Slashdot Mirror
The US Redrawn As 50 Equally Populated States
First time accepted submitter Daniel_Stuckey writes "Bam! For anyone that's paid a speck of attention to the tedium of political redistricting, which happens while a state grows unevenly, (and must dynamically respond to density, electorate disparity, natural resources and ridgelines, etc.), this is straight out of some psychedelic dream. For Democrats, it could be straight out of a nightmare. That's because Freeman's map necessitates 50 equally populous United States. His methods for creating the map are explained thusly: 'The algorithm was seeded with the fifty largest cities. After that, manual changes took into account compact shapes, equal populations, metro areas divided by state lines, and drainage basins. In certain areas, divisions are based on census tract lines... The suggested names of the new states are taken mainly from geographical features.'"
Of course they do. See Wyoming- a single person's vote in Wyoming is worth 3/563000 =5.32e-6 of an electoral vote (based on 2012 census data). A vote in California is worth 55/37200000= 1.47e-6 votes. A person in Wyoming is worth 4 times as much. That's completely unfair.
Now historically it makes sense- it dates back to right post revolution where we were really 13 nations who decided to band together into 1, and it was a compromise to get the small states to go along with it. It stopped making sense when we became a real nation beyond point of breakup- basically after the civil war it was outdated. Now, due to geography its a system that's totally unfair.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Geography is beautiful. I made this my wallpaper yesterday.
It is pretty neat, but it still reflects 18th century thinking. If I look at my interests, beliefs, and the political issues that are important to me, my geographical location has little to do with it. Congresspeople shouldn't represent geographical regions, but specific groups of people, where ever they are. So every two years we hold an election, the top 435 get elected, and their constituents are the specific people that voted for them. Their vote in congress should be proportional to their number of constituents. What would be even better, is if an elected representative isn't keep promises, a voter should be able to go to a website, and switch to another.
I think it's possible to accept that 1) there are damned good historical reasons and 2) that those historical reasons no longer apply and the system should change. Your post has brings some interesting historical facts, but history only explain problems; it doesn't justify them.
Actually, a similar system seems to work ok for the Catholic Church, which could be considered as a non-geographically oriented political entity, complete with it's own laws, court system, a voluntary constituency which also funds it's operations voluntarily through their own contributions. Not shabby, especially when you consider it's lasted for 2000 years, which is longer than any government has.
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
I haven't run the numbers, but the electoral college favors less populous states by guaranteeing a minimum of 3 electoral votes. California has 66 times the population of Wyoming but only 18 times the number of electoral votes. My initial guess would be that the voters in rural Western states (Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, Idaho, etc) would lose clout in this scheme, and those are all Republican strongholds.
However, the 10 least populous states (+DC) are Wyoming (R), Vermont (D), DC (D), North Dakota (R), Alaska (R),
South Dakota (R), Delaware (D), Montana (R), Rhode Island (D), and New Hampshire (swing)
So that's a 50-50 split pretty much: both parties benefit from the electoral college.
The top 10 states are California (D), Texas (R), New York (D), Florida (swing), Illinois (D), Pennsylvania (swing), Ohio (swing), Georgia (R), Michigan (D?), and North Carolina (swing?). So 4 D, 2 R, and 4 swing states (depending on how you define them): so maybe the Dems suffer a bit from the electoral college at this end of the spectrum.
The hard question is what happens when you split these states up: Atlanta freed from the rest of Georgia goes blue, but the middle of Pennsylvania goes red without Philly and Pittsburgh, etc. So maybe the article is right that when you run the numbers it disadvantages Democrats, but I'd be interested to see the analysis because I don't understand how you come to the conclusion that this favors Republicans without it.
(I know this isn't a serious proposal so apologies for geeking out over it. :)
Even in the mid 19th century Walter Bagehot in his great defence of the Westminster system; The English Constitution, saw the US electoral college as a failed institution that had never really fulfilled its intended function.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
welfare states where they're contributing far less to the federal tax receipts than they're receiving in tax dollars
is a very tired meme. The federal government spends most of its money on defense, interest, and income transfers, of which Social Security and Medicare are by far the largest. The red states get the defense dollars because the South has warm weather year-round and the West has cheap land for bombing ranges and secrecy. The red states get income transfers because, well, they're full of retirees (and, to a lesser extent, poor people).
If you want a properly indexed graph, check out this, which is the net flow of federal dollars as a percentage of each state's GDP over the past 20 years. Notice that the three mega-reds are West Virginia (poor whites), Mississippi (poor blacks), and New Mexico (poor Indians), and that there's a lot of red down the Eastern Seaboard, where the Northeast retirees go, and in the Mountain West, where the California retirees go.
Are you suggesting that means-testing Social Security and Medicare is on the table for the Democratic Party? Because I'd totally be on board with that. Hell, if the Democrats are going to become fiscally responsible, I'll become one. I'm tired of the Jesus freaks in the R column anyway.