selling off federal lands: new House rules make it easier

Use this forum to post links to news stories from other websites - ones that other hikers might find interesting. This is not intended for original material or anecdotal information. You can reply to any news stories posted, but do not start a new thread without a link to a specific news story.
User avatar
retired jerry
Posts: 14396
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm

Re: selling off federal lands: new House rules make it easie

Post by retired jerry » January 8th, 2017, 8:37 am

or, you could have Representatives selected statewide

in such a way, that, for example, if 20% of the voters in Oregon prefer a Republican, then 1 of our 5 Representatives would be R, if 40% were R then 2,...

User avatar
drm
Posts: 6133
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm
Location: The Dalles, OR
Contact:

Re: selling off federal lands: new House rules make it easie

Post by drm » January 8th, 2017, 9:46 am

Webfoot wrote:No matter your political persuasion a strong case can be made that representation in this country needs to be improved. If there is to be a silver lining to this presidential election between two candidates that almost no one I have talked to liked, let it be that so many people are disgruntled with the system that brought us those choices that we seek to improve it. This does not mean abolish the electoral college and have simple majority elections which would only makes things worse. There are much more substantial and beneficial changes that could and, I would argue, should be made.
I actually think we should get rid of the electoral college and go to some form of a popular vote, like we do for every other election. There are many more things we could do, but often they involve changes that are complex or not obvious, proportional representation being an obvious example of that. But moving to a popular vote for president is easily understood and polls show people of all political persuasions support doing so strongly, though those polls were taken before the recent election. The National Popular Vote compact is the most obvious way to do this since it doesn't require a constitutional amendment. Some folks in Portland started a Facebook page to support this. Please join in if you are so inclined. Many states have already signed on, but not Oregon, and working to make that happen is my first task after the election. The Oregon House has passed it overwhelmingly three times, but it died in the state Senate. By the way, I'm represented in the state House by a Republican and he has been a co-sponsor of past efforts to sign Oregon onto NPV, so clearly is is not a partisan thing. Although many Democrats support it, not all do, and Democratic opposition is probably why Oregon failed to pass it in the past. 11 states, big and small, have adopted it so far. This includes both Washington and California, as well as small population states like Hawaii and Rhode Island.

User avatar
retired jerry
Posts: 14396
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm

Re: selling off federal lands: new House rules make it easie

Post by retired jerry » January 8th, 2017, 1:07 pm

yeah, doing away with the electoral college is a good thing, but it's only a small step in the right direction

"two candidates that almost no one I have talked to liked"

I liked Hillary. The issues she favored were pretty good.

She wasn't a very good campaigner though - unable to get people over their unfavorable opinion, even though it was mostly based on negative campaigning. Not that she was perfect.

But no reason to "re-litigate" that. Hopefully she won't run again. She won the senate twice, had a successful career, no reason to feel bad about that and feel like she has to win president or be considered a failure. For one thing, I think she carried the burden of being the first woman to be elected president so felt obligated to run.

It would have been disastrous if she had won. Continual "investigations". Obstruction...

Steve20050
Posts: 395
Joined: November 12th, 2009, 8:06 pm

Re: selling off federal lands: new House rules make it easie

Post by Steve20050 » January 8th, 2017, 5:00 pm

retired jerry wrote:yeah, doing away with the electoral college is a good thing, but it's only a small step in the right direction

"two candidates that almost no one I have talked to liked"

I liked Hillary. The issues she favored were pretty good.

She wasn't a very good campaigner though - unable to get people over their unfavorable opinion, even though it was mostly based on negative campaigning. Not that she was perfect.

But no reason to "re-litigate" that. Hopefully she won't run again. She won the senate twice, had a successful career, no reason to feel bad about that and feel like she has to win president or be considered a failure. For one thing, I think she carried the burden of being the first woman to be elected president so felt obligated to run.

It would have been disastrous if she had won. Continual "investigations". Obstruction...
She wasn't a good campaigner. That we can all agree on. The 30 years? of Republican investigations didn't help either. Or WikiLeaks.

I expect we will have plenty investigations with the Trump presidency. We have just seen the tip of the iceberg in Trumps case. No tax returns, business interests and where they are and with whom. Why the continued dismissive attitude of Russian intervention? You name it, plenty more to come. It will depend on how many times the Democrats want to fight for these issues or how many of the Republicans actually want answers.

My take on the electoral college is go to percentiles of electors in ALL states. No winner takes all in any state. That would be a giant step in the right direction.

http://archive.fairvote.org/e_college/problems.htm

justpeachy
Posts: 3066
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm
Location: Portland, OR
Contact:

Re: selling off federal lands: new House rules make it easie

Post by justpeachy » January 8th, 2017, 5:52 pm

A new national monument in Maine is already proving to be good for the business.

Katahdin-area national monument already paying off for locals
http://www.pressherald.com/2017/01/08/k ... dividends/

User avatar
retired jerry
Posts: 14396
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm

Re: selling off federal lands: new House rules make it easie

Post by retired jerry » January 8th, 2017, 6:38 pm

Like Dean posted, states representing about 1/4 of electoral votes have voted to vote their electoral votes based on whoever wins the national popular vote, but only effective when states representing half the electoral votes have also passed the same law.

So, we only need states representing another quarter of electoral votes to pass this and it'll take effect. Oregon hasn't done it yet. California and Washington have.

With the electoral college, each state is winner take all. Most states one party or the other has a clear majority so president candidates don't bother campaigning.

With popular vote, candidates will campaign in all states.

Still, just a small step in getting us out of our current mess of polarization and so forth.

User avatar
Guy
Posts: 3333
Joined: May 10th, 2009, 4:42 pm
Location: The Foothills of Mt Hood
Contact:

Re: selling off federal lands: new House rules make it easie

Post by Guy » January 8th, 2017, 7:13 pm

retired jerry wrote:Like Dean posted, states representing about 1/4 of electoral votes have voted to vote their electoral votes based on whoever wins the national popular vote, but only effective when states representing half the electoral votes have also passed the same law.

So, we only need states representing another quarter of electoral votes to pass this and it'll take effect. Oregon hasn't done it yet. California and Washington have.

With the electoral college, each state is winner take all. Most states one party or the other has a clear majority so president candidates don't bother campaigning.

With popular vote, candidates will campaign in all states.

Still, just a small step in getting us out of our current mess of polarization and so forth.
I certainly think there are improvements that can be made, you mentioned some of them in earlier posts Jerry but I don't support a simple popular vote. Under that scenario candidates wouldn't need to campaign in all states because only California and NY would matter! Yes Hillary won the popular vote by 3 million but her winning margin in CA was 4.5 million.
hiking log & photos.
Ad monte summa aut mors

Steve20050
Posts: 395
Joined: November 12th, 2009, 8:06 pm

Re: selling off federal lands: new House rules make it easie

Post by Steve20050 » January 8th, 2017, 7:28 pm

I understand many want the popular vote to determine the Presidency. The problems with the National Popular Vote have become evident with this past election. Many voters feel they will be disenfranchised by states with larger populations. They will bring up ridiculous conclusions that illegal voters were the real electors, etc.

I would think allocating each states electors to party based on the popular vote "Within Each State" would be more excepted by citizens as a whole. Again, no winner take all states. Either way, I would be fine with the change. I just view a lot of criticism of the National Popular Vote and wonder if their isn't a work around as it always seems to be a dead end. I would hope whatever is done it does not require an amendment as Dean stated. Just look at the history on the Equal Rights Amendment and the state ratification is what has held it up.

User avatar
drm
Posts: 6133
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm
Location: The Dalles, OR
Contact:

Re: selling off federal lands: new House rules make it easie

Post by drm » January 8th, 2017, 7:52 pm

Guy wrote: Under that scenario candidates wouldn't need to campaign in all states because only California and NY would matter!
Where do you get that from? California and NY have I think less than one quarter of the country's population. Why not say California and Texas, as they are the top two in population? Currently candidates only campaign in swing states and the vast majority are ignored. It's going to be hard to get candidates to Alaska or Wyoming no matter what, but campaign events would spread more widely than they do now with a popular vote system. Candidates will go where swing voters are and will want to be seen reaching out to different cultural groups as long as they aren't too small.

User avatar
retired jerry
Posts: 14396
Joined: May 28th, 2008, 10:03 pm

Re: selling off federal lands: new House rules make it easie

Post by retired jerry » January 9th, 2017, 6:25 am

it seems like the fairest is for each voter to get one vote :)

yeah, California and NY are much bigger, and Texas, but I think it would be better to have more campaigning there than just Wisconson, New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Florida as happens now

in a national popular vote a Republican in Oregon would feel like their vote counted, where now it doesn't seem like it

In this election and in 2000, a popular vote favored the Democrats, but there have been times past when it favored the Republicans

Post Reply