent said party in an election.

3. In some US states, yes. But you have to consider that registering as one party or the other is free, and it's easily changed. As it should be of course. Considering that, it's actually rather futile to try to restrict voting for one party's primaries to members only of that party.

4. It could use reform, across all states, but I wouldn't abolish the system altogether. The idea that anyone can participate in primaries, without paying a fee or passing the purity test of a party, seems fundamentally good. The main restriction I would introduce would be that each registered voter can participate in only one party's primary. It seems enough to me, to suppress "false flag" voting to sabotage the enemy, that the voter has to give up voting in their real party's primary.

My mind is not settled on this, other restrictions may be needed. But that basic one, you can only vote once in primaries, is firm.

Or the fact that you only have two political parties and thus have these insane monolithic blocks that actually have a million different wings in them struggling for dominance. Or indeed that your presidential elections are designed so that there is a federal body whose job is to look at the popular vote and than choose who won only loosely based on what the people actually wanted.

5. Two-party government is something I dislike too. It follows rather strongly from single-member constituencies, which have some popular appeal and are also legally difficult to abolish. Actually you can blame the British for that system, the US House is a carbon copy and a lot of Parliaments throughout the Commonwealth are too.

6. As to the Electoral College, I see it as hardly more than an annoyance. It doesn't distort One Person One Vote really badly (the Senate is much worse) and sore losers on the Democratic side greatly exaggerate the injustice of it. If I lived in California or Texas I might feel differently.

Your system protects you from your own irrationality. You don't actually have to choose between individuals so you never have occasion to ask yourself if you're being racist.

Implied racism is a made up concept designed by identitarians to attack their opponents with. It's purpose is to create an unfalsifyable hypothesis that undermines the confidence of anyone arguing against them by implying that racism is not a matter of choice and personal agency but something you just have in you and can't control. It seeks to turn a matter of deliberate behavior into something almost like a genetic illness. And it is believed only by those that subscribe to identitarian propaganda.

7. You see what you did there? You slammed down a jargon-laden diatribe against your imaginary enemy, who you have a jargon name for, and didn't in any way address the point I made about your electoral system.

The most charitable interpretation I can make is that you're avoiding giving any details about your system of government, to protect your anonymity. Well fair enough my friend, but you could just say that. Trying to distract me was never going to work.

I've seen this before. "I'm blind to people's color" is just a self-congratulatory way of saying you live in a nice white suburb and hardly ever SEE a person of color.

No, it's actual non racism by a man that is actually not a racist. You on the other hand are demonstrably a full on racist as evidenced by the fact that in your last post you literally tried to convince me that black politicians are not to be trusted with certain issues because all blacks act the same on those issues as a racial trait.

That is quite literally what you said. And if you can not see how that is hilariously racist I can't help you.

8. I did not "literally" call you a racist. You may have inferred that, but think for a moment why you would get so angry as to borderline flame me, just at the implication you might be a bit racist without knowing it?

9. Look, I admitted that I have underlying racism which I just haven't discovered yet. Do I have to spell it out for you? To the best of my knowledge I am not a racist. But my knowledge is not complete ... I mean my knowledge of myself. Anyone who claims to know themselves completely is either a liar or a religious nut.

So you're not a racist. That's good, it's morally correct. But were you ever more racist than you are now? Did you ever discover, or get confronted with, racist attitudes in yourself which you have since eliminated?

You admit that you vote by party and don't even pay attention to the names on the ballot. Has it occurred to you that you might actually be one of those dreaded "identitarians"?

I think this tangent is just a fundamental misunderstanding on your end of how political parties work in the civilized world.

10. No, I'm just taking your concept of "identity" which as far as I can tell is either racial or gender identity, and logically extending it to something the person notionally chooses for themselves. IE their political party. If it's wrong to identify as something you have no choice over, why would it be OK to identify as something you DO have a choice over?

11. You identify as some particular party (because you like their policies, because you made a rational choice, blah blah it doesn't even matter), yet you conveniently fail to get my point when I say that by your own definition you are "identitarians"

TLDR

"tldr" isn't usually followed by a big fat paragraph ...

where I am from the party program, and thus party decisions are not really up to the individual party member that ends up on the ballot. Thew guy that sits in the national assembly can but in practice newer does do a 180 turn and suddenly vote against the party line. And that party line is decided, along with whom they want to put on said ballot, by the party leadership. And they are going to put up people who toe that party line. It's not like in america where you can have massively different wings of the same political party struggling for dominance. Over here such disagreements would, and in the past have simply lead to the party in question splitting in half, each leader taking his chosen followers their way. With possibly internal voting or something among top tier party members depending on the party in question.

12. Some of that is good, some of it is bad. Certainly I like multiple parties, and I like parties being able to split without effectively giving up the next election. The idea that most of your legislature is composed of people selected mainly for being good followers ("toeing the party line" as you say) does not seem like the way to select the best people to actually govern.

Btw, I appreciate that you said "toeing" because a common fault of Americans is to say "towing". Along with "off of" and "exponentially" these Americanisms never cease to annoy me.

Voting is not an intelligence test, and if it was how would you make your peace with a system that dilutes your "rational" vote with all those stupid and biased people before giving you the "result"?

By being angry at the stupid people and than shrugging my shoulder and accepting that in a democracy you have to both loose and with with the same grace out of respect for the system. Otherwise, you undermine the system it self. After all, if you can't accept loss gracefully when you loose why should the other side do so when you win? This I feel is a lesson lost on american politics.

13. Hmm. Hillary Clinton was quite graceful in defeat. As to people protesting in the street because they lost, I really see no problem with it if they're not smashing stuff, or setting it on fire. An underappreciated aspect of free speech is that speech allows people to blow off steam and NOT be violent.

[Shofercia]

There is an issue comparing nationwide diversity to state legislature diversity. Smaller rural states tend to be less diverse and more numerous than their urban counterparts.

For example you have states like Washington and New Hampshire which is 80% and 94% white respectively.

When you then figure in that New Hampshire has the largest house body of any state it becomes quite clear that the study might be flawed.

I’d rather see a state by state representation than compared to the national population

Are you asking for researches to do actual research, rather than to cut corners, slack off, and then pretend to be outraged to cover cutting corners and slacking off? You want researchers to do research? WHITE PRIVILEGE! Next thing you'll suggest is that journalists engage in journalism. Why you gotta be so radical Therm?

[Duvniask]

For example you have states like Washington and New Hampshire which is 80% and 94% white respectively.

When you then figure in that New Hampshire has the largest house body of any state it becomes quite clear that the study might be flawed.

I’d rather see a state by state representation than compared to the national population

Are you asking for researches to do actual research, rather than to cut corners, slack off, and then pretend to be outraged to cover cutting corners and slacking off? You want researchers to do research? WHITE PRIVILEGE! Next thing you'll suggest is that journalists engage in journalism. Why you gotta be so radical Therm?

You know, I was gonna leave it, but it helps if you actually read the report in question and don't make shit up and lie about it.

The laziness is on your part; that or you're deliberately spreading misinformation, which I suppose is par for the course.

[Soiled fruit roll ups]

Oh no, perfectly reasonable people are in perfectly reasonable elected positions. Good for them.

What’s your point here?

You don't need people who have the same identity as you to represent you.

Evidence of disparity is not evidence of discrimination. And should be discarded as useless information where discovered.

[San Lumen]

What’s your point here?

You don't need people who have the same identity as you to represent you.

Evidence of disparity is not evidence of discrimination. And should be discarded as useless information where discovered.

How is a white person going to understand the issues facing a majority black neighborhood, community or county?

[The Two Jerseys]

You don't need people who have the same identity as you to represent you.

Evidence of disparity is not evidence of discrimination. And should be discarded as useless information where discovered.

How is a white person going to understand the issues facing a majority black neighborhood, community or county?

The same way a rich person is going to understand the issues facing a poor community.

[Soiled fruit roll ups]

You don't need people who have the same identity as you to represent you.

Evidence of disparity is not evidence of discrimination. And should be discarded as useless information where discovered.

How is a white person going to understand the issues facing a majority black neighborhood, community or county?

The same way a black person would. Skin colour doesn't mean you're stupid.

[San Lumen]

How is a white person going to understand the issues facing a majority black neighborhood, community or county?

The same way a black person would. Skin colour doesn't mean you're stupid.

I never implied that in the slightest

[Latvijas Otra Republika]

You don't need people who have the same identity as you to represent you.

Evidence of disparity is not evidence of discrimination. And should be discarded as useless information where discovered.

How is a white person going to understand the issues facing a majority black neighborhood, community or county?

We’re all equal aren’t we, perpetrating regional-rural-urban-ethnic representation shouldn’t happen. We’re all the same and uniform and there are no groups or distinctions, are you being racist?

[Galloism]

How is a white person going to understand the issues facing a majority black neighborhood, community or county?

The same way a black person would. Skin colour doesn't mean you're stupid.

Hmm. San Lumen seems to be suggesting my votes for Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama were wrong, since both would be less understanding of my issues by virtue of not being white men.

Thanks San Lumen! I now see the errors of my ways.

[Soiled fruit roll ups]

The same way a black person would. Skin colour doesn't mean you're stupid.

I never implied that in the slightest

Really.
Does language not work correctly where you're from?
Is the explicitly most obvious meaning to words overlooked so you can claim your not a racist arse?
It must be a fascinating place with a strong and storied history.

[Duvniask]

What’s your point here?

You don't need people who have the same identity as you to represent you.

Evidence of disparity is not evidence of discrimination. And should be discarded as useless information where discovered.

You don't need to be from a community to represent it, but changes are that you have better insight and understanding of its concerns if you are. Ultimately the same principle as the one behind locally-elected politicians.

[Soiled fruit roll ups]

You don't need people who have the same identity as you to represent you.

Evidence of disparity is not evidence of discrimination. And should be discarded as useless information where discovered.

You don't need to be from a community to represent it, but changes are that you have better insight and understanding of its concerns if you are.

Understanding my concerns is something im gonna check out before I vote for you. Wether you look like me or not.

Plus I don't think being black somehow gives you a better understanding of how id prefer the tax system to function.

[San Lumen]

I never implied that in the slightest

Really.
Does language not work correctly where you're from?
Is the explicitly most obvious meaning to words overlooked so you can claim your not a racist arse?
It must be a fascinating place with a strong and storied history.

In what way am I racist?

[Estanglia]

You don't need people who have the same identity as you to represent you.

Evidence of disparity is not evidence of discrimination. And should be discarded as useless information where discovered.

How is a white person going to understand the issues facing a majority black neighborhood, community or county?

Because a white person isn't inherently incapable of understanding the issues facing majority-black areas.

Sure, a black person might understand it more (if the community has issues facing only the black majority), but "white" doesn't mean "incapable of understanding the issues of a majority nonwhite area".

[Soiled fruit roll ups]

Really.
Does language not work correctly where you're from?
Is the explicitly most obvious meaning to words overlooked so you can claim your not a racist arse?
It must be a fascinating place with a strong and storied history.

In what way am I racist?

Didn't say you were.

[Ansarre]

This is a non-issue. To quote David A. Hollinger: "By almost any index, Jews are demographically overrepresented among the wealthiest, the most politically powerful, and the most intellectually accomplished of Americans. Jewish experience since 1945 is the most dramatic single case in all of American history in which a stigmatized descent group that had been systematically discriminated against under the protection of law suddenly became overrepresented many times over in social spaces where its members' progress had been previously inhibited."

Of course I do recognize that the people who point out this most often are genuinely anti-Semitic, but I'm not (quite the contrary, I am a Semite) so I feel comfortable pointing this out. Why does it matter if certain ethnic groups are more overrepresented? State legislatures are, if memory serves, elected by FPTP? So you have, say, three candidates: GOP, Dem, Independent. GOP wins 48% of vote, Dem wins 47% of vote, and Independent wins 5%. Fifty-two percent of voters are instantly not represented. In the UK, five of our seats in 2019 were won with less than 36% of the vote, meaning 64% of voters were unrepresented. My point here is that in a FPTP election, loads of people are unrepresented and it isn't an issue of race or ethnicity.

How are they not represented?

If POC aren't represented because their elected officials don't share the same skin tone as them, then everyone conservative living in a blue district isn't represented and vice versa.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

How are they not represented?

If POC aren't represented because their elected officials don't share the same skin tone as them, then everyone conservative living in a blue district isn't represented and vice versa.

Yeah, they're not. It's simply unavoidable, with a system based on single-member constituencies.

You're running a version of whattaboutism here. Never mind x problem which could be solved, what about y problem that can't?

[Ansarre]

If POC aren't represented because their elected officials don't share the same skin tone as them, then everyone conservative living in a blue district isn't represented and vice versa.

Yeah, they're not. It's simply unavoidable, with a system based on single-member constituencies.

You're running a version of whattaboutism here. Never mind x problem which could be solved, what about y problem that can't?

My point is that perfect ethnic, gender, religious, political representation etc. is unlikely to ever be achieved. I'm not really too obsessed with moving that much towards it myself. I'm content with single-member FPTP constituencies, though supplementing it with PR isn't an inherently bad idea.

[Nobel Hobos 2]

Yeah, they're not. It's simply unavoidable, with a system based on single-member constituencies.

You're running a version of whattaboutism here. Never mind x problem which could be solved, what about y problem that can't?

My point is that perfect ethnic, gender, religious, political representation etc. is unlikely to ever be achieved. I'm not really too obsessed with moving that much towards it myself. I'm content with single-member FPTP constituencies, though supplementing it with PR isn't an inherently bad idea.

Aww, you really know how to talk sweet to me, don't you?

You're "content" with the system you just admitted does not represent up-to half of the voters. Then you really shouldn't have an opinion at all when it comes to whether a minority has the representation it wants. That's the lesser of two evils isn't it?