OK...so in a recent thread, in which gerrymandering was extensively discussed...as well as possible solutions for dealing with it...something was raised which piqued my interest and I felt it deserved its own Diary.
What came up was The Permanent Reapportionment Act of 1929 — which, to change, would only require action by the US House of Representatives. It was suggested, originally that this could be repealed, but I see no real need to reason to repeal it...merely to revisit it — as it was last revisited in 1941.
Much has changed since 1941, and some inadequacies have crept into the system, and some were deliberately placed there, anyway. Bottom line, the number of Reps was capped at 435, and the formula for apportionment of those reps is what was last visited in 1941.
One of the current and glaring disparities is the deviation from the premise of one person, one vote...because when you take Alaska’s 3 EV’s and divvy that up among the population of Alaska, the end result is that a vote from AK has about 3 times the strength of a vote from CA, with it’s 55 EV’s divvied up among its much larger population.
So, first, let’s talk about the cap and apportionment. Below is a list I came up with, using 2018 population numbers. I began with the state with the lowest population and used that for a baseline, affording one Rep for every 600,000 residents. This, in my view, should then carry across all other states, you get one Rep for every 600,000 residents, approximately.
For this — I used normal rounding rules to round population of each state to the nearest hundred-thousand. Then divided by 600,000 — but in this case, always rounding downward, so that a state that would get 5.83 Reps would still get just 5 and not 6.
This was the result:
Rank State Population — Reps/EV’s
1 CA 39.8 mil = 66/68
2 TX 28.7 mil = 47/49
3 FL 21.3 mil = 35/37
4 NY 19.9 mil = 33/35
5 PA 12.8 mil = 21/23
6 IL 12.8 mil = 21/23
7 OH 11.7 mil = 19/21
8 GA 10.5 mil = 17/19
9 NC 10.4 mil = 17/19
10 MI 10.0 mil = 16/18
11 NJ 9.0 mil = 15/17
12 VA 8.5 mil = 14/16
13 WA 7.5 mil = 12/14
14 AZ 7.1 mil = 11/13
15 MA 6.9 mil = 11/13
16 TN 6.8 mil = 11/13
17 IN 6.7 mil = 11/13
18 MO 6.1 mil = 10/12
19 MD 6.1 mil = 10/12
20 WI 5.8 mil = 9/11
21 CO 5.7 mil = 9/11
22 MN 5.6 mil = 9/11
23 SC 5.1 mil = 8/10
24 AL 4.9 mil = 8/10
25 LA 4.7 mil = 7/9
26 KY 4.5 mil = 7/9
27 OR 4.2 mil = 7/9
28 OK 4.0 mil = 6/8
29 CT 3.6 mil = 6/8
30 IA 3.2 mil = 5/7
31 UT 3.2 mil = 5/7
32 NV 3.1 mil = 5/7
33 AR 3.0 mil = 5/7
34 MS 3.0 mil = 5/7
35 KS 2.9 mil = 4/6
36 NM 2.1 mil = 3/5
37 NE 1.9 mil = 3/5
38 WV 1.8 mil = 3/5
39 ID 1.8 mil = 3/5
40 HI 1.4 mil = 2/4
41 NH 1.4 mil = 2/4
42 ME 1.3 mil = 2/4
43 MT 1.1 mil = 1/3
44 RI 1.1 mil = 1/3
45 DE 900,000 = 1/3
46 SD 900,000 = 1/3
47 ND 800,000 = 1/3
48 AK 700,000 = 1/3
49 DC 700,000 = 1/3
50 VT 600,000 = 1/3
51 WY 600,000 = 1/3
Total 328.2 mil = 535/637 = 319 to win
Thus you would re-set the cap at 535 Reps from the current 435. And the above apportionment, based on population as described above.
You could make an argument for adding one to each state listed below, as they come close to a threshold:
RI, MT, KS, LA, AZ, TX — yielding 541, with 322 to win
By the same argument — the following might also get allotted one extra: OK, WI, MI — now you get 544 with 324 to win
There would be no case for further rounding down reps, as this number was always rounded down, if a state in my initial list would get 5.83 reps they were allotted 5 thus the argument that states like that might have 1 added to them, so taking that final step, then, you might argue to add one to each of these: SD, DE, SC, CO, MA, WA, GA, OH, FL — so now you are at 553 with 328 to win.
Now, some have argued that some states have higher proportions of non-citizens, CA, TX, FL and NY come to mind here...so you might make an argument to reduce them slightly...which I could live with.
So, now, let’s talk about fair districting, and what rules for that might look like:
1. Districts should be as regularly-shaped and compact as possible, while each containing roughly the same number of residents.
2. Where possible, communities should not be divided into different Districts. Obviously with large urban areas and large communities this may not always be possible, you could not, for example, have the entire city of, say, Philadelphia in one District. So, in these cases, the lines should follow neighborhoods — and preferably along a major road, or natural feature, like a river — keeping like communities together as much as possible.
3. Where possible, Counties should not be split, and lines should follow existing County lines where it is possible to conform to the equal-population rules above. This, by the way, was done with some success in Pennsylvania recently...there are very few split counties, I believe 8 or 9 of PA’s 67 Counties got split...most of them in the manner I described above and for the reasons above, though, in a few cases, some existing lines were preserved, such as in my old District 17 versus District 11 (respectively Cartwright and Barletta) — that line was preserved, even though it shaved off the southern part of Monroe County for no apparent reason other than to give Barletta an edge in Hazleton.
4. Where Counties must be split, the line of demarcation should, again, be a major highway, or a natural feature such as a river or a mountain range — this got done a few times in the above-mentioned PA redistrict, some lines did follow rivers.
5. There is never a reason, short of population, to split any County between more than 2 Districts. Again, in some cases, this is not avoidable, for example, Philadelphia County.
Any more ideas here for some fair redistricting rules??
Later, I will try to make a map I believe would closely resemble fairer Districts for my own state of North Carolina...which follow the rules such as I described above.