Ran across this article today (Page 16) that I thought was very interesting.?ÿ It seemed appropriate to share considering the elections are right around the corner.
http://nmps.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/BENCHMARKS-NOV-2013.pdf
I can't really tell if the author thinks it's a typo or an intentional replacement of the word "less" by someone and was never noticed.?ÿ
?ÿ
Not touching this one with a 10-foot (3.000 meter) pole.
My teaching neighbor taught, among other courses, Discrete Math, the field that addresses apportionment problems when fractional answers are not allowed. How the rounding problems are handled can give one state too many representatives and another state too few. In addition, letting the number of representatives grow without bound does not solve the Alabama paradox, where a state loses a representative when the total number of representatives increases.
This slide show from Cornell University is a fairly complete description of the problems and paradoxes that come with a fixed number of representatives. Other schemes will produce other paradoxes. The gravity of any of the paradoxes is really a function of one's own political beliefs. http://pi.math.cornell.edu/~ismythe/Lec_13_web.pdf
Our founders recognized early on the push and pull of urban interests versus rural interests. One house with fixed representation per state and one house with population-based representation was at least a partial answer, a check and a balance. But the population-based one comes with mathematical difficulties.
Whether we should follow laws as they are written or laws as they might have been written is, of course, and entirely different matter.?ÿ
At the risk of venturing into P&R, the author seems to be fixated on one historical event as the root of all perceived problems and injustices. My biggest question is, regardless of your opinion of the subject matter, what this editorial piece that has only the most contrived connection to surveying is doing in a survey newsletter?? My guess is that it had been turned down by the NYT op-ed page ????ÿ
...what this editorial piece that has only the most contrived connection to surveying is doing in a survey newsletter?
It was written by a surveyor. And these newsletters are always starving for original content. That is your answer. But, yes, I get what you are saying.?ÿ
That this appeared in a publication in the state ranked 36th in population is what is so amazing to me.
If we had 1 representative per 30,000 people (the number suggested by the constitution, and about what was in place during the Washington administration) we would have something over 11,000 people in Congress. That seems absurd.
Well, if we are going to quibble over numbers, let's keep it non-political.?ÿ Wink Wink
@lee-d Well...there is a picture of George Washington doing some field work at the bottom of the article.
At this point I have little use for more than about seven....
