It is clear, the American system is failing to meet the needs and preferences of the general population. We have of course known this for some time. Professors Martin Gilen (Princeton) and Benjamin I. Page (Northwestern) released a rather famous and compelling study demonstrating this reality.
In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.
While it is certainly open to debate whether or not it is desirable that simple majority rule is ideal or even preferable, the defeat of meaningful measures to reduce prescription costs just recently clearly indicative of the barriers to change in our system. This article gives a pretty good illustration of the problem.
Schrader and Peters are among the two biggest recent Democratic recipients of pharmaceutical industry donations, according to OpenSecrets. The pharmaceutical and health products industries are collectively the second biggest donor to both lawmakers over the course of their careers, giving them almost $1.5 million in total. Peters is currently the House’s top recipient of pharmaceutical industry donations in the 2022 election cycle.
Democrats are on the path to squander what mandate they have by ignoring the popular will of the people. This is not really about the individuals in these offices, they are simply following the incentives baked into the way our system is structured.
So how do we salvage American Representative Democracy?
Over the last few decades, a lot of talk has been bandied about regarding campaign finance reform. And from Granny D, to the death of Paul Wellstone and the Citizens United decision the issue has rotted on the vine. And while I agree that campaign finance is important, the problem with our system is more fundamental than that.
For me, the fundamental structure of our legislative branch is the problem. So over the last weekend, I ran through a thought exercise on how I would design our legislative process to make things at least more representative of the public will. The founders designed a system that was shown to be able to function for a time, but the needs of the modern world have changed, the challenges we face are radically different, so here is how, if it were up to me (yes I know this is complete fantasy), how I would structure our legislative branch.
Basic Structure of the Legislature
A two-chamber system remains appealing to me, having two bodies with slightly different perspectives and concerns. For purposes of this thought exercise, I will just keep calling them the House and the Senate.
The House will remain the more representative body. They will be elected by a smaller localized constituency as is the case today. The Senate will remain elected by a statewide vote, but it will not be set up as head-to-head first past the post elections.
Each body will have very different functions, but the basic foundation that legislation must pass both the House and the Senate would remain intact. So let's take a look at a more representative structure for these bodies, starting with the House of Representatives.
THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
When the constitution was first drafted the founders capped the district size at 30,000. Over time that number was made larger and larger until finally capped at its 435 member number by the Apportionment Act of 1911. At that time this cap made a lot of sense. had we not done so, given the way our legislative bodies function, we would now have Capital Stadium rather the Capital Building. Just not practical logistically.
Modern technology alleviates if not eliminates many of the barriers they faced when our form of legislative governance was established.
Given that my proposal is to return to the original vision of 1 representative for a district of no more than 30,000 elected by a majority vote of their constituents through a ranked-choice voting process. That would mean we would have 11,050 members of the House of Representatives based on the 2020 Census Data released earlier this year. I know that sounds impractical, but the members of the House would remain in their districts and not go to Washington to do their work.
I will get into the general functions of the Senate and the House later in the post. Suffice it to say that modern technology enables House members to stay in their district and still carry out voting on and even debatng legislation securely.
WHat current apportionment would look like by state
The table below shows the district size and number of Representatives by State if apportioned based on my proposal.
State
|
April 1, 2020
|
HOUSE
|
DISTRICT SIZE
|
Alabama
|
5,024,279
|
168
|
29,906
|
Alaska
|
733,391
|
25
|
29,336
|
Arizona
|
7,151,502
|
239
|
29,923
|
Arkansas
|
3,011,524
|
101
|
29,817
|
California
|
39,538,223
|
1,318
|
29,999
|
Colorado
|
5,773,714
|
193
|
29,916
|
Connecticut
|
3,605,944
|
121
|
29,801
|
Delaware
|
989,948
|
33
|
29,998
|
Florida
|
21,538,187
|
718
|
29,997
|
Georgia
|
10,711,908
|
358
|
29,922
|
Hawaii
|
1,455,271
|
49
|
29,699
|
Idaho
|
1,839,106
|
62
|
29,663
|
Illinois
|
12,812,508
|
428
|
29,936
|
Indiana
|
6,785,528
|
227
|
29,892
|
Iowa
|
3,190,369
|
107
|
29,817
|
Kansas
|
2,937,880
|
98
|
29,978
|
Kentucky
|
4,505,836
|
151
|
29,840
|
Louisiana
|
4,657,757
|
156
|
29,857
|
Maine
|
1,362,359
|
46
|
29,617
|
Maryland
|
6,177,224
|
206
|
29,987
|
Massachusetts
|
7,029,917
|
235
|
29,915
|
Michigan
|
10,077,331
|
336
|
29,992
|
Minnesota
|
5,706,494
|
191
|
29,877
|
Mississippi
|
2,961,279
|
99
|
29,912
|
Missouri
|
6,154,913
|
206
|
29,878
|
Montana
|
1,084,225
|
37
|
29,303
|
Nebraska
|
1,961,504
|
66
|
29,720
|
Nevada
|
3,104,614
|
104
|
29,852
|
New Hampshire
|
1,377,529
|
46
|
29,946
|
New Jersey
|
9,288,994
|
310
|
29,964
|
New Mexico
|
2,117,522
|
71
|
29,824
|
New York
|
20,201,249
|
674
|
29,972
|
North Carolina
|
10,439,388
|
348
|
29,998
|
North Dakota
|
779,094
|
26
|
29,965
|
Ohio
|
11,799,448
|
394
|
29,948
|
Oklahoma
|
3,959,353
|
132
|
29,995
|
Oregon
|
4,237,256
|
142
|
29,840
|
Pennsylvania
|
13,011,844
|
434
|
29,981
|
Rhode Island
|
1,097,379
|
37
|
29,659
|
South Carolina
|
5,118,425
|
171
|
29,932
|
South Dakota
|
886,667
|
30
|
29,556
|
Tennessee
|
6,910,840
|
231
|
29,917
|
Texas
|
29,145,505
|
972
|
29,985
|
Utah
|
3,271,616
|
110
|
29,742
|
Vermont
|
643,077
|
22
|
29,231
|
Virginia
|
8,631,393
|
288
|
29,970
|
Washington
|
7,705,281
|
257
|
29,982
|
West Virginia
|
1,793,716
|
60
|
29,895
|
Wisconsin
|
5,893,718
|
197
|
29,917
|
Wyoming
|
576,851
|
20
|
28,843
|
Total
|
|
11,050
|
29,828
|
Again, this seems like a lot of people, but when I get into the functions of the Senate and House it will make more sense. Before I dig into basic functions lets look at how the Senate would be structured.
The Senate
Not only do I increase the number of Senators as I did the House, but I also change how they are selected quite a bit. I feel we certainly need to abandon the two Senators per state nonsense. I do build in a slight advantage for less densely populated states, but only a slight one as you will see. Unlike House members, Senators will be selected by a statewide electoral process.
The first thing to look at is the number of Senators and how that number is determined. Later I will dig into how they are elected.
Apportionment of Senate Seats
The number of Senate seats would be based on the population size of each State. The smallest state by population, Wyoming at 576,851 people, would have 3 Senators. for every additional 576,851 people within the population of a state 1 Senator would be added. In other words, states with populations between 576,851 and 1,153,702 would also have 3 Senators, states with populations between 1,153,702 and 1,730,553 people would have 4 Senators, between 1,730,553 and 2,307,404 would have 5 and so on.
To give you a little flavor on how it would look in this model, Wyoming would have 3 Senators, Connecticut 8 Senators, Ohio 22, Texas 52, and California 70.
Based on this model we would currently have 651 Senators. A little below is a table breaking down how many we would have per state based on 2020 Census population data. I want to delve into how the Senate would be elected.
Election of the Senate
Before I get into how the Senate would be elected, I want to add that this proposal that would change terms for each elected branch of our government. Both the Senate and the Presidential election would operate on the same 5-year election cycle. House members would be elected as current, every 2 years.
The Senate elections would not be based on head-to-head majority first past the post voting. Instead, each political party would propose a slate of candidates equal to the number of Senate seats apportioned to that state. Wyoming would put 3 candidates up while California would put 70 candidate slates together. Each slate put forward by a political party would provide a rank order of the individuals put forward. For example, a 3 Senator state slate would look something like this
Senate Election Slates Sample
Democrats |
Republican |
3rd Party |
1. Laura Jefferson
|
1. Bob Jones
|
1. Ben Green
|
2. Keith richards
|
2. Oral Roberts
|
2. Chelsea Liberty
|
3. Reggie Nighthorse
|
3. George Will
|
3. Alice Chu
|
|
The reason I align Presidential terms with Senate terms is to determine how Senators are selected. Every 5 years would be a national campaign to choose the President. This would be a simple popular vote. There would be no direct election of Senators, however. Senators would be elected based on the percent of the vote in that state for the Presidency. The Senate slates would need to be submitted in ranked order before the election occurs.
So in the model above a state could send the entire Republican slate, or the entire Democratic slate, or the entire 3rd party slate. Or they could send two from 1 party slate and one from another, or send one Senator from each party. I know clear rounding rules would be established to make this work of course including a process where 3rd party votes are split across multiple parties, but that stuff can be sorted out.
I went ahead and ran numbers by State on what representation in the Senate would look like based on the 2016 election since it had a particularly high 3rd party turnout. The table below shows the number of Senate seats by State as well as the partisan breakdown by state based on 2016 percentages.
A majority vote would require 326 votes.
The functions of the house and the Senate
As I noted earlier the House members would not report to DC to do their work. I imagine each session would feature a massive swearing-in event in DC with all members present. Some orientation and training time and that sort of thing. Otherwise, their time is to be spent in the district. The principal focus of their work would b constituent service and outreach. Hosting things like town halls, visiting businesses, schools, healthcare facilities, non-profits, churches, and other community organizations within the district.
They can not be traditionally lobbied, however, individuals and groups physically located within the district can petition them based n their needs. Any petitioner needs to both operate or work for the business and reside within the district.
House members will vote on all legislation to be sent to the President, however, they do not draft any of the legislation. This is not to say they do not impact what legislation is considered. Members of the House can submit proposals for legislation to be drafted to the Senate if they gain the support of 5% of the total House body (553 members of the 11,050). This will enable coalitions of minority groups across multiple states to force legislation to be drafted and voted upon, while not overwhelming the Senate who holds the drafting responsibility.
Coalitions of red-state city dwellers could combine with other cities facing similar issues to advance legislation onto the agenda. If 5% of the House recommends the Senate take up a piece of legislation the Senate must draft such legislation. The legislation must be approved by a majority of the House members and must be worked on until that majority is achieved before advanced for a formal vote in both chambers.
While the House's role is public-facing, the Senate actually does the traditional drafting of legislation. The hearings, markups, and so forth. The Senate fills the traditional committee roles, the Senate conducts the oversight function of the executive.
The Senate can ONLY be lobbied by elected members of the House. No other interest group, individual, or business can lobby a Senator, they must petition house members only as described above.
The house will have no formal leadership. All members will be on equal footing. Senate leadership will be nominated by the various parties represented n the membership of the Senate, however, each leadership role will be voted on by the House of Representatives. This would apply to committee chairs on up. The parties within the Senate will be able to determine who serves on each committee themselves otherwise.
miscellaneous stuff and conclusion of this long post
One of the final elements would be to establish term limits. No one person would be allowed to serve in a federal legislative role for longer than 20 years. No one person could serve as a Senator for more than 10 of those years. That means someone could serve 20 years as a rep and no longer be eligible to run for federal legislative office, or they could be a rep for 10 years, then a Senator for 10 years. once 20 years in office have been completed they must not seek further federal legislative office. If someone serves 16 years in the House, they would no longer be eligible to run for the Senate as the term would cause them to exceed their 20-year limit.
All in all, there would be a lot more detail to be fleshed out on this sort of approach. How vetoes are overridden, how judges would be nominated and confirmed and on and on and on. But all of that can be worked out. The nut of the idea I shared here was focused on how to make our government more represented of the interests of the people than it has been before.
So what do you think?
I know this all is just a fantasy, but it is obvious our system is not working for the interests of the broad population of the country and I do think it is worth looking at different ways of doing things that will yield different results.
I fear if the system as is does not figure out how to change course the entire deal is facing collapse. Something has to give and when it does it is worth having ideas in mind about how to bring order back to the system.