California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M • Hacker News Board

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#161

Post by specialist » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #6

boomboomsubban wrote: post #2

Call me cynical, but Stebbins likely faces a decade long legal battle which shell very likely end up settling to be done with it, the board members will get even better jobs in or out of government, and the $200 million will remain missing. Yknow, justice.

She uncovers incompetence and gets fired. The article makes no allegations that she stepped on Newsom's toes, but it sure seems like it. She deserves a medal, not to be fired. The article doesn't say who hired her in the first place, just: > Stebbins was hired as the agency’s executive director in February 2018 to bring fresh scrutiny to its finances and operations. Who hired her? Also: > “I find this outrageous!” Ba…

Is there a whistleblower's playbook? Case studies and legal stuff.

Imagine some day I decide to expose something. What steps should I take? How should I proceed? What's the calculus for deciding? I imagine it'd resemble spy craft.

Also, I'd like some philanthropic group to become a resource for whistleblowers. Pretty much like outreach programs for victims of domestic violence. Anonymous, no strings, coaching. Plus a mountain of cash for legal stuff. I imagine your case worker would help you assess the merits of your case. They'd plug in some numbers and predict the enormity of the undying hell you're about to unleash.

I looked a bit after the Sibel Edwards event. The whistleblower NGOs I found seemed little more than a support group with other survivors.

I keep thinking of that group of lawyers that's made huge money suing pharmaceutical (or maybe it was pharmacists) under the whistleblower statutes. Surely more such groups could pop up, each with their own expertise.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#162

Post by specialist » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

Justin_K wrote: post #18

The sad part is that CA remains a one party state and this will just get swept under the rug. The power is too unchecked.

I agree it's unlikely anything will happen.

This is deeper than partisanship, one party rule, pay for play.

Robert Caro's The Power Broker is one primer for how true power works in our system of government.

I'm still clueless what the remedies are, indeed if there are any.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#163

Post by aqsalose » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #23

legulere wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves, and there are also referendums.

A switch to proportional voting could require constitutional changes in most places. Also, proportional voting introduces all kinds of unnecessary problems like not having districts and thereby constituents having their votes diluted and not having a specific representative. Which is one things the American system gets right. What we really need is a switch from "first past the post" to approval/score/range voting, w…

>Also, proportional voting introduces all kinds of unnecessary problems like not having districts and thereby constituents having their votes diluted and not having a specific representative.

I'd rather phrase it, the proportional systems have quite large districts (or alternatively, much more of representatives per district) to achieve the proportional allocation. But I get what you mean.

However, it is very well possible to design variations to any traditional party list proportional system where (at least nominally) one representative is identified with each current-sized and located district.

For example, take a classic proportional system, and use it to select the number of representatives per party list. In proportional methods, usually the list is either preordered by the party or order within the list depends on the individual total popularity of candidates in all districts. So, to achieve nominal geographic representation, one can assign a district to each selected representative. E.G. each district is nominally represented by the one of those elected who had the largest share of votes in that district and is not yet assigned to some other district by the same rule (if one complains that one may have their representative elected by people out of one's district, this implicitly happens in such proportional systems anyway).

Alternatively, one could achieve remarkable amount of geographic identification by relaxing the "one representative one district" requirement. For example, require that each party list can put forward only one candidate per (equally populous) district; a candidate gets personal votes only in that district, but the number of seats given to list is allocated proportionally over all districts, as usual in proportional systems. Then the order within list is assigned by the personal votes of each candidate. (This has the added complication -- or benefit -- that districts with low overall turnout may be left without a specifically named representative and the district with high turnout for all candidates standing there may get them all elected; nevertheless, all votes count towards the party list total sum, no matter the district.)

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#164

Post by boomboomsubban » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #131

boomboomsubban wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Every senate election I can recall in California has been Democrat v Democrat by the general election Which is the point of the system. Republicans only have a shot if they don't compete with each other, and no third party candidate ever has a chance.

> >Every senate election I can recall in California has been Democrat v Democrat by the general election > Which is the point of the system. Yes, but not the way you paint it. > Republicans only have a shot if they don't compete with each other, and no third party candidate ever has a chance. No, the point (at least, insofar as created by same-party general elections was the point) of the system was that Republican-l…

That may have been the justification used to pass the system, but the result is still everything I've said and it's hard to believe that wasn't intended.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#165

Post by Gwypaas » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

wwwwwwwww wrote: post #67

legulere wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves, and there are also referendums.

As another European: proportional voting has nothing to do with it. Its more about ideologized voters who care more about ideology than merit when voting.

The natural balance of a system built on single member districts is two parties, which naturally has to oppose each other to the extreme in all topics. The final outcome is the US today.

See the radical shift when New Zeeland shifted to MMP, which although not perfect is better. [0] For party-list based systems some modification of the Webster/Sainte-Laguë method [1] is often used to have about perfect representation compared to the votes with the caveats you desire, e.g. lower thresholds and so on, while still allowing some choice in the actual person and not party representing you.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_New_Zealand#Gener...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webster/Sainte-Lagu%C3%AB_meth...

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#166

Post by specialist » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:38 PM UTC

legulere wrote: post #20

Justin_K wrote: post #18

The sad part is that CA remains a one party state and this will just get swept under the rug. The power is too unchecked.

As a European I ask myself why there’s no proportional voting system at all in the US. The states should be independent enough to introduce one for themselves, and there are also referendums.

Our one saving grace is our "Democratic Party" is branding for 1,000s of individual party organizations. Ditto Republicans.

For instance, in my state, official (legally recognized, meaning access to the ballot) parties are organized by legislative, county, and state wide. Depending on the whatifs, who's got the real power changes over time and context.

And the intraparty Democratic fighting is far worse than the interparty stuff. IMHO.

(Though I've attended Republican events, having never participated in their orgs, I can't compare. Though from popular press accounts, insurgents like the Tea Party, taking on their establishments, sounds comparable.)

Then we have all sorts of non partisan politics. Like interest groups, lobbyists, agencies, media, etc.

So while doupoly sucks, and PR would be so much better, our current system is not monolithic.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#167

Post by specialist » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #155

TwoBit wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That of course is why one of the two US political parties is staunchly against abolishing the electoral college.

> That of course is why one of the two US political parties is staunchly against abolishing the electoral college. It would require a constitutional amendment. In modern times, that would seem to require the sort of prolonged alignment that follows a deep and lasting shock to the country. I don't want be around the sort of calamity that could produce a constitutional amendment.

There's always a workaround.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta...

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#168

Post by TechBro8615 » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:45 PM UTC

GavinMcG wrote: post #110

yostrovs wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However you want to see it, half the country thinks Trump was an illegitimate president, elected thanks to external manipulation of the Russian government. This is a fact that has consumed all of media and good chunk of the population for 3 years. It's true it's not an exact mirror copy of the current election predicament. Nevertheless, the outcome of questioning the election and democracy in general is the result of…

That's factually incorrect. The vast majority of voters on both sides viewed Trump's election as legitimate. [0] There is a substantial difference between claiming that you lost for reasons that are problematic (i.e. propaganda and the structure of the electoral college) and claiming that you didn't lose at all, despite being behind by 7 million votes, because of a massive conspiracy so powerful as to make our democr…

> The vast majority of voters on both sides viewed Trump's election as legitimate

In 2018, 66% of democrats believed it was “probably true” or “definitely true” that Russia “tampered with vote tallies” to help Trump win the election. That’s a majority of voters on one side.

Note this poll was taken a year and a half after the poll you cited. This emphasizes the point that the media drove this issue as a wedge through the populace and corrupted its viewers’ faith in the election.

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#169

Post by wizzwizz4 » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

zbrozek wrote: post #160

aliljet wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what that broken basket is?

I'm not sure what GP had in mind either. But if I were trying to build on that statement, I'd say that a single party political landscape hasn't been good. Having at least three or four healthy competitive parties and a need to build coalitions seems like it would be really helpful. But that isn't the American way.

Fixing the voting system wouldn't solve the American Populism problem (where promising to “pull the ladder up” is a guaranteed win among most people who've already climbed it, and even some who haven't), but it would render that possible.

Re: California Public Utilities Commission fired director who exposed missing $200M

#170

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sun, Dec 27, 2020, 5:49 PM UTC

erentz wrote: post #156

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A switch to proportional voting could require constitutional changes in most places. Also, proportional voting introduces all kinds of unnecessary problems like not having districts and thereby constituents having their votes diluted and not having a specific representative. Which is one things the American system gets right. What we really need is a switch from "first past the post" to approval/score/range voting, w…

> What we really need is a switch from "first past the post" to approval/score/range voting, which would dissolve the two party system by eliminating spoilers and thereby making third parties viable. Systems like approval voting or STV when used with single member districts do not reduce the two party duopoly. To achieve this you must use multi member districts, which has the effect of reducing the threshold to gain…

> Systems like approval voting or STV when used with single member districts do not reduce the two party duopoly.

What do you mean?

Suppose you have a single member district with four parties running: Democrats, Republicans, Greens and Libertarians. First past the post polling shows 48% Democrat, 48% Republican, 2% Green and 2% Libertarian. Your preferred candidate is polling at 2%.

You're then going to vote for one of the major parties because you know perfectly well that your preferred candidate is not going to win and you also know that you prefer one of the major party candidates over the other one.

By contrast, with approval voting, all four candidates get around 50% approval because there are no spoilers and no reason not to approve of the candidate you actually want, so one of the third parties can plausibly edge out both of the major parties for the highest approval and win the district. They also have a much better case that they could win which means they can get into the debates etc.

Also, approval voting makes it plausible for independents to win when they tailor their platform to the district, which just might destroy the political parties whatsoever -- and that would be most excellent.

> It can be argued now ~40% of people who vote for the loser in our current system don’t have a representative, and a more proportional system would clearly improve this.

No one disputes that the existing system is terrible. But approval voting still fixes that, because a candidate with 60% approval loses to one with 70% approval, so someone who can make more of the district happy wins. And there is no way to give full consideration to 100.0% of the voters short of direct democracy, which has its own set of problems.