On Apr 25, 2011, at 5:56 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.
it's a pretty good guess. and i'm still a little clueless about a
detail in the Huntington-Hill apportionment algorithm (whether it's
250 or 435).
my feeling is that there are bills that are co-authored or even more
authors (really gross sausage). and, of course, we know there are far
more than 250 bills before congress in a year. i dunno how many are
bullshit bills.
Warren, i sent you an email last Feb or March. did you get it? i
sited your Burlington 2009 IRV page (and your name, along with Tony
Gierzynski) in a short op piece i wrote for the Burlington Free Press.
i told folks here about the piece, when it was published. i left you
as a Temple University prof, because i didn't know what else to call
you. the losers of the IRV fight (of 2010) wanted to get the charter
to require a majority vote or it goes to a delayed runoff. we lost
again, so unless it goes below 40%, we have Plurality Rule here in
Burlington. the Progs might not run a candidate, as a consequence.
L8r,
--
r b-j [email protected]
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
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