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Dianne Feinstein has died
241–250 of 377 posts
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#242Why is it that people like Feinstein or Ruth Bader Ginsburg do not retire? Do they fear to be prosecuted by their successors, Soviet style? No pension in their employment contract? I don't understand the mechanism.
I think it's mostly ego. You're a powerful and successful person, the kind of type-A personality who can get all the way to the top of a fairly exclusive profession, and you wind up thinking you're irreplaceable. "I could retire... but I don't trust that the person who replaces me will be as good as I am." They're not even entirely wrong in the short term -- the Democrats in particular seem to have been doing a reall…
Also dollars. Don’t forget about the dollars.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#243I know the easy approach here is for people to want an age limit in Congress, but I've always been more partial to a term limit. I'm sure there are plenty of hypotheses as to why this happens, but whatever the cause elected officials seem to have an extremely easy go of getting re-elected these days. The increasing average age in Congress is just a side effect of that in my opinion.
The problem with term limits is that they don't apply to lobbyists. Lobbyists basically writing most of the legislation is already a major problem, and it becomes worse when all the representatives are new to the office.
Wouldn't term limits atleast slightly mitigate this issue? Harder to be buddy buddy with the person in power of they keep changing every other term or two. But you are right about the influence of lobbyists. It's very messed up when an unknown unelected person can write parts of a law as is and get away with it
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#244Earlier 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.
I'd rather see a proportional system.
I'd be fine with a literal random selection with the people being able to trigger "no-confidence" at set intervals.
Can't be much worse and statistically it should have basically the same outcome.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
Feinstein was a Senator and CA uses a "jungle primary" for state-wide elections - there's no "safe seat" in that model. In her last election, both final candidates were Democrats. Neither party could unseat her. Voters have been clear that they preferred Feinstein to anybody else. So the question is why? Was it her power in the Senate? Was she particularly good at bringing pork to CA? Or was it just money and the pol…
Rank in Senate committee is literally about seniority. Replacing Feinstein meant the state and Democratic Party losing power in the Senate.
The rules for rank in committees is per party and it’s only Democrats that have indefinite positions of seniority. Republicans have caps on number of terms as chair, etc.
The only people losing power with her early retirement would have been her handlers. She hasn’t made a decision on her own in a long time. And when she did pretend to do so, the handlers would “help her remember the right choice”.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Citizens of other countries have figured it out. Which means, of course, Americans can't. And yes, I'm an American.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#248Why is it that people like Feinstein or Ruth Bader Ginsburg do not retire? Do they fear to be prosecuted by their successors, Soviet style? No pension in their employment contract? I don't understand the mechanism.
I don't know about RBG and judges in general but congressmen in their time in office make a lot of things happen, they start a lot of projects, some of which are long running, and many of them have a personal interest in seeing things that they started through, whether that's for corrupt reasons or not. Think of the changes America has undergone due to legislation since the 70s, some of the people that spearheaded those changes are still around and want to make sure their visions persist and they can't count on someone else to do it. In some cases I'm usre that vision is lining their pockets, in others clandestine shit, and I'm sure in some they're perfectly noble pursuits.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#249She 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.
If you're going to lay responsibility at the feet of the voters it isn't fair to throw out a "It is how it’s supposed to work.". The voters decide how it is supposed to work by making arguments and talking to each other and expressing opinions. If voters have power then expressing what qualities a politician should have helps the process.
And while ranked choice voting is probably superior, it'd be a lot easier for one of the parties to implement RCV internally then call it a day. The major problem is that the primary system is too incumbent-friendly, making it hard for challengers to grow organically.
And I don't buy the argument that the US Congress Regulars have done a good job. They look like they've mucked a lot of stuff up, badly, and left a series of ruins behind them. Literally in many cases.
Re: Dianne Feinstein has died
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's mostly ego. You're a powerful and successful person, the kind of type-A personality who can get all the way to the top of a fairly exclusive profession, and you wind up thinking you're irreplaceable. "I could retire... but I don't trust that the person who replaces me will be as good as I am." They're not even entirely wrong in the short term -- the Democrats in particular seem to have been doing a reall…
Also dollars. Don’t forget about the dollars.
It's there, but I suspect it applies more earlier in their careers. Once we're at the "I only have a few years left to live anyway" point, it's probably less of a motivation.