I see this suggestion a lot: Why not end gerrymandering by making standing counties the voting districts?
And many people point out that counties within states vary widely in population and you’d have unequal representation. And that’s absolutely true. But guess what… in the US House of Representatives we already have unequal representation. Just as bad, really. For example…
- Montana has one House seat: 994,416 people per Representative
- New York has 27 House seats: 719,298 people per Representative
- California has 53 House seats: 704,566 people per Representative
- Rhode Island has 2 House seats: 527,624 people per Representative
Seven states (Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, and Montana) have only one House Representative and will likely never get a 2nd one. Several other states are in danger of having their number whittled down to one. It’s just going to get worse as the overall population grows and concentrates.
A BETTER option would be to take the entire US population and divide it equally, roughly 710K per House Representative. And if the district boundaries bleed over state lines, so be it. In fact, I think that would be a huge benefit. It would keep the states out of drawing district lines and it would force the representatives to focus more on issues of their constituents rather than “Go State!”.
We have the Senate for state representation, the House should represent the people independent of the states.
Just because we’ve done something one way for 200+ years does not mean it can’t be improved, and I believe this would be an improvement. Let’s review…
- True equal representation
- Eliminate state interference (gerrymandering as we know it)
- Downplay state-centric bias.
I’m failing to see a downside.
Source for numbers: 2012 – 2020 Federal Representation by People per House Seat, Senate Seat, and Electors
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