Over 200 Political Scientists Publish Statement in Favor of Multi-Member U.S. House Districts

On September 19, over 200 U.S. political scientists published an open letter calling for Congress to pass a bill for multi-member U.S. House districts, combined with proportional representation. The group is organized under the name “Scholars for Redistricting Reform.” See the statement here.

A bill has been pending in Congress to make that change. It is HR 3863, by Congressman Don Beyer (D-Virginia). He has introduced it for several sessions of congress now.


Comments

Over 200 Political Scientists Publish Statement in Favor of Multi-Member U.S. House Districts — 16 Comments

  1. Let’s go better yet with Constitutional amendment.

    Change prez to 3-year term, but 3 terms, not 2.

    Change House to 3-year terms, Senate stays 6 but 1/2 each 3 years.

    Can Electoral College. Direct popular vote for prez.

    Add about 250 “National Representatives” chosen by proportional election.

    Add about 50 “National Senators” and claim texualism of Constitution is equal votes to other states on Senate.

  2. Direct popular vote for President does not solve the basic problem of plurality voting. You can still get a minority President. Bill Clinton never got a majority of the popular vote, either in 1992 or 1996.

    The great unacknowledged benefit of the electoral college is that it allows every state to use whatever voting method it prefers. Maine and Nebraska already have chosen alternative voting methods. Very hard to do this with any sort of national direct vote.

    To make the popular outcome more proportional to whatever voting method is used, it would be best to expand the size of the House of Representatives. The Wyoming Rule is the minimal solution that can do this. It would increase the House, and the electoral college by about 100-150 members.

    And, IMO, the best way to create multi member districts, and reduce gerrymandering, is to require minimum district size. A district could be no smaller than 1,000 square miles, about the size of Rhode Island. This would mean that rural districts would probably continue to be single member, which is probably their natural preference, while metro areas would have multi member districts.

  3. Disco Stick is still pathetically trolling for attention with his lies about who I am when he’s repeatedly been told he’s wrong, including by Winger himself, ergo, it’s lying. Unfortunately, you can’t block Dum Fuqs here. For all I know, YOU ARE Stock. “stick” = “stock”?

  4. Walter, I didn’t say it expressly, but of course I’d require an absolute majority, not a plurality. And, given the importance of one person in the presidency, NO IRV. French-style short turnaround actual runoff.

  5. @Walter Ziobro…. I personally prefer the cube root method. Take the total US population, take the cube root of that and then add 100 more seats to that. Ideally use an additional member proportional system with multi-member districts. Currently that would get a house of about 795.

    Expand the senate to 12 seats a state and use single transferable.

    Presidential electors based on number of reps would then be awarded by district; electors based on number of senators would be state wide proportional to the top three vote getters in the state.

    Total electoral college count would be 1395. 795 house and 600 senate.

  6. I have advocated for this change for years. It also needs to include an increase in the number of house seats too.

  7. @ Aiden:

    I acknowledge that there are other formulas for expanding the House. The main virtue of the Wyoming Rule is that it is the easiest way to determine the minimum number of additional seats needed to achieve proportionality.

    As for the Senate, I would keep the number at two per state, but I would split up any states that had more than 5% of the total US population. Currently, there are four such states, California, Texas, Florida and New York. A careful division of such states should enable a close Red-Blue balance of states, a la Missouri Compromise.

    I favor ranked choice voting for Presidential electors, but there are different RCV methods that can be used in particular states. In hotly contested battleground states, they should probably be chosen by district, like Maine, to minimize the imagined or actual effect of fraud affecting the total award of votes. Other states could use proportional RCV to minimize the spoiler effect of third party candidates.

  8. Altho, for the Presidency, my long term solution would be to abolish the sole Presidency altogether, and replace it with a Swiss style joint Executive Council. The Presidency has become much too powerful, and each major party is too jealous not to possess it.

    The method of selection should be such that there would always be representatives of all major parties on the Executive Council, thus making it hard for anyone of them to make decisions based on inside information hidden from the others.

  9. @Walter Ziobro… I actually agree with you on dividing large states, but I again prefer a different formula….. My preference is a hard cap of 12 million per state. My method would see the four you named and Pennsylvania and Illinois divided. California in at least 4, Texas into 3, and Florida, Pennsylvania, New York, and Illinois in half.

    12 million also lines up with my 12 senators per state number…. so no senator could rep more than 1,000,000. This would not only create more diverse representation at the federal level but also give more autonomy to local regions by creating more state governments.

    I’m actually working on a platform for a new party. Here’s the platform plank on electoral reform from it:
    http://www.aidenjames.me/elecreform.pdf

  10. The garbage comments on September 20, 2022 at 11:09 am, 1:41 pm and 1:42 pm are from Robert K Stock.

  11. How much can increasing the number of Representatives elected by censored ballots change anything? Ballot access by voter verifiable write-in ballot WITH more Representatives. How many? No more than will fit into a major sports arena.

  12. Don’t fix what isn’t broken. The one member one district system is best, and besides the day of the rope is fast approaching.

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