Re-Democratizating the House Part II

As I further entrench myself into the blogosphere, I am enjoying reading other people’s blogs, which is something I suppose I ought to do more of, since I hope that people will read mine.  I have been reading comments others have had about the democratic (or non-democratic) nature of the U.S. Congress, and read this left-wing rant during my search.

http://joshuacolwell.com/blog/index.php/2006/disproportionate-representation/

One of the serious problems with the reform movements in America today is that they are almost all ideologically driven, and as a result, they will never gain traction.  Mr. Colwell’s comments, for example, specifically cite Michael Moore as a reliable source.  Worse, his argument is that the United States Senate is not democratic enough.  The trouble, of course, for that perspective, is not only that the Founders intended for the Senate to not be democratic, but also that it makes good sense that it continue to be that way.

From the beginning, the idea of the Senate was that it was to be comprised of senior statesmen who were elected by the state legislatures to represent the interests of the states as a whole, rather than some dubious majority of the people of a state. It was further to be responsible for maintaining a balance of power between the states and the federal government (for those not studied in the political science literature, it is what is known as “federalism”).  Since the Senators were elected by the legislatures of the states, their interest (assuming they wanted to get re-elected) was to preserve the power and authority of the states.  With the Progressive Era and the advent of direct elections, we have seen a constant decline over the course of the last century of state authority, with the only protections and reversals coming from rulings handed down by the Rehnquist Court.  

For example, Mr. Colwell, in his blog, says “So, while a solid majority of Americans voted for Democrats in the Senate, the Senate became strongly Republican...The ratio of voters gives Wyoming almost 67 times as much representation in the Senate as the California voter.”  He then notes that the Senate was intended to be non-representational.  That, of course, is not quite accurate.  It was intended to be representative of the States, not of the overall population.  He confuses his terminology, assuming that if the Senate is not representative of the people of the country as a whole, then it is not a representative body.

I am, however, sympathetic with his concerns.  He, too, recognizes that the fact that well over 90% of the House is re-elected every two years evidences that the House is not ideologically representative of America as a whole. I think many people, both Right and Left, from Michael Moore to Pat Robertson, would agree that there is not enough representation of their views in Congress.  The people in the middle often complain of that as well.  Changing the House of Representatives is the best way to remedy this problem.

Imagine that the House of Representatives, hypothetically, has a membership of 10,000.  In this scenario, there would likely be a growth in the number of third party and independent members of the House, for a couple of reasons. First, the average cost of campaigns for Congress would diminish immensely.  If each Congressman represented 30,000 constituents on average, a person could get elected to Congress without even running a significant media campaign, and could theoretically survive on door-to-door campaigning and a limited direct mail effort.  Simultaneously, though, the national parties would have to spread their resources extremely thinly across the 10,000 races, and as a result, create a more level playing field for third party and independent candidates.  

Second, because the constituencies will be markedly smaller, there is an increased likelihood that voters will have had personal contact with the candidates in the race.  Statistics have shown that voter contact with a candidate from another party substantially increases the probability that the voter will be willing to abandon their normal party identification when they vote.  

Now, one of the general arguments against SMDP (Single Member District Plurality) systems is that minority ideologies are generally not congregated in heavy concentrations geographically, and that consequently those ideological minorities are not represented in Congress. The same could be said of several racial and ethnic minorities that are spread out across the country.  The solution to this, in my view, is to appropriate 9,000 of the 10,000 members to be represented by SMDP and the remaining 1,000 to be elected by Proportional Representation, where voters are able to cast a vote for the party of their choice and the parties receive membership in the House based on the percentage of the vote they receive.  For example, if the Republicans received 32% of the vote, the Democrats 28%, the Libertarians 13%, the Greens 12%, the Constitution Party 7%, and the Communist Party 5%, and Reform Party 3% then for the 1,000 seats elected by Proportional Representation, the House’s breakdown would be as follows:

Republican: 320 Seats
Democrat: 280 Seats
Libertarians: 130 Seats
Greens: 120 Seats
Constitution: 70 Seats
Communist: 50 Seats
Reform: 30 Seats

This, combined with whatever the parties receive in the SMDP elections, would result in a far more ideologically, sociologically, and racially representative membership of the House of Representatives.  It would further bring national focus to Congressional elections, and there would be increasing incentives (especially for those elected by the Proportional Representation method) to represent the entire country rather than paying so much attention to pork barrel spending for one’s district.  It would bolster the position of the smaller parties on the national stage, give the opportunity to be competitive in meaningful local elections, and overall make the political process more competitive.  

Subsequent blogs will outline how I think this would all work logistically.