things kevin hates

There’s 50 states in the USA. And 49 of them have something horribly wrong with their state governments. The sole exception? Nebraska. And what does Nebraska do right? They have a unicameral state legislature. Uni-what? Instead of having a senate and a house of representatives (or whatever the equivalent names are in various states), they have just a single chamber.

Some background: the US has a Senate and a House of Representatives. As you may or may not remember from your 10th-grade American History class, this was a compromise between the states with small populations (who favored an equal number of seats for each state) and the large states (who favored seats based on population). Eventually Roger Sherman masterminded the Connecticut Compromise, which led to our bicameral federal legislature.* Continue reading ‘bicameral state legislatures’

The Supreme Court has done some stupid things throughout the years–Dred Scott v. Sandford, anyone? Today I’d like to discuss a very recent, shockingly stupid decision, one which was attacked by a diverse coalition, everyone from the NAACP to the AARP to the Libertarian Party. That decision is Kelo v. New London. New London is a Connecticut city of some 26,000 people. Since the city was a rusted out dump (albeit one with lots of pretty old buildings), some folks in the city government decided that they should seize some old houses so that they could give it to a business which would redevelop it as a commercial property. Continue reading ‘kelo v. new london’