[EM] a question about apportionment

[Raph Frank]

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 1:19 AM, ⸘Ŭalabio‽ <Walabio at macosx.com> wrote:
>        Because I would use the SplitLineAlgorrithm.  The next power of 2 over 700 is 1024.  ¿Do you want to see how the United States of America would look without Gerrymandering:
>
>        http://rangevoting.org/USsplitLine.png

The splitline algorithm doesn't actually require a power of 2.  It
just splits the country into 2 pieces and balances the number of each
seats in each half as evenly as possible.

A 101 seat section would be split into 50:51.  A power of 2 makes it
more even.  However, this only has an effect when the sections are
small.  In fact, only sections with 3 seats are a major problem

1 -> no split
2 -> split into 2 evenly
3 -> 1 : 2 split
4 -> split into 2 evenly
5 -> 2 : 3 split (which is reasonably even)

All high numbers are either even or balanced better than a section with 5.

What might be interesting would be to try to balance it to a power of
2 where possible.

For example, you could set the smaller sub-section so that it has the
highest power of 2 less than or equal to half the seat allocated to
the current section.

37 would be split into

16 + 21

16 gives sections which are powers of 2
21 would be split into

8 + 13

8 gives sections which are powers of 2
13 would be split into

4 + 9

4 gives sections which are powers of 2
9 would be split into

4 + 5

4 gives sections which are powers of 2
5 would be split into

2 + 3

2 is split into 2
3 would be split into

1 + 2

1 isn't split
2 is split into 2

I this guarantees that no more than 1 section would be assigned 3
seats.  In fact, almost all sections would end up as powers of 2.

>        The ideas of districts is that the politicians are accountable to the people in their districts.  If a proposed dam would flood a district, the Representative would try to stop it.  With proportional representation, none in the legislature may try to save the district.

... or they would all try.  No politician is going to want to annoy
all the voters in one part of the district.

>        In my system, for preventing a quorum, legislators could leave the building, but lawenforcement would find them and drag them back for making a quorum.

So, legislators have a duty to stay in the vicinity of the Capital?

> In order to truly prevent a quorum, legislators would have to leave the country.

Going to the other side of the country would work too.  Presumably,
they couldn't be arrested until the scheduled meeting starts.

In any case, quorum rules that set the quorum above 50% are inherently
undemocratic.

Even the current Senate's filibustering rule can be set aside by a
majority.  The Senators just don't want to, since it increases their
negotiating power with the House and with the party's leadership.

>        Legislators would only go the extra thousands of miles for preventing a quorum by leaving the country for the most dire of circumstances  ——  not the frivolous reasons republican senators used for filibustering in 2009 and 2010.

The health care bill is a pretty serious thing (good or bad).

For example, if the Republicans tried to abolish it, do you think 10
Democrats would be willing to leave the country?