United States US Constitutional Amendment Proposals and Discussion Thread
- Thread starter bullethead
- Start date
Not an additional option. It replaces the existing state convention option. I know people are trying to use it right now, but even if it succeeds, one success in over 200 years of history means it's so shit, it needs to go in the trash.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
I can get behind the general flavor of thing you're talking about.
I'm not in favor of making it easier to pass amendments in general though. Just the state-initiated mechanism working better.
Well, yes, but also no.
It explains how the government is supposed to operate, various procedures, and operational constraints.
That's why people are focusing on things like:
- The amendment process
- How impeachment works
- Who elects the Senate
- How long people can be in the Federal government
- Adding burdens on the government/business through explicitly protecting rights
Morphic Tide
Well-known member
Not if it's based on getting a majority of States, because all those flyovers that have been utterly unquestionably Republican count the same as California and New York.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Would it be worth rejiggering the Federal>State hierarchy to add another level? Essentially delegating power in a Federal>State>County structure so that specific duties and rights go all the way to the county level making it harder for a megacity to dominate an entire state and allowing sparsely populated counties more autonomy compared to the current situation. This is essentially meant to be an answer to the situation in places like Oregon where most of the state wants to secede away from the city controlling their politics.
IIRC, I seen something somewhere about changing the Electoral College to work based on the counties to be more effective and representative.
The Democrats will not allow that, because it'd basically ensure that Republicans/conservatives dominate forever.
Wargamer08
Well-known member
Nah smart ones would realize the easy win and push for it, but allocate it based on population and not area. Split their cities into a million and one little fiefdoms.
Buba
A total creep
IIRC mid XIXth century, did not pass Congress:
- winner of popular vote in a State gets its two "senatorial" EC seats
- a State's "representative" EC seats go to winners of vote inside individual Congressional Districts
- there was something limiting gerrymanedring, I don't remember the details
Of course, I've no idea where and when I've read this online. Or my dreams are becoming more and vivid
Yeah, that dumb shit needs to die.All measures can be worked around to some degree. I vaguely remember something about compactness, about having the population concentrated around a single point.
Would it prevent the below and suchlike abominations?
If they actually use shape compactness, no, that abomination would not pass.All measures can be worked around to some degree. I vaguely remember something about compactness, about having the population concentrated around a single point.
Would it prevent the below and suchlike abominations?
Districts must be voronoi cells seeded on the centers of the discs of a* disc packing with the largest discs known for a disk count equal to the required number of districts at the time of the last census. Doing anything but taking a disc packing that some mathematician more interested in publication than politics has devised requires doing original mathematical research and the odds of it being politically advantageous are 50/50 and the odds of it being to a significant degree are pretty much nil.
* disc packing aren't always unique with some having a disc that can have a range of positions. And it's best known since disc packing of a region of a plane is NP hard. The disk packing basis prevents something like using a line of voronoi cell seeds to create a bunch of parallel districts that maximize the amount of interior coastal cities can dominate in California.
Buba
A total creep
I have no idea what you are talking about but it must be DEEP! And very scientific!
BTW - voronoi cells makes me think of "crow cells", as "vorona" is crow in Russian ...
Last edited:
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
Voronoi cells are fairly simple, you place a series of dots on a flat plane, and then the lines between the cells can be mathematically defined easily. A single cell is every point on the plane that is closer to X dot than any other dot. Voronoi patterns are distinct looking, used a lot in 3D printing as they can form a very efficient mesh pattern.
They're not useful for preventing gerrymandering, I tried figuring out such an idea a while back. The problem is that setting the center points for the mesh will let you define the districts, so whoever does that gets to gerrymander it. Granted it won't produce anything as ludicrous as, say, Maryland's 3rd district, or Illinois' 4th that's posted above.
Also each district, in theory, is supposed to have the exact same number of citizens living in it so using any mathematical formula to define the space invariably fails quickly because people aren't distributed in a way that can be calculated so simply.
Buba
A total creep
Thanks for explaining
My hopes are lower - to limit, not eliminate gerrymandering. After all, gerrymandering has a history AFAIK going back to at least 6th century BC and Athens (hint - "democracy").
Last edited:
Morphic Tide
Well-known member
You could distort the geometry to have the calculations operate on a flat population density across a non-Euclidian plane, then select a calculation that generates equal-area partitions within it. That should generate an equal-population partition when re-mapped to the actual geography.