I very much support expanding the size

of the House. Although I agree with Schaller that the Senate is the place that really needs to be dealt with.  

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by: andgarden @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 19:20:10 PM UTC

This "one person one vote" approach

to forcing expansion of the House is a terrific idea.
I wonder how come it's never been tried before?  It's brilliant.

I also wonder how the 5 conservatives on the SCOTUS would handle it if it gets to them?

---

by: homerun @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 19:53:34 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I think there's probably a good case for it

I would be interested to see the briefs on this. My guess is that it's a 5th amendment equal protection argument, and that the court is being asked to find the bill fixing the size of the House at 435 to be unconstitutional. So what will be key is the level of scrutiny applied.

Within states, population differences between Congressional districts as small as about 20 people have been found to be problematic by the Supreme Court, but more variance is allowed for state legislative districts (for no good reason IMO).That suggests a fairly high level of scrutiny is applied. The House might have to be vastly expanded in order to satisfy exact population equity. There might be a fairly high lowest common denominator (that would be difficult to predict before the census).

---

by: andgarden @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 20:10:46 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

The complaint

is here (PDF).

---

by: andgarden @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 20:22:50 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Are you guys nuts?

There's no way this case will go through.  The story the NYT ran on this estimated there would be at least 932 seats if we were to do a literal interpretation of "one man, one vote."  While there are several parliaments in Western Europe (the Bundestag in particular) that are close to that size, it would be insane to do so here - not even the largest Western democracies have legislative bodies with more than 600 members, much less 900.  Logistically, there's no way we could create the infrastructure to expand the House by that much - there wouldn't be enough room to expand Capitol Hill or the surrounding office complexes.  Anyone whose ever worked on the Hill before could tell you that - the damn place is cramped as it is.  The size of the federal budget would increase exponentially on that alone, as the number of staff would invariably increase (House staffs are already so small there's no way you could simply split them up), not to mention the support staff needed for a near thrice-fold increased committees and subcommittees.  It would be a nightmare to execute.  

And even if we could or did, the system would be pure chaos and it would likely make the body even more paralyzed as it would be impossible for the Whips to get any real headcount on meaningful legislation.  The only reason why come foreign legislatures get away with that kind of size is because they have several parties that can accurately reflect the regional differences the seats bring, and the Westminster parliamentary format that is commonly used centralizes power and gives the Prime Minister and Speaker far more leeway in pushing legislation (the UK, for instance, does not have formalized committees with supporting staff, thus preventing many of the turf wars common in America).  That would require a wholesale change to the way Congress conducts itself.  And even then, the results are mixed.  Ask voters in Italy, India, Japan, Belgium, or other governments that have suffered from complete political paralysis and the frequent complaint is that there's too many elected officials that makes it impossible to have a formal debate.

I have no qualms about exapnding the House - I think it's fair to have that discussion as we haven't done so since 1910 - but to advocate for a literal interpretation that would mean an explosion in the number of Representatives is unthinkable.

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by: DFLer @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 21:02:01 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Again, it depends on the level of scrutiny

If the courts apply strict scrutiny, as I believe they have in most state redistricting cases, Congress will have to come up with a much better justification than "a smaller House is easier to manage."  

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by: andgarden @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 21:08:17 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

No, they wouldn't

if they were forced to a strict standard of judicial review and were told to expand to literally encompass "one man, one vote" Congress could just as easily say that such large numbers would make it impossible for every citizen to be adequately represented.  And I think most Americans would agree considering their already low-approval of Congress, and once they saw the price tag for such expansion it would be unpalatable.  That's why I don't think SCOTUS is going to rule in the plaintiffs' favor - it's one of those areas where literal interpretation and application of the law is not feasible, and it would be a battle they know they wouldn't win.

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by: DFLer @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 21:33:28 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I would not brush this off so quickly

The Court is going to have to come up with some reason why this situation is different from all other redistricting cases in the past 50 years.

---

by: andgarden @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 21:38:47 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

See Gore v. Bush

or DC v. Heller if you want to see the conservatives on the Court pull a reason out of their collective ass to bypass precedent and make a more convenient decision.  And even if the Court did go through and demand a huge expansion, Congress could simply choose to not enforce it.  That would be extreme but it's not without precedent, and quite frankly I don't think the Supreme Court would want to hand down a decision it knows wouldn't get enacted and would ultimately undermine its power in front of the national media.

But back to the original point I was making, "literal" expansion is a horrible idea.

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by: DFLer @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 21:53:29 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I suggest you look at who is brining suit

Not a bunch of liberals.

BTW, Bush v. Gore was decided in part on an equal protection basis.  

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by: andgarden @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 21:56:13 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It's not about the plaintiffs

I'm just pointing out that the conservative bloc on SCOTUS - they who largely control the Court's decisions and would be most likely to apply a literal interpretation to this case - have a propensity for skewing their reading of the Constitution when it fits them.  Gore v. Bush, for example, was literally declared by Justice Scalia to be a one-time event.  I wouldn't be surprised to see them do something similar here to get rid of the case.

---

by: DFLer @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 22:16:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Neither would I

But that's a great distance from the "no way" you started with here.  

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by: andgarden @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 22:19:07 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Not really

I argued that implementing a strict judicial review would be nigh-impossible to pull off on the logisitical side, is a bad idea, and would never be enforced by Congress, thereby greatly embarassing the Court.  Thus, most of the Justices would likely come up with some hackneyed reasoning that wouldn't undermines the Court's decisions on redistricting over the past 50 years but also stops this case dead in its tracks.  

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by: DFLer @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 22:24:42 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

That's true

but space aside...we are the second largest democracy on earth, it would make sense to have the second largest legislative body, although the ratio in India is actually larger than ours.

That said, I think something like 485 or 501 may be a logical number. That still means one member of Congress for 780,000 or so people.

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by: DTOzone @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 21:54:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

True

But there is a growing movement in the UK to lower the number of MPs in the House of Commons. One of the main arguments is that how can the US have a third fewer congress people (including senators) when it is so many times larger and more populous.

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by: conspiracy @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 21:57:31 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It's not a growing movement

It's an idea with some small popularity amongst a few of the more wonkish Tories, and it's supported by them for only two reasons:

1) If they reduce the Commons to around 500 seats (allegedly Cameron's preferred option) it allows them to raise salaries accordingly, and there are a lot of Tory backbenchers with children at expensive private schools and
2) Fewer MPs mean larger seats, which means small towns have to be combined with the rural areas around them, which makes it harder to Labour to win there.

The Commons may be reduced, but there's really no popular clamour for it, and I've literally never heard the US comparison made. Most people who are interested in electoral reform are focused on trying to make the House of Lords an elected body.

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by: Englishlefty @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 22:41:13 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Well I've heard it numerous times

And I believe the Liberal Democrats also support it.  

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by: conspiracy @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 22:46:10 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

They do

http://www.libdemvoice.org/dav...

But I'm off topic so I'm off.

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by: conspiracy @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 22:54:57 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

That's a reasonable number

I'm not advocating that we lock the current number in place, but to go to such extreme levels would defeat the purpose of representation IMO.  Even 550 could be doable if we had 10-15 years to prepare for it.

To get to the size the plaintiffs are suggesting could, in theory, be accomplished, but the city of Washington, the powers of the federal government, and the institution of Congress would be forever altered in ways that they would be unrecognizable after it is all over.  And I don't think anyone really wants to do that when the benefits might be minimal.  Plus, can you imagine twice as many Joe Wilsons, Charlie Rangels, Michelle Bachmanns, and every other crazy or corrupt member of Congress?  Twice as many of them screaming on cable television, twice as many recalcitrant members guarding their interests...I don't think the american people could stomach it.

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by: DFLer @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 22:13:17 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

And the fundraising

Thats twice as much fundraising thatll be needed. Thats hard to even comprehend.  

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by: HarrisCountyBrian @ Mon Sep 28, 2009 at 08:48:21 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

What I have been thinking

is using the smallest state population-wise, in this case Wyoming (2000 pop. 493,782), as the size of a congressional district. Here is the amount of districts each state would have if we used the Wyoming system, as per the 2000 Census. The total number of seats we'd have would be 569, not much higher than what we have now but a lot fairer IMO.

State	2000 Pop.	Seats
California	33,871,648	69
Texas	20,851,820	42
New York	18,976,457	38
Florida	15,982,378	32
Illinois	12,419,293	25
Pennsylvania	12,281,054	25
Ohio	11,353,140	23
Michigan	9,938,444	20
New Jersey	8,414,350	17
Georgia	8,186,453	17
North Carolina	8,049,313	16
Virginia	7,078,515	14
Massachusetts	6,349,097	13
Indiana	6,080,485	12
Washington	5,894,121	12
Tennessee	5,689,283	12
Missouri	5,595,211	11
Wisconsin	5,363,675	11
Maryland	5,296,486	11
Arizona	5,130,632	10
Minnesota	4,919,479	10
Louisiana	4,468,976	9
Alabama	4,447,100	9
Colorado	4,301,261	9
Kentucky	4,041,769	8
South Carolina	4,012,012	8
Oklahoma	3,450,654	7
Oregon	3,421,399	7
Connecticut	3,405,565	7
Iowa	2,926,324	6
Mississippi	2,844,658	6
Kansas	2,688,418	5
Arkansas	2,673,400	5
Utah	2,233,169	5
Nevada	1,998,257	4
New Mexico	1,819,046	4
West Virginia	1,808,344	4
Nebraska	1,711,263	3
Idaho	1,293,953	3
Maine	1,274,923	3
New Hampshire	1,235,786	3
Hawaii	1,211,537	2
Rhode Island	1,048,319	2
Montana	902,195	2
Delaware	783,600	2
South Dakota	754,844	2
North Dakota	642,200	1
Alaska	626,932	1
Vermont	608,827	1
Wyoming	493,782	1

My blog
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28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)

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by: californianintexas @ Mon Sep 28, 2009 at 15:27:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I also did a hypothetical House

if the big states were as overrepresented in the House as the small states are in the Senate. I took Wyoming's population and divided by 3, the total seats it has in Congress (2 Senators + 1 Representative), and used the result of 164,594 against the populations of the other states. The result would be 1,606 Representatives, and California, though having just 70 times as many people as Wyoming, would have more than 200 times the representation in the House to balance out Wyoming's overrepresentation in the Senate.

State	2000 Pop.	Congress	House
California	33,871,648	206	204
Texas	20,851,820	127	125
New York	18,976,457	115	113
Florida	15,982,378	97	95
Illinois	12,419,293	75	73
Pennsylvania	12,281,054	75	73
Ohio	11,353,140	69	67
Michigan	9,938,444	60	58
New Jersey	8,414,350	51	49
Georgia	8,186,453	50	48
North Carolina	8,049,313	49	47
Virginia	7,078,515	43	41
Massachusetts	6,349,097	39	37
Indiana	6,080,485	37	35
Washington	5,894,121	36	34
Tennessee	5,689,283	35	33
Missouri	5,595,211	34	32
Wisconsin	5,363,675	33	31
Maryland	5,296,486	32	30
Arizona	5,130,632	31	29
Minnesota	4,919,479	30	28
Louisiana	4,468,976	27	25
Alabama	4,447,100	27	25
Colorado	4,301,261	26	24
Kentucky	4,041,769	25	23
South Carolina	4,012,012	24	22
Oklahoma	3,450,654	21	19
Oregon	3,421,399	21	19
Connecticut	3,405,565	21	19
Iowa	2,926,324	18	16
Mississippi	2,844,658	17	15
Kansas	2,688,418	16	14
Arkansas	2,673,400	16	14
Utah	2,233,169	14	12
Nevada	1,998,257	12	10
New Mexico	1,819,046	11	9
West Virginia	1,808,344	11	9
Nebraska	1,711,263	10	8
Idaho	1,293,953	8	6
Maine	1,274,923	8	6
New Hampshire	1,235,786	8	6
Hawaii	1,211,537	7	5
Rhode Island	1,048,319	6	4
Montana	902,195	5	3
Delaware	783,600	5	3
South Dakota	754,844	5	3
North Dakota	642,200	4	2
Alaska	626,932	4	2
Vermont	608,827	4	2
Wyoming	493,782	3	1

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by: californianintexas @ Mon Sep 28, 2009 at 17:02:16 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Nice work

Would be fun just to see Cheney blow a gasket!

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by: conspiracy @ Mon Sep 28, 2009 at 17:13:11 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Thanks!

I too would love to see Cheney's reaction, especially if he were still in the House and it was in "big state overrepresentation".

My blog
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28, New Democrat, Female, TX-03 (hometown CA-26)

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by: californianintexas @ Mon Sep 28, 2009 at 17:33:19 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

House

Very interesting development. The thing is, MT-AL actually was two districts until the 1990 redistricting, when it was inexplicably chopped down to just one. Max Baucus, who owes his entire political career to Montana having once had two districts thus giving him a place to be elected to, is chiefly responsible for killing the split because he didn't want MT-01 (based in comparatively liberal and partially Californicated Missoula, where he himself was once a lawyer) to produce a better Democrat to challenge him from the left. If anything, this suit should go through just to keep one man from being able to have a stranglehold on apportionment for purely political reasons.

Outside of that one case, the other At Large districts are fairly uniform; there isn't much population difference between WY-AL and, say, Vermont or either of the Dakotas. I would think that other than forcing Montana to be the two districts that it should be anyway, this lawsuit's success would primarily affect the size of districts in neighboring urban states; standardizing, for example, how a metro area is apportioned. (How is it fair for, say, Indiana residents of greater Chicago to be apportioned by one set of rules and Illinois residents of greater Chicago by another?) That's likely to be the argument at the heart of the case, IMO.  

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by: notanothersonofabush @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 19:21:43 PM UTC

What on earth

would Max Baucus have had to do with the Census Bureau deciding to apportion just one district to MT instead of two? I know Baucus is a pretty terrible human being, but that doesn't make any sense.  

22, Democrat, AZ-01
Peace. Love. Gabby.

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by: Nico @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 19:58:14 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Very true.

Now that I've read up on it a little more, the Census process had nothing to do with Max, of course. He didn't take the seat away. However, he HAS been a long-declared opponent of Montana getting the seat back now that its population has risen to the point where they actually need a second seat. Never mind that splitting Montana into two districts would almost certainly result in another Democrat being elected. Never mind that it gives his constituents more representation and is generally the right thing to do. So blatantly opposing something that's obviously not just in the best interests of your constituents but actually part of your basic job description smacks of either megalomania or the very same condescending elitist attitude toward Montana that explains why most Montanans hate the Federal government. Knowing Baucus, probably both.  

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by: notanothersonofabush @ Sun Sep 27, 2009 at 02:40:16 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

It wasn't "inexplicable" at all

Montana got unlucky with redistricting. They took their case all the way to the Supreme Court, advocating for an apportionment system which would have meant keeping their two seats at the expense of, IIRC, Washington having one fewer seat. But the SCOTUS said there was no problem with the system Congress chose, which again I believe had been used for decades.

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by: DavidNYC @ Sat Sep 26, 2009 at 19:22:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I read up on the situation a little more.

Back in the late eighties when the census data for 1990 was taken, Western Montana still was primarily industrial. It wasn't until they cleaned it up a bit in the nineties that Hollywood celebrities started flocking there and bringing the rest of SoCal with them.

The suit was actually seeking that the House increase its membership to 436 and give the extra seat to Montana, citing precedent that the House increased its own size with the population every decade through 1920. (The problem there is simply how far do you go before, as another guy on this thread said, you have a comically impractical chamber with 900 members and passing any legislation at all basically becomes impossible?)

Not that I'm surprised that the Supremes ignored Montana's perfectly valid argument and the DOJ basically laughed in their faces - Washington has been ignoring the interests of the Mountain West for years, which is why people in the Mountain West hate the Federal Government - but the fact that the lawyer arguing the case for Montana was a certain undiscovered Kenneth Starr probably didn't help the appeals process.

Looking at the data, it makes sense that MT lost the seat back then. What doesn't make sense is that they haven't regained it. Western Montana alone has grown something like 5% in the last decade. The current 2008 estimated population of Montana is 967,440. Split that in half, and you have 483,720, which is more than enough for two districts. Regardless of the basic injustice of it taking nearly two Montana voters to equal one voter from Wyoming under the current system, MT-AL will have over a million residents by 2015, and that just plain looks bad.

With that said, you're right, I shouldn't have used the word "inexplicable". Fair enough. It's just that from my view, having actually lived there in this decade, the region's entire economy is trapped in endless cycles of real estate development based on steady growth. I keep being blown away by how different a place's political situation may have been even a few decades ago. In any case, my mistake.  

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by: notanothersonofabush @ Sun Sep 27, 2009 at 02:33:28 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

"the basic injustice"??

So are you equally upset that MT gets 2 senators while, for instance, 38 times more populous CA gets only 2 senators?

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by: homerun @ Sun Sep 27, 2009 at 03:34:39 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

The Senate isn't the issue.

I'm simply saying that the House is supposed to be based on proportional representation, and having a single district with 950k people in it, which happens to encompass a huge state with multiple culturally diverse areas, flies in the face of that principle.

The Senate wasn't created for proportional representation. It was created to equalize the fact that bigger states get a bigger piece of the pie in the House. California already gets 53 House seats, which is more than any other state, and has a bigger say in that chamber than any other state, including (currently) having a Speaker from California. Now, it IS stupid that a handful of rural Senators like Baucus, Conrad, Enzi, etc. representing a fraction of the country can abuse the system by selling out on vital issues like healthcare reform and leave everyone in the country hanging. That's definitely unjust, but it's unjust because the system has become corrupt and our leaders are spineless morons, not because it's not a sound idea in theory.

Now, I'd argue that if we were creating the system from scratch to make Senatorial terms much shorter and force parties to choose committee chairs based on expertise rather than seniority, but there's nothing we can do about it now, as changing the Senate requires amending the Constitution, which, of course, requires Senate ratification.

Giving Montana an extra House seat that it's been needing for years, however, is a very easy fix.

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by: notanothersonofabush @ Sun Sep 27, 2009 at 17:27:20 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Why is Montana special?

I don't understand why you think Montana is special.  They don't have a second seat because they don't deserve one.

Utah was closest to NC for the final seat.  It would be wildly unjust to give Montana one of North Carolina's seats when they don't deserve it.

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by: tommypaine @ Sun Sep 27, 2009 at 23:42:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

There's nothing unfair

about it; it's just the way the numbers break for Montana. The US population in 2000 was 281,424,602, so there should be a House seat for every 646,953 residents. Montana's 2000 population was 902,190, so it was entitled to 1.39 House seats. It'd open up a huge legal can of worms to jump Montana ahead of, say, North Carolina in the queue (NC was entitled to 12.44 seats) because someone decided that an exception had to be made for Montana.

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by: Crisitunity @ Mon Sep 28, 2009 at 18:23:49 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

You're all over the place

You seem to think there's this vast conspiracy that "unfairly" ripped a seat away from Montana that is now working to keep it from regaining it.  You then backed off those assertions when it was revealed that the Census and the apportioning of districts is pretty objective.  For Montana and for all of Congress, that's just the way the ball bounces when it comes to population and numbers.  If Montana gains enough in population (not sure if it has, as I haven't done much research into which states are expected to lose/gain seats come 2012) than it will regain a seat.  Until then, Montanans will just have to get in line with everyone else.  Be glad you at least have some representation and don't live in the District of Columbia.  When I worked in DC that was one of the primary reasons why I decided to live in Northern Virginia and have a hellish commute instead of living in the District proper.

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by: DFLer @ Mon Sep 28, 2009 at 18:36:58 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

for house districts it might be a good

plan to institute a national plan, with districts no longer having to maintain state borders.

A new independent Panel of Judges could handle the redistricting.

Call no man happy until he is dead-Aeschylus

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by: ArkDem the Ragin Cajin @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 19:38:51 PM UTC

Carlyfornia

If you're amused by the Carlyfornia website, you may get a kick out of this new DSCC site:

www.carlyisdreamin.com

Hope you enjoy :)

Arjun Jaikumar
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

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by: brownsox @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 19:45:36 PM UTC

Nice, and hopefully the site is a work-in-progress

Clicking on those assertions should lead to more information.

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by: homerun @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 20:06:32 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

There is an Asst. Sec. of Agriculture for Civil Rights?

Who knew!

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by: davybaby @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 19:53:28 PM UTC

Strategic Vision polls are always

about 5-7 points more GOP than the average.  Has been this way for years now.  Finally they're getting called on it.

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by: skaje @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 21:52:16 PM UTC

Hopefully a full investigation of Strategic Vision LLC ensues.

If it turns out they have been simply making up results all this time without actually conducting surveys, it could lead to more transparency requirements for all polling firms in the future, which would be a positive outcome.  This would be the pollsters' equivalent of the game show scandals of the 1950s.

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by: DCal @ Sat Sep 26, 2009 at 04:39:17 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

I call BS on Rasmussen period.

http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/ey...

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by: conspiracy @ Fri Sep 25, 2009 at 22:13:08 PM UTC