Theodore R. Johnson, “career naval officer, former White House fellow and doctoral candidate in law and policy at Northeastern University” suggests, in the Washington Post, “We used to count black Americans as 3/5 of a person. For reparations, give them 5/3 of a vote“:
If you want to shut down a conversation about race, just say the word “reparations.” Even black Americans are divided over the idea that money can compensate for the vestiges of an evil institution that ended 150 years ago; only 60 percent think the government should make cash payments to descendants of slaves. White Americans, on the other hand, have reached a consensus: In a YouGov poll taken shortly after the Atlantic published Ta-Nehisi Coates’s viral feature, “The Case for Reparations,” 94 percent were opposed.
Yet a year of protests over disparate law enforcement practices, a decade of particularly sharp income inequality and centuries of imparity in America show that racial reconciliation is impossible without some kind of broad-based, systemic reparations. Recognizing the original sin is simply not enough; we must also make moral and material amends for our nation’s treatment of African American citizens. But if a pecuniary answer can’t fix the structural disadvantage — and it can’t — what can?
Weighted voting.…
…[R]eparations should be apportioned in the exercise of a civic right (a duty, even) long denied to the descendants of the enslaved. A five-thirds compromise would imbue African Americans with a larger political voice that could be used to fight the structural discrimination expressed in housing, education, criminal justice and employment. Allowing black votes to count for 167 percent of everyone else’s would mean that 30 million African American votes would count as 50 million, substituting super-votes for the implausible idea of cash payments…
Sure, there’s plenty of arguments against this proposal — and not much chance of it getting traction, especially in the areas that need it most — but hell, I’d vote for it.
Your thoughts?
Baud
As with all new ideas, I’m opposed.
Trentrunner
If we did this, Trump would advocate for voting restrictions based on nostril-width.
Hunter Gathers
I’d rather just take away the vote from all white people. We can’t be trusted with it anymore.
NotMax
So African-American women would get what? 11/3?
And African-American women ages 18-20 13/3?
Pure bunkum.
Cacti
The US government paid $20,000 in reparations to each individual Japanese-American claimant who was subject to the 1942-1946 internment policies…
OR to the legal heirs of those no longer living.
Meanwhile, African-Americans are still waiting on reparations from 300 years of slave labor in the European colonies and later the USA, and another 100 years of explicit second class citizenship following the US civil war.
Reparations aren’t without precedent in our history. But willingness to pay them is wholly dependent on who’s doing the asking.
Steve from Antioch
Sure super idea, really top drawer thinking there, just get the constitution amended and implementation will just be some details to work out.
/snark off
Analyzing proposals like this makes as much sense as debating the fine points of Trumps immigration proposals.
Jeffro
@Steve from Antioch: Seconded.
Now, can we talk about how unbelievable awful this guy manages to be, as a GOP candidate AND as a human being? (You’d think it would be easy to be one or the other)
talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeb-bush-anchor-babies-asian-immigrants
Great job, Jeb! That’ll win you back some Hispanic votes!!
/facepalm
NotMax
@Baud
Apply it to all present-day voters born in 1865 or before, and I bet you’d jump on board.
:)
raven
@Steve from Antioch: Or as much sense as discussion your dumb ass fucking posts.
Snarki, child of Loki
@NotMax: “Apply it to all present-day voters born in 1865 or before, and I bet you’d jump on board.”
It’s not fair to disenfranchise only John McCain.
sparrow
I guess I’m part of that 6%. I realize getting it done is basically impossible politically but it would be the right thing to do. For extra LOLs I’d love for the funds to come as an extra tax on descendents of whites living in the south prior to 1865 (that would probably get me, I have some people who were briefly in Kentucky in transit from Connecticut to Kansas).
I mean, yeah, cash payments would probably result in some people using it “unwisely” but that’s just BS concern-trolling. I remember a study a while back that showed that the best way to help people in poverty (not saying all descendents of slaves are, just who I am thinking of helping) are most benefited by direct cash payments. So yeah, let’s do it. (Maybe when I’m 90).
Roger Moore
I think the idea of monetary reparations- especially reparations for all the illegal crap we’ve been doing since slavery ended, where many of the people we’ve hurt are still alive- just fine. I am just worried that if we implement them without doing a better job of ending systematic racism, whites will just steal all the money back again.
Roger Moore
@sparrow:
And it turns out that the best way of stopping homelessness is to provide people with housing. Going straight for the heart of the problem turns out to work better than dealing with ancillary issues. Amazing how often that works.
Modest Proposer
I’ll get behind it as soon as there’s a quantifiable metric for “Black.” What are you guys thinking we should use…Darkness of skin? “African-ness” of features? IQ? Income? Fluency in Ebonics? Natural rhythm?
I’m being deliberately provocative here…but really, how’s it gonna work?
Dr.McCoy
Thats too many “Superdelegates”.
Heads explode.
OzarkHillbilly
I say we take all the accumulated wealth from the states that were slave states and divide it up among all those whose ancestors toiled in the old South for inadequate food and even more inadequate shelter. And yeah, that includes me. I have slave holding ancestors (I am sure) and I have reaped benefits from that not so ancient history.
Of course, I am perfectly safe in proposing this as it will never happen, and yet I am now able to parade my purity of spirit. My hypocrisy, like my humility, knows no bounds.
Steve from Antioch
@raven:
Oh snap!
Cacti
Since the editing window has closed on my Japanese internment reparations post has closed, I’ll add the following…
The $20,000 settlement payments were approved in 1988 and started in 1990, so, around $36,000 and change in 2015 dollars.
greennotGreen
As far as reparations go, I’d rather put that money into ensuring equality of treatment and opportunity NOW. I love (love love) Will Smith, but I don’t see giving him reparations when other people need it more.
Once upon a time, I worked in the Department of Human Services certifying people for food stamps. A lot of our clients could have used a chunk of money to really change their lives; others would have spent it frivolously or, more likely, be swindled out of it. If everyone were to really be equal under the law and have access to a good education, and if minimum wage were a living wage, we could mostly empty out the projects…but there would still be those who would not be mentally or emotionally able to take advantage of what was available. We need to take care of them too, and they’re not all African-American.
In terms of 5/3 vote? You think black people don’t have crazy uncles who vote?
Schlemazel
I have no clue WTF he is trying to pull off but it is more than a safe bet it A) will never happen and 2) has some ulterior motive like suggesting that Dems must be racist since they won’t support this.
JPL
Twenty seven percent of the population will agree that reparations are necessary for the Cuban Americans who immigrated here from Cuba.
cokane
a stupid idea
Cacti
@greennotGreen:
Paternalistic concern duly noted, but ultimately irrelevant.
3 centuries worth of stolen labor has a quantifiable monetary value.
greennotGreen
I know John’s not responsible for the ads that run on this site, but I’m getting multiple ads for the Republican running for Nashville’s mayor, and I am NOT going to vote for him! At least the Newsmax ads don’t flash!
cokane
also too
5/3 – 3/5 does not equal 1
smh
Exurban Mom
What Coates was arguing was more than that slave descendants should be given reparations. He showed, through rigorous research, that African Americans had suffered severe economic discrimination for decades following the end of slavery. Government at all levels did not do enough to combat this discrimination. I am for some sort of reparations . I’m not sure what form it should take. But we ought to do something.
Roger Moore
@Schlemazel:
I think he’s trying to come up with an even crazier idea than anyone else. It’s like a Slate pitch.
Schlemazel
I don’t think any lump of money can make up for slavery, jim crow, redlining, blackballing, slavery-by-another-name and “separate but equal”. Laws like the EEO can make a difference, investigators spotting & fining redlining could make a difference, integrated schools can make a difference (did you know that the most cost effective way to improve failing schools is to integrate them?). Thats right, intervention from the big bad government to ensure fair treatment would lift millions of african-americans out of the societally imposed poverty. Maybe having 5/3s of a vote would give them the clout to do that but there is really no good reason white America couldn’t do this with the current situation. It would not just be morally right it would also be economically smart
gene108
I prefer one dollar one vote. For every dollar of your Net worth, you get one vote.
If for example you have a mortgage and student loan debt and your net worth is negative, your votes will be awarded to your opponent.
Cacti
Trashing the electoral college would be another great idea, as its entire raison d’etre was to inflate the political power of the slave states.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Modest Proposer:
It’s the 21st century, so genetic testing does exist:
http://www.23andme.com
Maybe set the level of proof at a minimum of 15 or 25 percent African heritage.
Of course, you would also have a fair number of “white” people who would get the shock of their lives when they opened that envelope ….
jo6pac
Minorities should run Amerika. As an old white guy we have fucked it up enough. Then again wasn’t that the plan? Sad
Schlemazel
@Cacti:
How do you identify who gets what though? How would you qualify people? People of color whose ancestors were never slaves still have paid a price for not being white. Would it matter if you sprang from 1 generation of slaves of from 5? It would be soothing to think we could buy the country’s way out of its original sin but I don’t think we can,
greennotGreen
@Cacti:
And that value would be? Who gets it? What percentage of African blood will be required? Will African American men be able to pin their reparation checks to their shirts to protect themselves from being murdered by the police?
I support putting a lot more money into alleviation of poverty and ignorance and health disparities and equality of all sorts. But reparations are a very broad brush immensely problematic to apply.
Roger Moore
@Exurban Mom:
That ties roughly into my thinking. I question the legal case for reparations for slavery, since slavery was completely legal. But a lot of the stuff that’s been done to African Americans since the end of slavery has been patently illegal, and government has either turned a blind eye or actively assisted in robbing them. There’s a clear legal wrong there.
cokane
@Cacti: meh, electoral college has matched the popular vote in like 90% of elections. the bigger, more undemocratic institution is the Senate, and one that’s currently giving disproportionate power to small state voters, who are disproportionately white. it’s been reformed once. if any institution in our government needs reform it’s that. it’s just absurd that New York and California get as many Senators as Wyoming or New Hampshire.
rikyrah
I don’t believe we will ever get reparations.
When faced with the actual victims of the Tulsa Race Riots and the burning of Black Wall Street, Oklahoma..they couldn’t come up with them then….
Folks just do not want to admit the totality of the phuckery perpetrated against Black people in America.
and then have the nerve to say that we should ‘get over it’.
Get da phuq outta here.
sigaba
Hmm…
1) Are reparations for slavery or for racism?
2) According to the old rule, it wasn’t that blacks got 3/5s of a vote, they got zero vote, but house seats were apportioned by population as if 5 slaves counted as three people. The point was not to weaken the black vote but to weaken southern control of the House. As usual, the rights of black people were just a pawn in a political dispute between two groups of white people.
To actually do the inverse of the 3/5s compromise, you would apportion black populations at 166% their true count, and then not count the votes of white people at all.
3) Votes are and important part of our political system but you can’t vote yourself equal protection.
cokane
@jo6pac: i mean, it’s far from perfect, but how is one of the highest standards of living achieved in the history of humankind now seen as a failure? again, there’s plenty to be reformed, but the wealth and freedom gains that have been accomplished are not freaking automatic. always so dumb when lazy cynics talk about the US like it’s some sort of disaster of a society.
Cacti
@greennotGreen:
Oddly enough, I’ve always found money in the bank to be a great alleviator of poverty.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@greennotGreen:
That’s what affirmative action and other programs were supposed to be — ways to try and alleviate the bad effects of centuries of slavery and a century plus of active discrimination.
Of course, that was gotten rid of as soon as possible with the argument that barely 15 years of affirmative action should have been more than enough to overcome 300+ years of history and why weren’t those black people caught up yet?
Mike J
@Roger Moore:
Monetary payouts to individuals would allow the systemic racism to go unchallenged, since it had already been paid for.
rikyrah
When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America Reprint Edition
by Ira Katznelson (Author)
In this “penetrating new analysis” (New York Times Book Review) Ira Katznelson fundamentally recasts our understanding of twentieth-century American history and demonstrates that all the key programs passed during the New Deal and Fair Deal era of the 1930s and 1940s were created in a deeply discriminatory manner. Through mechanisms designed by Southern Democrats that specifically excluded maids and farm workers, the gap between blacks and whites actually widened despite postwar prosperity. In the words of noted historian Eric Foner, “Katznelson’s incisive book should change the terms of debate about affirmative action, and about the last seventy years of American history.
amazon.com/When-Affirmative-Action-White-Twentieth-Century/dp/0393328511
Jeffro
@Exurban Mom:
You know what might work as reparations? Make every public school that is majority-minority, or with a population of 50% or more free and reduced lunch, or both, the equal of the best public schools in the country. Either renovate or build new schools up to those pristine standards, then pay the teachers the same (regardless of whether they are in rural Alabama or sunny Fairfax, VA) and make sure they’re just as well staffed and well trained and outfitted with the latest tech. And have the money come from a very progressive addition to the income tax (as in, start w/ incomes above $100K/year and make it as progressive as needed).
Tell me that wouldn’t be a pretty good idea to a majority of the country…
Heck, I can sell that from an economic perspective alone. That much construction and that much more pay going into the pockets of teachers nationwide? We won’t be in recession again until the next generation of Bushes steals their way into office.
WereBear
It’s got my vote.
MariedeGournay
I believe in reparations as means to redress not only slavery, but the consistent resistance to having black Americans being treated as full citizens. My one fear is one of the nature of money. How does the government pay back for such a unique and catastrophic wrong in way that it doesn’t seem like a pay off? The last thing I want is for reparations to become another tool the white supremacist tool kit: “You got your money, now shut up.” Basically, I worry for the long-term political effects. I think some sort of trust fund set up with incentives, but not dictates towards education, home ownership, or starting a business would help to mitigate those factors and give the black Americans a floor of wealth they have been denied and so very much deserve. But my inner socialist thinks, why aren’t we doing this for all the poor?
Basically, it’s justice that needs to happen, but it’ll take far smarter people than me to do in in a way that serves black Americans rather than becoming another stumbling block.
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
that’s a joke.
who is the biggest recipient fo Affirmative Action?
WHITE WOMEN.
Napoleon
Who the fuck lets this idiot post here?
BBA
Unworkable for numerous reasons. Easier to just ban men from voting, that’s much harder to game.
Cacti
@MariedeGournay:
Nope.
No trust fund for anyone over the age of majority. Slaves didn’t get to set conditions on their enslavement. Monetary compensation for stolen labor, period.
boatboy_srq
@greennotGreen: Ten words: Clarence Thomas; Herman Cain; Ben Carson; Allen West; Tim Scott. Can’t help but think, though, that they’re the exceptions that prove the rule.
@Schlemazel:
True, but there are plenty of bad reasons why white America keeps failing to do it.
Cacti
A sizable contribution to any reparations pot should also be made by Spain, Portugal, France, the UK, and the Netherlands.
Tree With Water
Coates reparations article woke me up. It got me thinking along new lines about the history of this country, and this old honky is grateful for it. All avenues that lend themselves to a fresher, better understanding, by the most people, concerning our economic history is all for the good. Even laughably ironic ideas, ones that would hilariously diminish the voting power of both myself and my fellow honkies, are OK by me. I’ve heard the guy who wrote The Wire (never saw it) has undertaken a new project that addresses the assertions Coates made in his article. That’s less an avenue than a freeway, of course, and all the better for it. It will be interesting to see how the dynamic of Americans changing perceptions play out in the coming years.
raven
@Tree With Water: David Simon.
Amir Khalid
@Napoleon:
Which idiot? You?
Jeffro
@MariedeGournay: I’m not saying I’m smarter, not at all. But take a look at my thoughts at #46 and see what you think. It is kind of hard for the racists to argue against high quality schools and teachers…and it’s (relatively) easy to write measures that would keep this going moving forward, so that it’s not a one-time-and-done deal.
rikyrah
According to Maddow, the VP from Shell Oil went with the British Foreign Secretary to Tehran to re-open the Embassy there.
Uh huh.
Uh huh.
raven
Crap “Public Morals” starts tomorrow night and it’s directed by, and stars, Ed Burns. Alas, it’s not The Wire and Generation Kill Ed Burns.
Jeffro
@Cacti: This is part of why straight-out reparations will never work – good (if esoteric) point. It’s all too long ago, w/ too many different things to factor into it.
Equalizing minority kids’ and poor kids’ schools to the level that the most well-off students in this country enjoy is a) hard to argue against and b) a vastly better investment (or reparation, if you will) in the long run. Write it up in enough detail so that the funding continues for staff (quality and number), buildings, training, and tech and it’ll do a world of good.
raven
jl
I like the graphs showing the results in terms of partisan splits in House and Senate. But, that is not the way to present it if you want it to be taken seriously.
I may by missing something, but in terms of the ugly realities of time, the 3/5 of person compromise disenfranchised non-slave slave owning states, in that slave owning states got representation in proportion to citizens living there and what was, legally and Constitutionally, their human property. The slaves themselves were totally disenfranchised.
So, how about a few elections weighting black votes by 1 and non-Hispanic white votes by zero. We can proportion Hispanic, Asian and other groups somehow… but probably too hard, so give them 1 too.
I’ll go with that for 2016.
Anyway, it is a poetic idea, I guess.
Shakezula
One of the key hurdles to reparations is the fact there’s no way to figure out who exactly should get them.
Descendants of slaves is a really sloppy definition, worse than the one currently used by the OMB. Would it include people who appear to be and ID as white? If you exclude them, what’s the justification?
Also, it ignores the fact that racism is still alive and well independent of slavery. I can’t think of an argument for excluding anyone who appears to be “the descendant of a slave” because they’re still subjected to the same racism. But I don’t think people who discuss reparations include African-Americans who immigrated to the U.S.
craigie
Does most of America understand the relationship between 5/3 and 3/5, or even where those numbers come from?
JPL
@rikyrah: A start would be teaching about the injustices done to the black communities in Oklahoma, Florida and throughout the country.
Tree With Water
@raven: I say remember the $10 Billion that “went missing” in Iraq, and forgive these real loans to real Americans outright unless we’re told where that money went. What ever did happen to all that taxpayer dough, anyway? Dick Cheney sure as hell didn’t pay for it, I know that much. Somebody should ask Donald Trump if he knows. In an alternate universe: “Tonight on 60 Minutes, we’ll get to the bottom of “Just Who Are The Thieves of Baghdad?”. Good evening, I’m Mike Wallace, and our investigation has revealed…”.
Calouste
@rikyrah: Could be worse, Could have been someone from British Petroleum, formerly known as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, who are one of the reason of the whole problems with Iran in the first place.
Belafon
I think most of you have his idea backwards. How would you fix the systematic racism and the history that has hurt blacks?
How does Obama fix the issues of white christian male over-representation? He appoints minorities and women.
Of course I don’t think his idea is truly workable, but it’s a better idea than wait until the old people die off.
p.a.
Some reparation suggestions
Land value from Long-run Trends in American Farmland Value appx. B. A. Lindert 1988, I took 1870 Indiana (well, why not) $22.90/acre x 40 acres= $916. Mule value, 1869 Mississippi from USDA doc, $72.
In 2014, the relative worth of $916.00 from 1868 is:
$15,700.00 using the Consumer Price Index
$13,800.00 using the GDP deflator
$116,000.00 using the unskilled wage
$240,000.00 using the Production Worker Compensation
$230,000.00 using the nominal GDP per capita
$1,940,000.00 using the relative share of GDP
In 2014, the relative worth of $72.00 from 1868 is:
$1,240.00 using the Consumer Price Index
$1,090.00 using the GDP deflator
$9,090.00 using the unskilled wage
$18,900.00 using the Production Worker Compensation
$18,100.00 using the nominal GDP per capita
$152,000.00 using the relative share of GDP
Myiq2xu
My thoughts:
This isn’t the stupidest idea that has ever been proposed, but it’s close.
p.a.
Here’s the calculator link; it’s geeky fun
measuringworth.com/m/calculators/uscompare/
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@rikyrah:
That was my point, yes. That’s not how affirmative action was supposed to work, but that’s how it ended up working. I think we all know why.
jonas
@sigaba:
Thank you! It always bugs the crap out of me when people misconstrue the 3/5ths compromise as being about African-American votes or whatever. You’re absolutely right. The slaves only counted insofar as 3/5ths of their population added to the representative power of their white masters. And you have to just wonder at the chutzpah of these southern slave owners who wanted their slaves to count towards representation in the House. Unbelievable. But it was either that, or no Constitution, apparently.
jonas
IIRC, the take-away from Coates’ article wasn’t a demand for reparations in the form of cutting individual black people a check for X-amount or something, but “reparations” in the form of a serious moral, historical, and political accounting of the country’s efforts to disenfranchise and dehumanize its black minority in the period since Reconstruction. The vast majority of this country’s whites are simply — willfully or not — ignorant of the fact that the black underclass and its pathologies were *engineered* by decades of private and public policy, not just the random outcome of history (“if they choose to live in that awful ghetto and be dependent on welfare, that’s their own fault!”). That accounting would necessarily result in the reallocation of public resources towards schools, infrastructure, job development, etc., that for decades was purposefully withheld from minority communities — in addition to seriously reforming a the criminal justice system that has perpetuated since the 1980s many of the inequalities that remained from the Jim Crow period and demanding that all citizens learn — repeatedly and thoroughly — how and why this country got the way it did without the evil revisionism wrapped in the Confederate flag.
BillinGlendaleCA
@efgoldman: bp would have been more appropriate.
mclaren
I L*I*K*E it!
Nathan Tyree
As a white dude, I’ve always favored reparations. It seems like the least we could do. The very least. My only worry is the effect on attitudes. I can easily picture someone saying “we don’t need to worry about institutional racism, we paid for that already”.
Richard Bottoms
Reparations will go exactly no where. Why black folks even bother pursuing even the intellectual argument for monies owed for 150 years.
Now here’s something that might work and doesn’t depend on overcoming the fact that everyone involved is dead.
Go after every government entity that participated in the theft of G.I. benefits after WWII. Quite a few of the folks who denied federal benefits under color of law are very much alive.
Successors to ownership of suburban divisions that put in place and enforced restrictive covenants that kept blacks and Jews from buying here they wished still exist and are big fat multi-billion dollar targets for a law firm bold enough to make the case.
People why tried to buy are still around, families who lost income and social benefits because of the discrimination also still alive.
Additionally, the Klan and other groups not only targeted blacks out of racial animosity, but also to steal businesses and property deemed valuable. Every owner since is possibly liable for the share of profits for every piece of black wealth stolen and where a paper trail exists.
Fuck reparations, make Bank of America and every other lending institution that assisted in this theft pay for its housing practices.
Thoughtful Today
! 2 things:
D.C. Statehood would add two Senators and a Representative.
District of Columbia demographics: quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/11000.html
John Oliver was genius with his D.C. Statehood pitch.
And a strict interpretation of 26th Amendment that requires absolute enforcement of voting rights for all Citizens who are 18 years or older.
moderateindy
We have been making slow but steady progress where racism is concerned in this country. Want a good way to reverse that trend? Pass reparations. How do you think people would react if you cut a bunch of “those people” a decent sized check? The amount of resentment that would be generated would be enormous, and over the long run would cost the black community far more economically than could be gained by a temporary stimulus that the check would provide.
Slavery is not the reason for the plight of the African American community. It’s all the other crap that they have been subjected to since they were emancipated that has so completely decimated them.
Giving them cash would not only give a new generation of people reason to perpetuate those same attitudes, but would hurt all people that benefit from the scarce social safety net that we have in place now. Imagine the right wing rhetoric about getting rid of welfare, and food stamps, and medicaid, because we paid reparations. Cause everybody knows that it’s the blacks, and illegals that are the biggest recipients of such things. (please nobody try to confuse me with actual facts, or statistics. Everyone knows that those, like carbon dating, are just things made up by the devil to confuse and deceive you.)
The idea that funding all the schools equally, is some kind of magic bullet is equally ridiculous. Not that equal funding is a bad idea, it simply will make very little difference. It doesn’t matter how good the teacher is, or how nice the facility is, a kid that has a parent that doesn’t give a rat’s rear isn’t going to do well in school. Let’s face it, if our parents weren’t on our ass making sure we did our homework, how many of us would have taken it upon ourselves to pay any attention in school?
It took roughly 100 years, post slavery, of constantly screwing black people to destroy the black community. It’s going to be even harder to get them back to an even footing in this society. I honestly don’t know if it is in the American psyche to ever do what is neccessary to accomplish such a feat.
Skippy-san
Complete and utter bullshit. There is a reason any discussion of race gets shut down when you bring up reparations-because America is not going to do it, and for good reason. I don’t owe one damn penny for something that happened over a hundred years before I was born.
Plus this idea of weighted voting is against the Constitution as currently amended. Its a bullshit idea that should also be a conversation stopper.
The real issue is fixing gerrymandering by making sure that Congressional districts don’t cross county lines and making the House of Representatives larger. Its been 435 since the early 60’s and we have 115 million more people now.
Richard Bottoms
@Skippy-san: Thanks, Skippy-san. I couldn’t have asked for a better example of why the idea of pursuing the G.I Bill claims make sense.