Democracy: Bulk up the House. Dump the Senate.

A number of initiatives and referenda have been cleared for circulation by the California Secretary of State, including,

1540. (11-0067) Legislature Expansion. Legislative Process. Initiative Constitutional Amendment

Increases size of Legislature almost 100-fold by dividing current Assembly and Senate districts into neighborhood districts such that each Assemblymember represents about 5,000 persons and each Senator represents about 10,000 persons. Provides for neighborhood district representatives to elect working committees the size of the current Assembly and Senate, 80 Assemblymembers and 40 Senators. Gives working committees the legislative power generally, and sole power to amend bills, but requires approval by appropriate vote of the full membership in each house for passage of any non-urgency bill. Reduces legislators' pay and expenditures. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Decreased state spending on the Legislature of over $180 million annually. Increased county election costs, potentially in the range of tens of millions of dollars initially and lower amounts annually thereafter.

I've proposed elsewhere that the federal legislature be reduced to one house and that the resultant unicameral congress be reconstituted with 30,000 members. Research has shown that beyond about 10,000 voters, districts are too big for citizens effectively to know their representatives. Given the reach of digital technology, participants in a 30K-member body would be able to remain in their district most of the time, meeting with other representatives virtually and conducting the people's business within the grasp of their constituents.

Democracy is badly in need of reform. What was practicable in the days of horses and buggies may be appropriate no longer. If the Founders were inventing the United States now, Paine would be tweeting, Hamilton, Madison and Jay would have a blog, and Jefferson and Adams would be arguing over at Constitution.Org. The system they would devise today would look nothing like the Rube Goldberg contraption they arrived at by compromise more than two centuries ago. For sure, they'd consider the current constitutional release as beta.

See, also:
The Big House by Sean Wilentz and Micheal Merrill (The New Republic 1992-11-16).
How Can the U.S. House Be Made More Representative? by J.F. Zimmerman and W. Rule (Political Science and Politics Volume 31, Number 1; 1998).
House of Representatives: Setting the Size at 435 by David C. Huckabee (pdf) (CRS Report for Congress 1995-07-11).
Beyond Administrative Apportionment: Rediscovering the Calculus of Representative Government by John A. Kromkowski (pdf) (Polity, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 Spring 1992).
A House of Our Own or A House We’ve Outgrown? An Argument for Increasing the Size of the House of Representatives by Christopher St. John Yates Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems 1992).
How to build a better House: Why Not Have 1000 Congressmen? by Jeff Jacoby (Boston Globe 2009-11-08).
Political monopoly power by Walter Williams (Creators Syndicate 2008-10-15).
Why not have 1000 Congressman? by George Will (Townhall 2001-01-14).
Want to be more efficient? Increase number of politicians by Jonah Goldberg (Jewish World Review 2001-01-04).
Increasing the size of Congress could limit campaign spending by Andrew W. Cohen (CNN.com Law Center 200-06-30).
Growth in U.S. Population Calls for Larger House of Representatives by Margo Anderson (Population Today 2000-04).

Full Text 0f Legislature Expansion. Legislative Process. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

Complete list of California Initiatives and Referenda Cleared for Circulation.

Saturday Catchup: Some stuff you may have missed

The 'Obama doctrine': Don't detain; kill! by Asim Qureshi (Guardian UK 2010-04-11). George Bush left a big problem in the shape of Guantánamo. The solution? Don't capture bad guys; use drones to assassinate them. As David Swanson put it, murder is the new torture.

Prompt Global Strike: World Military Superiority Without Nuclear Weapons by Rick Rozoff (StopNATO 2010-04-10). Only one country has the military and scientific capacity and has openly proclaimed its intention to be the world’s sole military superpower. One that aspires to remain the only state in history to wield full spectrum military dominance on land, in the air, on the seas and in space. To maintain and extend military bases and troops, aircraft carrier battle groups, jet fighters and strategic bombers on and to most every latitude and longitude. To do so with a post-World War II record war budget of $708 billion for next year.

“Looting Main Street” – Matt Taibbi on How the Nation’s Biggest Banks Are Ripping Off American Cities with Predatory Deals. (Democracy Now! 2010-04-12). The Rolling Stone writer looks at the experience of one small Alabama town and its disastrous dealings with Wall Street: “The destruction of Jefferson County reveals the basic battle plan of these modern barbarians, the way that banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have systematically set out to pillage towns and cities from Pittsburgh to Athens.”Matt Taibbi is political reporter for Rolling Stone magazine. His latest article is Looting Main Street.

“Job Creation” – Stupid Is as Stupid Does by Richard C. Cook (RichardCCook.com 2010-04-06). Many commentators have said, as a joke, that it would have been cheaper if the government had just printed the money and given it away. But such an approach would not be a joke at all. Compared to what actually happened, it would be enlightened public policy.

Brief musical interlude:


A Banana Republic With No Bananas by George Washington (Washington's Blog 2010-04-12). Experts on third world banana republics from the IMF and the Federal Reserve have said the U.S. has become a third world banana republic. Are they right?

How Financial Reporters Create Illusion to Cover Up Wall Street's Scams by Scott Thill (AlterNet 2010-04-13). The corporate media's job is to sell confidence on Wall Street's numbers, rather than tempered or even depressed expectations, no matter how realistic they may be.

The financial crisis: Story Pirates explain it all for you

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

In Defense of Public School Teachers in a Time of Crisis by Henry A. Giroux (truthout 2010-04-14) | Crucial to a functioning democracy, though "seldom accorded the status of intellectuals that they deserved, they remain the most important component in the learning process for students, while serving as a moral compass to gauge how seriously a society invests in its youth and in the future. Yet, teachers are being deskilled, unceremoniously removed from the process of school governance, largely reduced to technicians or subordinated to the authority of security guards."

How the FCC Can Protect the Internet from Pro-Corporate Judges and Greedy Telecoms (AlterNet 2010-04-15). Net neutrality ensures a fair Internet. The telecom industry has the money and power to make sure that doesn't happen -- but the people (and the FCC) can fight back.

"While the rest of the world spirals into economic degradation, environmental pestilence and complete systems failure of all of the old world models, Lady Gaga reigns above the flames. Pay attention to the lesson. Lady Gaga is the only person prospering in this cultural climate. Therefore she has done something right. She is the necessary evolutionary adaptation to our times and this is why she disturbs people: This is what we must all become. Indestructibly vacant." -- Jason Louv, Lady Gaga & the Dead Planet Grotesque (H+ 2010-03-16).

Here's a story about a remarkable farmer's market in Norfolk, Virginia that offers a blueprint for creating jobs and boosting a local economy:


Cow Tunnels and Manhattan by Nicola (Edible Geography 2010-04-12): Lost infrastructure or urban myth? Plus, I love this graphic:

Image: Subterranean New York City, as diagrammed by National Geographic (where a scale version and bibliography are also available).





































Reclaiming Our Hope by Paul Rogat Loeb (The Nation 2010-04-06). "It's been a frustrating time since November 2008, but our challenge is to spend less time bemoaning our disappointments and more energy engaging with ordinary citizens the way so many of us did a year and a half ago. If we give people enough ways to act on our present crises, we never know how history might turn."

I know I keep saying we have to reach out to the Tea Partiers because some of them, at least, are right about the problems we face if completely at a loss about solutions. Any thoughts of a possible alliance between rational people and the TPs goes out the window, however, when you witness what actually goes on at the parties:

Btw, fake teabaggers (sane/normal people) have begun infiltrating tea parties with their own signs. Here are the best signs from a rally on Boston Common.

To clear your head, here's Type O Negative doing Black No 1, their only hit, offered as an antidote to the loony Williams and, also, sadly, a farewell to Type O Neg's frontman Peter Steele who died of heart failure this week at 48.

The Franchise: Questions persist about California vote system review

Missed deadlines, miscommunication mar evaluation

By Kat Zambon (electionline.org)

In a 2006 election debate between incumbent California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson (R), and state Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey, the challenger said if elected she would “revisit systems that have been approved by the state and create stricter monitoring requirements.”

Now, six months into her term as secretary of state, Bowen is following through on her campaign promise with a top-to-bottom review of the state’s voting systems.

"The stakes are too high," Bowen said, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. "The voters need to feel confident that their votes are being counted."

However, questions remain about the implications of the results of those tests, which started in late May and are scheduled to end in late July. And since a recent move pushed the California state primary to the beginning of February, there is little time for error.

The rest of the story: Election Line Weekly (2007-07-12)

More on voting in California: Absentee voting, Voting system review, Voting changes , Right to vote