Thirty-Thousand: Is This a Good idea?

[JEQuidam]

[URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/"][url]http://www.thirty-thousand.org/[/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL]

Adding more seats to the House of Representatives?

Please read Walter Williams' article “Political Monopoly Power” at:
[URL="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/19/political-monopoly-power/"][URL="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/19/political-monopoly-power/"][URL="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/19/political-monopoly-power/"][URL="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/19/political-monopoly-power/"][url]http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/19/political-monopoly-power/[/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL]
In that article, note what Dr. Williams says about representational enlargement and about Thirty-Thousand.org.

Also read about “Article the first”, the forgotten first amendment inscribed in our Bill of Rights:
[URL="http://enlargethehouse.blogtownhall.com"][URL="http://enlargethehouse.blogtownhall.com"][URL="http://enlargethehouse.blogtownhall.com"][URL="http://enlargethehouse.blogtownhall.com"][url]http://enlargethehouse.blogtownhall.com[/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL]
The intended purpose of Article the first was to set the maximum population size of congressional districts at 50,000 (to complement the minimum of 30,000 established by the Constitution).

Several empirical analysis have shown that increasing the number of representatives reduces government spending.* Listen to this interview by Lew Rockwell of Dr. Mark Thornton, the author of two of those studies: link to podcast.


* These studies can be found at this link:
[URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/pages/resources.htm"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/pages/resources.htm"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/pages/resources.htm"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/pages/resources.htm"][url]http://www.thirty-thousand.org/pages/resources.htm[/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL]
"Constituency Size and the Growth of Public Expenditures: The Case of the United Kingdom", George S. Ford, Mark Thornton, Marc Ulrich
"The Law of k/n: The Effect of Chamber Size on Government Spending in Bicameral Legislatures", Jowei Chen and Neil Malhotra
"Constituency Size and Government Spending", Mark Thornton and Marc Ulrich

 

[justinc.1089]

I had thought about this before all on my own.... I'm proud of myself now lol.

I think the only way it would work well is if the increase in the cost of paying them was equal to or less than how much they reduced government spending by.

My thinking on it is this:

Lets assume we're just doubling the number to keep things simple.

I think you could assume roughly half would still be the same way, so one half would double in spending.

I think the other half would introduce a very conservative double of itself. So I think that combined with the rest of this half would cause this part of spending to fall by quite a bit, and would also fight the other half which would also cut spending down.

So I think overall there would be less spending and less government.

It would also be easier for people to get elected so hopefully more normal people could manage to win.

Really the only downside I can think of to this idea is the increase in paying more people. I don't think spending would actually increase because it would be so much harder and so much less effective to lobby so many more representatives, and thats where a lot of spending shows up from what I can tell.

But everyone would have to be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN this would work before doing it because if it didn't work you would be stuck with WAY more government.

 

[mczerone]

Administrate your justice, defense, and security firms however you wish, just don't force the choice on others.

 

[JEQuidam]

I think the only way it would work well is if the increase in the cost of paying them was equal to or less than how much they reduced government spending by.

Please see the footnote in my previous post; it links to three different studies which show that government spending declines as the number of representatives increases. (Also see the link to the interview by Lew Rockwell of the author of two of the reports.)

Do your own math (I've done mine), a miniscule percentage reduction in federal spending over the last twelve months would more than offset the costs of 6,000 federal representatives (who, I argue, could work mostly from their home districts, and there would NOT be any increase in the total number of staff - please see the 15 Questions & Answers on TTO's home page).

As opinion polls show us, a truly representative House would not have voted to bail out GM and other wall street firms, not to mention everything else.

Also, consider bankrupt California versus "Live Free or Die" New Hampshire. Various freedom indexes rank New Hampshire highly in personal and economic freedom, while California is ranked near the bottom. California's 34+ million residents are represented by only 80 legislators in their state legislature.

New Hampshire has only 1.4 million citizens. How many representatives do they have in the lower house of their state legislature??

Answer: 400.

Is that a coincidence? No.

I divided each of the freedom indices into thirds as follows: the high-freedom group, the low-freedom group, with the remaining group of states relegated to the middle group. I then calculated the average population size of the states’ legislative districts for each of the three groups. Without exception, the average district size of the low-freedom group of states is significantly larger than that of the high freedom group. Here's the report if anyone wants to see the charts:
[URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/documents/Freedom_Index.pdf"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/documents/Freedom_Index.pdf"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/documents/Freedom_Index.pdf"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/documents/Freedom_Index.pdf"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/documents/Freedom_Index.pdf"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/documents/Freedom_Index.pdf"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/documents/Freedom_Index.pdf"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/documents/Freedom_Index.pdf"][URL="http://www.thirty-thousand.org/documents/Freedom_Index.pdf"][url]http://www.thirty-thousand.org/documents/Freedom_Index.pdf[/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL][/URL]

 

[Wampy]

I support drafting congresscritters for one term like jury duty. Pull a name out of the hat, they go, they come home.

 

[Ethek]

I support drafting congresscritters for one term like jury duty. Pull a name out of the hat, they go, they come home.

This effort, (again a big fan) would work well with constitutionally mandated term limits. Say 2 Terms in the Senate and 3 in the house. Not long enough for anyone to make a career out of it. With more legislatures it would reduce people running for house and then turning around to running for senate. No careers in the legislature.

Again, more people and more debate mean less gets done. Not a bad thing right now

Other parallel efforts would be needed to keep the federal government in check.

To make this happen would require a constitutional convention at the state level, every state. There were two sides debating for the direction of the Constitution when it was written and concessions were made. Non-enumerated clauses like 'General Welfare' and 'Interstate Commerce' have etched at the shackles of the constitution until the government has almost broken completely free of being bound by it.

Changes to the constitution are needed, such as ‘Article the first’ and enumerating the general clauses. Those should get spelled out in any upcoming constitutional convention. State Sovereignty laws are the precursor to this... Co. Sheriffs signing onto Sheriff Macks principles are a precursor to having effective state Sovereignty Laws. Circle around a bit and cut off the Damn Federal Funding to Police Depts. and Highway dollars that come with conditions attached that force compliance with overreaching federal powers.

Any convention effort must be a strategic effort, the 9/12 groups shaking their fist on individually important issues or individual candidate efforts, Ron/Rand Paul included will expended a lot of wasted effort until all of these disparate efforts 'Join or Die.’ Volunteer being educated to recognize that issues important to them are protected under a properly working Constitution despite contributing to an agenda they may not fully be behind or understand at the moment.
No matter the issue it needs to weave into an overall scheme of promoting and correcting the current constitution in very specific ways.

Thirty-Thousand.org is not the only thing that needs to be done.. but it is one of them and a very important one at that.

I’ve been thinking about this a great deal.

 

[pmbug]

I am a fan of the general concept. I think technology exists today that would enable a body of 6,000 or so members to vote on issues without all necessarily assembling in the same room. I also believe that procedures for managing a large number of bills can be worked out.

I wonder though, about the effect such body would have on necessary debate/discourse. It would be weird to think of the House being comprised of basically a private twitter/chat room/forum.

 

[AJ Antimony]

95% reelection of congressmen are basically bureaucrats.

This concept of having more Members of Congress is really not hard at all to understand.

Who is more likely to listen to YOUR opinion? A Congressman who represents (at least) 600,000 people? Or a Congressman who represents 10,000 people?

Who is more likely to listen to YOUR opinion? A Congressman whose office could be an hour's drive away? Or a Congressman whose office could be 5 minutes away?

How would laws be enacted faster? If they needed approval from 400 members, or 40,000 members?

If you support accountability and slower government, then you have to support more members of Congress. They aren't corrupt assholes simply because they are there... they are corrupt assholes because when you represent 600,000-1,000,000 people, you're seat is so powerful that it attracts bad people.

I forget the source, but somewhere before I read that in the 1st Congress, 1 Congressman represented about 43,000 people. THAT is low power and accountability, not the 1 for every 600,000 shit we have today.

30,000 Congressmen may not be the best number, but certainly a significant increase in the number of Members is a good thing.