And yet somehow in a country of 340 million people we see these polls:
80% were not in favor of attacking Iran
80% believe abortion should be legal
60% thought Trump should be barred from office in 2021
Similar numbers want him removed now
65% are opposed to ICE’s reign of terror
> 50% want to abolish ICE completely
74% support universal free school lunches
62% support raising the federal minimum wage
67% want to raise teacher’s salaries
75% want to reverse the Citizens United ruling
88% support federal laws that would guarantee PTO
> 60% support replacing the Electoral College and FPTP voting
But zero of those things are anywhere close to legislation because our congress is under the thumb of a dozen celebrity personalities and party flip floppers. The more diluted the voting power, the harder it is to make personal backroom deals and buy elections.
Inflating the House doesn’t solve similar problems with the Senate or Executive + Judicial branches, but it’s better than nothing.
Those aren’t the people writing legislation. It’s super easy to say you are for or against something when it’s anonymous and there’s no accountability.
It’s a different deal when it’s on you to write the laws and get a majority to go along.
The reason legislation gets sticky is due to the absurd legislation riders + omnibus bills and horse trading that goes on to get them through. And that issue has gotten even worse because candidates represent far too many people.
If a representative only has to worry about ~30k people (~24k active voters) in a hyperlocal area, they can very easily manage campaigning and running themselves. That would be about 1 mi² of NYC; you could probably cover that with a poster campaign and a few town halls. That small of a voter base could skew very radically to any side of the political spectrum.
With 750k people you become reliant on big donors and national party funds. Vote against the party and you’ll be primaried. Additionally, your voter base is much more diverse which biases candidates toward lukewarm and inoffensive platforms. That stifles your ability to form coalitions and reinforces partisan milquetoast gridlock.
You can’t get 435 people to agree on things, there’s no hope of getting 6,000.
And yet somehow in a country of 340 million people we see these polls:
But zero of those things are anywhere close to legislation because our congress is under the thumb of a dozen celebrity personalities and party flip floppers. The more diluted the voting power, the harder it is to make personal backroom deals and buy elections.
Inflating the House doesn’t solve similar problems with the Senate or Executive + Judicial branches, but it’s better than nothing.
Those aren’t the people writing legislation. It’s super easy to say you are for or against something when it’s anonymous and there’s no accountability.
It’s a different deal when it’s on you to write the laws and get a majority to go along.
The reason legislation gets sticky is due to the absurd legislation riders + omnibus bills and horse trading that goes on to get them through. And that issue has gotten even worse because candidates represent far too many people.
If a representative only has to worry about ~30k people (~24k active voters) in a hyperlocal area, they can very easily manage campaigning and running themselves. That would be about 1 mi² of NYC; you could probably cover that with a poster campaign and a few town halls. That small of a voter base could skew very radically to any side of the political spectrum.
With 750k people you become reliant on big donors and national party funds. Vote against the party and you’ll be primaried. Additionally, your voter base is much more diverse which biases candidates toward lukewarm and inoffensive platforms. That stifles your ability to form coalitions and reinforces partisan milquetoast gridlock.
Yup, now imagine all the riders, poison pills, etc. with 6,000 congress critters…