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Tweaking The Math Behind Political Representation
mlimber writes "Nature magazine's news section has an interesting story about how the seats in the US House of Representatives should be divided up. The problem is that the population isn't evenly divided by the number of seats in the House (435). So how should one allocate the fractional parts? The current method tends to favor big states, while a recent proposal by a mathematician is for what he calls a 'minimally unfair' allotment. He is predicting 'one person, one vote' challenges on this topic in the near future."
Once they get this little pesky problem fixed, our government will be awesome!
Very insightful! I've been saying this for a long time now. When the 17th Amendment was ratified, populists thought that direct election of US Senators would be a great move for democracy! Instead, they shot themselves in the foot. Do you really think your Senator cares a fig about your opinion? You're one among millions. Back when s/he was accountable to the state's legislature though, you can be darn sure he paid attention to their few dozen opinions. Losing the support of any one legislator was significant.
Making Senators into super-Representatives was just silly. The House has a 2-year term because the electorate is fickle. Senators have a 6-year term because (in theory) your legislators are wise enough to make more thoughtful decisions. If we trust them enough to make laws for the state, can't we trust them enough to select Senators? But no, now we are stuck with our fickle decisions for 6 whole years - and 6 years after they make dumb decisions they can be sure we've forgotten about them, so they are even less accountable than ever!
Increase the House membership to 1000, and repeal the 17th Amendment. Those are the two best things we could do to "fix" the Congress in a relatively easy manner.
Constitutionally Correct