Author: Nate

See primarily Thirty-thousand.org (after the Constitutionally minimum size of a Congressional district)

See also this diary on DailyKOS and this post on DailyKOS

These in turn seem to be spurred on by a Boston Globe article:

Divide Iraq’s 25 million people by the number of members in the new parliament (275), and the result is one legislator for every 91,000 people. That will make Iraq’s government almost exactly as representative as Great Britain’s — each member of the House of Commons also represents, on average, about 91,000 citizens. Other democracies are comparable. The ratio for Italy’s Chamber of Deputies is 1 to 92,000. For the French National Assembly, 1 to 104,000. For Canada’s House of Commons, 1 to 105,000. For Germany’s Bundestag, 1 to 136,000.

But in the US House of Representatives, each lawmaker represents, on average, a staggering 674,000 citizens. That makes the “people’s house” in Washington one of the least democratic bodies of its kind in the world.

Whatever the impetus, this is a heck of a good idea, and one which does not require a change to the Constitution.

…and to be honest, my original post was mostly “look at these silly red-stater’s” but according to this news article, Virginia HB 1677 has been withdrawn largely thanks to blog publicity:

“I’ve never been blogged before,” he said. “The tone of the e-mails has been disgusting. It’s, ‘You’re a horrible person. You ought to be crucified.’ And those were the nice ones.”

(via AMERICAblog)

Dunno, but scary legislation all the same.

From: Democracy for Virginia

Guess what? You just earned yourself up to 12 months in jail and a $2,500 fine. Why? Because you failed to call the cops and report your miscarriage within 12 hours.

True? Not yet. But if Delegate John Cosgrove (R-78) has his way, HB1677 will become law in a few short months, and this scenario will be reality for many women in Virginia.

Incredulous? Outraged? Read on below the jump for more information on this odious bill.

Worth a read. Via Atrios

On TPM, Josh Marshall notes a great deal of ambiguity in Senator Feinstein’s position on Social Security privatization. Please take a moment to read his article, and then consider writing an email to her (as I’ve done) urging her to take a strong public position against privatization.

To readers not in California, I doubt writing to our CA senator would help much, but do consider following the issue (Talking Points Memo is doing an excellent job of covering it) and consider taking the time to contact your own Senators and Representatives with your concern and opposition. This is especially important if they’re Democrats who may side with the President on this, but it’s probably also worthwhile if you’ve got a more loyal Democrat, or if you have a Republican.