We currently have 435 members of the House of Representatives.
Nowhere in the Constitution is there a mention of how many members of the House there should be. The number grew over the years as the population increased and then, in 1929, Congress set the limit at 435 and there it has stayed.
Just a quick primer: Every ten years there is a census and the country is then divided up into 435 districts of as equal a population as possible. Every ten years, some states get new House members (California, Texas and Florida mostly) and some states lose them (Ohio and Pennsylvania among them) as the population grows and moves to warmer climates.
This sign has more representation than a voter in California
Here’s the big problem: You can’t divide across state lines, and you can’t have less than one representative per state. So we end up with some states with only one House member in a district much smaller than the average district.
Wyoming is the least populous state. There are more people living in Washington, DC than in all of Wyoming. Wyoming gets one representative who represents all 500,000 or so of their residents. Meanwhile, the rest of the country divides up the best it can.
It gets worse when you consider the Electoral College. Each state gets one elector for each representative they have in Congress plus two for each Senator. This means Wyoming’s three electors represent about 188,000 people but each elector in California has to represent 677,000. Why should one state’s elector have more power than another state’s?
Well, the easiest solution is just to get rid of the Electoral College (of course) but that requires a Constitutional amendment needing 75% of the states to approve, and guess which states would be against that? Yep. The smaller states who also, not coincidentally, are mostly all Republican. They like the Electoral College because it’s helped them get two popular-vote-losing Presidents into the White House within the past 16 years.
So many are now arguing for Congress to change the number of representatives using the “Wyoming Plan.”
Basically, you would take the smallest district (which is currently Wyoming) and use that as a bottom, meaning all other districts in the country would need to be as close to that size as possible.
We’d end up with a House membership of 546 instead of 435, and that’s not unreasonable for a country with a population as large as ours. And you wouldn’t need an amendment — just a majority of Congress to pass the law.
Just one more reason for you to vote Democratic in November.
It is always difficult to say goodbye to a family member.
This afternoon, I was at my desk, working on my latest book, when I heard Abigail behind me. She liked to sleep in the hidden cubbyhole under our bed, and, as an old and overweight cat, she had health problems and would cough and hack up hairballs and such. This time, the sound was different — and then it just stopped.
“Abby?” I said in my talking-to-cats voice. “Are you all right?” When she didn’t respond, I got nervous. This didn’t feel right. I pulled out my phone, turned on the flashlight, and peered under the bed. She was there, but not moving. I didn’t see her breathing. I reached in to touch her and her eyes were open and her tongue was out.
“Heidi!” I screamed. “Get up here now!”
Heidi came upstairs to see what I was so upset about, and soon we were both crying. We checked for a heartbeat or breathing and found nothing. We placed her in a box and took her to our vet — not because we thought anything could be done, but because we knew they could humanely have her cremated.
It’s never easy. We’ve outlived a number of cats over the years, and as anyone who has ever had a beloved pet knows, it is like losing a family member. We’re childless by choice, so we spoil our cats instead.
As we left the vets, Heidi said, “Let’s go look at kittens.” I reminded her that we still had three other cats to keep us company, but she was so sad, so I went along. We drove to the local no-kill animal shelter where we have adopted some of our previous family members.
Now we have two more — sisters from the same litter. 8 weeks old. No names yet. They’re currently in the downstairs bathroom, allowing them to get used to the area and the smells before we expand their world and let them meet their new housemates. Meanwhile, I fed the other three and mistakenly called one “Abigail.” So it’s not like adopting kittens makes you forget your past cats.
Heidi has no problem in becoming the crazy cat lady, and I guess I’m happy for our extended family.
I feel sorry for David Pecker, the owner of the National Enquirer, I really do. I’m sure he had kids making fun of his name in school and beyond.
But damn, it’s just so much fun to make bad puns today after the announcement that he was given immunity to testify against Trump.
So I challenged my Facebook readers to come up with appropriate headlines. Here are my suggestions, followed by some of my favorites:
Also, if you’re not a Facebook friend and want to be, send a friend request along with a note so I know you’re not a robot or a Trump supporter. And you can also follow me on Twitter but mostly that just echoes what I post on Facebook.
Back in the late 70s, when I was going to Virginia Commonwealth University, the ERA was constantly in the news and being debated. I obviously supported it, especially since at that time there were still many laws that discriminated on the basis of sex.
That’s me wearing my ERA YES button with my old band The Naughty Bits around 1979 or so. Back when I had hair.
It failed to get enough states by the deadline and it died. However, the Supreme Court and Congress basically passed laws and decisions which outlawed most kinds of discrimination over those years, so the question remains: Do we still need it?
After all, the courts have held that the 14th Amendment protects the rights of “people” — aren’t women people? The Supreme Court recently held that gays are protected under the 14th (at least where marriage is concerned).
Then again, even with many laws prohibiting discrimination, the Supreme Court has upheld different treatment, especially concerning the military.
The ERA is in the news again because there is a movement in the Senate to open it back up again for passage — and then it will only need one more state to ratify it.
Here’s why that should happen: All the decisions in the world don’t matter when a new court full of Republican appointees decides that women aren’t “people” and rolls back previous decisions. All the laws Congress passes can be revoked and changed as well.
So yes, I support adding this amendment, even now. I’d support it even more if it included “sexual orientation” as well.
But that will be the next big fight.
Yeah, it’s the first time I think I have ever been called that on social media, and it was because I had the gall to say that the nazis have the right to speak and march.
I stand by my statement. I believe in defending all political speech, and especially speech we hate. Speech we all agree with doesn’t need protecting.
“But all nazis are bad guys” is the general response, although usually cloaked in better words than that. But who but who gets to decide that? The government? This government? The one whose current leader thinks there are nazis who are “good people”?
Once you open that door, it will be next to impossible to close it again. You give the government the power to declare that all nazis are bad guys and therefore their 1st Amendment rights are null and void, and you know that the next step will be Muslims, and then gays, and then atheists, and then liberals…
Now, don’t get confused: Actual, real, immediate threats can always be stopped whether they come from the right or the left. Inciting a riot is a crime no matter what you may be saying. That is not the same thing as prior restraint on the speech. If nazis are causing violence, you arrest their sorry asses and punish them according to the law just like you should do with anyone like that, because you’re punishing their actions and not their speech.
But the 1st Amendment is meaningless if we only apply it to speech we all agree with.
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