Honest question off a first impression; if I were going to try to break apart democratic strongholds as a right winger this is how I would approach it from a national perspective. Red states aren’t passing this, but if blue states do, wouldn’t that basically give right wing more guaranteed representation than they would otherwise have in a winner-tale-all system where the location is strongly blue to begin with?
E.g. if CA does this but TX doesn’t, wouldn’t that on a national level increase the pull of the right wing? Wrapping it up as “all voices heard” people think of course it means them, but at a chess level, giving up a supermajority in one location(state) seems debatable unless all states do it. Barring widespread adoption in many states, being the “progressive” state and doing this early or first in the process actually opens a window for more power to be given to right wing, no?
It’s a good question. They are trying to reform the California state legislature, which wouldn’t impact CA’s electoral votes or the US legislature. It only impacts the makeup of the state legislature, and allows it to become more equitable.
In practice, I think almost anywhere this was done in state elections, it would benefit Democrats and fringe candidates, since the state congressional districts are often jerrymandered to within an inch of their lives to give Republicans an advantage, and switching to PR would undo that at the state level.
Doing this at the US congress level would be great in my opinion, but it’s a massive reform that’s not on the table now or within any near future timeframe. They’re just talking about California for now, I think.
Coming from Oregon, despite a supermajority in state Congress we couldn’t pass laws for 3 years during Covid because the Republicans just walked out of sessions. Luckily with the supermajority we passed a law last year that missing too many sessions can get you kicked out and bar you from running again. They may have even had to pass a downward quorum adjustment, can’t recall exactly. Search “Oregon Congress walkouts” if you want a primer on what might happen. Point is, the gridlock in Congress that is cynically abused to push through insane fringe perversions so the budget can be funded or our troops be paid or whatever the adults are trying to do, might quickly be the norm by allowing cynical actors bent on “winning at all costs”.
CA is passing some pretty decent stuff–if I’m a right winger I’d love some guaranteed standing so I can start to gum up the works
Ugh it’s so frustrating seeing Dunn-Kruger republicans acting like they own the world wasting years of everyone’s time because they couldn’t handled they lost, why should they have so much power in a place they’re politically disadvantaged in because they’re not popular when they go ahead in other states and take away other’s peoples voting rights. They shouldn’t be able to stall everything like that when they’re a small minority.
The laws were written for adults, the posts are not longer inhabited by them and as such there are loopholes to exploit and when you don’t want to go to bed at 8pm by God you’re going to drag your feet and make the adults suffer. Hence my original question (down voted?) and additional state level concerns (up voted?) as to why the macro and micro matter.
Honest question off a first impression; if I were going to try to break apart democratic strongholds as a right winger this is how I would approach it from a national perspective. Red states aren’t passing this, but if blue states do, wouldn’t that basically give right wing more guaranteed representation than they would otherwise have in a winner-tale-all system where the location is strongly blue to begin with?
E.g. if CA does this but TX doesn’t, wouldn’t that on a national level increase the pull of the right wing? Wrapping it up as “all voices heard” people think of course it means them, but at a chess level, giving up a supermajority in one location(state) seems debatable unless all states do it. Barring widespread adoption in many states, being the “progressive” state and doing this early or first in the process actually opens a window for more power to be given to right wing, no?
It’s a good question. They are trying to reform the California state legislature, which wouldn’t impact CA’s electoral votes or the US legislature. It only impacts the makeup of the state legislature, and allows it to become more equitable.
In practice, I think almost anywhere this was done in state elections, it would benefit Democrats and fringe candidates, since the state congressional districts are often jerrymandered to within an inch of their lives to give Republicans an advantage, and switching to PR would undo that at the state level.
Doing this at the US congress level would be great in my opinion, but it’s a massive reform that’s not on the table now or within any near future timeframe. They’re just talking about California for now, I think.
More about it: https://www.prorepcoalition.org/how-reform-happens
Coming from Oregon, despite a supermajority in state Congress we couldn’t pass laws for 3 years during Covid because the Republicans just walked out of sessions. Luckily with the supermajority we passed a law last year that missing too many sessions can get you kicked out and bar you from running again. They may have even had to pass a downward quorum adjustment, can’t recall exactly. Search “Oregon Congress walkouts” if you want a primer on what might happen. Point is, the gridlock in Congress that is cynically abused to push through insane fringe perversions so the budget can be funded or our troops be paid or whatever the adults are trying to do, might quickly be the norm by allowing cynical actors bent on “winning at all costs”.
CA is passing some pretty decent stuff–if I’m a right winger I’d love some guaranteed standing so I can start to gum up the works
Ugh it’s so frustrating seeing Dunn-Kruger republicans acting like they own the world wasting years of everyone’s time because they couldn’t handled they lost, why should they have so much power in a place they’re politically disadvantaged in because they’re not popular when they go ahead in other states and take away other’s peoples voting rights. They shouldn’t be able to stall everything like that when they’re a small minority.
The laws were written for adults, the posts are not longer inhabited by them and as such there are loopholes to exploit and when you don’t want to go to bed at 8pm by God you’re going to drag your feet and make the adults suffer. Hence my original question (down voted?) and additional state level concerns (up voted?) as to why the macro and micro matter.