Is the House of Representatives too small?

This is the question posed today by Gerard N. Magliocca at Balkinization. His primary argument is that increasing the size of the House is the only practical way to limit the influence of money in politics:

Suppose you doubled the size of the House of Representatives, which only requires a statute. This would accomplish the goals of both campaign finance reformers and libertarians. First, the cost of each campaign would go down because House districts would be smaller. Second, special interest groups would find it much more expensive to wield clout within a legislature. They would have to donate twice as much, in effect, even though the demand for money from candidates would be lower. Third, the influence of any single member would be reduced in a larger legislature, due to the higher transaction costs for public action, and would thus make it harder for a member to make a credible promise of a benefit to a donor.

The idea of regulating the House’s person-per-representative ratio has an interesting history. Such a proposal, in fact, was originally the very first article of the Bill of Rights that came out of the First Congress. The purpose of the proposal was to ensure a minimum representation for the common people in the new federal government. As passed by the House in 1789, the proposed amendment read:

"There is widespread recognition, across the political and ideological spectrum, that the United States is over-criminalized, and that over-criminalization poses serious threats to our liberties, our values, and our prosperity. With recognition and examination of this problem, it is now time to move to the next level – developing solutions."

That's from the description of a symposium held last week in D.C. called "Overcriminalization 2.0."  This alleged consensus is news to me, but I guess I'm part of it.

By the way, I'm guessing that "Overcriminalization 1.0" was a bit of a failure.

The Grudge Match.

So now that Wisconsin has won the Hartland Trophy, do we reverse the names of the blog until next year when Iowa avenges the loss inflicted on them by that portly purveyor of perfidy, Brett Bielma?

The wet side of the moon

It's pretty much a full moon tonight.  And the moon has been in the news.  According to NASA, the moon is wetter than the Sahara desert. According to my independent study, the moon is also drier than the Pacific ocean.   So, you know, somewhere in between there.

A modest proposal to end the funding crisis for public defenders

Mr. Gillette has convincingly established that Minnesota's system of public defense for indigents is in crisis.  He points out that neither candidate for governor has so much as acknowledged the problem, much less proposed a solution.  Notably, however, Mr. Gillette does not propose a solution either.  Times are hard.  Money is scarce.  Simply hiring more public defenders is not possible.  What can be done?

I have a solution, and it is virtually free:  fewer crimes.  I don't mean that people should commit fewer crimes (although that would be nice).  I mean that there should be fewer crimes.  With fewer crimes, there will naturally be fewer criminals.  And with fewer criminals, the crisis in public defense will disappear.

There are a lot of stupid crimes on the books.  But I've got a couple of categories in mind.  Let's start with drug crimes.  In particular, the simple possession of drugs--any drug--should be decriminalized, subject only to civil forfeiture of the contraband.  We can wait to decriminalize the production and distribution of drugs, and can pick and choose which drugs we want to do that for.  But for now, we should be arresting and prosecuting only drug dealers--not drug users.  Frankly, I think local, county, and state police authorities should entirely cede the field of drug enforcement to the federal government.  That way, only major operations are worth going after.

(As a side note, here's a depressing factoid about the international drug war.  Last year, 6,600 people died from drug-related violence in Mexico.  For comparison, there were 4,674 civilian deaths from violence in Iraq last year, and the US has lost just 4,500 soldiers in the entire Iraq war.   "The drug war" is not a metaphor.)

Prostitution is another obvious candidate for decriminalization.  From my brief experience as a city prosecutor in Minneapolis, I can confidently say that going after hookers and johns is about the biggest waste of government resources that one could possibly imagine.  Another benefit of decriminalizing both drugs and prostitution is that we'd likely have at least one more federal judge going to work on Monday.

Finally, and most controversially, here's one other idea for a class of crimes we should consider getting rid of:  drunk driving.

More on the Thomas/Hill voicemail.

As you note, Mr. Torvik, the story of Ginni Thomas calling Anita Hill and asking her to apologize for her testimony at Justice Thomas's confirmation hearing is strange. However, it seems to me that Ms. Hill's behavior is a lot less strange.

As memory serves, and Oprah Magazine confirms, Ms. Hill received death threats as a result of her testimony. I suspect that she also received threats of a less drastic nature. One can imagine that, at the time of her testimony, she was told to forward these threats to the FBI. So, twenty-years later, she receives a call from a woman claiming to be Ginni Thomas and asking Ms. Hill to apologize and provide "some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband.”

Ms. Hill, and I think understandably, found this odd. After reflecting on it, she provided the voicemail to her employer's security department and instructed them to contact the FBI perhaps per a protocol from the days when she was receiving threats. That doesn't seem strange to me.

What does seem strange is how this came to the attention of the New York Times. The article doesn't say. If Ms. Hill brought it to their attention, that would be very strange. But, perhaps it came from some other, less strange, source.

I agree with David Bernstein over at the Volokh Conspiracy, that if Ginni Thomas truly was seeking an apology she should have chosen a better means of communicating that other than a voicemail. That part of the story is very strange.

This renewed interest in the Hill/Thomas controversy doesn't seemed to have done much for Ms. Hill, Justice Thomas, or Ms. Thomas. On the other hand, it has arguably worked out well for other people, and not just bloggers. Lillian McEwen, a woman who dated, and apparently worked with, Justice Thomas in the 1980s, is looking for a publisher for her memoir. Ms. McEwen claims that Justice Thomas was "obsessed" with porn during the time they dated and worked together. This time period coincides with the period when Ms. Hill worked with Justice Thomas. She, as the links indicate, has gotten some free press about her proposed memoir. I suspect a publishing deal will not be far behind.

If one is inclined to believe Ms. Hill, then Ms McEwen's revelations, are more support for Ms. Hill's testimony. Although, I suppose it is support that comes is 19 years late. If one is inclined to believe Justice Thomas, than Ms. McEwen's story is suspect because it comes after such a long delay and is, with all due respect to Ms. McEwen, the only thing that would make her memoir interesting to a publisher.

Given that the voicemail and Ms. McEwen's allegations really just give us an opportunity to relive the days when the Senate testimony took about things like pubic hair on Coke cans and Long Dong Silver, I would have to say that the voicemail has had the opposite of its intended effect.

The Tipping Point: Are We There Yet?

MinnPost.com has two articles about the state of affairs for Minnesota's public defenders. The articles paint a bleak picture. Judge Sharon Hall is quoted as saying that Minnesota courts are "fast becoming the courts of McJustice."

According to MinnPost, Minnesota budgetary woes have led to cutting the number of public defenders. The result is that remaining public defenders now carry twice the caseload recommended by the American Bar Association.

The result of this shortage is twofold. One result is fairly obvious, the other strikes me as very weird. I will start with the weird one.

"[O]ur jobs as political appointees is to protect the president."

That wasn't my understanding.

Justice Thomas's wife leaves Anita Hill a voice mail asking for an apology ...

and Anita Hill calls the police!

These are very strange people.

You're telling me that's in the first amendment?

About a month ago, you posted on the question of whether legislators should consider whether the bills are constitutional before passing them. Your question was prompted by Dalia Lithwick's reflection that the constitutional views of Christine O'Donnel, the Republican candidate Delaware's open United States Senate seat, were fascinating.

Professor Lester Hunt posted on his blog about Ms. Lithwick's thoughts and suggested that "When . . .Ms. O'Donnell talk[s] about 'the Constitution,' they often don't mean the literal word of the law as contained in that piece of parchment."

Professor Hunt apparently hit the nail on the head. As CBS reports, this morning at a debate with Chris Coons, her Democratic opponent, Ms.O'Donnell today challenged him on his statement that the Constitution disallowed the integration of religion into the federal government, asking, "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?"

Unfortunately for Ms. O'Donnell, the debate was held at the Widener School of Law, and her question reportedly "prompted laughs from the studio audience."

The exchange took place when Mr. Coons said he considered intelligent design a religious doctrine that should not be taught in public schools. Mr. Coons said that the First Amendment explicitly calls for the separation of church and state.

Ms. O'Donnell's response to this statement with incredulity. She said "Let me just clarify: You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the first amendment?"

Mr. Coons responded by saying "Government shall make no establishment of religion." A slight mangling of the amendment as it says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. " However, I think he got the gist of it correct.

"That's in the First Amendment...?" O'Donnell responded.

The worst part of it is that earlier in the debate, Ms. O'Donnell accused Mr. Coons of constitutional ignorance by telling him "perhaps they didn't teach you Constitutional law at Yale Divinity School."