Some Thoughts on Proportional Representation, by State Delegation, in the US House of Representatives

After listening to Ken Rudin & Ron Elving talk about redistricting for a brief couple of minutes on last weeks It's All Politics (I really wish they dedicated more time to it) I was struck with a brilliant idea (of which I have many): Why not determine House delegations via proportional representation? Now my initial reaction was that this must not be constitutional. Yet upon a reading of Article I of the US Constitution it became evidently clear that the election of a defined number of representatives is up to each individual state unless superseded by federal law. Which means states can do whatever they want as long as they come to the correct total of legislators unless Congress says no.

That is of course where I hit a snag. Federal law since 1967 does in fact say all Reps must come from districts of equal size.

I do however think the benefits of proportional representation are great enough to warrant the repeal of that law. I think it would promote the use of third parties in the US, in more populous states it would allow for greater representation among minorities, and would result in less "big wave elections". With that said I am a huge proponent of a system that has more than 2 parties and can't be trusted.

Now if the US were to repeal that law I am worried that Wesberry v. Sanders might get in the way of constitutionality. I would argue that because the ratio of population to the number of reps is more or less equal in each state then therefore you are achieving 1 person 1 vote. But I can entertain the argument that because, under a proportional system, I have access to 9 Reps in MA that I have more of a say on issues that come before the US House than one in ND does.

The Bottom Line: Is proportional representation in the US House by state delegations legal? No because of a 1967 law requiring districts. Upon repeal of that law would it be Constitutional? More likely than not.

Some Thoughts on Mandatory Solar Panels

I do not presume to know the cost effectiveness of a policy such as this nor do I claim to know if it is good policy. But all the same it IS policy and I would like to know why we aren't having this discussion in the US (The Federal, Sate or Local level) ? Why isn't there laws that say that in order to build something you must have at some point during the building process a team come out (paid for by the government in question) to determine the feasibility of placing renewable energy production built into the building? They should then issue their report and recommendations to the owners, recommendations that they by now means have to follow but at least then they know the options.

Some Thoughts On Abolishing the Senate

To start off it should be known that I am not delusional enough to think that this is even remotely possible, you aren't going to see 66 votes in the US Senate nor the 38 State legislature approval needed for the Constitutional Amendment but that doesn't stop me from speculating!

Ezra Klein had a short post recently illustrating how ridiculous a notion the makeup of the Senate is, best expressed by how a Senate vote in Wyoming is worth 68 times more than it is in California. Not exactly fair but it was a necessary compromise needed to bring the smaller states (such as Rhode Island & Delaware) into the Union with larger, more populous states (such as Virginia and Massachusetts) who favored the model used in the house (proportional representation). With that said the 3/5 Compromise was stripped out of the Constitution quite some time ago, though it should be noted however it took a costly Civil War to right that injustice.

In a world molded by my hands I would see the Senate abolished and 100 seats added to the US House of Representatives bringing our avg district population down to 484,000 which would move us from 2nd worst representative to only the 3rd worst. I would prefer to see the US add even more seats but an 1:1 consolidation of the two chambers sounds better. The consolidation would obviously have to revolve around the completion of a census year to bring into the fold the proper proportion of House seats per state.

As for the duties of the Senate (treaty approval, judicial & executive nominations, etc.) either the House would assume all of them or the House could nominate per 2-year session a committee, chaired by the Speaker, that's sole duty was to pass or fail these. I think I would prefer to still give the House the full up or down vote for this partially because the more representative of the US population the better. But mostly because I don't think adding these duties would be all that much of a burden to the House, especially if we were to limit the amount of executive positions that need confirmation which are at about 1,400 (and this would be a great excuse to do so).

Some great side effects of this "merger" would be the elimination of the Senate Pro Tempore from the line of succession as well as the annihilation of all Senate rules such as cloture and secret holds. And who knows maybe we would do away with that pesky Electoral College while we are at it?

The main goal here, as I stated above, would be to make elections fairer. But the obvious side effect from this would be the elevation of the Speaker of the House to near the level of the President, if not above the President. I think it would be a good thing, possibly stop, or at least be a great check on the Imperial Presidency and shift the power back in the direction that the founders assumed it would be.

But again, this will never happen.

Some Thoughts on Federalism and Europe

This hit me when I read the article about the Scottish Elections but it reflects news coming out of Europe over the past couple of months. Despite the opposing viewpoints of a push for more unity among Europe and the same time a push within countries for more local governance they reflect the same need and want for federalism among Europe. But they also expose problems with the way forward:

• As long as each a country's culture is so drastically different from the next (think Greece vs Germany) problems are always going to persist. You can not allow a difference of retirement age by 6 years and expect there not to be serious consequences. Going forward, in order to stop these problems, economic & fiscal policy as well as social welfare goals need to be further alligned. The goals must be identical across the Union and member state's must be held accountable by a central government with teeth. But like in the US each individual states should be allowed leeway in how to implement those goals due to the cultural differences that occur.
• On the other end of the spectrum you see the splintering of states (Scotland, Belgium and distantly the Basque region of Spain). While I applaud the dissolution of powers to local constituencies and governments (something Great Britain has long needed) the assumption of diplomatic and defense responsibilities by such localities would not be advisable. Though if a credible EU diplomatic corp and defense force where to emerge then I would support more drastic dissolution to localities (something on the line of county and big city autonomy in the US) .