…that a new population wouldn’t cure. At least that certainly appears to be the position that the Chicago Tribune editors are taking:
So while the 59 senators (and 118 House members) dawdle, companies decide not to further invest in dysfunctional Illinois. Credit agencies further downgrade state government. Residents poke “for sale” signs in their front yards.
And if you’re looking for lawmakers who’ll take unpopular votes and actually solve problems, try another state. Illinois has the wrong legislature.
The problem with that is that Illinois representatives and senators are elected from districts and the districts keep returning the same incumbents to office year after year after year.
I’m at a loss to explain it. Stockholm syndrome? Gullibility? The same impulse that moves people to watch houses burning down or gape at auto accidents?
Illinoisans certainly aren’t voting their own interests. What are the alternatives other than a completely different electorate or term limits? And what is the likelihood that the present Illinois legislature, that couldn’t even enact a budget with veto-proof control of both houses, would amend the state’s constitution to impose term limits?
What is the turnout for these elections? Seems like it would be easy to keep A-holes in office if turnout is low.
Using Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan as an example, he ran unopposed in the general election. 91% of Illinois incumbents run without challengers and 88% run without primary challengers.
A typical district turns out something in the vicinity of 40,000 voters and incumbents with challengers generally garner in the vicinity of 25,000 votes.
See here for reference.
CA, although, having a gold-plated image with the coastal wealth of liberal elites, has similar fiscal weaknesses and leadership deficits as Illinois. With it’s high taxes, unfunded pensions, over regulation of businesses, having the highest welfare population in the country, illegal immigration not only unrestrained but encouraged – all under a Democrat super majority leadership – a big cliff looms ahead for this state. And, I doubt they’ll be handing out parachutes as CA falls off it.
This is true in every state and at nearly all levels AFAICT. The favorability ratings for the US Congress usually hover around the same as that for cockroaches, yet they mostly get re-elected. Look at our schools. Globally, Americans complain about education in the US. Locally, they like their schools. Hence, school boards don’t change like they should. (Though I wouldn’t be surprised if they changed more often than Congress or state offices.)
Steve
People liked their own healthcare, too, Steve – 85% when polled before the unilateral PPACA was passed. Somehow, that kind of satisfaction didn’t stop progressives from dismissing that number and trying something new.
Regarding satisfaction for education, anything”new” is instantly attacked by teacher’s unions, and derided for “the sake of the children,” despite polling to the contrary, indicating huge parent dissatisfaction, especially in Hell-hole neighborhoods.
Again, it seems decisions are made on behalf of who maintains control and power, not on creating good, fair policy reaching all socioeconomic stratospheres.
“People liked their own healthcare, too, Steve – 85% when polled before the unilateral PPACA was passed.”
81% are satisfied with Obamacare. If you factor in that many more people actually now have insurance. The absolute number who like their care may be higher.
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/244816-poll-81-percent-satisfied-with-obamacare-plans
But really, the kinds of polls you are citing where you get 85% numbers, or in this case 81%, are not that well done or helpful. If you look at the more detailed polls taken by groups like Commonwealth, the happiness scores are lower, and many other countries have better scores than we do.
“Regarding satisfaction for education, anythingâ€new†is instantly attacked by teacher’s unions”
There are many states where there are no teacher’s unions. How do things fare in those states?
“Again, it seems decisions are made on behalf of who maintains control and power”
Yes. A umber of studies have shown that government policy tends to favor the wealthy.
Steve
Search: “factors that influence voting behavior?”
I have been interested in this for a number of years. That particular search yields 928,000 results. To spare you some effort I’ll try to summarize what I have gleaned over 40 or 50 years of paying attention to these studies.
The overwhelming influences are affiliations. These are (the order may change slightly over the years): immediate family, friends, extended family, coworkers, social groups (church, clubs, etc.), and habitual party identification.
Considerably less influential are: candidate personality, policies, advertising, and party activities (GOTV, yard signs, rallies, etc.).
Once an area reaches a certain threshold it locks in for a generation or two. The “Solid South” was solid unto the 5th generation after the Civil War.
Steve,
The Commonwealth fund in charge of that poll has a variegated reputation. For example, The Federalist has said it has a long history of “cherry picking” information. In fact, Commonwealth’s president, David Blumenthal, was an Obama appointee in 2009, during the infancy of constructing Obamacare. Blumenthal’s next job was in 2012 @ Commonwealth, as it’s president..
Also, the percentages of those satisfied with their healthcare prior to the PPACA, involves a much larger spectrum of people than those currently participating in the ACA – a smaller number of people who formerly didn’t have health insurance or who have heavily subsidized policies. Even this number has decreased from earlier enrollment predictions to 10 million, of which 10% is assumed to not follow through on their enrollment obligations, shrinking that number even further.
Education reformers have long tried to change our archaic school, improving education opportunities, especially in impoverished neighborhoods. Wealthier school districts simply have more advantages than poorer ones, and they can stand on their own merits, accompanied with parent satisfaction for the “public education system.”. It’s the disadvantaged who need the power of “choice,” which is why waiting lists have thousands of names hoping to get their children out of failing school districts and into better charter or privately established education facilities. Even Obama campaigned for charter schools in 2008, until he was pressured by teacher unions to go the other way, advocating against choice leading to the closing down of successful charter schools in DC.
Finally, control and power is not necessarily associated with “wealth.”. Have you never met and tried to reasonably deal with the unreasonableness of a power-hungry bureaucrat???
I’ve dealt with hundreds, maybe thousands of bureaucrats in probably a dozen countries. I don’t think that I’ve ever dealt with one who was power hungry. The maladies I’ve seen include wanting to avoid work, wanting to avoid accountability, and confusing being official with being officious, simply not knowing how to behave.
Dave.
I concur with your observations of bureaucracy. Relevant to this discussion, I think, is Jerry Pournelle’s take:
“Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people”:
First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.”
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html
We’re dealing with several unreasonable, “power-hungry” ones now. And, it has nothing to do with getting our way, but rather having a fair hearing of the circumstances surrounding the issue at hand. These bureaucrats are thriving in having total command of ideological power versus having to consider the full scope of truth or just interpretation of the law.
Such bureaucrats, I’m thinking about, are basically zealot-like, over paid and sitting on enormous public sector pensions. They’ve got it made, and there is nothing anyone standing before their governmental scrutiny can do about it, except follow their demands.