1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

N.Y. Times: Let's get rid of the states

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Batman, May 11, 2016.

  1. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    Article (editorial? Op-ed piece? I have no idea what to make of the stupidity inherent in this) in the New York Times suggests that the 50 state model for the country is antiquated, and the country needs to be realigned along lines of urban corridors.
    Somehow, the author suggests, this will solve all of America's problems with state and regional rivalries, and not just shift them somewhere else whilst turning huge sections of rural America into blighted, desolate wastelands because they're not deemed worthy of federal dollars.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/o...K&kwp_0=136593&kwp_4=613445&kwp_1=317854&_r=0
     
  2. Riptide

    Riptide Well-Known Member

    No, this is great. Congress can fix everything now. :cool:
     
  3. heyabbott

    heyabbott Well-Known Member

    I agree with the basis of the article. I've seen the theory before.

    I also like increasing the House of Representatives to reflect the size of the country. 800-900K per Congressman is ludicrous considering where we started
    Need much smaller congressional districts.
    465 is not constitutionally mandated.
     
  4. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    More members in the House would make debate, whenever it did happen, cumbersome and unwieldy.

    Imagine if they went to 1000 House members; you could go months and never reach the podium.

    I could see going the other direction: set the proportion for House seats at an even 1: 1 million (with even the shrimp states rounded up to 1).

    That would

    Although that would actually increase the influence of the smaller states in the Electoral College.
     
    Last edited: May 11, 2016
  5. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

  6. JohnHammond

    JohnHammond Well-Known Member

    I don't like this. What would happen to all the maps about what's the favorite food or soda, or most-supperted NFL or MLB team in a state?
     
    Huggy, expendable, HanSenSE and 3 others like this.
  7. Baron Scicluna

    Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

    What happens when Las Vegas wants to join the Great Northeast because they prefer their bowl tie-ins?
     
    EStreetJoe and HanSenSE like this.
  8. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    It will obviously never happen, but I think the underlying idea in that article is thought-provoking. Our 50 state model is quite flawed in today's world, especially in light of the wildly discrepant ways the lines have been drawn. Does it really make sense for states with less than a million people to have equal senate representation as those with 20 to 40 million? Or for some states to have hundreds of times the land mass of others?

    Perhaps at some point we should've just merged some of these useless tiny states (yeah, Delaware, I'm looking at you...) into one of their neighbors to make the thing more demographically logical.
     
    Last edited: May 11, 2016
  9. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    This Delawarean, not to mention every corporate tax lawyer in the country, objects!
     
  10. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Yeah, Delaware is like New York or California in my shop.
     
  11. da man

    da man Well-Known Member

    Maybe Texas can secede and make this easier.
     
  12. heyabbott

    heyabbott Well-Known Member

    2500 districts at 120,000 to a district would better represent those people. Less gerrymandering, more diverse representatives. Maybe more difficult to purchase an election or purchase control by lobbyists. Only 1 committee per representative. It would make leadership more important. Each state would still receive the same proportion of reps so the electoral college would be unchanged and State's rights would remain. But in large geographic states with small populations, you would get closer representation and minority viewpoints would not be overlooked. Someone who reps NYC could end up with a district that's about 4 square blocks.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page