One Solution to Polarization: Multiple-Member Constituencies
Ed Kilgore’s interesting post on polarization in congress seems like a good opportunity to point out that there are some practical, structural steps we could take that would probably reduce polarization. One such move would be to shift from single-member constituencies, where a Congressional District has about 600,000 people and one member of congress, to multiple-member constituencies where larger units are represented by multiple reps elected via single transferable vote.
For example, New York City and its 8.3 million residents might be a single district with 13 Representatives. Odds are that there are enough Republicans in the city to make sure that one or two of those guys would be Republicans. That guy might be pretty right-wing. But he’d still want to stand up for the particularlist interests of the city—for more money for mass transit rather than highways, for example. So an informal group of House members organized to advocate for the interests of urban areas wouldn’t be exclusively Democratic. Applied across the country, it would mean in general that regionality wouldn’t correlate quite as much with ideology, and you’d have more bipartisan cross-cutting coalitions on issues where other kinds of interests trump the main left-right partisan axis.
55 Responses to “One Solution to Polarization: Multiple-Member Constituencies”
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April 11th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
You could accomplish much the same thing by simply expanding the size of the House of Representatives to, say, 600 thereby reducing the number of voters per district and making it harder to have districts like I live in which combines a fairly liberal college town with a lot of rural conservatives who reliably elect wingnuts such as our current rep Paul Broun.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
It’s a good idea, and it’s pretty successful in places like Ireland, but I’m not sure how well it would scale to a country the size of the United States. It might be an attractive option for local government, however.
In any case, it’s unlikely to happen, given the myopic assumption that the founders can do no wrong by politicians and academics alike usually derails any attempt to reform how the legislatures are selected.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I suppose I may be hijacking this thread somewhat, but this seems as good a place as any to propose my half-baked alternate scheme for legislative elections: 435 (or however many) national, at-large seats. No districts, boundaries, or gerrymandering. Vote for whatever candidate you want, top 435 vote-getters get in.
In practice, candidates would have to target their campaigning to specific constituencies (it would do a candidate no good to get more than 1/435th of all votes). These constituencies would generally be geographic, but there’s no particular reason why they would need to be.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Re: Your New York Idea
There is a similar system in Puerto Rico, part of their legislature comes from an at large Island wide list.
It really does nothing to reduce polarization as the Parties game the system.
You should look into it.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
OK, I didn’t read the Kilgore post or even follow the link so I’m not sure I know what is actually being discussed, but isn’t the systme proposed simply one of proportional representation, i.e., the kind used in most advanced democracies and which everyone (who has given it much thought) agrees is fairer than our laughable majoritarian system?
The latter electoral system being, like, the one which our constitution mandates and thus unalterable without an amendment to that document?
April 11th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
What is wrong with polarization?
If one of the nation’s two parties goes insane, you need to reserve the ability to polarize their ass right off the planet.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Another reason it would never happen is that it would end the stranglehold the two parties have over the system.
Also, I don’t agree with the notion that there would be less partisanship, if I understand SRT right. In the scenario of 13 candidates, one would only need like 8% of the vote to get elected. A really hard right or hard left candidate could get that, whereas they would have no chance in a single member district.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
The Illinois House of Representatives used the cumulative vote with three-member districts to mitigate the polarization effect and minimize downstate-upstate polarization in particular (Chicago Republicans actually had a voice in the state legislature). The Chicago Machine was even kept (somewhat) in check. The new governor of Illinois led the charge to end cumulative voting in IL.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
This is perhaps the dumbest idea that Mr. Yglesias has ever endorsed. Take California with 55 congresspeople. How the hell could any voter, other then political junkies like Mr. Yglesias, spend the time to learn the positions of 110 (assuming 2 for each seat) candidates? What would happen is that most voters would throw up their hands and vote along party lines, guaranteeing the Democrats 55 congresspeople in California. Similarly in Texas for the Rethuglicans.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I like the idea of combining the current 435 congressional districts into 87 super-districts (each with 5 seats). In many cases, these super-districts would cross state lines — Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont would together be one super-district. This might reduce the impact of gerrymandering and lead to both more diversity of opinion and less partisan division. For example, in that ME/NH/VT example, that area is now represented by 5 Democrats, but we would likely see it change to a 3/2 or 4/1 D/R split with at least one moderate Republican in the mix. Meanwhile, areas of the South that are sending 5 hyper-partisan Republicans (or maybe four plus one very conservative Democrat) might be a safe for center-left Democrats to emerge. I think it would also lead to more independent and third party representation — we might see some Greens and Libertarians in Congress.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I really like CKs idea for the Senate. There is no reason for the House and the Senate to be elected the same way. Representatives could be elected from single member districts and represent specific geographic areas, while Senators could be elected nationally and represent transgeographic constituencies. The nationwide selection of 34 Senators would be easier for voters to handle than for 435 House members.
There are lots of good arguments in favor of using the single transferable vote, but I’m not sure if ending polarization would be one of them. There is no evidence, for example, that the machine politicians that currently dominate the New York City delegation are less extreme than the various neo-Con Republicans and independents that would replace them.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I doubt if the Democratic Party is going to support doing away with the Voting Rights act and all of the automatic win seats that the Congressional Black Caucs and Congressional Hispanic Caucus has.
As the U.S. become a one party state, won’t the same thing happen inside the Democratic primaries where there will be the black candidate, the Hispanic candidate, the upper middle class white, NGO progressive candidate, etc.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I think this is an interesting idea, but we might not want to completely replace local representatives. So maybe we could convert the US Senate to this system while leave the House the way it is.
One problem, though, is that this will dramatically complicate elections. There will now be hundreds if not thousands of candidates to choose from. Any single voter will not be able to sort through all the possibilities to find their favorite candidates. There will also be the same problem we currently have with third party candidates, but amplified. If there are, say, 100 Republican candidates and 200 Democratic candidates for 100 Senate seats, the Republicans just might take every senate seat because even if Republican voters are in the minority each of their candidates will receive more votes. You could try to solve this with preferential voting but it is unlikely that you will get people to list all 300 candidates in their order of preferences. It’s already hard enough getting people to vote with just two or three candidates.
I think what we’re all really aiming for here is direct democracy, or a good approximation. Perhaps we can keep the existing system but weight each representative’s vote by how many people voted for them. So, if Coleman and Franken each got 50% of Minnesota’s vote, instead of one winning and one losing, both would be placed in the Senate with voting power equal to how many votes they got. Elections could still be local and government would still be representative, but the minority opinions of districts would still be heard and vote would more closely reflect popular will.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Representatives could be elected from single member districts and represent specific geographic areas, while Senators could be elected nationally and represent transgeographic constituencies.
This is against basic constitutional principles of Senators representing the several States, not the country at-large.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Funny when liberals discuss so-called solutions, they always manage to cast away basic, fundamental constitutional principles.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
I’d like a multiple-party system; stronger Green party, stronger Libertarian Party. Then groups would have to form coalitions to accomplish things, and working together would be more the norm.
The world isn’t binary; it isn’t black/white, red/blue. It’s analog, a gradation of colors, ideas, beliefs. An analog political system would be more representative of our population.
April 11th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Funny that conservatives think that the Constitution is immutable (even though it says itself that it isn’t) and that everything that was appropriate in 1787 is also appropriate today, without any discussion of the merits. Myles SG might also note that even in 1787 there was debate about whether representation should be based on states or on population, and that that is why we have a bicameral legislature in the first place.
April 11th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
> I suppose I may be hijacking this thread somewhat, but
> this seems as good a place as any to propose my half-baked
> alternate scheme for legislative elections: 435 (or however
> many) national, at-large seats. No districts, boundaries, or
> gerrymandering. Vote for whatever candidate you want, top 435
>< vote-getters get in.
That is how our town is run: all weak mayor, all alderman elected at-large. In fact a proposal to convert to ward-based voting was defeated a few years ago.
The result is that a very small, very inbred clique of formerly wealthy but not just socially connected/politically powerful families controls the town government, has done so for at least 50 years, and shows no sign of interest in yielding power. The areas annexed during the 1970s with their acres of subdivisions have never had a single successful aldermanic candidate in fact.
Cranky
April 11th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Why would that be a good thing? Reducing or increasing polarization seems like a bad thing to orient political reform around. To some extent it is avery good thing that the two political parties are reasonably well sorted ideologically, but this does increase polarization. Also if big partisan fights occur around issues that really matter that isn’t a bad thing.
April 11th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
As a member of the Democratic Party, I’m glad there is a strong block of Democratic congressmen from New York City.
But as a “Democrat” in terms of an advocate for Democracy, it does appear unfair that if the Republican vote in the 5 boroughs is say 20-ish percent that is a large group disenfranchised.
An alternative could be Mixed Member Proportional representation, which is the system used in New Zealand. Under this system you have some of your representatives chosen in traditional first-past-the-post districts, with the balance chosen by the overall % vote (with a floor % required to get any, from memory I think it is 5%).
So New York would still have say 34 seats, but 17 of these would be representing districts (twice the size of the current districts). The other 17 would be determined by proportional voting.
An advantage then would be that there would be a play for the Republican party to compete in New York if they could get the math to work to get from say 5 to 6 of the seats allocated on a statewide basis, while today there is no real incentive to compete beyond your safe districts. You could also come up arguments for the Democratic party to compete more widely in say Georgia or South Carolina for the marginal seat.
April 11th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Great lead post here. You’re absolutely right that taking on winner-take-all elections is the only way to address the basis of polarization in politics being winner-take-all elections in single-member districts — and that neither winner-take-all or one-seat districts are in the US Constitution.
To see this point visually, visit this map showing US House results in 2008 color-coded by party, also showing presidential results by district:
http://innovation.cq.com/atlas/district_08
The geographic basis for representation is rather stark. For example, every House district touching the Pacific is represented by a Democrat from the Canadian border down to southern California — while every interior district on the eastern border of the Pacific coast states is represented by a Republican. Recent Democratic success has broken up some of the patterns, but they’re still clearly there, and even more so in the presidential map. (And note how the presidential map tells a story. Obama didn’t win that big a majority of districts even with his 7% win in the national vote — in a 50-50 year, the GOP presidential candidate carries a healthy majority of districts, just as they win a majority of states in a way that helps explain why Congress is geographically biased against progressive politics).
A lot of the posts below reflect the need for folks to learn more about this issue, including:
* We’ve had multi-seat House districts for much of nation’s history, including as recently as up to the 1967 law requiring one-seat districts.
* Several leaders in the black caucus of supporting repealing that 1967 law, including top voting rights authorities Jim Clyburn, Mel Watt, Bobby Scott and Alcee Hastings. The DOJ civil rights division testified in favor of doing so in 1999.
* Districts don’t have to be at-large. You can create districts of three-to-five seats. Doing so would still result in good geographic representation, based on the history of STV elections in US cities and other nations
See more at http://www.fairvote.org/?page=37
April 11th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
they always manage to cast away basic, fundamental constitutional principles.
basic, fundamental constitutional principles are things like representative democracy and proportional representation balanced by state representation. Things like which voting systems we use are discussions about mechanisms and implementation of principles, not the principles themselves.
Myles, take some more classes about thinking, and far fewer about finance. You’re clearly not getting your money’s worth in college.
April 11th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
It is depressing not to mention politically disempowering not to be represented by an officials that shares one’s politcal philosophy. But that is the case for up to 50% of citizens when officials are elected from single seat districts. Many more persons would have an agreeable representative if proportional representation were used when as few as, say, four officials were elected from a district. The political empowerment of more citizens would be good for society. And the result would be more equitable and truly representative of the people, as governments in this country are intended to be.
April 11th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
The great thing about proportional systems is that it compartamentalizes the wingnuts.
You might end up having between four and seven parties, each representing different values. Some of those parties will be crazy. There will no doubt be both a hard right party and a hard left party. But the larger leftish and rightish parties do not need to placate relatively small crazy minorities to get stuff done. THAT is great! The main center left and center right parties can point to the crazies and say “they are not us!”
Also the parties will fit your individual political viewpoints better than the two parties you have. You could be a centrist free market liberalist and be permissive on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage.. If you don’t want to go vote for the Libertarians (and I wouldn’t), you have nowhere to go under the current systems.
/Limagolf
April 11th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
We have coalition government now. Look at the congressional Democrats.
In Europe, you fight the election, then form the coalition. We form the coalition, then fight the election.
April 11th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
I think you have misunderstood the idea. Each voter casts only one vote, not 55.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I think this would not be as much of a problem as it seems. Political parties (or independent candidates) would become responsible for targeting their campaigns (essentially, defining their own constituencies), and would almost certainly do so on a primarily geographic basis. It would be bad strategy for parties to push national candidates, since they would have no way to ensure that voters evenly divided their votes up among those candidates.
That’s a good point. I suppose, again, that the parties would have to be smart about how many candidates they actually fielded, but I doubt that could eliminate artifacts like this.
This is intriguing. There is still the problem of deciding how many candidates actually get in, although maybe you could do away with that, too: every declared candidate in any district gets to be in Congress (everyone’s a winner!) with a weighted vote. Fringe candidates might end up with voting power equal to 0.0000001% of the total. Having in-person Congressional sessions with tens of thousands of people is impractical, so those would have to be abolished. Feature, not bug.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Proportional representation, as you suggest, is the best way to ensure that ideas and people with significant support can be heard, even if they don’t have majority support. With PR, someone can get a seat at the table with 20% or 30% support, and there’s not just one winner expected to represent everybody in a district. Many US cities are completely dominated by Democrats, which like any one-party system, has led to massive corruption, lack of accountability, and lack of fresh ideas. New York City had PR in the past; it’s the dominant political system around the world. Time for the US to catch up!!
April 11th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Re ck
I think that Mr. ck misunderstands what I said. Under the Yglesias proposition, if it were implemented in California, each voter would vote for 55 candidates because that state is allotted 55 seats in the House of Representatives. This is because each of the candidates would running at large, instead of in single member districts, just like Senate candidates do now. However, if each party ran a candidate for each of the 55 seats, there would be at least 110 candidates running.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Limagolf (#24) is on to something — and I say this as a card carrying wingnut. While it’s hard to see this from inside the existing two-party arrangement, the electoral prospects of minority viewpoints are inextricably bound to the electoral prospects of the non-partisan (sometimes anti-partisan) middle. Public opinion is pretty much a bell-shaped curve on most issues. But the distribution of opinion among legislators elected by winner-take-all rules looks like the two humps of a camel. It’s not just the two ends of the distribution that are unrepresented, it’s also the middle.
Thanks to Matthew Yglesias for kicking off a very lively discussion. It shows that we need to have a lot more debate, and more thoughtful debate, about proportional representation in the United States. Most activists on this issue feel that the way to succeed is to start with local government. In places where local elections are non-partisan (at least in name), that means the single transferable vote form of PR alluded to by Yglesias. It’s the only form of PR that works without party labels. When we advance to state and national offices, we also have to consider the mixed member form described by scott (#20).
April 11th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
While we’re firmly in the realm of the impossible, let’s get rid of the Senate while we’re at it.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Once upon a time Illinois had a system with some of these features. Illinois House districts were represented by three people, and voters could cast three votes. And I think you may have needed at least one Democrat and one Republican from each district, so you ended up with Republicans representing the South Side of Chicago who deviated greatly from the general Republican platform.
This situation was ended by the Cutback Amendment, which I think is the only amendment ever successfully enacted under the current Illinois Constitution.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Committed public opinion is probably camel-shaped.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
No. Like I said, you’ve misunderstood the idea. Click the link to “Single Transferable Vote” in the original post.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
SLC (#9, #29) continues to misunderstand the single transferable vote, in at least two ways.
First, California would not have to be one big district with 53 seats. Instead, there could be 9 or 10 districts with 5 or 6 seats each. Five seat districts, for example, allows 17 per cent of the voters to elect a representative.
Second, voters do not have one vote per seat. That’s the plurality at large (so-called block vote) system that performs so poorly in many city and county elections today (as someone mentions above, block voting over-represents the largest group and under-respresents everyone else). Instead, each voter has one vote, which she casts by ranking candidates in order of preference. Each voter ranks as many or as few of the candidates as she wishes. From the voter’s point of view, the ballot and voting process are identical to instant runoff voting (IRV), which is being adopted at an increasing rate in the U.S. Typically, in 5 or 6 seat districts, over 90% of voters end up with representatives they actually supported with a high rank on their ballots.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Those who are arguing that multi-member districts elected by STV is unconstitutional should perhaps, um, read the Constitution. According to the Constitution, the States are allocated representatives based on their population, but they can choose them any way they like.
It so happens that there is a federal law that bans multi-member districts, but this could be changed, at a need. (The law was passed in 1967 to prevent southern states from using multi-member districts with first-past-the-post elections to disenfranchise black voters.)
SLC, that is not how it would work, at all. Please read this. (Wikipedia) First of all, California would not all be one district. But even if it were, each voter would simply rank some number of candidates (say five or ten) to indicate his preference. The 55 candidates thereby elected would pretty closely reflect the partisan makeup of the state.
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned that multi-member districts elected by STV would (mostly) eliminate gerrymandering, another huge plus.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Ha ha, all the Republicans (and Matt’s inner Republican) are all for bipartisanship and collegiality now. Yup, time to drop those bitter feelings about how the richest 2% of the country own 90% of us.
Here’s a newsflash- even in South America, traditional home of the oligarchy, people are fed up with how badly it works. Do we really think the good ol’ USA will emerge as the last huge country run by an oligarchy because we want our representatives to feel good about themselves?
A lot of commenters here seem to think the US started with a two-party system and now we need to try something else. In reality, we tried everything else first, and ended up with a two-party system.
Yup, I hear you in the back row, saying “O noes, look at Europe!” Indeed, look at Europe, a nation blasted to smithereens by the multi-party systems that led to WW II, rebuilt from scratch by uneasy coalitions of Socialists and businessmen determined not to kill the egg-laying goose a third time, and “encouraged” to make it work by the proximity of the Soviet Union. I agree, if those things happen to the US, coalition governments will work here too.
Bipartisanship is so David Broder. F**k it.
April 11th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
@29
Why in the world should California be a single district? All Yglesias mentions are “multiple-member constituencies” — three- or five-member districts would fit this bill, dividing California into roughly ten to twenty districts.
Also, in single transferable vote systems like each voter casts a single vote, ranking the candidates in the order they prefer them. This produces roughly proportional representation — Democrats would not win all the seats in California (nor in Massachusetts, which they currently do), nor would Republicans win all the seats in Texas. (Unless, of course, they had at least 75-84% percent support in every single three- to five-member district.)
@32
You did not “need” to have one Democrat and one Republican from each district (laws favoring specific political parties are wildly illegal). However, with three member districts, you would expect parties with the support of more than 25% of the population of the district to elect a candidate. It’s not unreasonably to expect both Democrats and Republicans to be able to get 25% of the vote in any given district.
April 11th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
It’s worth noting that my hometown of Cambridge, MA, uses single-transferable voting (which they call “Choice Voting”) to elect its nine-member city council. You can find some information on it from the Cambridge Election Commission at
http://www.cambridgema.gov/election/Proportional_Representation.cfm
You can also check out the vote counting procedure for the last City Council election in 2007 at
http://www.cambridgema.gov/special/2007/Council%20Round.htm
April 11th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Before that moron Pat Quinn ramrodded a referendum in Illinois many years ago to change it, the General Assembly’s House districts each had three members, no more than two of which could be from the same party. That created a built-in way to assure minority representation in each district, plus since the political minority was guaranteed a seat, it sharply curtailed the power of the regular political establishment. It worked very well. Then Quinn’s referendum passed (he sold it as a cost-savings measure) and what had been a mildly corrupt state lurched towards a state of corruptness that has seldom been seen. Nowadays, the leaders of the political parties call all the shots because they control the purse strings for the parties, and the only ones who have real input into such things as the budget are the “Four Tops” (the majority and minority leaders in the house and senate) and the Governor. But it wasn’t always that way…
April 11th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
For those who don’t know the technical details, the single transferable vote works on the principle that your vote should only be counted if it actually works to elect someone. STV usually works with districts that elect around five representatives. A candidate in a five member district gets elected if he gets 1/6 of the vote plus one. If someone gets more than that, the “extra” votes beyond the threshold are transferred to the other candidates, according to the second choices of those voters. If a candidate is dead last and there are still seats to fill, all of his votes get transferred to candidates who have more votes and are more likely to cross the threshold. Voters have to indicate their second, third, and fourth choices but the system works more cleanly than it sounds.
Imagine if Orioles fans could in September transfer the Orioles wins for the year in September to the Red Sox, to keep the Yankees from winning the division. Of course if some Orioles fans preferred the Yankees a proportion of the Orioles wins go to the Yankees. If the Red Sox wrapped up the division they could transfer any future Red Sox wins to the Rays, if they decided they would rather face the Rays than the Yankees in the playoffs. This is sort of how STV works, allowing for the differences between selecting a political candidate and selecting a baseball team.
April 11th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
I prefer having the Senate selected by proportional representation,but it would take a constitutional amendment to do that, whereas it would only take federal legislation to introduce proportional representation for House elections. Of the proportional representation methods, STV is probably most in line with US political traditions, and works best with the requirement that House delegations be apportioned by states (too many small states for other methods that rely on larger multimember districts to work). Also local party machines have historically too powerful in US politics, and STV works better than party list systems in checking that power, since the voters still elect their representatives directly.
You would simply require states to divide their territory into one member, three member, five member, and seven member districts, with the provision that the number of one and three member districts must be the minimum mathematically possible. Idaho would still return two representatives, both elected from single member districts. California would be divided into ten five member districts and one three member district. There still would be some ability to gerrymander by placing the three member districts in an area dominated by one party, but this would be much more limited than the current opportunities for gerrymandering.
April 11th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Rob Richie says:
* We’ve had multi-seat House districts for much of nation’s history, including as recently as up to the 1967 law requiring one-seat districts.
Really? Can this be done? OF COURSE it’s better to have losers as well as winners seated, so everyone is represented. Systems operating that way are fairer, their citizens are happier, governing is done by coalitions representing a flatter distribution of views, etc. Proportional seating is better, it’s just beyond dispute at this point.
Few stable democracies use the winner-take-all or first-past-the-finish-line systems.
April 11th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
There are lots of good arguments in favor of using the single transferable vote, but I’m not sure if ending polarization would be one of them. There is no evidence, for example, that the machine politicians that currently dominate the New York City delegation are less extreme than the various neo-Con Republicans and independents that would replace them.
April 11th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Re: #43: oops, meant “few advanced democracies”. Did not mean to suggest a correlation between method of electing legislatures and political stability.
April 11th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
It’s worth noting that my hometown of Cambridge, MA, uses single-transferable voting (which they call “Choice Voting”) to elect its nine-member city council.
And if anyone actually understood how it worked, they’d be outraged. The outcome of an election can depend on the order in which the votes are counted. The “Law of Large Numbers” ensures that the outcome probably won’t change under most randomized recounts, but once people become aware of how it works, they will quickly lose trust in the system.
April 11th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
It’s a good idea, Matt. British Columbia is considering moving to STV for voting this May. Not only would it be likely to increase bipartisanship, it also helps third parties and gives them a better chance of winning a couple seats. That would be even better in the US system than in the parliamentary one, because you get the benefits of moving past the two-party system without the problems associated with potentially unstable minority governments.
I think having about 4 members per constituency would be the best amount – obviously things would vary nationwide, Wyoming and North Dakota and South Dakota would each only have one. You need to ensure that the districts merged have similar interests. But it could be very positive.
April 11th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Instant-runoff voting is another way to broaden the influence of third parties, and to reduce recounts. You don’t have to choose between the lesser of two evils, and you get a much more accurate picture of how much support the greens, Libertarians, and other third parties actually have. Not sure why it isn’t discussed more as an option. Minnesota would have been a done deal on election day.
April 11th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
The Declaration of Independence says: “That to secure these rights [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness], governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” My House district seat has been occupied by another party for over 20 years. I am not represented in the Congress that governs me (nor in the California Assembly or Senate). Once elected, incumbent House members win by a national average of roughly 60% to 40%. Of those who still vote, about 40% have no representation in their own governments, neither Federal nor state. If California had 10 five-member House districts, and one 3-member district, to equal our House seat apportionment, there WOULD be Republicans elected in the now all-blue LA, San Diego and San Francisco areas, and Democrats elected in the now all-red interior. A few Libertarians and Greens would also finally win seats. The same thing would happen with the California Assembly. More centrist legislation would pass, and more eligible voters would vote because their votes would be much more likely to elect a choice, and the voter would join with all other voters in having a say in their governance.
On state and the national senates: The US is the only one of the 21 developed democracies where the upper house has any real power. When the US goes to proportional representation, and the voters come to trust the House and assemblies because of PR, then we should also depower the Senate, like the rest of the developed democracies.
April 11th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Arabian or Bactrian?
April 11th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
It’s coming up to the 100th anniversary of the House having 435 members. That it remains at 435 is just fucking stupid. There’s not much that can be done, even if you had an 900-member House, to provide the kind of member:population ratio that you find in countries with multiple-member constituencies. That ratio only exists at the state legislative level, and state legislatures are basically made up of fuckwits, machine pols, nonentities, and people with their eye on federal office as soon as possible.
Could electoral reform improve the connection that voters have with their state government? I suspect so, and I’m intrigued by the old system in Illinois to ensure minority representation.
Still, New York City’s an anomaly. There are about 20 American cities with municipal populations over 600,000, and half of them have a population under 800,000. The big problem comes when, say, a city like Austin (about the size of a congressional district, by current apportionment) gets parceled up into multiple districts to dilute its vote. And even multi-member districts could be hobbled by gerrymandering.
April 12th, 2009 at 4:10 am
I think the single transferable vote would be great for non-partisan local races like city council, board of supervisors, etc. After all the idea of a legislative body is to represent the various diversities of society. However, when we elect people to partisan positions such as U. S. House of Representatives and state legislatures, I suggest another form of proportional representation known as the list system. Most democracies around the world use such systems. Primaries could be used for each party to arrange their list of candidates and then in November simply vote for the party of choice. That should open the door for a real deversity of representation.
April 12th, 2009 at 9:24 am
So who wants less polarization anyway? I’m actually sort of surprised to see this coming from Matt, whom I didn’t think was one of those who saw bipartisanship as an end in itself. To repeat an argument that’s been made about a billion times: polarization is good. It makes it a lot easier to figure out whom to vote for when you don’t necessarily have a lot of information about the individual candidates.
April 12th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
How many of the folks advocating alternative electoral arrangments on this thread have ever lived under such systems or paid close attention to the way they actually work?
Call me crazy, but I sort of like the American system when the neo-Nazi nutjobs can only be implicitly neo-Nazi nutjobs as opposed to a system that allows them to be explicitly neo-Nazi nutjobs and still garner some percentage of elective offices.
Mike
April 16th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
If we use PR in state legislative elections and keep winner-takes-all elections for other elections then there’ll still be two dominant parties, but it’ll be harder for either one of them to dominate our state politics and thereby our national politics.
Check out the initiative written for CA: Project Democratic Renewal.
It’s futile to get the two main parties to permit an even playing-field, but one does not need such to make the system work for more people on more issues in what can be termed justly as a trickle-up reform to our system.
In this approach, if a neo-nazi group wants to run for office, they might conceivably win a state-seat or two but they’ll never gain influence on their distinctives. The continuing predominance of the two main parties, plus a little more exit threat to local third parties, will serve as a bulwark against extremists from both sides gaining power.
dlw