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Dianne Feinstein has died

nytimes.com

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Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#231

Post by korse »

nzrf wrote: post #103
brigadier132 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All these senators that manage to make tens of millions of dollars on their $250k salary should really release personal finance books.

As someone who is just engineer / architect and has to have all my trades approved and accounts granted access to reporting for not only my self but my partner. it really annoys me that these folks are not under more scrutiny. I don’t even have really any information to what these government officials do. This to me falls under the “rules for thee not me.”

Could you add a bit more context here? What sort of engineer and approved by whom?

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#232

Post by SllX »

jliptzin wrote: post #23
bhouston wrote: post #6

She was mentally unfit to serve for the last couple years. It was a travesty many countries seem to have no mental bar required to serve or even reasonable age limits (Feinstein was 90!) Any decision "she" was made in the last couple years was made by her aids and not her. This is not how democracy is supposed to work. Details: > Four U.S. senators, including three Democrats, as well as three former Feinstein staffer…

It is how it’s supposed to work. She was 85 when she got elected the last time. If voters don’t want 90 year olds in office, maybe they shouldn’t vote 85 year olds in for a 6 year term. If she can’t be beat in a primary, then we need something like ranked choice voting so people can safely vote for an alternative third party without risking spoiling the election for a candidate they definitely don’t want.

And there is an additional check: the Senate itself can expel individual members. We elected her, and they didn’t expel her. RIP Senator Feinstein.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#233

Post by bombcar »

philipov wrote: post #217
paulgb wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife was part of a congressional primary campaign so I got to see some of this close-up. It’s hard to list all the reasons, but there is definitely a sort of institutional inertia that makes it hard to primary someone on the story of merely being the better candidate, unless there is an a prior consensus among voters that the incumbent needs to go. Some examples: - Congressional elections are expensive; incumbents…

The part about voter apathy towards primaries is important. It means that the sort of people who vote in primaries don't represent an unbiased sample of their party: they skew towards the extremes, because those people can be more easily mobilized. This means that primaries don't produce candidates capable of representing the median voter very well, and we end up with a choice between the canonical Giant Douche and T…

I feel that in the last 20+ years or so, the candidates have seem to forgotten the "appeal to the crazies in the primaries, pivot for the general".

Then again, the whole point of democracy is that the voters will get what they want and get it good and hard.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#234

Post by matt-attack »

iambateman wrote: post #218
pxx wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ranked choice voting (the brand name for Instant Runoff or Hare voting) neither theoretically [0] nor empirically [1] has the outcomes for third parties that you think it does. This combined with its other flaws makes it worse than plurality. Not only that, it doesn't allow for distributed counts [2], it can wreck the secret ballot [3], and it is not monotonic [4]. Arrow gives us an impossibility result for elections…

The real problem with RCV is that it doesn't intuitively make sense to an average person. I wrote a web app for RCV and spent months trying to build a user experience that would help people understand the concept and it just doesn't work. People come to the question of voting assuming it's easy to understand...We've never had to deal with complexity around the concept so we expect it to be simple. Introducing an algo…

How is it hard to explain: please put these names in a row from best to worst.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#235

Post by abeppu »

kube-system wrote: post #153
abeppu wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should seriously consider mandatory retirement ages for all high public offices. We have them in the Foreign Service, and of course it would be bad for a diplomat to be in mental decline while negotiating a complex treaty. Multiple states have retirement ages for judges. The work of a senator or federal judge should be similarly protected from disruption due to the predictable age-related decline of individual off…

I tend to think it should be up to voters to decide. I feel picking any one number is too arbitrary.

I think whether and when during a senatorial term senility starts to set, or accelerates in is also pretty arbitrary.

Picking one number, based on input from experts in psychology and medicine, and applying it to all high-level public trust jobs, and putting it in law in our normal democratic processes would be no more arbitrary than the rule that the President must be at least 35.

I will point out that civilians who want "public trust" positions within the federal government or even as contractors are checked for a range of attributes which may make them potentially unfit for the responsibilities in question. Currently, my understanding is that subsequent to a clearance check, they must sign an agreement to not use substances like marijuana for the duration of their employment. This policy is _also_ not something that Americans voted for. I would argue that Feinstein, who often seemed not to know where she was, or McConnell, who is sometimes unaware that he was making remarks, are far more impaired than someone who occasionally enjoys an edible.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#236

Post by SamPatt »

pierat wrote: post #209
alphabettsy wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing a child to someone in their 70s with a lifetime of experience is silly. Maybe there should be limits once in office at a certain age, but not everyone ages the same.

"Adolescence" was a made-up term to remove personal sovereignty over younger people who know full well, and would do, but aren't legally permitted to do so. They're also subject to our laws. They should have their say as well. And then we see under-18 routinely be charged as adults. And yes, if 15 year olds could vote and run for office, I do think we'd see more issues aimed at the younger generations ALONG WITH long…

I used to believe this - and even advocate for change - then I watched my children become teenagers.

There is truth to the idea that, whether due to life experience or brain development, teenagers struggle with proper decision-making.

I don't like the arbitrary nature of age cutoffs, but I would no longer support the idea of giving more political power to anyone under 18.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#237

Post by coldpie »

steviedotboston wrote: post #201
pstuart wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She held a position of incredible importance (chair of the senate judiciary committee). Her leaving would cause a stalemate and block all judicial nominations. That's a fact, not a guess. She should have left, but the reason she didn't should be happening either.

Yeah this is just an unfortunate reality of the situation we're living in today. People think she was on some sort of ego trip by remaining in the senate or something, when really it was just the best option for making sure Biden is able to appoint judges. She was able to get a bunch of them approved recently, we should be thankful for that. People saying stuff like "thank God she's finally gone" are so ignorant. New…

The argument we're making is she should have retired twenty years ago, when she was "just" 70 years old.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#238

Post by rdedev »

hobotime wrote: post #57
anonymouse008 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I encourage you to run a campaign, just in a local county. You will find there are things one can't see from the outside that make this sentiment naively false.

I ran for a city councilmember: 1) You opponents campaign manager will lie about their candidate without qualms. 2) Donors will give money to a scoundrel, as long as they think the scoundrel will win. 3) Voters are actually good at picking up bullshit - in aggregate. 4) Rich white liberal female voters will not vote for a man. 5) Plenty of Black, Asian, and Immigrant voters are conservative, but many reflexively vote…

Thanks for this analysis. I feel like there is a big diconnect between what groups of people are assumed to be like vs what they actually do. Point 5 being the most apparent for me

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#239

Post by the_snooze »

jliptzin wrote: post #23
bhouston wrote: post #6

She was mentally unfit to serve for the last couple years. It was a travesty many countries seem to have no mental bar required to serve or even reasonable age limits (Feinstein was 90!) Any decision "she" was made in the last couple years was made by her aids and not her. This is not how democracy is supposed to work. Details: > Four U.S. senators, including three Democrats, as well as three former Feinstein staffer…

It is how it’s supposed to work. She was 85 when she got elected the last time. If voters don’t want 90 year olds in office, maybe they shouldn’t vote 85 year olds in for a 6 year term. If she can’t be beat in a primary, then we need something like ranked choice voting so people can safely vote for an alternative third party without risking spoiling the election for a candidate they definitely don’t want.

RCV advocates miss the point entirely. It's not that people want to vote for third parties but can't. It's that the candidates that survive the major parties' primary elections have only to pander to their insane bases. In California where no-party-indicateds outnumber Republicans, the top-2 system is effectivley a Democratic primary.

Alaska has the right idea: a jungle primary where the top-4 advance, followed by an RCV general. RCV by itself doesn't do much. You have to weaken the primary electorate, as Alaska does.

Re: Dianne Feinstein has died

#240

Post by matt-attack »

yboris wrote: post #228
jliptzin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is how it’s supposed to work. She was 85 when she got elected the last time. If voters don’t want 90 year olds in office, maybe they shouldn’t vote 85 year olds in for a 6 year term. If she can’t be beat in a primary, then we need something like ranked choice voting so people can safely vote for an alternative third party without risking spoiling the election for a candidate they definitely don’t want.

Putting it on your radar: Approval Voting Has many advantages over RCV / IRV (Ranked Choice Voting / Instant Runoff Voting). For one - no need to change ballots; educating the public is a single sentence rather than a more-complicated explanation. https://electionscience.org/library/approval-voting/

Doesn’t seem to allow people to express their natural feelings. RCV does. I absolutely have a favorite. And I want to be able to encode that. I also have a 2nd choice, and so on.

Imagine a case where I really really want one guy, and between the remaining two I have a strong preference for one over the other. RCV lets me express that.

Approval would have been stuck. Should I mention the 2nd guy? I do want them if it came to having to choose but I’d hate to place them on even footing with my top top pick.

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