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They gerrymandered my Ohio congressional district so that it takes seven hours to drive from one end to another. So much for local representation, but the governor doesn't like trains either.
 
George K said:
I suppose it's wandering a bit afield here, but I don't think it's fair to blame the GOP for all the Gerrymandering that occurs.
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In New York, it's very much a bipartisan incumbent-protection racket. The Senate is gerrymandered *and* malapportioned for the Republicans; the Assembly is gerrymandered for the Democrats, mostly. The Senate shenanigans are much more extreme because the state would not elect any Republicans at all with any fair district map.

This would have ended if the Governor had simply vetoed the deal -- it would have gone to the courts, who would have made a decent set of maps -- but Governor Andrew Cuomo (nominally D, but it can be hard to tell) decided to sign the corrupt deal. Despite promising not to, during his campaign. Making him part of the corruption too.

The difference between the parties here is, there actually is a reform caucus in the New York State Democratic Party, although it's a minority. There is *no* reform caucus at *all* in the New York State Republican Party, at the state level anyway.
 
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Bottom line: 99% of politicians have their own interests in mind. As you know, I live in Illinois, among the bluest of blue states, and the corruption, self-serving politics and shady deals are enough to gag a politician, I mean maggot - but I repeat myself. Makes the appeal of term limits all that much greater, doesn't it?
 
Not really. In practice, term limits knock out the few good guys; the bad guys quickly work out a system where they hang around in smoke-filled back rooms and put stooges into the actual legislative seats. :p

Initiative & referendum, however, seem to be quite useful. Among other things, it's the only way to de-gerrymander a legislature because the legislature won't do it itself.
 
Yeah, just ask Harry Truman about smoke filled rooms. :p

But, returning to subsidies, I came across this on FB:

http://Funding Amtrak is more cost-effective than subsidizing roads

Didn't look into it in detail, but it's interesting, nonetheless.

I would love to see a similar comparison for airlines.
 
Ryan said:
I think this is the link you meant to post:

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/12208/funding-amtrak-is-more-cost-effective-than-subsidizing-roads/
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Yes. Thanks for fixing that. I'm a maroon.

bugs_bunny_maroon.jpg
 
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Change will only happen when the political elite start voting for the will and needs of the American people and that includes passenger rail. If you haven't noticed, the Banks, Wall Street, the Globalists and the Military Industrial Complex are running the show. Congress persons, Senators and the president are their spokespeople.
 
Term limits hurt rural populations where their only path to power is longevity. Senator Byrd for instance, our in Ohio the great Verne Riffe who served thirteen consecutive terms as Speaker of the House. Ohio put in term limits and what happened is a guy would serve two terms in the house, a senate term, then come back to the house. Mother used to say men are smart enough to outsmart themselves. What is really needed is to flush.
 
Like father like son: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/bill-shuster-transportation-bill-lobbyist-girlfriend-117302.html

I used to live in PA when Bud Shuster helped his son by building an exit off the highway to his son's auto dealership.

There is also an airport that gets less than 100 landings/takeoffs per year that gets lots of subsidy.

When asked about a dangerous section of US 322, Bud suggested lowering the speed limit to 25 and requiring drivers wear football helmets. (true story).
 
gmushial said:
They're merely a reflection of those that elected them... :-(
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Ryan is correct!
Most only represent those that bribe, er give them campaign contributions and the pathetic few that turn out to vote in Non- Presidential years!( older, wealthy whites!)

Combined with the blatant gerrymandering, and the return of racism,( you can put lip stick on a pig but its still a pig!) we end up with the mess we have now, the worst public officials money can buy!
 
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gmushial said:
They're merely a reflection of those that elected them... :-(
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Not exactly. It didn't just "happen".

One sad thing about the epidemic of gerrymandering, and I repeat, both parties do it, is that very few seats are at all competitive. In most of the current examples, most of the Democrats are packed into a few districts. That leaves other districts overwhelmingly Republican.

So we have a Congress where both parties know which districts they can possibly win, or no doubt will lose.

That results in only 30 or 40 seats out of the 435 where the voters actually have a choice. And that ain't good.

The relative strength of the parties in the House of Representatives is not the natural order of things. All is not right with the world.

When one party can repeatedly carry Ohio at the Presidential level -- but can only capture 4 out of 16 House seats, you can see right there that the Fix is in. And we all lose.

When one party can repeatedly carry Pennsylvania at the Presidential level -- but can only capture 5 out of 18 House seats, the Fix is in. And we all lose.

When one party can carry Michigan at the Presidential level -- but can only capture 5 out of 14 House seats, the Fix is in. And we all lose.

When one party can carry Virginia at the Presidential level -- but can only capture 3 out of 11 House seats, the Fix is in. And we all lose.

When one party in North Carolina can get 2.2 million of the total votes cast for Congresscritters, but win only 4 districts out of 13, and meanwhile the other party gets only 2.1 million votes for its candidates across the state but wins 9 of the 13 seats, you can see right there that the Fix is in. And we all lose.

Of course, one party gerrymandered and got a disproportionate share of House seats in Illinois and Maryland, but at least that party won the popular vote for President in those states as well as for the House seats.

Until we can eliminate gerrymandering, too many voters in all the big states will be denied a real choice when they go to vote. Because the Fix is in.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-03-19/republicans-win-congress-as-democrats-get-most-votes
 
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I usually get banned from forums for saying this, but the combination of stuff like Woody describes (the majority voting for one party and the other party taking power) and stuff being discussed in the DEA thread (officials just blatantly stealing from and threatening innocent people) is the recipe, historically, for making people seek a violent revolution.

I think the people in power are metaphorically playing with explosives, and it's very very dangerous.
 
neroden said:
Initiative & referendum, however, seem to be quite useful. Among other things, it's the only way to de-gerrymander a legislature because the legislature won't do it itself.
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That doesn't always work.

Arizona voters passed an amendment to the state constitution to put redistricting in the hands of a bipartisan independent redistricting commission. The state legislature (as a body) sued the redistricting commission for cutting them out of the process, making the argument that Article I of the US Constitution specifies that "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof". The commission of course believes that the initiative process is itself an extension of the Legislature's power to legislate, and the Legislature has some input into choosing the commission members, so they have a hand in "prescribing the manner of elections".

The case is currently in front of the US Supreme Court, and its outcome could conceivably influence any other state that has taken or wants to take redistricting away from the legislature.

More info: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission/
 
While it's clear from history that the redistricting commission is Constitutional (any method of lawmaking was considered "the legislature" by the Founding Fathers), our US Supreme Court contains career criminals who should have been impeached for their act of usurpation in the Bush v. Gore case, so who knows what they're going to do.

Even if SCOTUS does rule in favor of corruption, that should have no influence over the method of drawing district lines for the *state* legislatures, about which the Constitution says very little. That's actually more important than the federal lines in many ways.
 
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Aaron said:
The case is currently in front of the US Supreme Court, and its outcome could conceivably influence any other state that has taken or wants to take redistricting away from the legislature.
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If anyone read this and cares about the outcome, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the establishment of the Commission was indeed legal, and the initiative process is consistent with the constitutional requirement that the manner of conducting the elections be prescribed by the state "legislature".

http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/06/independent-redistricting-commission-survives-challenge-in-plain-english/
 
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