Hot and Sticky

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Here in Sacramento, it is hot and sticky. I am spent most of the day in the house, cooking lunch for the upcoming week (Mayra helped a lot), participating in 3 conference calls and coping with the weather. Right now, we are cooking a stuffed bell pepper with ground beef and making macaroni salad.

I like to relax on weekends and Sundays in particular. There is something to be said about calm before the week storm. It is also important to be able to find shelter in the form of meditation, exercising or cooking throughout the stormy week. It helps maintain some degree of sanity.

Over the past few days, I have been trying to figure out how I can explain to people my views on representative government. Specifically, how I think we should increase the size of the California state legislature from 120 to something greater (I am shooting for 360 or 480 for the sake of “ranging” the debate).

The National Conference of State Legislatures has a page about this very issue. The size of the state legislature affects just about everything.

I do not believe we can depend on 40 and 80 people (or 120 total) to effectively represent the diverse geographic, political, economic, social and fiscal interests of a 35+ million person state. What has been rattling my brain the past few days is how to construct and deliver a convincing argument for increasing the size of the legislature.