On January 17, the West Virginia House Judiciary Committee passed HB 4002. Currently West Virginia’s lower house has many districts that elect several Delegates. The bill would end multi-member districts, and provide for 100 single-member House districts. It would take effect after the 2020 census.
Currently there are eleven House districts with 2 members, six with three members, two with four members, and one with five members. There are also 47 that only have one member.
In committee, the vote was 12-6, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed.
Bit more difficult to rig single member gerrymander districts ???
WV apparently got the MMD due to the 1863 creation of WV via the Union Army occupation during Civil War 1 ??? — County Reps = Total Reps x County pop / Total pop ???
PR and AppV
I think they should be kept, and plural voting changed to allow multiple votes for one person. Moves nearer proportional rep.
Multi-member was the norm in the United States, since it avoids division of counties, and apportionment consists of a mathematical formulas, and perhaps joining a few smaller counties into districts. Remember that the size of counties is based on a farmer to get his wagon to the county seat and back during daylight, and farms had to be large enough to support a family and small enough to not require hired help or slaves. So counties have similar areas, and similar population. Apportionment might result in counties having either one or two representatives, with perhaps one large county with three, and some counties joined into a district, particularly along the frontier (e.g. Michigan was settled south to north, so there might be multicounty districts in the north, until the counties were settled).
Urbanization messed this up. In 1974, Kanawha County had a 17-member district, with 17 Democrats. As one man one vote decisions, required greater district equality, county boundaries as district boundaries began to disappear. A county entitled to 1.6 representatives could not be apportioned 2 representatives, and if it were entitled to 1.4 it could not have one.
In West Virginia this led to a very ugly system of multi-member districts, and single-member districts, most of which only vaguely correspond to counties. That 1.6-representative county might have areas from adjacent counties attached and remain a two-member district. The 1.4-representative county might have areas chopped off. In doing so, attention might be given to incumbents so that they could run for re-election in their county.
In 1972, West Virginia had 34 districts, only 10 were single member. It now has 67 districts, with 47 that are single member. It appears that over time, single member districts were lopped off so that they could elect Republicans, while Democrats could maintain control of a multi-member district. If a 6-member district becomes competitive, there is a risk of all 6 seats flipping, or at least some members of the minority party being elected. Of West Virginia’s 20 multi-member districts, 13 have divided delegations.
Republicans were elected in 35 of 47 single-member districts, but only have 30/53 of the multi-member district representatives. They may be able to lock in their control with single-member districts.
Both MMD and SMD permit minority rule and deny having any *real* minority representation — up to 49.9999 percent in each rigged district.
PR and AppV
Also the math obvious — UNEQUAL voting powers of Voters to elect legislators —
1 in SMD1, 2 in MMD2, 3 in MMD3, etc.
I thought the SCOUS declared them un-constitutional decades ago?
MS – MMD abolished only apparently in racist regimes — via 15th Amdt and 1965 VRA – esp in ex-slave States —
at large legislative bodies — white majorities — NO minority blacks elected — esp in counties
— now rigged SMD to elect blacks via local black majorities.
The number of lawyer and judge math MORONS is beyond belief — major brain ROT — total math stupidity.
@Michael Skaggs,
In ‘White v Regester’, the SCOTUS affirmed a lower court decision against multi-member districts in Dallas and Bexar counties, because they discriminated against minority voters. On remand, the district court made the same finding for all counties except Hidalgo, which is 90%+ Hispanic.
The SCOTUS had been begging for a case that showed MMD discriminated either racially or politically. As far as I know, no case has ever been brought on the basis of political discrimination.
In Texas, the Supreme Court has interpreted the state constitution as permitting single-member districts, in effect a manner of election, while generally maintaining the apportionment of representatives by county.
In most states court decisions over the decades have led states that had based representation on apportionment among counties to give up MMD, particularly where there was great variance. West Virginia is an outlier in the amount of variation. The other state with large-magnitude districts is New Hampshire, which has a 400-member House. Rather than chopping up small towns, they elect members at large, and also use floterial districts. New Hampshire has 214 districts, which elect between 1 and 10 members.
There are a few states that elect two representatives from each legislative district, or most all districts, including Washington, Arizona, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, and New Jersey. In South Dakota, two legislative districts are divided into subdistricts with one primarily on an Indian Reservation.
Women are twice as likely to be elected in WV’s multi-seat districts than in WV’s single seat districts!