re: Electoral College

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Stop it. Just stop it right now.

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No, and anyone who considers themselves a strict constructionist, or originalist, of the Constitution should agree with me.

We absolutely need to increase the number of Representatives. The number is supposed to be adjusted according to the census, and they used to add congressmen on a regular basis, sometimes every two years.

While we continue to re-apportion representatives after each census, the total number was frozen at 438 by a 1929 statute. This was because the rural states feared losing their voice in Congress; but that is what the Senate is there to avoid. The House is supposed to be the voice of the people and should reflect the makeup of the population. It is the ONLY federal governing body that the Constitution says must be elected by the people, rather than being chose by governors or electors.

I do not agree with ratifying the original 12th Amendment, but that is a useful strategy to use to pressure Congress into adding more members (which, of course, would dilute the individual power of the current members).

It's NECESSARY because w/o the EC the big, more populous states, would control presidential elections. The State of New York and Illinois are a good examples of this theory, as NYC and Chicago control statewide elected offices.

The benefit to you, as an individual, is better representation in Congress. Congressmen today represent about 700,000 people (some more, some less). They don't care about you, unless you have significant funds to donate to their campaign. If your Congressman only represented 100,000 people, then you would have more chance to actually know them and discuss ideas with them, even if you are not a big political donor.

Also, each individual seat would be less important to the political parties. I live in Georgia Distric 6. Tom Price was my Congressman until he took the job as Secretary of HHS. You may recall that the two parties spent record numbers of campaign funds on our special election, just to try to swing/maintain one single seat. That would never happen if there were over 1,000 seats.

1,000 in Congress would mean more regular people and fewer career politicians. You would likely attract more people who had a regular career and have moved on and simply want to represent their community, rather than career politicians. Also attract crazy youngsters like AOC...but it would be a true cross-section of America.

What you say would be corruption, I say would be deal-making. Again, the lobbyists would be hard-pressed to gain traction unless their ideas were good. Deals would have to be made with various sub-groups within ones own party.

Yes, it would be difficult, but it is what our government was meant to be. It would take some getting used to at first, but eventually we would wonder why we ever let the number get frozen at 438.

As far as term limits, I am conflicted. On the one hand, I am opposed to taking the selection process out of the hands of the electorate. We would basically be saying people are too dumb to get rid of bad congressmen. OTOH, people are too dumb to get rid of bad congressmen.

Do you honestly think MORE government is the solution?

Federalist #62

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As much as Ohio, Florida, and rural shitholes should have a say, sure.

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Bigot.