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Gone With the Wind in Oregon
The latest battle of the rural divide in Oregon versus the urban leviathan that is Portland, Salem, and Eugene may be about to end. Senate Democrats are admitting that two of their own might have voted no on a cap-and-spend bill. Some environmental groups state that Senate Dems assured them that the votes were there to start plundering the Department of Revenue upon the passage.
The verbal recriminations are starting to get ugly and the truth is being buried under layers of the pyroclastic flow of bitterness. The walkout of Republican senators to prevent the necessary quorum to pass legislation probably prevented some arm-twisting of two Senate Dems; one wanted to protect Boeing in one district, and another wanted to protect logging interests in another district. There are rumors that threats were made to withhold state revenue from the “no” voters’ districts.
The immediate raise of 23 cents a gallon on fossil fuels, to include natural gas, upon passage of the bill was slated to rise every year. Some commenters claim it would eventually rise to 93 cents per gallon. No price is too high to pay to prevent the end of world in 12 years. Solar panel and wind turbine manufacturers will have to wait a bit longer for their payday. Rolling blackouts may have to wait as well.
Republican senators have been told to come back home. The fight is over. There will be no forgiveness and this fight will never be over.
Perhaps it’s time to divide the State of Oregon in two. The one way to rescue some residents of Oregon from the Progressive Road to Perdition. The map below shows the current Republican senators Districts in red.
So the walkout worked, at least to postpone utter craziness until another battle forms? No cure for the underlying condition.
Update: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20190626/73df8c37-fb0d-4f18-8e81-3c3382a1f46b
What’s to stop them holding vote with their return? I think this is a ruse.
One solution for Oregon – or any state dominated by major cities – is to have only one House representative for every large city, and his district boundary is the city limit. For the remaining districts, use existing county lines (excepting major city limits). In other words, get rid of proportionality. This effectively gets rid of gerrymandering, and dilutes the power of the cities.
Districts these days tend to be drawn with several reps carving out a portion of a major city, thus ensuring they’ll please the city at the expense of the suburbs and country. It also artifically gives major cities the power to lord over the rest of a state.
Representation of counties, and regions is what state senates should do, but I doubt that many states do it. It seems in PA that the senate is more like another house, but it has been more consistently Republican and conservative, so the rural districts do seem to be getting some representation.
There’s no easy answer. Each type of living space (city, suburb, country, desert isle) has its own unique set of needs. As you point out, those needs are better served at the state level rather than the Federal level, which means Washington, DC.
Even common types in different states have different needs. For example, cities “up Nawth” need snow removal, while cities “down Heyah”don’t (except in the mountains). Should there be a Federal Snow Removal program paid for by all taxpayers of all 50 states? No.
I’m not sure that’s possible since Reynolds v Sims, a 1964 Supreme Court decision which ruled that state electoral districts must be roughly equal in population.
Elections have consequences. Oregon has become a very Democrat state over the last 10+ years. Some are having trouble accepting how their state is changing. I’d rather have a few people suffer in deep blue states than have the progs feel they have to go national with their insanity in order to change anything.
I didn’t say it, but clearly there would have to be a revision to the law . . .
I knew the New Left had lost their collective minds when I was shopping for salmon some several years ago.
I had two choices. Both cans of salmon were the size of a small can of tuna. One can sold for $ 1.89. The other sold for over six bucks.
The difference? One can simply stated “Salmon” and the brand name. The other featured the words: “Salmon” “Brand Name” and then a bit of catchy wording to the fact that this can of salmon had “added Omega 3’s. Needed for brain and heart health.”
Now the Omega 3’s touted as being so beneficial on the second can were not really added. Salmon, as well as most types of fish, has a lot of Omega 3’s. So these healthy Omega 3’s were also well represented in the can under 2 bucks.
It was tourist season, so I knew that the six bucks a can brand would be gone soon. Happily, I “settled” for the $ 1.89.
These “environmentalists” see any and all legislative activities in the same manner. Tell them that the sky high taxing of gasoline will be beneficial to the planet and they will do it. They will do it even if they themselves are at a the lower end of the income spectrum and will be pricing themselves out of food itself, as food needs to be delivered to people via gas consuming vehicles.
Carbon cap and trade and taxes on fossil fuels are among the least logical and most ridiculous of notions. But again, if people are willing to pay 6 bucks for some $ 1.89 worth of fish, they probably will accept the policy, as long as the policy flies under the banner of “Saving the Climate.”
It’s going to be hard to get past “one man, one vote” at the state level.
These are the comments that reveal why you never experience left-wing anger.
You agree with them on the substance of the matter, even if your principles differ.
Why, because I actually believe in conservative principles like states rights? And I think that liberals actually exist in America, and they are free to govern their states/cities as they like, based on those principles?
The national Left is proposing fantasy Green New Deals….while in blue states like Oregon, they can’t even pass simple cap and trade bills, with super majorities. Sounds like a win, although I’ll admit, I actually want to see some blue states go pure leftist, just for fun.
It will always be one man, one vote. It’s just the cities will have significantly more voters for each House representative.
I grew up in Georgia back when they had what was called the County Unit System, at least when voting for Governor.
From Wikipedia:
Under the county unit system, the 159 counties in Georgia were divided by population into three categories. The largest eight counties were classified as “Urban,” the next-largest 30 counties were classified as “Town,” and the remaining 121 counties were classified as “Rural.” Urban counties were given 6 unit votes, Town counties were given 4 unit votes, and Rural counties were given 2 unit votes, for a total of 410 available unit votes. Each county’s unit votes were awarded on a winner-take-all basis.[2][3]
Candidates were required to obtain a majority of unit votes (not necessarily a majority of the popular vote), or 206 total unit votes, to win the election. If no candidate received a majority in the initial primary, a runoff election was held between the top two candidates to determine a winner.[4]
James Sanders, a voter in Fulton County, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia which challenged the legality of the county unit system. James H. Gray, the chairman of the State Executive Committee of the Democratic Party, was one of the defendants named in the suit. Judge Griffin Bell ruled in Sanders’ favor, issuing an injunction against using the system just months before the 1962 gubernatorial primary.[4]
Gray appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which on March 8, 1963, rendered a decision by a vote of 8–1 declaring the county unit system unconstitutional in its current form. In the majority opinion, Justice William O. Douglas wrote, “The concept of political equality…can mean only one thing—one person, one vote.” The Gray v. Sanders case was the first One Person, One Votedecision handed down by the Supreme Court.[9]
The problem with One Person, One Vote is it is not how we elect the President. We do it by Congressional District. So, the Constitution cannot be said to support One Person, One Vote at all if you ask me.
Likely a repeat, but unless you can get the Supreme Court to change Reynolds v Sims, it is unconstitutional:
From Wikepedia, while not the best source, does reasonably state the ruling:
In the United States, the “one person, one vote” principle was invoked in a series of cases in the 1960s.[5][6][7][8][a] Applying the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, the Supreme Court majority opinion in Reynolds v. Sims (1964) ruled that state legislatures needed to redistrict in order to have congressional districts with roughly equal represented populations. In addition, the court ruled that, unlike the United States Congress, both houses of state legislatures needed to have representation based on districts containing roughly equal populations, with redistricting as needed after censuses.[10]
Until one can change this, State Senates, and State Houses all must be of roughly equal populations.
We elect congressmen, senators and presidents each by a different rule, laid out in the Constitution.
One man one vote has nothing to do with granting everyone’s desires concerning the outcome of elections. It sounds wonderful, but it’s really meaningless when the total votes cast determine who wins a local, or state election.
At the state level you could give every county one state senator, and one state House member. This does not affect Federal rules governing Electoral College votes, or House and Senate members sent to Washington DC.
The Electoral College is a specific Constitutional topic and a specific target. We should not make the mistake of thinking these people are interested in anything less than taking down the Constitution itself. This is, in effect, the Communist takeover effort that has been held in abeyance for a century.
That is a most excellent point, Bob, as many liberals continually mention how the US Constitution is an out moded, irrelevant piece of paper. Its insistence on the citizens’ right to have guns, the right to have an electoral college and other issues are things the Left want to see gone, vaporized — the sooner the better.
They can get all those things by amending the Constitution.
They have been successful using the Judicial Branch, why should they waste the effort ?
How? Not going to happen unless and until 38 states ratify each amendment (them’s the rules, period). If 38 states are on board with any amendment, then you have well and truly lost the political argument for the very long term.
I know. That was a little tongue-in-cheek.
Yep if they had logically working brains. But they get their brownie points only by ascribing to all things socialistic, and the US Constitution would need such a total revision to allow for that, that the Constitution would need to be ditched in total.
No state with more senators than representatives (it looks like six) is going to agree to eliminate the electoral college.
No state with significantly fewer representatives than California or New York is going to agree to eliminate the electoral college. A lot more than six.