NYT: California's Far North Deplores 'Tyranny' of the Urban Majority

[Nyvin]

These fine folks should file to have their districts protected by the Voting Rights Act.

Why bother?   They already get their own district: CA-1

[Devout Centrist]

F**k Jefferson, those whiners can secede if they want to. They'll be broke and in a crisis within three years.

...

Okay, okay, I'll give a more thoughtful take. Look, I do think that more representation in the state legislature is a valid goal for people in California who feel ignored. There's definitely a need to care about rural concerns and foster a culture that respects their needs. I don't think increasing the size of the legislature will do all that much to fix the problem, however. Increasing the size of the Senate might, but if the Assembly grows proportional to population growth, nothing will change.

It would be great if the state could pass a Rural Security Act, aimed at building infrastructure and providing anti-poverty measures for the Northern and Central parts of California. Ironicallly, proponents of Jefferson would likely oppose such a measure in principle.

It should also be noted that California appoints an independent commission that is responsible for all redistricting. So gereymandering really isn't a problem. I would like it if we adopted an STV at the state level, but would that really change much?

[Beet]

Another example of the heinousness of the Electoral College - this time for people who think "rural people are helped by it." Another example is upstate New York, as jfern pointed out. No, the Electoral College doesn't help rural people.

[DrScholl]

The how idea that rural areas should get more seats than larger, urban areas makes no sense. The problem is that the Republican legislators that they elect are too conservative to push for more infrastructure for rural areas and are more focused on making statements.

[Kringla Heimsins]

Who would have thought private corporations aren't interested in buildings rural infrastructures? Maybe muh big gubmint is really useful after all.

[Holmes]

Yes, I can understand their grievances. I come from Northern Ontario and a good 85%+ of ridings come from Southern Ontario. But just like Northern California, it's tough titties because that's where all the population is, so it gets the seats. They should be cared for (health care, infrastructure, jobs) more than they currently are but they shouldn't have a bigger seat at the table just because there are much, much less of them.

These fine folks should file to have their districts protected by the Voting Rights Act.

Yes, all 1 out of 53 of their congressional districts.

[KingSweden]

In all fairness, CA (and TX for that matter) should expand their legislatures, ideally by 50% in each house.

[RINO Tom]

Oh wow, an article detailing the plight of people in rural areas. Really needed another one of those. 

You really shouldn't have that username...

[Antonio the Sixth]

I do believe rural residents should relocate to urban areas if they can (both for economic and environmental purposes)

Really? I find it very disturbing that large swathes of Western countries are turning into depopulated wastelands as population increasingly concentrates into a few gigantic metropolises. It doesn't strike me as a sustainable trend at all (think of skyrocketing housing prices, urban sprawl, etc.).

In all fairness, CA (and TX for that matter) should expand their legislatures, ideally by 50% in each house.

More like 500% for the Assembly (and abolish the Senate).

[JA]

I do believe rural residents should relocate to urban areas if they can (both for economic and environmental purposes)

Really? I find it very disturbing that large swathes of Western countries are turning into depopulated wastelands as population increasingly concentrates into a few gigantic metropolises. It doesn't strike me as a sustainable trend at all (think of skyrocketing housing prices, urban sprawl.

I find it disturbing only insofar as that is occurring without any adequate long-term vision to shape policy responses to these positive trends. What's wrong with depopulation of vast swaths of land? Those areas could be converted into greater forest coverage, wildlife sanctuaries, productive farmland, or some other societal or ecological positive, rather than letting dilapidated homes stand and shuttered factories rust.

Increased urbanization is a good thing as well; if coupled with policies, such as those implemented in Tokyo, that disregard the protestations of homeowners to build additional housing projects, construct more skyrises for low income and working class families, develop 21st century green public transportation systems, tackle property speculation and purchases by wealthy foreign buyers, and eliminate the 1950s American ideal of a large single-family house in the suburbs, while implementing rent controls and dramatically expanding public housing (along with options for workers to buy low-cost public housing), most of the problems associated with skyrocketing urban living costs would be eliminated.

Those are all tall tasks and quite fantastical from the viewpoint of a deadlocked American government and disproportionate rural and suburban influence over politics, but they're all perfectly legitimate and effective responses to our problems.

[publicunofficial]

At least California isn't actively conspiring to make rural conservatives lives worse, like how red state governments treat urban voters.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I do believe rural residents should relocate to urban areas if they can (both for economic and environmental purposes)

Really? I find it very disturbing that large swathes of Western countries are turning into depopulated wastelands as population increasingly concentrates into a few gigantic metropolises. It doesn't strike me as a sustainable trend at all (think of skyrocketing housing prices, urban sprawl.

I find it disturbing only insofar as that is occurring without any adequate long-term vision to shape policy responses to these positive trends. What's wrong with depopulation of vast swaths of land? Those areas could be converted into greater forest coverage, wildlife sanctuaries, productive farmland, or some other societal or ecological positive, rather than letting dilapidated homes stand and shuttered factories rust.

Increased urbanization is a good thing as well; if coupled with policies, such as those implemented in Tokyo, that disregard the protestations of homeowners to build additional housing projects, construct more skyrises for low income and working class families, develop 21st century green public transportation systems, tackle property speculation and purchases by wealthy foreign buyers, and eliminate the 1950s American ideal of a large single-family house in the suburbs, while implementing rent controls and dramatically expanding public housing (along with options for workers to buy low-cost public housing), most of the problems associated with skyrocketing urban living costs would be eliminated.

Those are all tall tasks and quite fantastical from the viewpoint of a deadlocked American government and disproportionate rural and suburban influence over politics, but they're all perfectly legitimate and effective responses to our problems.

That's fair. I still have the feeling that there's something missing in this vision (maybe it's simply the fact that I, personally, would rather spend at least my older years in a more bucolic context and feel like urban life necessarily gets draining after a while), but I don't have any policy objection to it as such.

[Sumner 1868]

When they had a non-binding vote on this in 1992 even Mendocino County voted to join what would be Jefferson.

[mvd10]

I f**king hate how this f**king urban-rural divide has become the cornerstone of US politics - as evidenced by some replies in this very thread.

Any political coalition that's based mainly on urban or mainly on rural interests as such is a terrible coalition that has no right to exist.

Completely agree

[Virginiá]

    Not to mention that Wyoming has zero representation in the California state government. It sounds silly to say that, but people are conceiving of this in the wrong terms. Making it about the federal government is highly disingenuous when the issue at stake is the state government. These people are upset with being ignored, and half the posts in this thread are deflection based on "they share superficial similarities with these other people who are not being ignored!" That is not a response.

Let me put it another way then: the system is not designed to properly represent people if they decide to cluster in a handful of large population centers. The issue exists even at the state level. I don't think my comment about the federal govt was disingenuous, either. The article stated one of the people was literally wanting "the people with power" to give up some of their power so the people up North could have more of a say, as to which my point was that the system already favors them, even if it favors them even more at the federal level, which isn't their main concern here. If Democrats have to rely on state power because their power at the federal level is in part hurt by their concentrated voter base, why should they also give up their state power?


Edit: I feel I should also note that yes, rural Californians might not care how things work outside of their own area, but that is the kind of discussions you'll have when you talk about changing how their leaders are elected.

So I just like to think of what someone in an urban area who is aware of all this might think. Why should they want to give up more influence in a system that already values their votes less? Where does it end?

[Badger]

These fine folks should file to have their districts protected by the Voting Rights Act.

They already have an overwhelmingly white majority district.

How's your resistance to the War on Whites going?

[Devout Centrist]

These fine folks should file to have their districts protected by the Voting Rights Act.

They already have an overwhelmingly white majority district.

How's your resistance to the War on Whites going?

He's put five more loads into his body pillow!

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Oh boo hoo, the poor northern white folk feel ignored and people have to feel sorry for them.  I'll start caring when they start publishing stuff about the African Americans in Rural Alabama and Mississippi who are ignored, or the Hispanics in Southern Texas.

So you don't care if people who endure the horrors of poverty as long as they're white? Are you a f-cking sociopath?

Or I rather not have article after article on these "noble folks" while huge minority populations are ignored and pushed under a rug by both the right and white liberals.

Isn't your wing of the Democratic Party primarily interested in chasing the concerns of upper middle class white suburban fiscal conservatives?

[JerryArkansas]

Oh boo hoo, the poor northern white folk feel ignored and people have to feel sorry for them.  I'll start caring when they start publishing stuff about the African Americans in Rural Alabama and Mississippi who are ignored, or the Hispanics in Southern Texas.

So you don't care if people who endure the horrors of poverty as long as they're white? Are you a f-cking sociopath?

Or I rather not have article after article on these "noble folks" while huge minority populations are ignored and pushed under a rug by both the right and white liberals.

Isn't your wing of the Democratic Party primarily interested in chasing the concerns of upper middle class white suburban fiscal conservatives?

My wing of the party is fighting for the rights of LGBT people's.  And if you mean Clinton people, as many others have said, they have no party wing, but are a coalition of many different wings, like the above mentioned.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Oh boo hoo, the poor northern white folk feel ignored and people have to feel sorry for them.  I'll start caring when they start publishing stuff about the African Americans in Rural Alabama and Mississippi who are ignored, or the Hispanics in Southern Texas.

So you don't care if people who endure the horrors of poverty as long as they're white? Are you a f-cking sociopath?

Or I rather not have article after article on these "noble folks" while huge minority populations are ignored and pushed under a rug by both the right and white liberals.

Isn't your wing of the Democratic Party primarily interested in chasing the concerns of upper middle class white suburban fiscal conservatives?

My wing of the party is fighting for the rights of LGBT people's.  And if you mean Clinton people, as many others have said, they have no party wing, but are a coalition of many different wings, like the above mentioned.

Your brave leader waited until 58% of Americans supported SSM to support it.

[JerryArkansas]

Oh boo hoo, the poor northern white folk feel ignored and people have to feel sorry for them.  I'll start caring when they start publishing stuff about the African Americans in Rural Alabama and Mississippi who are ignored, or the Hispanics in Southern Texas.

So you don't care if people who endure the horrors of poverty as long as they're white? Are you a f-cking sociopath?

Or I rather not have article after article on these "noble folks" while huge minority populations are ignored and pushed under a rug by both the right and white liberals.

Isn't your wing of the Democratic Party primarily interested in chasing the concerns of upper middle class white suburban fiscal conservatives?

My wing of the party is fighting for the rights of LGBT people's.  And if you mean Clinton people, as many others have said, they have no party wing, but are a coalition of many different wings, like the above mentioned.

Your brave leader waited until 58% of Americans supported SSM to support it.

Jfern, you have anything else to do but sh**t on every thread with anti-Clinton and anti-dem establishment (by which I mean anyone who didn't endorse Bernie) ranting?

[BudgieForce]

Oh boo hoo, the poor northern white folk feel ignored and people have to feel sorry for them.  I'll start caring when they start publishing stuff about the African Americans in Rural Alabama and Mississippi who are ignored, or the Hispanics in Southern Texas.

So you don't care if people who endure the horrors of poverty as long as they're white? Are you a f-cking sociopath?

Or I rather not have article after article on these "noble folks" while huge minority populations are ignored and pushed under a rug by both the right and white liberals.

Isn't your wing of the Democratic Party primarily interested in chasing the concerns of upper middle class white suburban fiscal conservatives?

My wing of the party is fighting for the rights of LGBT people's.  And if you mean Clinton people, as many others have said, they have no party wing, but are a coalition of many different wings, like the above mentioned.

Your brave leader waited until 58% of Americans supported SSM to support it.

Jfern, you have anything else to do but sh**t on every thread with anti-Clinton and anti-dem establishment (by which I mean anyone who didn't endorse Bernie) ranting?

I don't get why people bother to defend someone as obviously terrible as the Clintons. You'd have thought you people would move on to less toxic corrupt lying neoliberal hawks who will run this country into the ground.

The left throws the term Neo Liberal around so much I think its lost its meaning.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I do believe rural residents should relocate to urban areas if they can (both for economic and environmental purposes)

Really? I find it very disturbing that large swathes of Western countries are turning into depopulated wastelands as population increasingly concentrates into a few gigantic metropolises. It doesn't strike me as a sustainable trend at all (think of skyrocketing housing prices, urban sprawl, etc.).

This is ideal. Rural land values will plunge, leaving more land for me.

[krazen1211]

These fine folks should file to have their districts protected by the Voting Rights Act.

Why bother?   They already get their own district: CA-1

Districts, plural. One is nice and two is better. The claim would start with Del Norte County being made to suffer agony by being placed into Congressional and legislative districts thrust into the Bay Area rather than obtaining representation of their own values and interests. The same is true with Trinity County in the state Senate map.

[publicunofficial]

Forcing all rural people to move into cities sounds like a horrible idea on multiple levels.