How would politics be affected in the United States if the members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives were also to be elected by a proportional basis?
What would the votes of the citizens of the smallest states be worth compared to those of the more populated ones?
How proportional? If I recall correctly, even the House of Representatives, to a lesser degree, overrepresents the smaller states in comparison to the larger states (possibly because it’d be difficult to have fractional congresspeople I guess).
I think you’re misusing your terminology here. A “proportional representation” system is one designed to guarantee every party or viewpoint among the electorate representation roughly proportional to its percentage of popular support (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation) – as opposed to the “winner take all” or “first past the post” single-member-district system now used to elect the House of Representatives and all our state legislatures, which tends to favor the two biggest parties and freeze out the rest. But I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about. You mean, what would happen if the Great Compromise were thrown out, and every senator (like every member of the House at present) represented a constituency of roughly equal population? Is that what you mean?
Nearly a third of US population live in the four largest states - CA,TX,NY and FL
and only about 1% in the five smallest - WY, VT, AK,ND and SD. Presumably, the Senate would have more Democratics and fewer Republicans than now.
The House representation would change less than the Senate.
California would have 12 senators, and Wyoming, Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota would share one.
Thanks, folks. I don’t think that would be workable, then.
I’m a big proponent of that. While we still have some regional differences, I maintain that our phenomenally improved systems of transportation and communication compared to what existed in the eighteenth centure has rendered the regional Congressional model almost obsolete. I’ve got far more in common with a nonprofit-working atheistic liberal geek in Billings, Montana than I have in common with the tobacco-farming Born-Again conservative schmoe* who lives half an hour from me. Were Congress elected en masse, then the geek in Billings and I could vote for teh same candidate, and we’d actually be represented instead of being shut out by the preponderance of conservatives in our respective areas. Same thing for the conservatives in San Francisco and Manhattan.
Daniel
There wouldn’t be a Senate, because it would serve no real purpose.
To institute a true proportional representation here, we would have to get rid of states as the basis for representation in the national legislature. Not necessarily a bad thing in my view, but I don’t think it would have any chance of serious consideration.
Proportional Representation has the major issue of removing the direct link between the elector and the elected. You get to choose parties rather than candidates.
This may be the removal of a direct link in a personal sense, but in my view is helps strengthen the direct link between a vote and a policy. Strengthening party-based voting and weakening personality-based voting, in my view, makes for a more transparent, honest, and responsive political system. Personally, I could not care less what the personal character is of a person I vote for so long as I know he or she is going to pursue the policies I agree with. A personality-based system like we have now makes it too easy for candidates to pull a bait-and-switch on the voters.
In discussing this, you need to bear in mind that it would by a political impossibility to abolish the Senate, with its 2 members per state. So you can only be talking about the House.
With the House, and with the present representation by state, you could do it by dividing each state into one or more multi-member electorates, each using a PR system to elect congress members. A state with just one congress member would get the same result as at present; states with two members would almost always elect one from each of the major parties, but even here you have a better chance of independents and third parties getting elected. And very large states might be divided into several electorates, each electing say 5 to 10 members.
I would confidently predict, under such a system:
(1) Gerrymandering would become irrelevant, sich you would not be able to predict results confidently enough to do it. So subdividing a state would generally follow county boundaries, and be logical.
(2) There would be independents and third party members in the House: many more than you would predict from current voting patterns, because it would non longer be “wasting your vote” not to vote for one of the twop major parties.
(3) Voting turnout would increase, because all political participants would have an interest in maximising their vote, rather than just coast in safe electorates.
(4) There would be more women and more members from minority groups in the House.
That depends on the system. In the system used in Australia and Ireland, you are still voting for individual candidates rather than for party lists (though those who want to vote for a party list can follow their party’s recommended preference order).
Well, Nebraska manages to get by with just one house in its legislature.
Possibly . . . but I’ve also read an argument that the two-senators-per-state system leads to overrepresentation of liberals, specifically those in “Greater New England,” aka the Upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest.
Why? Or by “unworkable” do you mean, not “impossible to make function,” but “politically impossible to achieve”? If the latter, you’re probably right. (But then the same thing might once have been said, on equally weighty evidence, about women’s suffrage.)
For some reason, every state of the Union except Nebraska seems to think it needs a two-house legislature – even though Supreme Court rulings on the “one person, one equal vote” principle mandate that all state legislators of a given house must represent equal-population districts (as opposed to, say, one house representing equal-sized districts and the other giving an equal number of representatives to each county regardless of population – a system some states used, until the 1960s). (The U.S. Senate alone is exempt from this rule because the Constitution expressly mandates its two-senators-per-state system.) Typically, a state senate is simply elected from fewer and larger districts than the lower house. The underlying thinking appears to be that it is wise to weaken a legislature by dividing it. But IMO, a one-house legislature (state or federal) would work better, in part because that would strengthen the legislature as against the executive. See this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=254557.
Michigan has a House and Senate, and both are districted such each representative and senator represents the same number of people.
Based on posts #10-13, it appears there’s still uncertainty about whether this thread is discussing electing U.S. senators from equal-population constituencies, or electing both houses by proportional representation as defined in post #2. Monty, could you please clear that up for us before we proceed?
In Colorado, senators serve a four year term as opposed to representatives two. I would think the division is to insulate the senator (to some extent) from electoral pressures. Not that it works.