65% of U.S. adults say the way the president is elected should be changed so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide wins the presidency.
65% of U.S. adults say the way the president is elected should be changed so that the winner of the popular vote nationwide wins the presidency.
In 1929, each representative represented about 283k Americans. Now each representative represent about 762k Americans. That’s almost a 300% increase. This means each American’s voice is only about 1/3rd as powerful as it was in 1929. To have as much political power as they did in 1929, we’d need about 1200 Representatives.
I don’t see a problem with that.
And yet, having more representatives fundamentally reduces the power of each as well. Your vote is fundamentally worth less as the population increases. Something you’re just gonna have to come to terms with.
I’m ok with my vote meaning more or less as long as it’s the same vote everyone else gets…that’s not the case with the current system.
Would there be any way to have everyone keep the same voting power while the population tripled?
Sure, you just define the problem differently. Instead of saying that there are X representatives in total, you just say there should be 1 representative for every 283K citizens. In this way the number of representatives naturally scales with the population.
This is basically what the Wyoming Rule does. It sets the ratio in the lowest population State, currently Wyoming, as the ratio for everywhere. Wyoming currently has 500,000 people and 1 Representative. That means the HoR would expand to something like 580 Seats.
We could change the math, and the name, to the “1929 Rule” and set the ratio 280,000 to 1. I’m actually fine with an HoR that has 1,200 people in it but either way the Re-Apportionment Act of 1929 needs changed and the HoR needs expanded.
Good point - it’s not about power because everyone else also gets that extra power up. It’s about equity.
And we can achieve now that through fairness in redistricting.