Discussion: House incumbency bonus

[MrPotatoTed]

Hi all,

There's been a lot of talk (most recently in the Ideologies playtest, but also elsewhere) about whether incumbent Reps should be restricted to running only in the same district they won in.  The rules don't say one way or the other, which I need to fix.  But for now, I open the floor for discussion.

For the purpose of this discussion, assume that PA should have 30 Reps total, and 7 of them are actually named.

Considerations:

1)  The "Districts" aren't meant to be literal districts.  It's an abstraction, because we don't name every single Rep in the House.  So if somebody wins the PA-1 election, they aren't meant to literally be the Rep for district 1.  They're just one of the seven most important PA Reps in the House.  With this in mind, it makes sense that you can run for any seat you want.

2)  "Districts" do have party preferences which may differ from state party preferences.  This was done to allow for things like real-life Kevin McCarthy having a chance to actually run for office, since he's a Republican in an extremely blue state (but a red district).  The largest states have a seat or two with a strong minority party preference.  Therefore, districts do have some level of distinction between them.

3)  I considered opening it up into a "all PA Rep candidates compete in a single race, no restrictions on how many each faction runs and no primaries -- top seven winners get the House seats."  However, the game was not designed or balanced for this, and in particular we may not get the minority representation that we need from the big states.  (Though maybe a work around would be that we dictate PA for example would have at least 4 blue Reps and 2 Red reps, with the 7th Rep being either party -- I'm just making that up, it would need to correlate to the state's party preference at any given moment.)

4)  State sizes and number of reps change over time, so even if Reps are limited to their current district, we need to allow for incumbents who lose their districts to compete in someone else's district?

Anyway, opening the floor for discussion.  I'll wait a few days to listen to the debate before making a decision (if @vcczar doesn't make an official decision prior to that).

[vcczar]

3 minutes ago, MrPotatoTed said:

Hi all,

There's been a lot of talk (most recently in the Ideologies playtest, but also elsewhere) about whether incumbent Reps should be restricted to running only in the same district they won in.  The rules don't say one way or the other, which I need to fix.  But for now, I open the floor for discussion.

For the purpose of this discussion, assume that PA should have 30 Reps total, and 7 of them are actually named.

Considerations:

1)  The "Districts" aren't meant to be literal districts.  It's an abstraction, because we don't name every single Rep in the House.  So if somebody wins the PA-1 election, they aren't meant to literally be the Rep for district 1.  They're just one of the seven most important PA Reps in the House.  With this in mind, it makes sense that you can run for any seat you want.

2)  "Districts" do have party preferences which may differ from state party preferences.  This was done to allow for things like real-life Kevin McCarthy having a chance to actually run for office, since he's a Republican in an extremely blue state (but a red district).  The largest states have a seat or two with a strong minority party preference.  Therefore, districts do have some level of distinction between them.

3)  I considered opening it up into a "all PA Rep candidates compete in a single race, no restrictions on how many each faction runs and no primaries -- top seven winners get the House seats."  However, the game was not designed or balanced for this, and in particular we may not get the minority representation that we need from the big states.  (Though maybe a work around would be that we dictate PA for example would have at least 4 blue Reps and 2 Red reps, with the 7th Rep being either party -- I'm just making that up, it would need to correlate to the state's party preference at any given moment.)

4)  State sizes and number of reps change over time, so even if Reps are limited to their current district, we need to allow for incumbents who lose their districts to compete in someone else's district?

Anyway, opening the floor for discussion.  I'll wait a few days to listen to the debate before making a decision (if @vcczar doesn't make an official decision prior to that).

It's mainly point #1. At some point, I want the literal districts, but someone would have to help me add 10,000+ more obscure US Reps and failed US Rep nominees. 

[Bushwa777]

I like number 1 but could see number 3. 

V lets plan on adding all the rest in ampu 3

[vcczar]

1 hour ago, Bushwa777 said:

V lets plan on adding all the rest in ampu 3

If I’m still alive then. 

[Arkansas Progressive]

Due to redistricting irl sometimes maps draw two incumbents into the same seat so two incumbents can fight for the nomination in point 1. We can either tiebreaker the "true" incumbent - and the bonus associated with it - or not. 

[OrangeP47]

We've had absolutely no issue whatsoever in 1840 with how reps are working and I strongly oppose fiddling with anything any more.  That said, what's made it work for us:  We are treating reps, once elected, as "assigned" to the "district number" they were elected in.  I get people want abstraction, but you can't always get what you want.  I want a million dollars and literally nobody else to use the road system except me when I'm out driving, but that's not practical.  This is what works.

There are some considerations regarding redistricting, specifically when a state shrinks the number of focus reps, but we already talked this out and patched it a few months ago and as far as I'm aware it's still in the rules unless someone deleted it by mistake again.  The short summary:  When a state loses a district, temporarily allow primary rules to be ignored so that incumbents can challenge each other if need be for that one election only (along with the AI agreeing to do so), with the biggest deal really being that the ideo rule is ignored so a mod can challenge a mod, etc.  The only reason we only brought that up in the first place (and this will likely get some people to remember), is the very fringe case when all incumbents were the same AI faction, in which case we had it so seniority is the decider (and if not, random).  This is simply the most practical solution.

[10centjimmy]

The CPU rules are fine where they're locked in, but a point of contention here is that multiple human incumbents are challenged each other. And as they aren't specifically in a district, they're more challenging for the influential position. So should they be allowed to challenge in spite of both having the same ideology?

[OrangeP47]

1 minute ago, 10centjimmy said:

The CPU rules are fine where they're locked in, but a point of contention here is that multiple human incumbents are challenged each other. And as they aren't specifically in a district, they're more challenging for the influential position. So should they be allowed to challenge in spite of both having the same ideology?

Like when a state went from 2 districts to 1?  Yes.

Any other time, no.

I don't understand why this is even a question, I consider this asking "can I cheat"

[OrangeP47]

That said, if this is coming from 1928, I don't know the context of what's been going on over there.  I've just felt like this has been a settled question for awhile now.

[10centjimmy]

20 minutes ago, OrangeP47 said:

That said, if this is coming from 1928, I don't know the context of what's been going on over there.  I've just felt like this has been a settled question for awhile now.

I'm not sure we've had 2 incumbents running against each other in a district before. It just doesn't happen. In this case, it did happen in a state that didn't lose a district. 

Why does it matter if a district were lost? If that were the case, are two incumbent candidates of the same ideology then prevented from running against each other?

[ebrk85]

3 minutes ago, 10centjimmy said:

I'm not sure we've had 2 incumbents running against each other in a district before. It just doesn't happen. In this case, it did happen in a state that didn't lose a district. 

Why does it matter if a district were lost? If that were the case, are two incumbent candidates of the same ideology then prevented from running against each other?

It hasn't happened in the modern test, 48 or 1800 because I haven't let it happen. I had thought this was previously settled as well. If they are in MA-1 they have to run for reelection in MA-1. So outside of elections post-census you would not ever have any incumbents running against each other.

[OrangeP47]

5 minutes ago, 10centjimmy said:

I'm not sure we've had 2 incumbents running against each other in a district before. It just doesn't happen. In this case, it did happen in a state that didn't lose a district. 

Why does it matter if a district were lost? If that were the case, are two incumbent candidates of the same ideology then prevented from running against each other?

Basically, say you have two districts.  Those two districts have two reps.  They're incumbents.  Census happens.  The state now has one district, but you have two incumbents.  Who gets to run if they're both mods?  See the problem.  In this scenario we've been saying a mod can run against a mod, but ONLY in this scenario.

[10centjimmy]

5 minutes ago, OrangeP47 said:

Basically, say you have two districts.  Those two districts have two reps.  They're incumbents.  Census happens.  The state now has one district, but you have two incumbents.  Who gets to run if they're both mods?  See the problem.  In this scenario we've been saying a mod can run against a mod, but ONLY in this scenario.

I understand the reasoning, that isn't in 2.95.

Either way, I think in 1928 I relied on my playtesters to maintain their districts and in the specific seat I let it slide thinking the state lost a seat, where it hadn't. 

[OrangeP47]

2 minutes ago, 10centjimmy said:

I understand the reasoning, that isn't in 2.95.

Either way, I think in 1928 I relied on my playtesters to maintain their districts and in the specific seat I let it slide thinking the state lost a seat, where it hadn't. 

It went in for the CPU logic at least or at least V told us he'd add it in.

[ebrk85]

That we can all agree on. Whatever the official rule is it needs to be added to the rules.

[Umbrella]

I'm biased since I was the one affected, but I agree with Orange and Eric on this one.  I realize they are not literal seats per se, but if we have incumbents bouncing all over the place, things can get very confusing, and it feels to me like a way to game the system.  

The way I've been playing is to run my incumbents in their seats, even if it is disadvantageous to me.  For example, I have a blue politician who I continue to run in a red district because his +2 incumbent outweighs the +1 red.  My take is that if/when he loses, then I can run him in a different friendlier district.

I also agree that if a state loses a seat due to census or event or whatever, that is a different story.  Waiving the ideology rules makes sense to me at that point, but I would also wonder how to determine which seat is lost.  This is important because of the party biases certain seats have.  I see a section regarding the bias in remaining seats for a state that lost a seat, but not which seat is lost.

[Arkansas Progressive]

I mean by default the seat with the largest n would be removed. Same as irl

[OrangeP47]

4 hours ago, Umbrella said:

I'm biased since I was the one affected, but I agree with Orange and Eric on this one.  I realize they are not literal seats per se, but if we have incumbents bouncing all over the place, things can get very confusing, and it feels to me like a way to game the system.  

The way I've been playing is to run my incumbents in their seats, even if it is disadvantageous to me.  For example, I have a blue politician who I continue to run in a red district because his +2 incumbent outweighs the +1 red.  My take is that if/when he loses, then I can run him in a different friendlier district.

I also agree that if a state loses a seat due to census or event or whatever, that is a different story.  Waiving the ideology rules makes sense to me at that point, but I would also wonder how to determine which seat is lost.  This is important because of the party biases certain seats have.  I see a section regarding the bias in remaining seats for a state that lost a seat, but not which seat is lost.

Highest number is always removed, how biases are set up SHOULD take that into account and it would really only be a "problem" if you had a state with WIDELY more/less EV than historically, and by that I mean at least 11 plus or minus what it had for that decade.  To be fair, that is doable, but you'd have to be doing it deliberately, so I don't really think it's something we need to "patch".

[OrangeP47]

Just now, OrangeP47 said:

Highest number is always removed, how biases are set up SHOULD take that into account and it would really only be a "problem" if you had a state with WIDELY more/less EV than historically, and by that I mean at least 11 plus or minus what it had for that decade.  To be fair, that is doable, but you'd have to be doing it deliberately, so I don't really think it's something we need to "patch".

I mean hell, it was a struggle enough just to get Delaware to 4.

[Arkansas Progressive]

1 hour ago, OrangeP47 said:

I mean hell, it was a struggle enough just to get Delaware to 4.

Oh God 6 EV Delaware is cursed