Unintended Consequences

Article 1, Section 2, of the United States Constitution says, in part, The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative. The very first amendment proposed (you can look it up) tried to change this:

After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.

but this was never ratified. So we can be pretty sure that the Founders of this Republic wanted us to have one Representative for every 30,000 Americans.

Currently, however, we have 435 Congressmen, thanks to something called Public Law 62-5. I guess this was supposed to keep the number of Congressmen down to a reasonable number. Otherwise, with the current U.S. population around 300,000,000, we'd have 10,000 Congressmen running around. Think of it! Mark Russell once said something on like every night 500,000 people in the District of Columbia go to bed without a Congressman. But if we had 10,000 Congressmen, you give yours (DC residents excepted) a booty call just about every night.

The current limit of 435 Congressmen also gives rise to some startling inequities. For example, according to the 2000 Census, the total population of the United States was 281,421,906. If we exclude the District of Columbia (population 572,059) since it has no Congressional representation, then there are 280,849,847 Americans and 435 representatives, so each member of Congress should represent 645,632 people. However, Wyoming (493,782) and Montana (902,195) each have only one representative. To put it another way, Cynthia Lummis only needs to attract half as many votes as Denny Rehberg to get elected, but each gets one vote in the House. So by moving from Wyola, Montana to Parkman, Wyoming (16 miles) you can effectively double the strength of your vote for Congress.

There is a lot more information about the inequities of the current system, and the sorry history of Amendment the First, at thirty-thousand.org. I'd recommend downloading their pamphlet, Taking Back Our Republic, for more information.

One thing they didn't cover, though: the effect of all of these changes on the Electoral College. Each state gets N+2 electoral votes, where N is the number of representatives, plus the two members of the Senate allowed each state. That +2, along with Public Law 62-5, weights the Electoral College heavily toward the smaller states. Since D.C. does have 3 votes in the Electoral College, each elector theoretically represents 281,421,906/538 = 523,098 voters. However, each state has a minimum of three electoral votes. So in Wyoming each elector represents 164,594 people. In Montana, it's 300,732 people, still substantially below the national average. It's likely (I haven't checked in detail) that the state with the most people/elector is California, where there are 33,871,648 people and 55 electors, or 615,848 people/elector. Put it this way: an elector in California represents four times as many people as one in Wyoming, but each has the same say in who's elected President.

Now, as anyone can tell you, most of the smaller states, population-wise, are in the west, and most of those states vote Republican, while many of the larger states tend to vote Democratic. Another wrinkle in the system is that most states (Maine and Nebraska excepted) cast their electoral votes in a block.

Couple these two facts with the 30,000 people/representative rule and you get some interesting results. Very interesting, in some cases.

In particular, let's consider the 2000 Presidential Election. Very close, as we all recall. Al Gore got 50,999,897 votes, while George Bush got 50,456,002, but because most states cast their electoral votes as a block, Bush won in the Electoral College, where it counts, 271-266.

What if we'd apportioned Congress the way the Founders intended? And kept the current winner-take-all (mostly) electoral system? The table below shows the results. I constructed it using the following rules:

• Winner take all in each state, as now. Maine (42 votes under these rules) went to Gore, and Nebraska (54) went to Bush. Changing all of Maine's votes to Bush or all of Nebraska's to Gore isn't going to change the final result, so it doesn't matter if several congressional districts shifted from Red to Blue or vice versa.
• To get the number of representatives, I took the states' populations from the 1990 census, which governed apportionment at the time, divided by 30,000, and rounded down. Rounding to the nearest integer, or rounding up, can't change the electoral vote by more than 51, and so won't affect the result, either.
• If the District of Columbia was a state, it would have 22 electoral votes in this scheme. However, by the Twenty-Third Amendment, D.C. gets 17 electoral votes, equal to the state with the fewest, Wyoming. In the real 2000 election one D.C. elector abstained. Even assuming all 17 of the new electors abstained it wouldn't change the bottom line here, so I assume that they all voted — for Gore, naturally.

The result: Since each state has more or less the same representation per capita in the electoral college, and since most of the larger states went for Gore, he wins the election, 4,314–4,047.

Think about it. Al Gore, Forty-Third President of the United States. Somehow, I don't think that's what those currently saying we should go back to the Principles of the Founders had in mind.

State	Population	Congress	Electors	Bush	Gore	Bush	Gore
				Popular	Popular	Electoral	Electoral
Alabama	4040587	134	136	941173	692611	136	0
Alaska	550043	18	20	167398	79004	20	0
Arizona	3665228	122	124	781652	685341	124	0
Arkansas	2350725	78	80	472940	422768	80	0
California	29760021	992	994	4567429	5861203	0	994
Colorado	3294394	109	111	883748	738227	111	0
Connecticut	3287116	109	111	561094	816015	0	111
Delaware	666168	22	24	137288	180068	0	24
DC	606900	0	17	18073	171923	0	17
Florida	12937926	431	433	2912790	2912253	433	0
Georgia	6478216	215	217	1419720	1116230	217	0
Hawaii	1108229	36	38	137845	205286	0	38
Idaho	1006749	33	35	336937	138637	35	0
Illinois	11430602	381	383	2019421	2589026	0	383
Indiana	5544159	184	186	1245836	901980	186	0
Iowa	2776755	92	94	634373	638517	0	94
Kansas	2477574	82	84	622332	399276	84	0
Kentucky	3685296	122	124	872492	638898	124	0
Louisiana	4219973	140	142	927871	792344	142	0
Maine	1227928	40	42	286616	319951	0	42
Maryland	4781468	159	161	813797	1140782	0	161
Massachusetts	6016425	200	202	878502	1616487	0	202
Michigan	9295297	309	311	1953139	2170418	0	311
Minnesota	4375099	145	147	1109659	1168266	0	147
Mississippi	2573216	85	87	572844	404614	87	0
Missouri	5117073	170	172	1189924	1111138	172	0
Montana	799065	26	28	240178	137126	28	0
Nebraska	1578385	52	54	433862	231780	54	0
Nevada	1201833	40	42	301575	279978	42	0
New Hampshire	1109252	36	38	273559	266348	38	0
New Jersey	7730188	257	259	1284173	1788850	0	259
New Mexico	1515069	50	52	286417	286783	0	52
New York	17990455	599	601	2403374	4107697	0	601
North Carolina	6628637	220	222	1631163	1257692	222	0
North Dakota	638800	21	23	174852	95284	23	0
Ohio	10847115	361	363	2350363	2183628	363	0
Oklahoma	3145585	104	106	744337	474276	106	0
Oregon	2842321	94	96	713577	720342	0	96
Pennsylvania	11881643	396	398	2281127	2485967	0	398
Rhode Island	1003464	33	35	130555	249508	0	35
South Carolina	3486703	116	118	785937	565561	118	0
South Dakota	696004	23	25	190700	118804	25	0
Tennessee	4877185	162	164	1061949	981720	164	0
Texas	16986510	566	568	3799639	2433746	568	0
Utah	1722850	57	59	515096	203053	59	0
Vermont	562758	18	20	119775	149022	0	20
Virginia	6187358	206	208	1437490	1217290	208	0
Washington	4866692	162	164	1108864	1247652	0	164
West Virginia	1793477	59	61	336475	295497	61	0
Wisconsin	4891769	163	165	1237279	1242987	0	165
Wyoming	453588	15	17	147947	60481	17	0
Totals			8361	50455156	50992335	4047	4314

Sorry about the lack of commas in the table above. I used a very primitive spreadsheet to generate the data.

1990 Census data is from http://lwd.dol.state.nj.us/labor/lpa/census/1990/poptrd1.htm. Presidential vote totals are from http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelection.php?year=2000.

An Anonymous Duke Student's Comment on the Election

This appeared sometime in November, it was still there on Friday.

Defusing the Democratic Dilemma

I know people dump on the Electoral College all the time, but it does make it possible to change the rules of an election on the fly, as it were (see Florida, 2000, or the 1876 election). So I offer a modest proposal to scuttle the upcoming Clinton-Obama convention debacle:

Let the both run in November.

Here's how it works:

• The Democratic party puts up a slate of electors in each state. All 538 of them are pledged to support the Democratic candidate, whether it be Barack or Hillary.
• If the Democratic slate gets 270 or more electors, then the Democratic party immediately funds a “run-off” election, between Obama and Clinton — they can afford to do it, they're going to run the White House and probably Congress for four years. This election is open to everyone, Democrat, Republican, Independent, or Naderite. (I'd restrict this to true Democrats, but how can you tell? These days it isn't just Democrats that react to a picture of Bush like Dracula does to a crucifix.)
• The winner of this runoff gets the 270+ electors, and becomes President. The runner up gets to be VP, unless (s)he is so disgusted by the process (s)he decides to emigrate to Canada.
• Thus until Nov. 4, H&B run against McCain. If they win, then they get, let's say, two weeks to attack each other. We'll have the runoff on Nov. 18, and the electors can gather in December to fill in the blank.

Neat, huh? No laws need to be changed, no convention fight, just a massive redo.

Assuming, of course, that John McCain doesn't win it all.

Steppin' On Out

Last night we got to hear the Capitol Steps over at South River High School. If you have the least bit of interest in politics, half a sense of humor, and a bit of tolerance, you want to hear these guys. You can get a good sampling of their work from the year end reviews, which, though in Real Player format, can actually be downloaded and converted to your favorite format with ffmpeg.

In other political satirist news, Mark Russell is back at the Shoreham Hotel in DC. I never went there to see him on his first go-round there, which overlapped my time in the Washington area for about 15 years. Maybe this time I'll make it.

From Our Credit-Where-Credit-Is-Due Department

FactCheck.org draws similar conclusions to yesterday's article. They've also earned a (coveted?) spot on the right-hand side.

P.S. Y'all who clicked in from an email notification: Please feel free to comment. I don't bite, usually.

13,417 Reasons to Actually Read What You Wrote

All over the web, and in my inbox, is a message which says that there were 13,417 military deaths in the Clinton administration, and “only” 9,016 deaths during the George W Bush administration. The email then goes on to claim that this is a media coverup of the greatest proportion. (I'm not going to repeat, or directly link to, the email here, look it up yourself and follow the comments, they are instructive.)

Helpfully, the unknown author then provides a link to the document providing the original data:

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL32492.pdf (a PDF file)

Careful reading of which shows that the numbers said author used are wrong, and his/her conclusion bogus.

I could go on to say that this shows that some people see only what they want to see, and don't even bother to look at what is in front of their noses — but that would be wrong, and anyway I've already done it in email.

Instead I present a graph of a couple of columns from the above reference: the total number of deaths among active duty military from 1980 to 2006, and the total number of deaths due to hostile action. The military is about 50% smaller now than it was when Reagan was President, so we'll look at the rates. The numbers are normalized to 10,000 “FTE” military personnel, where the Full Time Equivalent includes Reserve and Guard troops on active duty. That is, “Total” is the number of deaths per 10,000 military in a given year, and “Hostile” is the number of deaths per 10,000 military due to hostile action.

Obviously, if you were in the military in the Clinton years you had a much better chance of surviving than during the rest of the survey.

The military is a dangerous profession. Let's not trivialize the danger by trying to make cheap political points with bad data.

And read the report before you comment.

Note: since the paper gives data by year, the graph above assumes that a President takes office on January 1, 1980 + 4*n (n = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), not January 20 of the same year. That's an unavoidable error at the level of this study, but I doubt it makes much difference in the final results. If you have the number of casualties those days, let me know and I'll redo the graph.

OK, Let's Get It Over With

Short circuiting the upcoming political frenzy.

Whereas:

1. John Kerry, who served in Vietnam, made a ''joke'' in poor taste about education and the military;
2. George Bush, who did something during Vietnam, took offense;
3. John Kerry is a Democrat;
4. John Kerry is not running for office this year;
5. He doesn't hold any office, either;
6. Nor is he likely to hold office any time in the next decade;
7. George Bush is a Republican;
8. He's not running for anything, either;
9. He is President of the United States;
10. Republican candidates all across the country are asking not to be judged by George Bush's record on the war, immigration, Social Security, Medicare, Trade, the economy, and our relationships with other countries; nor by anything he or Donald Rumsfeld says;

Be it resolved that:

every Democratic candidate will be roundly condemned because of one thoughtless remark

Here endeth the Fox News version of the argument

Oops, I've been informed that John Kerry is still a Senator from Massachusetts. My bad. Just goes to show you how inconsequential he is these days.

Next, He'll Program Your VCR

With thanks to Wired Blogs' Ryan Singel and Kevin Poulsen. we present Alaska (R, of course) Senator Ted Stevens' description of the Internet:

There's one company now you can sign up and you can get a movie delivered to your house daily by delivery service. Okay. And currently it comes to your house, it gets put in the mail box when you get home and you change your order but you pay for that, right.

But this service isn't going to go through the internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free.

More From the Incredible Senator Ted ...

Oh, yes, the good Senator was explaining why he opposed the net neutrality bill.

Bush Declared Liberal

Americans Against Change, Government, Taxes, and Democrats (AACGTD), an umbrella organization of right-wing political groups, today designated President George W. Bush as a Liberal.

The designation had been long expected, giving growing conservative distrust of growing deficits, the increase in spending promised for Katrina and Rita hurricane relief, and Laura Bush's reference to herself as a "Desperate Housewife."

The final straw was the appointment of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, especially after the appointment of John Roberts as Chief Justice.

"The President completed ignored our directive –– uh, make that wish –– for the appointment of conservative judicial scholars who won't interfere with Congressional decisions unless we tell them to. For all we know, this woman could be another Souter. Or, God forbid, a Warren. You know, we can't just have Republican Presidents nominating Justices without our approval. Bad things happen," said an AACGTD spokesman.

Columnist George Will, who has been expressing doubts about Presidential policies for some time, said in a statement, "while I regret the necessity of this step, I am gratified that the AACGTD has taken this designation, as it gives me something to write about now that the Cubs and Red Sox are both deader than Ted Kennedy's Presidential aspirations."

Radio commentator Rush Limbaugh said, "The Bush Administration is the best thing that has happened to this country in history –– wait, I mean, he's as bad as Clinton, and I bet we'll find a blue dress hanging around somewhere, if you know what I mean."

Under the rules governing AACGTD's Liberal designation, the President is now required to invite Al Sharpton to the White House, hold a fund raiser for Ralph Nader, read books, note that reasonable people might disagree with his policies, and generally behave like a wimp.

Conservative columnists and commentators are now required to oppose White House policies in general. In particular, White House spokesman Scott McClellan is to be referred to as a "Liberal Running Dog." For the specific cases where the President's policies match those on AACGTD's approved list, the White House position is to be referred to as "hypocritical."

Members of the Democratic National Committee answered phone calls, but responses to questions could not be heard over what was apparently loud laughter in the background.

This is not the AACGTD's first designation of a Republican as a Liberal. Previously, the organization as listed David Souter, Arlen Specter, John McCain, Sandra Day O'Connor, George H. W. Bush, Barry Goldwater, and Newt Gingrich as Liberals.

Yup, 20-20

Amidst all of the recriminations about Katrina, Michael Kinsley has a good article about hindsight. Knowing what we know now, would we have done things differently? Sure. But we (and by "we" I mean thee and me, not just Presidents, Governors, and Mayors) are too good at ignoring things we don't want to see or hear, and not thinking that the "inevitable" is going to happen tomorrow, not ten, twenty, or thirty years from now. And that our perceptions of the inevitable arise from what has happened to us in the past, not what might happen to us in the future:

But just Google up a phrase like "commission warns," or "urgent steps," or "our children's future" -- or simply "crisis" -- and you may develop a bit of sympathy for the people who stand accused today of ignoring the warnings about anything in particular. Far from being complacent about potential perils, we suffer from peril gridlock.

Did all the attention and money devoted to protecting us from a terrorist attack after Sept. 11, 2001, leave us less prepared for a giant flood? Undoubtedly. And if the flood had come first, the opposite would be true. We, the citizens, would have demanded it and then blamed the politicians and the institutions when it turned out to be a bad bet. There is no foresight. We fight the last war because hindsight is all we have.

You Know What It MeansTo Miss New Orleans

Friend TK sent me this article on the strategic importance of New Orleans. There's a similar, less technical article, in Slate. Both of these make the same point: despite the fact that the place should be under water, having a Port of New Orleans is frakkin' useful. There's been a lot of talk about oil not coming in to the country, but think of all the stuff that goes out of the country via the Mississippi and so New Orleans: grain, coal, timber, automobiles, etc. In short, a lot of the stuff that we sell to other people to pay for all that oil.

So the Port of New Orleans will be rebuilt. It's not going to become another Galveston, there's no Houston to replace it. Once the Port starts operating, people will move back -- surprisingly, people tend to move to where the jobs are.

Will the New New Orleans be the same as the old one? Probably not. Certainly no one's going to go to a convention there between August and October. And we don't know if Mardi Gras will survive as we know it. But there will be a city at the bottom of the Mississippi.

So we'd better figure out how to protect it.

The Light At the End of the Dubya

Hey, this was sent to me by a Conservative friend, don't blame me, Boss:

How many members of the Bush administration does it take to change a light bulb?

The Conservative Mr. Bush

One of the unusual things about this election is that many conservatives have noticed that the current President doesn't behave like a conservative. OK, he's not a Liberal, but he doesn't have trouble, say, with unbalancing the budget or starting a land war in Asia.

Readers of Doonesbury know that Garry Trudeau has been following this trend by listing web commentary from conservatives. (Has John Eisenhower ever, really, been a conservative? OK, George Will certainly is.) The addresses are listed in the cartoons, but it's easiest to get them from the Doonesbury FAQ page. Note: this page apparently lists the last FAQ added. You may have to search the Archives to find the right FAQ. Search for Honest Voter Reading List.

OK, this is cherry-picking, but it's still rather interesting that some conservatives actually wonder if their hand-picked President is a true conservative.

Let's Return to Those Days of Yesteryear

Let's just pretend. Suppose it's 1994. During a "discussion" on the Senate floor, the Vice President of the United States suggests that a Republican Senator perform an anatomically impossible act. Not in a microphone, not to the public, but it's heard and reported.

WWRD?. Somehow, I doubt that he would have said that it was "Way Overdue".

I guess the not-so-fat man has a higher tolerance level these days.

Civics Lessons

Over on kuro5hin.org there's an article about the Canadian Legal System, as we get closer to the Canadian National elections.

And as a comment to that, there's an excellent "quick and dirty" guide to the US political system. If you missed this stuff in high school, here's a good place to start.