Why the US Should Ratify the Congressional Apportionment Amendment(astralcodexten.com)
astralcodexten.com
Why the US Should Ratify the Congressional Apportionment Amendment
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/last-rights
6 comments
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.
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.
As long as it’s free and can be obtained easily without onerous requirements, sure.
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.
I tend to agree subject to the condition states pay for the ID creation, and provided states mandate this themselves. I agree because some better operational control wouldn't hurt.
The fed has no real business here. Hell, the clowns on the hill can't handle what they should have been doing all along. It's something like 10 years since the last time budgets got done in regular order. Debt, interest on the debt are big problems. The DOD can't pass an audit. We have a war in Iran without congressional authorization. Let's face it: congress is an institutional zero.
Trump has the devil's problem, except even the devil isn't that stupid. He says 2+2=4 (analogously show id). But there's no trust. Moreover trump is replete in attempts to cheat, distort, and corrupt voting. Nakedly so. Therefore, he is his own worst enemy here.
Cheating or errors don't alter elections. Trump et al lost 10s of cases saying otherwise. Trump is all talk. No reality. It must suck to be him.
But you know what would help more? Getting the people who don't vote at all out. Thats some 40ish percent of all Americans. In Brazil you are fined for not voting.
The fed has no real business here. Hell, the clowns on the hill can't handle what they should have been doing all along. It's something like 10 years since the last time budgets got done in regular order. Debt, interest on the debt are big problems. The DOD can't pass an audit. We have a war in Iran without congressional authorization. Let's face it: congress is an institutional zero.
Trump has the devil's problem, except even the devil isn't that stupid. He says 2+2=4 (analogously show id). But there's no trust. Moreover trump is replete in attempts to cheat, distort, and corrupt voting. Nakedly so. Therefore, he is his own worst enemy here.
Cheating or errors don't alter elections. Trump et al lost 10s of cases saying otherwise. Trump is all talk. No reality. It must suck to be him.
But you know what would help more? Getting the people who don't vote at all out. Thats some 40ish percent of all Americans. In Brazil you are fined for not voting.
I have lived in multiple States and the only time I did not have to show an ID to vote was in Florida in 2020.
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.