And again. That’s is the result of the Rs and Ds. Not the Senate being 2 per state.
Election Prediction Thread
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And again. That’s is the result of the Rs and Ds. Not the Senate being 2 per state.
Zombie
Well-Known Member
Right, I am suggesting a new law be passed to raise that number to allow for more accurate representation. Right now as a Wyomingite my Representative in the house represents 500,000 people. More populous states like Texas or California have reps that represent around 750,000 people. That bakes in more representative power to small states which already have an advantage in the Senate.
OK? Not sure what your point is here.
Zombie
Well-Known Member
Oh I see what you are saying. Yeah I agree that tweet was a poor one to make that point with.
That the organization of the Senate is fine. It’s the parties. Not the organization. Same point for a few pages now.
Back to the House.
If we go by 500k per state that’s over 650 seats right now. That’s a massive increase. Wonder what it would look like... Utah would go form 4 to 6 to start with.
But that’s only a “short term” solution. As the population will keep growing. Would we keep adding every census? That’s over 50 more a decade right now. For example 1990 there were 258.7 million and in 2000 there were 291.4. That’s an increase of 33 milion. That’s 66 new house seats ...
I just don’t see that as the solution. Maybe taking the total US population every 50 years and dividing by 435 and then dolling that out by state would be a better solution.
Zombie
Well-Known Member
OK, I guess I'm a little confused here because I haven't been arguing that the organization of the Senate needs to change.
500k per rep seems fine to me for the time being. I think it makes sense to have one rep for the least populous state and then use that states population as the benchmark. I get that would be a huge increase, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It would mean better representation per citizen, tying our federal representatives more closely to their communities.
Zombie
Well-Known Member
This is nice little infographic which shows how our House of Representatives compares with other countries legislative bodies wrt people per reprentative. We often wonder why our government doesn't represent our needs very well, I think expanding the house could alleviate that somewhat. I pulled that from this article:https://www.vox.com/2018/6/4/17417452/congress-representation-ratio-district-size-chart-graph
It's a pretty interesting read. Especially this bit:
As a historical side note, the US almost adopted a constitutional provision that, today, would likely require Congress to have 6,489 members. The Congressional Apportionment Amendment was one of the 12 amendments first proposed and passed by Congress in 1789. Ten of those amendments were ratified quickly by the states and became known as the Bill of Rights. The 11th, which delays all congressional pay increases from taking effect until the next term of office, was sent to the states in 1789 but finally ratified in 1992, becoming the 27th Amendment, after lobbying from a UT Austin student named Gregory Watson.
The 12th, the Apportionment Amendment, has languished unratified by the states, apparently by accident. In just the past decade, archival research has suggested that Connecticut ratified the amendment in 1790 without Congress noticing, meaning it should have taken effect upon Vermont’s ratification in 1791. But the Supreme Court in 2012 rejected an appeal to get the amendment recognized, and so, despite apparently going through all the steps to become part of the Constitution in 1791, it remains unratified.
I'm kind of on board with the idea of a "single transferable vote" where we vote with a preference 1-whatever and if our #1 vote getter is eliminated our vote goes to the next on our list. I could care less about our 2 party system, because a different way of voting would nullify that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_transferable_vote
By contrast, Montana has the most populous Congressional district at close to 995,000, diluting their popular vote.
Any number you pick for the House of Representatives will see districts of unfair sizes (large or small) show up in less populous states.
I like this idea. We need to break out of the two-party gridlock. Most parliamentary systems get to make up a government by agreement between parties big and/or little. You get to vote for your man who will do that deal to gain power for you.
I have rarely voted R or D, until recently. Now I am just so disgusted with Ds I stopped voting C or L or writing names like John Wayne on the ballot. I wouldn't vote for Jeb, though, like I didn't vote for Romney. Ever.
Well, one or two more stars in Missoula will tip that over. So the house seats are rounded to the nearest 750K or whatever. But the Census counts illegals and non-citizens and they count in that calculation, which undermines the actual citizen voters in some States, giving other States with disproportionate numbers of non-citizens, like CA, more representatives.
Dems love this. Plus "community organizers" like Obama and a lot of other dems think non-citizens should have the right to vote, too. And they help them to do it.
Lying again...because you're a liar.