Congressional Seats Changing as a Result of Census

Texas Gains House Seats While New York Loses in Census Count (yahoo.com)
Interesting - blue states lose seats (except Oregon), red states gain seats. Only seven seats affected, but it appears six of them will go to red states. And as close as the balance currently is in the House, it could swing the power back to the GOP. I'm betting the Dems will raise a big ruckus over redistricting in states where the GOP holds the legislature. Guess we'll have to wait and see.

 

The way that they screwed with the census I am not surprised at all.

 

Moving companies aren't surprised either.

 

Maybe OUBubba could get some ghost hunters to do an investigation into the census ghosts.

 

As long as federal courts say that you can draw districts in a partisan manner forever and ever, I see no issues with the GOP gaining seats. At least there's transparency in this method. Unfortunately, I don't think the average voter understands how/why House districts are drawn.

I'd be more of a fan if they just repealed the 92-year-old law capping the House at 435 so that representation is more "local," but that wouldn't stop gerrymandering either.

 

Barry, it's a continuation of a trend that has been going on for decades.

 

We should definitely expand the House. Gerrymandering is an old trick that we'll never get rid of and can't get rid of. I also think it gets outsized attention. It's definitely a factor and a negative one, but the big sort is a bigger factor.

 

Gerrymandering is what losers say, like football coaches pointing to the stat sheet. Maybe okie can understand this.

 

Losers obviously complain about it more for obvious reasons. However, when it happens, I think it's a fair complaint.

 

expand the house? 1000 of them rather than the current 435? What could go wrong?

 

Expanding the house to manipulate the power structure is no different than gerrymandering. Both are either discussed or targeted to manipulate the power structure. Neither should be acceptable and could easily be legislated out of existence if the powers that be, or the party stalwarts cared enough to do so.

Yes, you can apply the same logic to SCOTUS. Adding another Justice to the court is no different than holding the Scalia seat open for a year to ensure you got a chance to fill it. It's all legal manipulation that should be outlawed.

 

This is a short term gain. Californians and New Yorkers will pollute good states with dumb*ss votes. My taxes in Nashville went up 32% this year and got my property value assessment today. It increased 20%. F democrats.

 

Wonder how many Congessional districts will get a slice of Austin this time?

 

I know you're not cool with it, but expanding the House wouldn't be intended to and wouldn't manipulate the power structure. The seats would be apportioned just as they are now and wouldn't change who draws districts. What it would do is let lawmakers focus on a smaller constituency and therefore be more attentive to them. Each House member now has about 750K constituents. No other Western democracy forces such huge numbers of constituents into single districts.

As for making an impact on political advantage, if anything, it might somewhat favor Democratic states, because it would also increase the size of the electoral college and therefore diminish the power of states that have single at-large house districts which are mostly Republican, but even that impact would be small. It really isn't a partisan issue. I've seen fairly compelling arguments made for it from both the Left and the Right.

As for outlawing gerrymandering, I'm open to a policy solution, but I've never seen one and frankly can't even mentally construct one, because there's an enormous gray area and no objective measurement of what a gerrymandered district is. We can pass a "Thou shalt not gerrymander law," but it would be so vague that it would effectively leave it up to the subjective opinions and wishes of the law's enforcers. And the opposition party would never trust anyone to be fair in that regard. What Texas official would a Texas Democrat trust to fairly enforce an anti-gerrymandering law? Ken Paxton? The Texas Supreme Court? No chance in hell.

 

Expanding the House should be done in order to make it more representative to the people. Basically what Deez said. Reducing the ration of Reps to those representatives should improve representation.

 

To create more career politicians whose sole goal is to be continually reelected? No thanks!

 

I get that, but you'll matter more to your rep if you aren't 1 out of 775,000.

 

Maybe we just need term limits too.

 

I'm surprised you're for term limits. You're usually a deeper thinker than that.

 

HHD, I agree. That is an obvious draw back, putting more people on the Federal payroll. That is why the scope of government needs to be drastically diminished. If we voters are being better represented, maybe there is a chance of that. We need our reps to be closer to us geographically, philosophically, and economically. They need to be tied tigher and tighter to a smaller and smaller amount of people. That way when we hurt, they hurt.

I am also in favor of the American tradition of tarring and feathering those in power who betray their constituents.

 

Hahaha, never claimed to be a deep thinker compared to most on this forum and I guess my being strongly in favor of term limits for the corrupt Aholes proves it. And yes I’ve heard you’re counter argument Mr Deez.

 

Think of it this way, Nash. If you could get rid of every incumbent in Congress, do you actually think it would become a better place that got things done?

I think term limits advocates assume that Congress would be more ethical and more productive if it weren't run by a bunch of old farts too set in their ways. In reality, those are the people for whom the excitement of grandstanding has mostly worn off and who want to get things done but can't command the votes of those younger and note radical members who are still getting high on their own fumes and exist only to grandstand and don't care about results. If you got rid of the incumbents, Congress would consist only of radical members. It would be a disaster.

 

Love it. My wife would disagree about me being a deep thinker, but she's biased. Against me.

I don't think the "2-terms-and-done" thing is appropriate for House members. I'm thinking more like 10 consecutive 2-year terms for the House (and something like 12 total if they're nonconsecutive) and three 6-year terms for the Senate. I think that solves for the radical-ness of freshmen, and prevents situations like Mitch and Chuck being the "leaders" of the upper chamber.

I also think that sometimes, we need a little radical change.

 

First, thanks for being a good sport in response to my ****-talk. Lol. I do actually think you're a pretty deep thinker.

In all honesty though, I don't think more turnover would give you radical change. I think it would give you radical dysfunction. I think you'd see a big brain-drain as members who have actually accomplished things get replaced by AOC and Matt Gaetz types who are radical but don't have any institutional respect and are more concerned with self-promotion. I think you'd see a big rise in the clout of lobbyists and staffers who have been around a long time and therefore have therefore seen how things can get done.

 

Respectfully disagree. On a speculative basis I say you have term limits on Pres therefore why can a Congress person be a lifer? Simply put I think those who genuinely are seeking to make a difference and not a buck, would work harder to get things done if they had a time limit. Plus those Aholes who see it as a gold mine would be out quicker. Because of my cynicism towards what we have now, you are not going to change my mind but I do not begrudge you (misguided) having a differing opinion.

 

I have to agree with Nash, you have incumbents that are crazy. People see their name on the ballot they will vote for them. They get in trench with what they have, they work for themselves and not the USA.

 

I think you'd still see the AOC's and MTG's with the 10-term limit for the House, because those who really see the House as the "final destination" for a self-promoting politician will have their fun for 2 or 3 terms instead of, you know, 10 terms like Pelosi or Don Young. They'd know that at some point, they'd have to work on a job change or actually get something done before the clock's up.

My bigger concern is obviously the Senate. If a party can come up with 51 Senators representing only like 30 percent of the country's population, and they all go for 5+ terms, the very least I could hope for with term limits would be that a new generation from the same party would at least have some ideas that didn't come right out of the 30-year-old playbook.

 

Mr. Deez, you've nailed the big issue with having term limits - the staffers and lobbyists would have the continuity, and would thus wield the power. That would be even worse than the current situation.

 

First, I don't think we should have a term limit on the presidency. And let's take a look at that. Has a term limit really given us better outcomes? Do presidents cash in less or more than they used to? More. Do presidents abuse their power (in terms of governing by executive order) less or more? More. Are they a different kind of person than we used to get? Are we getting more private citizens and fewer "career politicians" for president? No. We're largely getting former governors and senators - the same **** we always got.

Second, even if we assume that term limits are good for the presidency, there is a pretty stark difference between a president and a member of Congress. The president is in charge of the entire executive branch with enormous power on his own - the power to appoint people with massive quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial power. A member of Congress is one guy with very little power on his own. Though his institution is more powerful than the presidency, he personally has very little by comparison. Accordingly, the interest in limiting and checking presidential power and tenure at the individual level is much greater.

A couple things to consider. First, the gold mine isn't the membership in Congress. The pay isn't that great. The gold mine is in the connections and insider information. That's why these guys usually make a lot more after they leave, and that happens even when they don't serve very long.

Second, the inability to get things done is really a separate issue from the sleazy dealings and gold mines. Even a perfectly ethical Congress wouldn't be getting things done. In addition, a lack of time or laziness isn't the cause of inactivity. Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell, and McCarthy aren't lazy. They probably work 18-hour days pretty regularly, and for the most part, they want to make deals. They don't get things done, because for the most ideological (and usually the youngest and newest members), political incentives disfavor getting things done.

Finally, let's recall that term limits isn't just theoretical anymore. Some states have it. For example, the California legislature has term limits. Do they get a different brand of people than other legislatures do? Are they more productive than other legislatures that have similar partisan breakdowns? I don't see any evidence of it.

Among members who have been in Congress for more than ten years, how many would reasonably likely be replaced by someone better, especially on the Democratic side?

 

There is some evidence that monarchy does a better job long term supporting rights and economic growth than democracy. A monarch and a President for life would be similar. So maybe the term limits on Presidency are hampering us a bit. Nothing conclusive but interesting.