I wanted to float this around DK as I haven’t seen much talk about it. I have seen many good ideas bandied about here and other places form the left that would help our democracy as well as progressive causes. Some of the ideas I can think of are as follows:
- DC/PR statehood
- Fix gerrymandering (only about 10% of districts are competitive).
- Increased voting rights
- Reform or eliminate the electoral college
- Eliminate the filibuster
- Unpack SCOTUS
I think all of these have merit and should be pursued, but some are unworkable, and many will be watered down by the time they get to POTUS. However, there does exist one simple act of congress that I believe would fundamentally change our democracy as well as both parties for the better. And I believe there would be some support from moderates in the GOP (we don’t need many). This reform would address 2,4, as well as a slough of other issues such as the radicalization of the GOP. And the good news is that it is hardly unprecedented. The answer is that congress needs to reapportion the house. In other words, we need more congress people in the house. The last time congress did this was in 1929, and there were about 1/4th of the voters there are now. There are so few representatives, and they each represent far more people than what was intended. This number should be increased from 435 to something between 1000-1500. This makes it almost impossible to gerrymander (you could affect a handful of districts, but not a high percentage), many more districts become competitive, which means both parties will have more moderates (there will still be ideologues, but the moderates will compete for the most purple districts of which there will be many). Initially, this will be a huge boon for the Democratic party, but eventually the GOP will be forced to moderate in order to become competitive. This will likely affect politics in the Senate also. Furthermore, this will lesson the power that small states have in the electoral college as the big states will get a larger increase in electoral votes.
Again, it requires an act of congress signed by POTUS. Am I missing something? Why aren’t Democrats talking about this? I suppose it threatens the hold that some have on their seats, but overall it would help the party greatly, and again it would help the GOP to moderate. The below article (2018) discusses this issue in pretty good detail.
I’d love to discuss this issue.
How to Fix the House of Representatives in One Easy, Radical Step