Marlins to sports writers: Pay $3 for some pop

I just went through that Norm MacLean thread again. Oh, the memories. I thoroughly enjoyed that the first time, even though I've never been anywhere near an NY press box and covered one Major League game in my life.

And boy, I still wonder about boots on that thread; did MacLean co-sign for a loan of his or something?

 

It was typically the fall race and I remember it running from around 2001 through 2010 or 2011. I was there for most of them LOL. It beat the best seafood chain in the area, called The Weathervane!

 

I remember that from a couple of the Summer races in the late '90s that I covered. I think every member of the New Hampshire legislature was there too from the number of legislative plates I saw in the lot.

 

There are 400 members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives, the fourth-largest lower house in the English-speaking world, behind the behind the 435-member United States House of Representatives, 543-member Lok Sabha of India and 650-member House of Commons of the United Kingdom. There are 24 members of the New Hampshire Senate.

 

Wow, now there's a fact that would win a LOT of bar bets! LOL

 

OK I'll bite ... why does New Hampshire need that many legislators?

 

They get paid like $100 a year and they sit in session for a week or two a year. Queue Oprah handing out state rep seats to every moose north of Berlin.

 

There's a guy I can think of who's at a lot of stuff - mainly hockey - in New York and I'm not sure what he actually does. He did manage to snipe a few play-by-play jobs in the minors and college before being summarily fired after a few games because he was terrible. And then there was the time he went to Peoria in the AHL and bumped Brendan Burke out of the pxp chair for a two-game tryout...

 

Here's the Wikipedia page for the New Hampshire House of Representatives. It does not answer that question, but does say this about the members' license plates, "Unlike in many state legislatures, there is no single "aisle" to cross per se, as members of both parties sit partially segregated in five sections. The seat section and number is put on the legislator's motor vehicle license plate, which they pay for if they wish to put one on their personal automobiles, or in the case of the chairpersons and party leaders, their title is put on the legislative plate."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Hampshire_House_of_Representatives

 

When I started this thread, I was not expecting to learn a fun fact about New Hampshire government. Yet, here we are.

 

Threadjack alert.

When I was growing up in Colorado in the 1970's I met the local state representative because he/she came by the house. The district of each representative and a population of 35,000 or so. The way someone got elected was to get out and knock on as many doors as possible. I met a guy who became the first Democrat elected to the State House from my city living memory was by doing exactly that.

Now, as the population of Colorado has grown and districts population grown that has become impossible. Now success comes from having a lot of money to pour into Facebook adds, etc. A successful candidate now needs to raise a lot of money. I would support a larger legislative body that made the districts small enough that an energetic candidate could personally campaign.

FWIW, in New Hampshire the voters regularly turn out incumbents en masse and the house of representatives regularly flips. Since money is not as much a factor incumbents have far less of an advantage.