[EM] legislature size

[Michael Rouse]

If you were going to use a proxy-type voting system, you could  make the 
following rules:

1. A successful candidate must have votes greater than or equal to the 
square root of the total number of ballots cast.
2. The total number of successful candidate cannot be greater than the 
fourth root of the total number of ballots cast (the square root of the 
square root).

In the 2008 election, 122,394,724 people voted for President. The first 
rule  would mean that to be seated in the legislature, a candidate would 
need at least 11,064 votes, and the maximum number of legislators would 
be 105.

Of course, if you wanted to be closer to Warren's 250 limit, you could 
take twice the fourth root (~210) or half of the cube root (~248).  If 
you were going to go the proxy (asset) route, there probably should be 
some simple relation between the total votes cast, the minimum votes 
needed to be elected, and the total number of legislators, without 
fixing any single number in stone.


On 4/25/2011 2:56 PM, Warren Smith wrote:
> here's an idea.  Find out how many bills a typical legislator writes
> that make it to a floor vote.  If this number if below 1, then the
> legislature is too large.  (Course, there are bullshit do-nothing
> bills galore.  Some way need to be found to exclude them.)
>
> If a legislature is to debate each substantive bill for 1 day, that means
> there can be at most 365 substantive bills per year.   Actually thanks
> to weekends, vacations, etc, more like 250.   That means, if there are
> any more than 250 congressmen, then at least one of them will be
> unable to write a substantive bill each year.
>
> So I conclude legislature size ought to be capped at 250 or less.
>

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