White males have a long history of a condition known as “situational bigotry” — a sudden willingness to set aside their racist views if sex is a possibility. Their offspring were left to deal with the consequences of this condition. Those that could pass as white would have avoided being around family members from the other race that made up half of their bloodline for fear of having their secret exposed and because they were not fully accepted by either race.

personal preferences are sometimes at odds with the demands of society. it's not a stretch at all, it's human nature.

JL

You seem to be saying that your ancestors and their peers in that part of the country were simultaneously extremely reluctant to admit to having Indian genetic heritage, but totally happy to be interbreeding with them, evidenced by the very existence of the Indian genes.

That's a bit of a stretch, is it not?

CW, my apologies. My dim memory, based on whatever's going on with the second attempt, was that this site allows monospace text, but doesn't show it right on the preview (hence the posting, instead of just previewing). Please delete all but one copy, keeping whichever is least unreadable.

@nypoet,

My favorite idea on how to set up a hypothetical legislature changes frequently. It's hypothetical, so why not?

My current favorite is to have one chamber that proposes stuff, and another chamber that votes approves or rejects it.

In the First Chamber, the representatives would be chosen by some form of proportional-representation voting system. The legislative process would go according to the following pseudo-code:

Start legislative session:
Approve rules of proceedings by majority vote, under
pro-tem leadership and pro-tem rules specified at
the end of the previous legislative session.
Choose chamber leadership.
Chamber leadership assigns committee membership.
Representatives form caucuses.
## Representative do not keep any component-votes,
## "yea" bill-votes, "nay" bill-votes, or priority
## points from previous sessions.
Start whole-bill cycle:
{
Each representative gains five component-votes.
Each representative gains ten priority points.
Each representative gains five "yea" bill-votes.
Each representative gains two "nay" bill-votes.
## Note: Representatives DO keep any votes and
## points that they have from previous whole-bill
## cycles of the same legislative session.
Representatives confer in committees and caucuses, in
accordance with the current rules, to draft
bill-components and plan strategy, for a length of
time specified in the rules.
Each representative may propose one bill-component
for the chamber to (possibly) vote on.
Each representative may apply as many of their
points as they choose to any bill-component.
The twenty bill-components having the most points
are voted on, in order of decreasing points.
Each representative may cast one vote in favor of
any bill-component, as long as they have a vote to
spend. Any bill-component receiving votes from at
least 20% of representatives thereby becomes
available for inclusion in bills.
Representatives confer in committees and caucuses, in
accordance with the current rules, to compile bills.
A bill can consist only of available bill-components.
Any number of bill-components may be included in
a bill.
Each representative may apply any number of their points
to each bill.
The ten bills having the most points are queued for
voting, in order of decreasing number of points.
## Component-availability phase is complete. There will
## be another one in the next whole-bill cycle, and
## components DO remain available from one whole-bill
## cycle to the next within a legislative session.
## Bill-components do NOT remain available from one
## legislative session to the next.
Start bill-vote cycle:
{
Each representative can spend at most one bill-vote on
the bill, either "yea" or "nay".
If the bill receives a number of "yea" bill-votes that
exceeds the number of "nay" bill-votes it receives
by at least 30% of the number of representatives,
that bill is passed. It goes to the Second Chamber.
Go to the next bill in the queue.
} ## End bill-vote cycle.
Go to next whole-bill cycle.
}
Pass pro-tem rules and choose pro-tem leadership for next session.

The representatives in the Second Chamber would be chosen as follows:

There are 90 members of the Second Chamber. Citizens are divided into constituencies by birthday. Members are elected for six-year terms. Terms are staggered so that there's an election every four months, with five members being elected at each election. (Six years, times three elections per year, times five members per election: 6x3x5=90.) Members are elected by dual-threshold approval voting: citizens vote yes or no for every candidate on the ballot, and the candidate with the most "yes" votes is elected if that number exceeds the threshold. To be elected as a full member, able to vote both for and against bills, a candidate has to get "yes" votes from at least 55% of voters. If the candidate with the highest number of "yes" votes gets "yes" votes from at least 50% but less than 55%, that candidate is elected as a negative member, who can only vote against bills. If no candidate receives at least 50% "yes" votes, that constituency is unrepresented for that term.

Because all representatives are elected from similar constituencies by a majority/supermajority process, the chamber should be conducive to consensus decisions. To pass a bill, the votes for must be at least 55% of the total votes for and against. Of course, representatives in the First Chamber will know this, as they try to craft bills that will be able to pass the Second Chamber.

@nypoet,

My favorite idea on how to set up a hypothetical legislature changes frequently. It's hypothetical, so why not?

My current favorite is to have one chamber that proposes stuff, and another chamber that votes approves or rejects it.

In the First Chamber, the representatives would be chosen by some form of proportional-representation voting system. The legislative process would go according to the following pseudo-code:

Start legislative session:
Approve rules of proceedings by majority vote, under
pro-tem leadership and pro-tem rules specified at
the end of the previous legislative session.
Choose chamber leadership.
Chamber leadership assigns committee membership.
Representatives form caucuses.
## Representative do not keep any component-votes,
## "yea" bill-votes, "nay" bill-votes, or priority
## points from previous sessions.
Start whole-bill cycle:
{
Each representative gains five component-votes.
Each representative gains ten priority points.
Each representative gains five "yea" bill-votes.
Each representative gains two "nay" bill-votes.
## Note: Representatives DO keep any votes and
## points that they have from previous whole-bill
## cycles of the same legislative session.
Representatives confer in committees and caucuses, in
accordance with the current rules, to draft
bill-components and plan strategy, for a length of
time specified in the rules.
Each representative may propose one bill-component
for the chamber to (possibly) vote on.
Each representative may apply as many of their
points as they choose to any bill-component.
The twenty bill-components having the most points
are voted on, in order of decreasing points.
Each representative may cast one vote in favor of
any bill-component, as long as they have a vote to
spend. Any bill-component receiving votes from at
least 20% of representatives thereby becomes
available for inclusion in bills.
Representatives confer in committees and caucuses, in
accordance with the current rules, to compile bills.
A bill can consist only of available bill-components.
Any number of bill-components may be included in
a bill.
Each representative may apply any number of their points
to each bill.
The ten bills having the most points are queued for
voting, in order of decreasing number of points.
## Component-availability phase is complete. There will
## be another one in the next whole-bill cycle, and
## components DO remain available from one whole-bill
## cycle to the next within a legislative session.
## Bill-components do NOT remain available from one
## legislative session to the next.
Start bill-vote cycle:
{
Each representative can spend at most one bill-vote on
the bill, either "yea" or "nay".
If the bill receives a number of "yea" bill-votes that
exceeds the number of "nay" bill-votes it receives
by at least 30% of the number of representatives,
that bill is passed. It goes to the Second Chamber.
Go to the next bill in the queue.
} ## End bill-vote cycle.
Go to next whole-bill cycle.
}
Pass pro-tem rules and choose pro-tem leadership for next session.

The representatives in the Second Chamber would be chosen as follows:

There are 90 members of the Second Chamber. Citizens are divided into constituencies by birthday. Members are elected for six-year terms. Terms are staggered so that there's an election every four months, with five members being elected at each election. (Six years, times three elections per year, times five members per election: 6x3x5=90.) Members are elected by dual-threshold approval voting: citizens vote yes or no for every candidate on the ballot, and the candidate with the most "yes" votes is elected if that number exceeds the threshold. To be elected as a full member, able to vote both for and against bills, a candidate has to get "yes" votes from at least 55% of voters. If the candidate with the highest number of "yes" votes gets "yes" votes from at least 50% but less than 55%, that candidate is elected as a negative member, who can only vote against bills. If no candidate receives at least 50% "yes" votes, that constituency is unrepresented for that term.

Because all representatives are elected from similar constituencies by a majority/supermajority process, the chamber should be conducive to consensus decisions. To pass a bill, the votes for must be at least 55% of the total votes for and against. Of course, representatives in the First Chamber will know this, as they try to craft bills that will be able to pass the Second Chamber.

@nypoet,

My favorite idea on how to set up a hypothetical legislature changes frequently. It's hypothetical, so why not?

My current favorite is to have one chamber that proposes stuff, and another chamber that votes approves or rejects it.

In the First Chamber, the representatives would be chosen by some form of proportional-representation voting system. The legislative process would go according to the following pseudo-code:

Start legislative session:
Approve rules of proceedings by majority vote, under
pro-tem leadership and pro-tem rules specified at
the end of the previous legislative session.
Choose chamber leadership.
Chamber leadership assigns committee membership.
Representatives form caucuses.
## Representative do not keep any component-votes,
## "yea" bill-votes, "nay" bill-votes, or priority
## points from previous sessions.
Start whole-bill cycle:
{
Each representative gains five component-votes.
Each representative gains ten priority points.
Each representative gains five "yea" bill-votes.
Each representative gains two "nay" bill-votes.
## Note: Representatives DO keep any votes and
## points that they have from previous whole-bill
## cycles of the same legislative session.
Representatives confer in committees and caucuses, in
accordance with the current rules, to draft
bill-components and plan strategy, for a length of
time specified in the rules.
Each representative may propose one bill-component
for the chamber to (possibly) vote on.
Each representative may apply as many of their
points as they choose to any bill-component.
The twenty bill-components having the most points
are voted on, in order of decreasing points.
Each representative may cast one vote in favor of
any bill-component, as long as they have a vote to
spend. Any bill-component receiving votes from at
least 20% of representatives thereby becomes
available for inclusion in bills.
Representatives confer in committees and caucuses, in
accordance with the current rules, to compile bills.
A bill can consist only of available bill-components.
Any number of bill-components may be included in
a bill.
Each representative may apply any number of their points
to each bill.
The ten bills having the most points are queued for
voting, in order of decreasing number of points.
## Component-availability phase is complete. There will
## be another one in the next whole-bill cycle, and
## components DO remain available from one whole-bill
## cycle to the next within a legislative session.
## Bill-components do NOT remain available from one
## legislative session to the next.
Start bill-vote cycle:
{
Each representative can spend at most one bill-vote on
the bill, either "yea" or "nay".
If the bill receives a number of "yea" bill-votes that
exceeds the number of "nay" bill-votes it receives
by at least 30% of the number of representatives,
that bill is passed. It goes to the Second Chamber.
Go to the next bill in the queue.
} ## End bill-vote cycle.
Go to next whole-bill cycle.
}
Pass pro-tem rules and choose pro-tem leadership for next session.

The representatives in the Second Chamber would be chosen as follows:

There are 90 members of the Second Chamber. Citizens are divided into constituencies by birthday. Members are elected for six-year terms. Terms are staggered so that there's an election every four months, with five members being elected at each election. (Six years, times three elections per year, times five members per election: 6x3x5=90.) Members are elected by dual-threshold approval voting: citizens vote yes or no for every candidate on the ballot, and the candidate with the most "yes" votes is elected if that number exceeds the threshold. To be elected as a full member, able to vote both for and against bills, a candidate has to get "yes" votes from at least 55% of voters. If the candidate with the highest number of "yes" votes gets "yes" votes from at least 50% but less than 55%, that candidate is elected as a negative member, who can only vote against bills. If no candidate receives at least 50% "yes" votes, that constituency is unrepresented for that term.

Because all representatives are elected from similar constituencies by a majority/supermajority process, the chamber should be conducive to consensus decisions. To pass a bill, the votes for must be at least 55% of the total votes for and against. Of course, representatives in the First Chamber will know this, as they try to craft bills that will be able to pass the Second Chamber.

My favorite idea on how to set up a hypothetical legislature changes frequently. It's hypothetical, so why not?

My current favorite is to have one chamber that proposes stuff, and another chamber that votes approves or rejects it.

In the First Chamber, the representatives would be chosen by some form of proportional-representation voting system. The legislative process would go according to the following pseudo-code:

Start legislative session:
Approve rules of proceedings by majority vote, under
pro-tem leadership and pro-tem rules specified at
the end of the previous legislative session.
Choose chamber leadership.
Chamber leadership assigns committee membership.
Representatives form caucuses.
## Representative do not keep any component-votes,
## "yea" bill-votes, "nay" bill-votes, or priority
## points from previous sessions.
Start whole-bill cycle:
{
Each representative gains five component-votes.
Each representative gains ten priority points.
Each representative gains five "yea" bill-votes.
Each representative gains two "nay" bill-votes.
## Note: Representatives DO keep any votes and
## points that they have from previous whole-bill
## cycles of the same legislative session.
Representatives confer in committees and caucuses, in
accordance with the current rules, to draft
bill-components and plan strategy, for a length of
time specified in the rules.
Each representative may propose one bill-component
for the chamber to (possibly) vote on.
Each representative may apply as many of their
points as they choose to any bill-component.
The twenty bill-components having the most points
are voted on, in order of decreasing points.
Each representative may cast one vote in favor of
any bill-component, as long as they have a vote to
spend. Any bill-component receiving votes from at
least 20% of representatives thereby becomes
available for inclusion in bills.
Representatives confer in committees and caucuses, in
accordance with the current rules, to compile bills.
A bill can consist only of available bill-components.
Any number of bill-components may be included in
a bill.
Each representative may apply any number of their points
to each bill.
The ten bills having the most points are queued for
voting, in order of decreasing number of points.
## Component-availability phase is complete. There will
## be another one in the next whole-bill cycle, and
## components DO remain available from one whole-bill
## cycle to the next within a legislative session.
## Bill-components do NOT remain available from one
## legislative session to the next.
Start bill-vote cycle:
{
Each representative can spend at most one bill-vote on
the bill, either "yea" or "nay".
If the bill receives a number of "yea" bill-votes that
exceeds the number of "nay" bill-votes it receives
by at least 30% of the number of representatives,
that bill is passed. It goes to the Second Chamber.
Go to the next bill in the queue.
} ## End bill-vote cycle.
Go to next whole-bill cycle.
}
Pass pro-tem rules and choose pro-tem leadership for next session.

The representatives in the Second Chamber would be chosen as follows:

There are 90 members of the Second Chamber. Citizens are divided into constituencies by birthday. Members are elected for six-year terms. Terms are staggered so that there's an election every four months, with five members being elected at each election. (Six years, times three elections per year, times five members per election: 6x3x5=90.) Members are elected by dual-threshold approval voting: citizens vote yes or no for every candidate on the ballot, and the candidate with the most "yes" votes is elected if that number exceeds the threshold. To be elected as a full member, able to vote both for and against bills, a candidate has to get "yes" votes from at least 55% of voters. If the candidate with the highest number of "yes" votes gets "yes" votes from at least 50% but less than 55%, that candidate is elected as a negative member, who can only vote against bills. If no candidate receives at least 50% "yes" votes, that constituency is unrepresented for that term.

Because all representatives are elected from similar constituencies by a majority/supermajority process, the chamber should be conducive to consensus decisions. To pass a bill, the votes for must be at least 55% of the total votes for and against. Of course, representatives in the First Chamber will know this, as they try to craft bills that will be able to pass the Second Chamber.

Yeah, I read that and it sure was a weak argument that seemed to only accept evidence that supported the author’s position and wrote off any that disputed it based on the author telling us that was what we needed to do! They didn’t offer any evidence to refute what was being claimed, they simply hoped we’d take them at their word when they asked us to ignore the scientific evidence in favor of their opinion.

I am also wondering what the point was other than to attack Warren politically. Warren never claimed to be a tribal member of the Cherokee Nation, only that she had grown up being told she had a family member that had been Native American. The DNA test confirmed this.

The author was also incorrect in claiming that people who did not want to admit they were of Native American bloodline were not able to deny it to the government. Historical documents have clearly documented how tribal members who could pass as white often went to great lengths to hide their bloodline.

My parents grew up in Atmore, Alabama — a small town on the AL/FL border that surrounds the Creek Nation’s reservation. Growing up in the South in the 40’s and 50’s, it was better to be Black than to be Creek. My father’s father was most likely part Creek, but he would never have admitted it. I only learned this after moving onto the Crow Reservation and some of the Crow wondered why I hadn’t told them that I had “some blood” in me. I told them that I didn’t think that I did, but they pointed to various photos of my grandfather and said that HE definitely did. My grandfather had passed away years earlier, so I wrote and asked my grandmother if there was a chance that he’d been part Creek. A week after I mailed her the letter, my grandmother called me with my answer. She said that since I was living on a reservation and it would be viewed as a positive thing, and as long as I never mentioned it to other family members, she wouldn’t deny that he was part Creek! She would not admit it and she definitely didn’t want to put anything in writing...she simply would not deny it! That should hopefully tell you just how negatively her generation viewed Native Americans and to what lengths some people went to hide their ancestry!

how would you decide which class of thing pertained to which vote threshold?

JL

I don't have to admit any such thing. The framers of the Constitution told us flat-out, with zero wiggle room, in the Constitution itself, that the Senate should be able to operate under whatever rules the Senate chooses to operate under. Sure, they assumed that those rules would involve normal majority voting. But that's not the same as intending to tell the Senate what it should do.

I don't like the 60-vote threshold for passage of bills. But I don't think there's anything magical about 50% of a legislative chamber.

The workings of a simple winner-take-all plurality election system tend to magnify the power of the largest group of voters, even if it's not a majority. If districts were perfectly homogeneous (as an extreme example), and if the votes were split as evenly as possible among five parties, then a bare plurality of voters, 20% plus a fifth of a vote if the number of voters were one more than a multiple of five, would translate to winning 100% of the seats in the legislature. I would rather see there be some things that require supermajority votes in a legislative chamber, and other things that can be done with less than a majority.

I like your ideas on the filibuster. I was thinking that maybe by limiting the number of filibusters a party is able to use during each session might make them prioritize what legislation they want to block.

We also need to figure out how to shame those in Congress who view “compromising” as a bad word. Republicans have made “working across the isle” considered an act of treason amongst their ranks. I am sick of hearing people accuse Democrats of voting against legislation “simply because Trump is for it.” No! That was the Republican Party’s game plan for all of Obama’s eight years in office, but Democrats vote on legislation based on the merits of the legislation; not on who will get credit for signing it into law if it passes!

I think this would incentivize both sides in various situations. If a piece of legislation is too important to postpone, the majority would still need to come to the negotiating table to adapt it to get it passed quickly. The filibuster would still exist as a check on the majority. But for less pressing legislation, the opposition is incentivized to negotiate in good faith because they can no longer just wait out the clock until the legislation dies. They'll know it will get through eventually if they just sit there, so negotiation is necessary to get anything they want out of it. The filibuster is reduced back to a stall tactic used to buy time to negotiate, not a minority veto.

As it stands Congress is like a disfunctional Fire Department in that no fire never gets extinguished unless
(1) 60% of the Fire Department agree that "there's a fire" and thence (2) 60% of them must agree on exactly how to best put out the fire. This is folly.

I direct y'all to
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/08/democrats-filibuster-2020/596572/

As for John's question, I'm for all, but I'm sure that they would each be hard fought in the courts for years.

1) The Senate should abolish the filibuster so that a majority vote is all that's needed to pass legislation. The minority party should no longer have a veto in the Senate.
2) The Supreme Court should be enlarged and/or term-limited so that it can't be dominated for decades the random chance of when justices die or retire just when certain political parties control the presidency and Senate.
3) The Electoral College should be curbed or abolished, so that a majority vote of the people reliably results in their choice becoming president. This one kicked into overdrive just this week when a court reminded us all that the Constitution says nothing about Electors voting according to their state's popular vote, nor even about their being chosen by popular vote in the first place.
4) National elections should be conducted by the federal, not state, authorities, or at least regulated and secured by them, to prevent 'voter fraud' and more relevantly, to prevent foreign, criminal, partisan, or corporate interference in the process.
5) Gerrymandering should be replaced by computer-driven algorithms to assign electoral districts in mathematically fair ways, to best ensure that a popular vote results in the majority's choice actually winning and taking office.

This reminds me of the Progressive / New Deal era, when a half-century's worth of political domination by industrial robber barons led to two successive waves of pro-democratic legislation and constitutional amendments. In this case the conflict follows from the liberal narrative that the Republicans, seeing their party's fundamental message losing ground with the next generation of diverse, urbanized, and increasingly cynical young people, have been doing everything they can to sabotage or hijack the basic democratic machinery of the national and state governments.

So what is, as Chris asks about his commentary on #1, the potential downside of the Dems achieving #1-5 in the 2020s?

So if we're damned if we do and damned if we don't I say let's do it, push as much through as fast as possible and see what happens. Coz in the end it is always harder to get rid of programs etc. once ppl have experienced them. The ACA is still largely alive and trying to end it is hurting the GOP.

If Dems finally fully internalize the understanding that they are dealing with dishonest people who do not have America's best interests at heart, they might be emboldened to...boldness. And clear communication. There are individual Dems who get this but collectively there's still some hesitation. But it's fading.