Rommey
Well-Known Member
You might have to do some minor construction to accommodate that many members...not to mention the enormous cost in just salaries for all these extra Congress critters...
Statehood for Puerto Rico - yes or no?
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You might have to do some minor construction to accommodate that many members...not to mention the enormous cost in just salaries for all these extra Congress critters...
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Enormous cost you say? Well, maybe. Call it, what, 10,000 members of the House. At, what, $174k a year? That's $1,740,000,000 a year, right? They spend, now, about $4,000,000,000,000.
Now, if we agree there is a LOT more divergence of opinion these days than what we get, if we agree that hard core blocks of opinion would actually be represented that, say, Western Maryland wasn't lumped in with what folks in Montgomery County want, then, I'd argue that that might be the best $1.7 billion we ever spent.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Plus, they can telecommute, saving more money. And they can get together a couple times a year at the Verizon center.
They're only in Dc so it's easy for the lobbyists to have them away from the home folks.
They're only in Dc so it's easy for the lobbyists to have them away from the home folks.
Clem72
Well-Known Member
Come to think of it, if they had to bri^h^h^h lobby 15k people it would probably have a much lesser impact. Representatives might not be willing to vote against their constituents for $15, especially when those smaller districts could easily be swayed to another candidate.
This_person
Well-Known Member
If there were a large diversity of thought, that might have a large ROI. As it is, all of NYC (for example) could be adequately represented by one person.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Ah, are you really giving this thought? Let's say that there is 1 person that represents NYC. I know there is more but, let's just say 1 for the sake of simplicity. So, we're looking at about 23: 1, (30,000 people per rep, as proscribed, and the reality of our 700,000 per).
So, instead of 1 person acting in lock step with the party in DC, now you've got 23 people representing actual CONSERVATIVE areas of NYC, some representing social liberals who are also pro 2a, economic conservatives who are social liberals, the liberal liberals getting what they really want, and so forth. NYC is NOT 1 vote. MUCH of NYC, as is, is no more truly represented than folks up state are by Schumer and whoever the heck their other Senator is.
Same goes for red states and cities.