The Shays-Meehan Spam Finance Bill

[Russell Turpin]

Turpin:
>>You have reinvented proportional representation.

Gojomo:
>Not really; "proportional representation" as popularly
>conceived still has terms of office and general elections
>at specified times. Once seated, each legislator's vote
>has the same weight. There is a set number of legislators.

Yeah, but those are mechanical issues that are minor
compared to the BIG change, which is that Congressmen would
represent a constituency that is bound together by common
political beliefs, rather than by geographical boundary.
Regardless of fixed term, etc., the characteristic of
proportional representation is that if 10% of the population
identify themselves first as Green in their political
orientation, then so will about 10% of their representation.
And similarly for socialist, libertarian, religious right,
etc.

Turpin:
>>This is the "radical" idea that by authoring a paper on
>>it, Lani Guanier disqualified herself for the Clinton
>>cabinet.

Gojomo:
>I don't recall it that way, nor can I find independent
>reporting that suggests that the concept of proportional
>representation was what people found objectionable about
>Guinier's views. Rather, there was a characterization
>.. that she wanted to reserve or guarantee certain levels of representation 
>for groups by race.

If I recall correctly (and I might not) that was the
press's spin on her views for proportional representation.
It IS true that proportional representation guarantees
about X% of representatives for a minority of X%, IF that
is their first politicial identification. So if lesbians
(for example) uniformly thought lesbian representation was
more important than any other political affiliation, they
could force that. It is also true that geographic
representation serves to suppress minority representation,
because minorities often are spread out through the
geographical districts, and a minority may be unable to
form a majority in any one district, even though they are
sizable throughout the nation. So there is an important
link between PR and minority representation.


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