Opening Brief Filed in Ninth Circuit in California Case Over Population of Legislative Districts

On June 3, this opening brief was filed in the Ninth Circuit in Citizens for Fair Representation v Newsom, 18-17458. This is the case that says the federal Constitution is violated by the extremely large population of California legislative districts. They are approximately 1,000,000 residents per State Senator, and 500,000 for Assemblymember.


Comments

Opening Brief Filed in Ninth Circuit in California Case Over Population of Legislative Districts — 5 Comments

  1. Interesting. The Tactical Civics organization is shooting for 50,000 per Congressional district: https://tacticalcivics.com/ That’s almost fifteen times increase over the current configuration. I do not see anything on their site regarding state legislatures, but would assume they would support increases there as well. New Hampshire has the largest state legislature in the country but one of the smallest populations. The National Conference of State Legislatures has some good information: http://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/sizes-of-legislatures.aspx

  2. Sorry — NO mention of any max pop/voters per legislator in the 1787 USA Const. with all Amdts.

    SANCTIONS ON THE MORON LAWYERS ???


    PR AND APPV

  3. How many voters EVER see a USA Rep/Sen showing up at the voter’s home — and asking for his/her opinion on ANY-thing ???

    LONG past time to DIVIDE the USA ??? DUH.

    PR and AppV

  4. Abolish the USA minority rule Senate.

    Divide ALL larger pop States.

    See which econ survive.

  5. The complaint suggests that extremely large districts are racially discriminatory.

    California should combine the John Cox proposal for a 12,000 member legislature, with ranked choice voting and weighted representation.

    Cox’s proposal would have created Assembly districts of 5,000 persons and Senate districts of 10,000 persons. Legislators from roughly 100 of these districts would choose one of their members to serve in Sacramento. That member could be recalled at any time. The full body would vote on final passage on all bills. Ordinary members would be paid $1 per year.

    But single-member districts would exacerbate the difference in voting population among the districts. While a few independents might be elected, because of the possibility of personal campaigning in small districts, there will overall be only a small increase in pluralism.

    So instead we could elect members from 5-member districts using STV. The districts would still be small enough for personal campaigning, but too small for mass media. They would be 1/20 the size of existing assembly districts.

    But instead of equal population, districts should have equal numbers of voters. 1500 voters sould be able to elect a representative regardless of where they live.

    But there is no need for precise equality. In a direct democracy, if 1200 voters from an area vote a certain way, it counts as 1200 votes. We don’t treat it as approximately one thousand votes. Similarly, if 1200 voters want Abigail as their representative, there is no reason to ask them for a second choice. Simply let Abigail exercise 1200 votes, as if the voters had given her their proxy. If they preferred Bob or Carla, they c/would have voted for them.

    This is how it would work. Voters would mark their ballots 1, 2 , 3, etc. If a voter failed to rank at least 3 candidates, the ballot would be spoilt and discarded. To ensure full preferences, an exhausted ballot would revert to the preference order of the voter’s first prefeence. A voter who didn’t rank all candidates, would in effect defer to his preferred candidate’s advice.

    The quota would be calculated statewide, by dividing the total vote by 8000. Based on the 2018 gubernatorial race, this would be 1559. We don’t want any member to have too much power so we set a Limit of 4/3 the quota. And we don’t want any member to have too little power so we set a Threshold of 2/3 the quota.

    Counting proceeds as normal, except only surpluses above the Limit are redistributed, and any candidate above the Threshold will not be excluded. Votes may be transferred to candidates above the Limit, with further redistribution of surpluses (New Zealand method).

    A district with more votes will tend to elect more members, and perhaps with more voting strength, but any individual voter will have identical voting strength through their representatives. This means there will be much greater flexibility in devising districts.

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