Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

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People keep voting for representatives that do this kind of thing. And it's a bipartisan problem, but Republicans seem a lot more shameless about it, especially the "we must prevent the giant monopolistic business from lawsuits by wronged customers or bystanders" language.

Fortunately Wikipedia points us at Loudermilk's legislative history. We can see such gems as HR3441, which opponents say "creates a new definition of “joint employer” that strips workers of their legal recourse for wage theft or unfair labor practices when multiple employers jointly control labor conditions." http://democrats-edworkforce.house.gov/imo/media/doc/2017-09...

Or we can look at his campaign contributions: https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/?two_year_transaction_peri...

"EXPERIAN NORTH AMERICA, INC POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (EXPERIAN PAC)"

A clickthrough (this is a nice website, btw) shows the total Experian payments: https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00379768/

Only $285,000, unless I've missed an "all figures are in thousands" somewhere. That's a pretty cheap way of buying yourself some legislation.

This is just a goldmine of grim hilarity. https://www.congress.gov/member/barry-loudermilk/L000583 You can guarantee that the title of a bill tells you who it's going to screw over.

"H.R.3330 - Ensuring Quality in the Unemployment Insurance Program (EQUIP) Act" = " To amend title III of the Social Security Act to permit States to conduct substance abuse risk assessments and targeted drug testing as a condition for the receipt of unemployment benefits, and for other purposes."

"H.R.3312 - Systemic Risk Designation Improvement Act of 2017" = something to do with Dodd-Frank

"H.R.3257 - Promote Accountability and Government Efficiency Ac" = screw over the civil service. "Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any employee in the civil service hired on or after the date that is 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act shall be hired on an at-will basis. Such an employee may be removed or suspended, without notice or right to appeal, from service by the head of the agency at which such employee is employed for good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all."

"No employee or applicant for employment in the civil service may be awarded by any court a remedy (including damages, costs, or attorney fees) under any of the provisions of law listed in paragraph (3) in a dollar amount that, in the aggregate, exceeds $50,000."

Then a bunch of stuff removing national labour relations law that would otherwise pre-empt state law; allowing concealed carry in DC by holders of other state licenses; something to do with marine mammal protection, probably removing it; and a change to labour law to require a majority of employees not just of union members in certain votes, presumably making strike action much harder.

> People keep voting for representatives that do this kind of thing.

People don't vote (less than 40% in that election). Make voting mandatory, like in Australia (or at least make it a national holiday), and require a certain amount of real political coverage in the media -- politicians would then better reflect the needs of the people.

> and require a certain amount of real political coverage in the media

"Require" and "free press" don't go together unfortunately.

This is not true. The first amendment says the government can't pass laws to suppress free speech. And in fact the press is required to do all sorts of things for the public good, such as:

https://www.fcc.gov/general/emergency-alert-system-eas

It's a complicated issue, but see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

Other nice ideas:

> Cap political donations

> Reduce allotted time for campaigning to something like 2 months, and maybe have it publicly funded like Australia

> Use open source congressional redistricting algorithms

> Eliminate First Past the Post

> Eliminate straight ticket voting

All pretty nice ideas that mostly everyone that isn't in power can get behind

Direct political donations (known as hard money) are already capped in the U.S. Beyond that, the U.S. has a tradition of free speech, which means that direct public funding and limits on general political activity (party building, voter education spending) are unconstitutional. So those cannot be capped.

> Beyond that, the U.S. has a tradition of free speech

As well as a tradition of placing limits on free speech when appropriate.

Which is a larger threat to our country? Democratically elected officials not supporting the views of those that elected them? Or capping the amount of influence a single group can financially have?

> Reduce allotted time for campaigning to something like 2 months, and maybe have it publicly funded like Australia

I do want to say that public funding also comes with its issues. Its the way most parties in Argentina fund themselves and because all of them do, all parties get to put their hand of the State coffers during elections. So much, they made an electoral reform to have another round of elections, just to be able to spend more money on pork.

There is no solution to funding political parties that wont screw someone. Its yet another example of diminishing the scope of government so they just steal less of it.

Mandatory voting, what an absurd idea.

If you can't get people to voluntarily participate in democracy then you have a failed implementation of it.

Furthermore, the ability to not vote is a powerful and necessary option, as it's hard for those in power to imply that they have a mandate if <10% of the population actually participated in it.

I don't know what mandatory voting accomplishes except giving those in power the ability to say, "Tut tut! No complaining! You got your vote, after all."

You still have the ability to not vote, Australia just fines you for not voting. What's more powerful of a statement: not voting with no obligation to vote, or not voting in spite of the punishment?

Mandatory voting doesn't actually require a choice, you can just file a blank ballot.

What it does completely deal with is the voter registration question.

People do not vote because their vote does not matter, politicians do not care what the majority voters want, they care about selected few elite voters want

Want to get more people voting there are a few things that need to change

1. End First past the post... Anything is better, IRV, Alternative Vote, something else.

2. End 2 Party Gerrymandering, Parties should not have any control over distracting at all Should follow some other function like Zip Code, or Taxing Jurisdiction, or some other government function, not just for voting

3. Implement the Wyoming Rule for for congress

4. Pipe Dream... Put the federal government back into constitutional limits and reverse Wikard v Filburn or pass a law that renders it void

1-3 would do alot, #4 would do the most good

Election reform, (not election finance ) is needed but too many people focus on the money, the money is just a symptom of the problem, not the actual problem. Solve the underlying systemic issue with the voting process and the money becomes pointless and will dry up on its own

Here's an idea: use leaked data that has become publicly accessible to find real constituents of every congressperson and then impersonate those people to complain about these bills enabling identity theft. Best done by snail mail, with a CC to the "victim".

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