The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929: yes or no?

Great Debates
41

The Wyoming Rule will benefit all more populous states, since they all gain representatives, and bring them to approximately equal footing (in terms of representatives per population) with Wyoming. Yes, some smaller states (like South Dakota as you mentioned or Hawaii) would benefit, and I’d wager that on balance it’s neutral for smaller states.

But certain small states (like North Dakota, which has a worse house representatives/population ratio than California) would see their (already small) voice diluted further, since the total house size would grow, and ND would still have the same 1 representative.

Overall, I think the Wyoming Rule benefits much more than it harms, and especially helps balance the Electoral College better - but there are some specific areas where it actively hurts “fairness”, if equalized House representation/population is the end goal.

42

In the modern era, there’s really no reason that all of Congress need to physically gather together in order to do their business, though.

43

Let’s put aside the idea that California or Wyoming vote. They’re states not people. Californians and Wyomingites vote.

Our current 435 member cap gives a Wyomingite a more powerful vote than a Californian. It’s not unfair to the Wyomingite if we reduce the power of his vote to a size closer to a Californian’s.

44

I’m in full agreement with this, hence my focus on the North Dakota example.

45

The Wyomingites might disagree. It would be a hard sell for them.

46

I keep seeing this curious train of thought, that to make things more equal and fair, we are removing an unfair advantage that someone had before and that’s not fair.

47

I think a lot of people forget that fair treatment is not the same as beneficial treatment.

48

To many (most?) Americans the word “fair” means “what I have now or something more. Never something less. Me losing out is by definition unfair”.

49

This assumes a country where states don’t matter. They do. This is a country that was formed based on a union of states, and although states are not as strong as under the Articles of Confederation, this thought, among with other proposals in the thread, assumes that state lines really don’t matter.

50

Because they don’t. The only ways states actually matter are the ways we’ve stupidly codified into our Constitution. “States matter, and therefore we should continue to give them special treatment” is circular reasoning.

51

But you are the one trying to change the agreed upon order that states do matter. I think the onus is on you to refute that other than to say it was “stupidly” decided. If it wasn’t so stupidly decided, there wouldn’t be a United States of America in the first place.

52

It’s not safe to start with the assumption that the status quo is inherently better than an alternative. The fact that something is the established order or the status quo is an inherently neutral quality.

53

I didn’t say states don’t matter. I said states don’t vote. Are you disputing that point?

I also do not see any posts in this thread that imply state lines don’t matter.

54

Most things that impact people’s day-to-day lives are controlled and decided at the state or local level. For example, you can find umpteen anecdotes about how somebody travels across a state line and notices a dramatic and immediate difference in the quality of the highways.

So yes, states matter.

55

The first 13 states, plus a few others, were independent entities at some points in their existence. The rest were carved out of US territory. All of those states were never independent, and owe their bit of sovereignty to their admittance to the union on equal footing to the original states. There was a long period of Colonial history that the first 13 states developed in, and those 13 had to unite to expel the British, but getting them all to agree on a form of government for their union was extremely difficult and we’re still suffering the effects today. Michigan, on the other hand, did not have to overthrow their colonial government to become a member of the United States - they instead united with their colonial settlers.

Trying to say that states matter in today’s world is simply saying that state governments have gone different ways with respect to some things, many of which are rather arbitrary. Most community property are in territory first settled by Spain/Mexico, but Wisconsin was not. Why Wisconsin? I have no idea.

As much as there might be some sort of state culture, most of the overall politics of states has more to do with the urban/rural divide. There’s always strong conservative support in rural areas and strong liberal support in urban areas. That the northeast, Pacific West, and Great Lakes are on the whole more urbanized is a product of geography and history, not one of shared cultural roots.

I wouldn’t lightly uproot myself and accept a job that would require to move my residence, but if I had to move, there’s no real reason why I would prefer to move to another place in the same state compared to another place an equal distance away in another state. I don’t know how many people there might even be that would prefer remaining in-state to moving a lesser physical distance, but I can’t imagine any particularly good reasons other than perhaps problems with tax returns if they crossed a state border commuting.

Thus, should all the state governments were to cease to exist and be completely forgotten except as “neighborhood” names, there is no reason to think that the constituent counties of the US would seek to form the same sort of structures that they have now. Perhaps they would form regional governing councils for groups of counties, but I don’t see how you could think that the people that live in them now would favor forming the states as they currently exist, even knowing that they once were grouped together in that manner.

Thus, I don’t see why we should treat states as meaning anything, other than the fact that their admittance to the union was made on par with the original ones. I say we scrap the entire state system, and redraw boundary lines coterminous with county lines, but in different places, and do this every 10 years so that every state has roughly the same population.

Of course it’s not going to happen. But I can hope.

56

That makes it all the easier to expand the number of Representatives.

57

I don’t see why this in particular matters. The concept of a “chamber” is obsolete given the way Congress works now. If you replaced it with a TV studio with a couple of lecterns, no legislative functions would be lost.

58

Some people have claimed that smaller districts would be difficult to gerrymander, and I am…extremely unconvinced by this argument to say the least. It’s not some hypothetical thing, plenty of states have legislative districts that are much smaller than congressional districts. Pennsylvania has slightly more than 10 times as many districts for its lower house as it does congressional districts and that map is extremely gerrymandered; Republicans won a healthy majority in 2018 despite only getting 44% of the vote. The Wisconsin state assembly is similarly proportioned compared to its state’s congressional delegation and it’s also a total nightmare, maybe the worst map in the country.

If anything, I think getting to draw more lines might give more opportunities to do something untoward. Under some of the extreme expansions that people have been talking about, with gigantic Houses, I think some kind of multi-member system would be needed to curb the excesses.

59

Same with counties and municipalities. That doesn’t mean that they should also be enshrined with constitutional codification.

60

I am in complete agreement with this.

It’s a bit annoying when someone says, “Call your congressperson!” I mean, I sometimes do, but I have almost never actually spoken to my representative to congress, but rather, a member of their staff.

They are supposed to be the public’s main interface with the Federal Govt. There are actually a number of things that a rep can help you with, if you can borrow a minute of their time.