Discuss how we can hasten progress towards enlarging representation. There are two primary components to this: 1) educating others in order to gain the necessary public support; and, 2) ensuring implementation via a constitutional amendment or other legal means.
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Paul
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How about 30,000?

Post by Paul »

I had a conversation with the chairman of the Silicon Valley GOP about various offices to run for. The discussion really was not about my running for office, but just about what it takes in general to get people elected to office.

He told me that to run for the house of representatives there are only three ways to get into office:

1.Be a candidate with the Republican or Democratic parties.
2.Be independently wealthy and have $5-10,000,000 of your own cash to blow on an election
3.Already be famous, as in movie star famous

He then told me what it would take to run for city council or mayor of Morgan Hill, the town that I live in which has a population of about 30,000. He said it would require 10-20 dedicated volunteers who are willing to put in 30+ hours per week for a period of 4+ months and a budget of $10-20,000. He said that with this I would have a “nearly invincible armada” with which to conquer my city council.

When I look at my community and understand just a little bit about what it takes to get elected, I begin to understand that more money and more people would yield decreasing marginal returns. How much media is there to saturate for our small town? There isn't a TV station or radio station for our town. Would two ads in the Morgan Hill Times yield greater benefit than one ad? Would more lawn signs convince the majority to swing one's way? Or more doors knocked on? Possibly more doors knocked on, but knowing how the get out the vote strategy works, the doors knocked on by the volunteers would be highly focused, so it's unlikely this would yield all that many more votes for time and money invested.

So I then considered a town that I grew up in that had about 50,000 people in it when I lived there. I think that at this size, the game begins to change a little. More money and more people are going to be required to run ads, knock on doors, and generally manage the campaign. After all, 50,000 people is 67% more people than 30,000.

The beauty of $20,000 and 20 people is that even people from the very poorest neighborhoods everywhere can get enough contributions and volunteers to make a very solid run for office. By placing the office within reach of all citizens it is less likely that special interests will ever be able to control even a slim minority as the congressmen would quickly be replaced by angry constituents.
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JEQuidam
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Re: How about 30,000?

Post by JEQuidam »

Paul wrote:He then told me what it would take to run for city council or mayor of Morgan Hill, the town that I live in which has a population of about 30,000. He said it would require 10-20 dedicated volunteers who are willing to put in 30+ hours per week for a period of 4+ months and a budget of $10-20,000. He said that with this I would have a “nearly invincible armada” with which to conquer my city council.
That is a great description! Your illustration really drives home the point of moving from a special-interest-financed system (in our imperial-sized districts) to a system in which almost any citizen could run for office.

I have always wanted to make this the subject of a YouTube type video (one of many that need to be created).

Related to that point, I've been searching for ways to illustrate a population of 50,000. For example, the capacity of the baseball stadium closest to us (Turner Field in Atlanta) is almost exactly 50,000. That stadium at capacity (a very rare event, BTW) would illustrate a district of 50,000 (men, women, children, a cross-section of a community). Over on your side of the continent, an example of a 50,000 capacity stadium is Stanford Stadium (list of stadiums by capacity). Such a visual would help people grasp the scale of representation. A population represented by a single stadium full of people would have one federal representative devoted to them, whereas today the average congressional district contains a population equal to 14 such stadiums!
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Paul
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Re: How about 30,000?

Post by Paul »

So how about 30,000 instead of 50,000? I am very concerned that a plutocracy minor would form - laws would be made around contractors, executives, and professionals, because the cost of winning an election would be beyond the means of the poor, so representatives would have very little to fear from their phone calls.

As for the video, what I had envisioned was simply displaying the group of 700,000 people as being large, multi-colored blob. The colors represent the spectrum of beliefs held by the voters, and when broken down into smaller pieces, say, 23 pieces, each piece is homogeneous in color. This could be tied in with a discussion on how the elected official cannot hear the voices of 700,000, and the voter cannot take any action when angry, even when supported by tens of thousands of like-minded angry voters. Additionally, the district can easily be set up to cut demographics up (gerrymandering) in order to support the special interests. However, when the districts are made smaller, not only are the one color, the elected officials can hear the voices of the voters.

I'm not really explaining it very well, but the style would be similar to this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkSHg3JV_V8
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JEQuidam
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Re: How about 30,000?

Post by JEQuidam »

Paul wrote:So how about 30,000 instead of 50,000?
Well, I like 50,000 primarily because that was the solution suggested in Article the first. Also, it gets us reasonably close to achieving the one person, one vote standard.

I certainly don't object to anyone advocating a smaller district size. In fact, anyone who believes that there should be more than 435 federal Representatives is on the same side of this issue, IMO.

I do understand the imagery you suggest. It is similar to comparing the presidential election results at the state level (winner takes all) to the county-by-county results. Consider how the election map would appear if the granularity were reduced to 50,000-person district sizes: imagine the colors that would be represented by all the different parties and independents in 6,000 congressional districts!

I watched the video at the link you provided but didn't see the graphic, but it was part one (P1) and so didn't know which part it was in. (I could not place that guy's accent.)
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Paul
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Re: How about 30,000?

Post by Paul »

Well, then I guess I disagree with Article the First. I feel that 50,000 will ensure that mostly executives, business owners, local contractors, and other middle class types will be able to run, but not the average citizen, and certainly not the poor.

I have a feeling we can get a lot of support from the disenfranchised; the 40% of eligible voters who did not vote in the last election (I think that's about 80,00,000 people). Many people I've met who make the decision not to vote do so because they are completely frustrated with the system and feel it's a waste of time because nobody on any side seems concerned with their interests. I think a very powerful pitch to them would be to explain that if they are unhappy with the way things are, then under our proposal they can run for office and write and vote on legislation themselves. This is a very powerful sales pitch, especially for people who are completely not represented in their districts. I wonder if the inner cities and other poor parts of the nation might prefer to have someone 'from the hood' representing them instead of some party hack?

It's also possible that some may want to support a 'compromise' number in order to keep the status quo. Would 400,000 citizens per representative really be all that much better than 700,000? They could even promote this 'compromise' as being a test of what it would be like to have 30,000, but of course 400,000 might be even worse than 700,000 because the politicians would still be owned by special interests and there would be more representatives to feed pork to.

Here in California we have 465,000 citizens per assemblyman. I've found that my assemblyman cares about my opinion about as much as my U.S. representative does.


I really meant the style of the video, not the video itself. I like the use of illustrations. When I first heard the guy I thought he sounded Australian, and the profile for STOPandLOOK says Australia, so I'm sticking with my initial instincts.
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JEQuidam
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Re: How about 30,000?

Post by JEQuidam »

Paul wrote:Well, then I guess I disagree with Article the First. I feel that 50,000 will ensure that mostly executives, business owners, local contractors, and other middle class types will be able to run, but not the average citizen, and certainly not the poor.
Well then luckily for you you that I named this "thirty-thousand.org" !

I can only hope enough people agree with you that a national movement is born that leads to amendment conventions in every state. I'm just hoping that most people will support 50,000-person districts; if you and others can convince them to go further to 30,000-person district, then fine!
SlyRyder
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Re: How about 30,000?

Post by SlyRyder »

As long as a state sends at least one rep to Congress then they have fulfilled the federal
requirements. As longs as a State goes along with the unconstitutional 435 number, then there is really no constitutional challenge unless We The People somehow force the issue. Has any state ever tried to send more reps than the unconstitutional number dictated by the 1929 unconstitutional law? If not, which states would like to be first?

I have no faith whatsoever that the national Republicans and Democrats (bipartisan power elite, somesavvysooner's phrase, i like it) would ever amend the US Constitution to do anything meaningful to dilute their power. A lot of Americans are really * at what the Republicans and Democrats have done to our Country, our Lives, and our Liberties.

This is a reasonable issue, more representation just like it is stated in the Constitution.

Why encourage a Congress of Usurpers to amend the Constitution? Just once We The People need to make our reps follow the Constitution. It might make more sense to have 13 states ready to stand up and give the national parties the middle finger salute. It only takes 13 states to stop any Constitutional amendment the major parties might attempt if they see the PEOPLE are fed up. Let's just follow the Constitution! Then the fight is with states and of course eventually the US Supremes. I have no faith in the Supremes either.

But what if seven or eight states (13 states would be ideal) actually attempted to just send reps according to the 1 to 30,000 ratio ..... There has to be a few states, in these times, that are ready to stand up to their big brothers. With so many members of State Houses perpetually positioning themselves to run for the Big House or the Senate, I'm surprised no state legislature has ever forced the 1 to 30,000 ratio! * they could all go to Washington. I know, I'm sorry I brought that up.

If Congress actually refused several states from seating the total number of representatives as agreed in the Constitution then what could We The People do? If at first you don't secede, then try, try again. I had to bring that up.

Well, if enough citizens actually understood this issue, then maybe something could be forced to happen. We are headed for tough times economically, and a lot of Americans were against the bailouts. If there were 10,000 reps in the House would there still have been bailouts? How would the last two years have gone with 10,000 reps in the People's House?

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts. My gut tells me it is better to work with state legislatures on this issue than working with national parties. At this point, I oppose letting the feds amend anything. WE THE People are going to have to force this issue, BIG TIME.

The big, bold, brave words below sure do look mighty constitutional, don't they?

The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative;

Peace,
SlyRyder
Last edited by SlyRyder on Fri Jul 10, 2009 4:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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JEQuidam
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Re: How about 30,000?

Post by JEQuidam »

SlyRyder wrote:...there is really no constitutional challenge unless We The People somehow force the issue.
Exactly right!! But the prerequisite to any popular movement is widespread awareness and support (which is the purpose of TTO). This is a grassroots effort and we need to increase awareness using all appropriate means.
SlyRyder wrote:I have no faith whatsoever that the national Republicans and Democrats (bipartisan power elite, somesavvysooner's phrase, i like it) would ever amend the US Constitution to do anything meaningful to dilute their power.
Right. I believe this change will require an amendment convention as provided for by Article V of the Constitution (to put forth the undefective version of "Article the first" as originally proposed by the House for the Bill of Rights).
SlyRyder wrote:But what if seven or eight states (13 states would be ideal) actually attempted to just send reps according to the 1 to 30,000 ratio .....
That might make for an interesting protest, but would otherwise be futile because it would give those states proportionally too many Reps (since all states would not be participating) and so would not be allowed to proceed. However, if we can get enough states so motivated, then we should be able to force an amendment convention.

I also believe that it should be a single-issue amendment convention (to enlarge the number of federal representatives), because all other possible amendment proposals will be properly considered later by an enlarged House (e.g., repeal of the 16th, 17th, etc.). An amendment convention that attempts to satisfy everyone's wish lists will fail (and the oligarchs are counting on that).
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