Quotation Of The Day: Unicameral Legislature Edition

From Justin Green and Matt Yglesias:

Matt Yglesias urges states to slim down their legislatures:

At the national level, we have a bicameral legislature because of the overall workings of the federal system. But the non-Nebraska states have bicameral legislatures for no real reason. If you simply eliminated the lower houses, you'd end up with substantially fewer state legislators. Then you could pay them more and offer them more staff. It'd also be easier for citizens to keep track of who their elected officials actually are (can you name who represents you in your state legislature?) and make the electoral competition for the seats more fearsome.

Open question: why do states have two chambers? (Seriously).

The U.S. Senate is the product of a compromise between the states. Why do states need to emulate that model?

I wonder what this would mean for South Dakota. The State has a lot of legislators for its population. It certainly seems as if the unicameral would be cheaper.

The Problem That Treating Grammar As A Science May Soon Cause Me

The Oklahoma legislature is considering a bill that will prevent a student "in any public school or institution" from being "penalized in any way because the student may subscribe to a particular position on scientific theories."

I'm sure the intent of the bill is to allow students to express religious beliefs in science class. If some Oklahoma young'un wants to contend that the earth is only 6,000 years old, the biology teacher who is discussing evolution cannot penalize the student.

I'm not sure if Gus Blackwell, the bill's author has thought through the ramifications of the bill's language. Since some contend that grammar is science, that same Oklahoma young'un could turn in poorly written papers because grammar is a scientific theory with which she or he disagrees. The young'un may even try to use French sentence structure and Spanish vocabulary in an English class.

Of course, one could always contend that Yoda provided the only way to communicate. Overreach the problem frequently is.