The senate was conceived at a time when the most populated states were filled with slaves and disenfranchised poors who couldn’t vote. There’s no reason to discard a longer-termed gerrymanderjng-immune chamber of Congress just because we want the 70 million Americans in California and Texas to not be subjects of the 1 million in Vermont and Wyoming.
Stacking the senate to reflect population is fine. Especially if we change the house to only care about voters
The reason they’re gerrymander immune is that they only have two reps that aren’t up for election at the same time. If you award seats proportionally Californa will have roughly a dozen seats in the Senate. What would be the schedule and process for electing them all? Why not just use that process for a single legislature?
Having all of Congress be at-large would essentially eliminate gerrymandering by just letting any majority in a state decide everything.
I think thats the single worst change we could make, beating out term limits. ~Because if only lobbyists and staffers can be long-term careers we’d never have principled professional politicians, just short-term figureheads~
“At Large” means that the senators would be elected by the whole state, which is the only way to avoid gerrymandering and identical to how the current rules work.
It’s not the only way. Larger multi-member districts also work.
And while we’re re-writing the whole constitution, we could do lots of things. Like requiring algorithmically generated districts, to remove the possibility of any arbitrary bias.
Algorithmically generated districts just give a sharper target, and allowing the existing systems to include multi-member districts just makes gerrymanding easier.
The only way to prevent gerrymandering is with either districts that don’t change (statewide), or changing the rules of the legislature so gerrymandering doesnt matter
My favorite potential fix is direct proxy voting. Tie vote weight in the legislature to how many citizens voted for you, and send either the top N vote-getters or everyone who gets at least X% of the votes cast to the legislature.
The senate was conceived at a time when the most populated states were filled with slaves and disenfranchised poors who couldn’t vote. There’s no reason to discard a longer-termed gerrymanderjng-immune chamber of Congress just because we want the 70 million Americans in California and Texas to not be subjects of the 1 million in Vermont and Wyoming.
Stacking the senate to reflect population is fine. Especially if we change the house to only care about voters
The reason they’re gerrymander immune is that they only have two reps that aren’t up for election at the same time. If you award seats proportionally Californa will have roughly a dozen seats in the Senate. What would be the schedule and process for electing them all? Why not just use that process for a single legislature?
CA can have four at-large seats for the whole state up for election every two years.
They would have the same long-view that existing senators have, and would not be internally less responsive than the current system
That sounds great.
Just use that in the House.
Having all of Congress be at-large would essentially eliminate gerrymandering by just letting any majority in a state decide everything.
I think thats the single worst change we could make, beating out term limits. ~Because if only lobbyists and staffers can be long-term careers we’d never have principled professional politicians, just short-term figureheads~
What does “be at-large” mean?
We’re talking about a kind of stagered multi-member districts.
“At Large” means that the senators would be elected by the whole state, which is the only way to avoid gerrymandering and identical to how the current rules work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-large
It’s not the only way. Larger multi-member districts also work.
And while we’re re-writing the whole constitution, we could do lots of things. Like requiring algorithmically generated districts, to remove the possibility of any arbitrary bias.
Algorithmically generated districts just give a sharper target, and allowing the existing systems to include multi-member districts just makes gerrymanding easier.
The only way to prevent gerrymandering is with either districts that don’t change (statewide), or changing the rules of the legislature so gerrymandering doesnt matter
My favorite potential fix is direct proxy voting. Tie vote weight in the legislature to how many citizens voted for you, and send either the top N vote-getters or everyone who gets at least X% of the votes cast to the legislature.