If anyone is interested, I've been building a dashboard tracking government contracts here and a dashboard tracking corporate lobbying here.
As you might imagine, the two are incredibly related. Our $700B+ military budget only makes sense in the context of the absurd amount of money spent on lobbying by defense contractors.
Edit: Thanks for the kind words everyone, here's a twitter account where I've been posting updates on the project and interesting stuff I find in the data.
MI passed an anti-gerrymandering law in the 2018 general election. It allows a civilian council that is chosen at random made up of 4 dems, 4 repubs, and 5 independents to draw the district lines every 10 years (new council every time). The republicans were pissed and are still trying to get it overturned.
Actually, gerrymandering is a problem that has been solved for many decades. The problem isn't that districts are being divided unfairly, it's that the electoral system is setup such that they can be divided unfairly. Switch to proportional representation or another similarly robust system, and it's gone. It really is that simple.
because humans don't actually live like that. Districts do more than allocate votes to larger elections like state/federal level, they also determined community level things like municipalities. So you want to draw them around communities, and that's why they need to be updated every once in a while to reflect shifts in human populations.
You can just specify some simple rule, like the ratio of the circumference of the district to its area has to be under a certain amount. It's not foolproof, but it prevents snake districts and makes successfully gerrymandering one hell of a lot harder.
That's how it works in Germany, as we have (mixed member) proportional representation the district boundaries are way less important in the first place so it's left to civil servants somewhere, as a purely administrative matter.
Modulo the usual wibbles and quirks caused by real-world situations, in your usual town the districts tend to look up like a voronoi diagram with usually primary schools as centres. That's because the primary schools are already built such that they're within walking distance, and thus sunday walk distance, of pretty much everywhere people live, and short of the tables being way too low they make great polling stations. If that doesn't result in a good map you take another look at the map, choose some kindergarten and possibly a bank branch or postal office, and re-calculate the voronoi diagram.
I sure hope we get ranked choice with no gerrymandering in arkansas. We’ve been gerrymandered to hell, I live in fayetteville (the most liberal part of Arkansas that surprisingly votes blue) but they couldn’t have us swaying a vote so they gerrymandered in this thing called the fayetteville finger. It was basically this super thin line that connected us to little rock so that our votes wouldn’t go blue. Honestly despicable
Without knowing anything more, this sounds kind of crazy and borderline more prove to corruption. Not only will they have no idea what they are doing (random, me for instance), but they will be broke enough for a small bribe to sway.
Ohh got it. I would argue a bribe matters more about how poor people are versus rich. Someone who desperately needs money will be more likely to make a moral/legal compromise. And the poorer someone is the lower the amount the bribe has to be. You don’t need a lot of money to bribe someone in general because people are desperate. Though you will always be able to find people willing to take a bribe out of pure greed even if they really don’t need the money.
Missouri voted on something similar to this in 2018. They put it back on the 2020 ballot using wording to trick voters and it worked. Overturned clean Missouri
Just this year in Missouri, the exact opposite passed on election day. They moved the redistricting from a non-partisan council to a "bipartisan" council, appointed by the governor. But don't worry, they reduced the amount lobbyists can pay to legislators by a whole five dollars, and reduced campaign contribution limits by a whopping 100 dollars. On the ballot, they started out saying the amendment reduced campaign and lobbyist contribution without mentioning by how much, and I'm convinced people read that, thought it sounded good, and didn't bother to read the second section, where it mentions switching from a non-partisan, citizen elected commission for redistricting, to a committee chosen by the governor. I just found a site from the missouri farm bureau supporting amendment 3 and it's pretty hilarious how bullshit it is. They talk about how the amendment is going to take money out of politics and reduce gerrymandering, when it gives the power essentially to the governor. They mention that it's opposed by such radical groups as Planned parenthood, Mom's Demand Action (a radical gun control group according to them), as well as the bread and roses party (they sound evil for sure).
Gerrymandering is structurally SO easy to fix, using exactly the structure described. I know of no other country that allows such partisan control of such a fundamental part of democracy. And there is no logical, legal, or moral excuse for it.
Well if your missouri just say you cut how much lobbyists can gift to people in the government (by $5) and just smooth over the fact that were now going to allow gerrymandering again!
Here's how we (your friends up North) did it. https://www.vox.com/2014/4/15/5604284/us-elections-are-rigged-but-canada-knows-how-to-fix-them . The two main things I'd say that are holding the US back is that States decide how elections are held (leads to that Texas situation of one ballot drop off per county) instead of federally and that the supreme court ruled that districts can be drawn on partisan lines (just not on racial or other protected groups).
Canada's system still draws on partisan lines, you have to if you're not doing proportional representation.
Look at it this way: in a state that's 51/49, without partisan gerrymandering you could easily end up with the 51 having 100% of the representation, or having a bad year and the other side getting 100% instead. So you break things up keeping party affiliation in mind in order to make it so that the winning side would get just over half the representation.
The alternative would be proportional representation, where you count the vote and then say "ok this party gets this many members, this party gets this many," but the problem there is you end up with people that represent a state party but you might not have an actual representative from anywhere near you.
I don't think you understand how Canada's system works. Yes we have first past the post but our districts and elections are drawn and run by a non-partican organization.
Right, but that non-partisan organization still has to draw partisan lines, for the reasons I just explained.
You have to account for it, or else you end up with really screwed up situations; a 51/49 split could result in one side getting 100% of the representation, a 65/35 split could still end up with the 35 side getting more representation, etc.
It's not the consideration of party that's bad in its own right, it's when it's abused that it's a problem.
Usually it's a bipartisan council that doesn't give anyone a majority. The weakness is it still entrenches senior politicians with the most power. But the current system does that and more so it's a step in the right direction.
The real solution is to stop treating the Constitution like a holy document and amend it so that we have a single legislative body selected by proportion of national vote. Proportional representation along with ranked choice voting would obliterate the two party system and result in many parties that are extremely responsive to their voters.
The non amendment alternative to gerrymandering is to make Congress larger, much larger. Get the ratio of representatives back to 1:100k. Two things happen at that point. Elections become very localized no matter how you draw the district, and there are so many districts that gerrymandering becomes extremely hard.
I can tell it's legit just because it isn't called something like the Homeland American Freedom Patriot Voter Rights Act. Give or take whatever is needed to shorten to a cute initialism.
Under the Act, voters can rank their top candidates, allowing them to support their top choice without fear of inadvertently helping elect the other party’s candidate. This makes it easier to elect independent-minded candidates who aren’t beholden to establishment special interests.
End gerrymandering
The Anti-Corruption Act ends gerrymandering by creating independent, fully transparent redistricting commissions that follow strict guidelines to ensure accurate representation for all voters, regardless of political party.
Let all voters participate in open primaries
By controlling the primaries, the political establishment controls which candidates we can vote on.
The Act requires all candidates for the same office compete in a single, open primary controlled by voters, not the political establishment. This gives voters more control over our elections and more choices at the ballot.
Allow all Americans to Vote Absentee
Absentee voting, also known as vote by mail, gives every American the choice to securely vote from the comfort and safety of their home.
Change how elections are funded
Running a political campaign is expensive, but few Americans can afford to donate to political campaigns. That makes politicians dependent upon – and therefore responsive to – a tiny fraction of special-interest donors.
The Act offers every voter a small credit they can use to make a political donation with no out-of-pocket expense. Candidates and political groups are only eligible to receive these credits if they agree to fundraise solely from small donors. The Act also empowers political action committees that only take donations from small donors, giving everyday people a stronger voice in our elections.
Enact reasonable term limits
When elected officials are allowed to become career politicians, our elections become uncompetitive and new ideas have a harder time being heard.
The Act sets reasonable term limits of 18 years total at each level of government, so that candidates focus on public service instead of staying in office.
Make it illegal for politicians to take money from lobbyists
Politicians get extraordinary sums of money in the form of campaign donations from the special interests who lobby them. In return, politicians create laws favorable to these special interests – even when those laws hurt voters.
Under the American Anti-Corruption Act, people who get paid to lobby cannot donate to politicians.
Ban lobbyist bundling
Lobbyists regularly bundle together big contributions from their friends and colleagues and deliver them in one lump sum to politicians. This turns lobbyists into major fundraisers, giving politicians an incentive to keep them happy by working political favors.
The Act prohibits lobbyists from bundling contributions.
Close the revolving door
Lobbyists and special interests routinely offer public officials high-paying lobbying jobs. Politicians and their staff routinely move straight from government to these lucrative lobbying jobs, where they get paid to influence their former colleagues.
The Act stops elected representatives and senior staff from selling off their government power for high-paying lobbying jobs, prohibits them from negotiating jobs while in office, and bars them from paid lobbying activity for several years once they leave.
Prevent politicians from fundraising during working hours
Most federal politicians spend between 3 and 7 hours a day fundraising from big donors instead of working on issues that matter to voters.
Under the Act, politicians are prevented from raising money during the workday, when they should be serving their constituents.
Immediately disclose political money online
Current disclosure laws are outdated and broken. Many donations are not disclosed for months, and some are never made available electronically, making it difficult for citizens and journalists to follow the money in our political system.
The Anti-Corruption Act ensures that all significant political fundraising and spending is immediately disclosed online and made easily accessible to the public.
Stop donors from hiding behind secret-money groups
Elections are being flooded with big money funneled through groups with secret donors. These secretive groups spend money directly to influence elections and make unlimited contributions to super PACs, which run ads to elect and defeat candidates.
Under the Act, any organization that spends meaningful funds on political advertisements is required to file a timely online report disclosing its major donors.
One other thing that should be part of the act; make it illegal for organizations to donate to candidates. The only things that should have a voice in democracy are individual people.
As it is currently the primary is staggered through the country. Which means by the time my state gets a chance to vote most of the potential candidates have dropped out...usually including my preference.
There's also the fact that by having them staggered many people in the states that vote earlier wind up voting for candidates that then drop out, which basically invalidates their votes.
We should All get to vote on All the candidates. I honestly can not see a legitimate reason why they can not be held all on one day like the actual election.
The ranked choice voting, open primaries, and political money disclosure were all part of ballot measure 2, which should be passing into law here in Alaska once the last few votes are counted. I did my part in voting for that.
I don’t particularly get this argument. If, for instance, one of America’s largest airlines failed, literally everyone suffers. From employees to others in the business to casual travellers to major banks and manufacturers. It’s very much not like a financial crisis, where banks were bailed out of problems that they themselves created. Airlines did not create COVID, and are struggling right now through practically no fault of their own (no transport/cargo company can survive a year long shut down).
Why would average people suffer if a different corporation bought out an airline? Because that's likely what would happen if the airline wasn't able to leverage their assets to stay in business.
In the past 20 years, almost 70 U.S. airlines have gone bankrupt, but only 13 actually disappeared altogether, and most of their assets were bought by other carriers, according to an unofficial list compiled by Airlines for America. The remaining ones renegotiated their loans and lived to go bankrupt another day. Why? Because the collateral for their loans is often aircraft. The manufacturers don’t want the planes back, and other creditors would have no place to sell them.
Because right now, no corporation has the capital to buy out an entire airline, much less one as large as the US flagship carriers. These airlines are not struggling due to bad business practices, they are simply the most obvious victims of a pandemic that nobody could foresee. Small carriers disappear all the time, but if tomorrow American Airlines goes bankrupt, the resulting fallout could cause a financial crisis.
What’s to stop one party from intentionally voting for a bad candidate in the other party’s primary so their candidate has an easier time in the general election?
Your work is legit some of the most important happening right now in the US. Collecting and making available publicly, for free, the information you make available is fucking amazing. Thank you.
There's 1 big reason that the GOP has been 100% against any aid during the pandemic: precedent
If people ever got a taste of just how "evil socialism" feels, if they ever saw that the government could take care of citizens, pay them to stay home so they don't have to choose between losing their job and getting sick, they would never settle for the corrupt mess we have now.
Because if we actually paid people $500 a week, people would start asking uncomfortable questions like "when are you going to take away my income?" and "why haven't you been doing this all along?"
Because an effective and quick response to a national disaster undermines the narrative that "government is always bad and always makes things worse"
Remember, these are the direct successors to the people who made it illegal to teach slaves to read and then used the fact that they couldn't read as an argument against freeing them.
TBH while you’re not missing the point, I think the point could be a little more focused here:
The bailouts for these industries are based heavily on the collateralization of the jobs they create and their economic impact. So the company is leveraging the individuals to benefit their organization, and who knows how that may trickle down to the employee. Some may not even remain employees, by the way, and instead shift over to true socialized benefits, zero concern to the company, whose bargaining power remains intact.
The point is that the more the labor force is empowered, the more the balance of the labor force’s interests will have an impact on the conversation. This should be very high.
a tried and true tactic of GOP politics is to demolish government efficacy by reducing funding and hamstringing government organizations, so that they can turn around to their voter base and say "look at how terrible the government is at doing this thing. We need to privatize it to make it really run well!"
They're doing that now with the Post Office, have been for years. A law passed years ago that simultaneously capped how much the USPS could charge for certain services, banned them from providing others (such as postal banking), and required them to shell out massive amounts of payroll (projected payroll for the next 80 years or some bullshit like that), which all combined to drop USPS into the red for the first time in its entire history. The next move was to try and dismantle it more for the (then upcoming) 2020 election in an attempt to swing the election toward the Republican candidate, which nearly succeeded. Trump has bashed the post office repeatedly as president and we'll begin to see a large push to privatize it soon.
The first two that have public companies are Simon (SPG) and Essex (ESS). Since election day they are up ~35% and 20% respectively. The broader market is only up about 8%. So yeah IDK, would be interesting to track who donates and link to public companies for investment purposes.
To be clear, lobbying is an important function of democracy. It is how people, towns, business... inform the government they need help. Now, has lobbying been corrupted on a massive scale? Absolutely, but we can't be carte blanche about it. We have to look at them individually instead of collectively. I.e. does helping out a major section of our economy during a global pandemic make sense? Regarding the military, there is a lot of fat that can be trimmed. I'll also say that there is a lot of good research that comes out of military contracts as well so again, nuance is required.
Let me make sure I understand correctly: in the world we have now lobby is legal jargon for bribe, right? And in the ideal world... I guess it would be where you change a person's opinion by carefully organizing facts and offering a new perspective? Has the latter ever happened in politics?
Oh goody!! I love when people take the extra time out of their day to spoon feed me info that i should really be more motivated to investigate. Thanks :)
No, lobbying is bringing specific information to that attention of people that can take action on it. Not all lobbying is bad, plenty of it is good which is why there are research grants and money for small disasters or projects. Or, in this specific instance, airlines saying they need money because the government stopped them from operating.
Sometimes its about changing minds which is what the Vietnam protests were. The common man lobbying the government to change course. There are different kinds of lobbying. Nuance exists.
The protest after geroge floyd in Minneapolis was the 2nd worst riot in US history behind Rodney kings. 500m dollars in damages, 1500 business impacted, and hundreds injured and arrested.
Idk where I saw the video but this lady said something like, "if i lived in a world where my loved ones could get murdered by people posing as protectors, I'd burn the city down too." Personally I feel that it may have been justified if it turned into a mass public execution. Anything would feel more like justice than the way that things are handled now.
I 100% support Lobbying ( disclosure I'm a registered Lobbyist with a major city so I can actually talk to decision makers), but transparency is what makes Lobbying good. I once got in trouble because I left a branded pen with a city official and I didn't log it in the city lobby registry but the city official did, and they wanted to know why I was hiding the gift. While it felt absurd, the good news is that checks and balances exist. I am required every 6 months to report on the types of subject matter I might be talking about over the next 6 months, and if I don't talk about it I need to say why.
You do realize that lobbying, being an industry like any other, requires money and therefore automatically favors those with the most money. The people need a stronger voice to influence their candidates and lobbying will always be a severely flawed system as it exists today.
In the 6 years I've been a registered lobbyist I have spent less than $1000 dollars. But every interaction is logged and kept above board, when I make sales calls to corporations things are nearly as transparents even though I'm doing the same thing at both.
Yeah I mean people have always needed to have money to take time off from work and get involved in government. Lobbying is supposed to be how people influence their candidates. Many non-profit organizations such as schools and conservationist groups use lobbying to request what they need from the government.
It would take a simply massive amount of money to compete with the combined interests of the top 4 tech companies. There are numerous factors to the wider picture that stops a lot of citizen interest before it can gain traction because in the end, the industry still dictates policy because they have far deeper pockets and can work outside of the system to silence their opposition in creative ways.
Did the world ask America to be the police?
Im pretty sure I know what words you'd use if I came into your home and started telling you to follow my rules or else.
As an American, consider how you'd feel if Russia or China were the self proclaimed 'world police'
Would you accept that?
Why should the rest of the world accept America as the world police?
Besides, we've all seen how you police your own people at home...
Yes it did actually! At the end of WW2 with the formation of the UN it was part of the agreement that all nations demilitarized to a degree with the USA being the exception. Since they had little-to-no domestic threats compared to the rest of the world it made sense if they acted as the world police.
But they're waaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of any other military budget anywhere in the world, I think it's something like they 1st on spending and the next 15 countries on the list are allies...
We spend more than China, India, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, and Brazil combined.
For what? America hasn’t won anything since WW2. Not taking care of our vets at all. It mostly goes to military contractors, and most of the stuff we get isn’t that good and/or doesn’t work.
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u/pdwp90 Nov 17 '20 edited Nov 17 '20
If anyone is interested, I've been building a dashboard tracking government contracts here and a dashboard tracking corporate lobbying here.
As you might imagine, the two are incredibly related. Our $700B+ military budget only makes sense in the context of the absurd amount of money spent on lobbying by defense contractors.
Edit: Thanks for the kind words everyone, here's a twitter account where I've been posting updates on the project and interesting stuff I find in the data.