I am not a politician, a lawyer, or even a high-energy activist. I am a high school science teacher (physics and astronomy) in Boulder, Colorado. As an undergraduate I did have a minor in political science and i have a self-interest in better government. After the presidential elections of 2000 and 2016 it has become apparent that the Electoral College is a problem and it is because of this that I submit my polemic. I welcome comments and suggestions as I plan to take this to my current Representative (Ed Perlmutter) and my former Representative (Jared Polis).
In the wake of the 2016 presidential election much attention has been given to the Electoral College and the disparity between electoral votes and the popular vote. I feel that changes need to be made and so I want to find a way to change it. Let me first say that I think the Electoral College was a mistake from the very beginning designed to insure the continued power of the monied class. My first choice would be to elect the president like we elect every other office. Since the Electoral College is part of the constitution (Article II, section 1, clauses 2 & 4, and also the 12th amendment) this would require a constitutional amendment. Amending the constitution is, as it should be, difficult so that is not going to happen. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact requires state-by-state action and is, in my view, equally unlikely. I propose improving the electoral vote system in a way that requires neither of these events to happen.
The Apportionment Act of 1792 stipulated that the House of Representatives would have 105 members and that the numbers of members would be set in the statute. After the 1790 census the size of the House was allowed to grow based on each state’s fraction of the total population with any fractions of a representative being discarded. This was known as the Jefferson Method and was in use until the census of 1830. Beginning with the 1840 census the Webster Method was used where fractions of a representative were rounded up to the nearest while number. In 1911 there was a substantial change that is the source of many of our current problems. The Apportionment Act of 1911 set the size of the House at 435 members with no provision for new states, growing population, or large shifts in population. It is this law that I think needs to be changed.
I propose that the size of the House be allowed to grow as large as is necessary to make the representation of the people as equitable as possible. This is not, in my mind, the perfect fix and it does not solve all problems but it is does put us on the road to better representation. I propose that the size each state’s House delegation be set as a multiple of the population of the least-populous state (currently Wyoming) with the size of each delegation being rounded to the nearest whole number. This would expand the size of the current House from 435 members to 539 and would make for the number of representative per person to be more equal across the states. Currently Liz Cheney (R-WY) represents 568,300 people (based on the 2010 census) while an average Representative from California represents 704,566 people. Under my plan Wyoming’s representation would remain the same while California’s House delegation would grow from 53 to 66 and the average Representative would represent 565,788 people.
There would still be some outliers to this due mostly do the constitutional requirement that every state have at least one Representative. The outsize influence of small states in the Senate would remain and, barring a constitutional amendment, that cannot change. My plan does not affect how states draw Congressional boundaries and it does not affect state legislatures. These are both significant issues but they must be handled on a state level. What this does do is more equitably distribute Representatives based on population and I think that is a step forward.
I have built a spreadsheet where you can see the effects of my proposal here: www.dropbox.com/...