Why the US Should Ratify the Congressional Apportionment Amendment

kemotep

The Apportionment Act of 1929 fixing the size of the House and by extension the Electoral College, has had massive distortionary effects on politics in this country. The 1 seat per 50,000 from the article is a little obscene. I think switching to cube root apportionment and single at-large approval vote would be my preferred choice. With cube root 1 billion citizens would result in a Congress with 1,000 members. A single national at-large district with party list approval voting would entirely eliminate the possibility of gerrymandering. But even multi-member State-wide districts with approval or ranked choice would still go a long way. Of course that still leaves the Senate but at least for the House these reforms would be massive. I would eliminate the Presidency too but that’s whole other story.

pyuser583

This would not help with gerrymandering. Extremely small districts are much more likely to be homogeneous, ideologically and otherwise. It might make it harder to get disproportionate percentages, but the politicians themselves are extremely unlikely to represent diverse constituents. Even worse is the smaller number of constituents holding their legislators to account. 50,000 people per district, let’s say 40% vote, that’s 20,000 electors per legislator. I’d rather have lots of people keeping their eyes on my representative, not fewer. I’ve never had difficulty getting the attention of my representative. They respond quickly. Smaller electorates result in poorer quality politicians. This happens when city wide elections are converted to district based elections - quality and accountability go down. This is would be a House of Aldermen.

silexia

This is a great idea, but without voter ID and photo requirements, no one will be able to trust our elections anyways. Every other major democracy uses voter ID and we use voter ID for everything from buying beer to gaining entry to a politician's events. It's time we protect our elections.

lickmygiggle

As long as it’s free and can be obtained easily without onerous requirements, sure.