Representin

This may look like a drawing done by a four year old. It's not. It's the most gerrymandered congressional district in America. For those who do not know, gerrymandering is the drawing of congressional districts in order to effect (or affect, still can never remember which one to use) the result of the election. Not sure if that is the real definition but it's how I would define it. 

There is also the problem in the country of the two major parties sharing almost all of the power. Our government was designed to disperse power. The two parties have consolidated the power and now share it. We were warned of parties and groups gaining too much power in the Federalist Papers. 

One of the ways in which the two parties have created this two party system is by using the single member district system to elect representatives. This means a district is drawn on the map, the people in this district vote for one representative to congress. The districts are drawn by state legislatures. Some states are required to submit their district plans to the Department of Justice due to the fact that that state has not let certain folks vote in the past based on race. This single district approach to voting has made it so the legislatures draw up these districts to ensure a majority of a states' representatives are from the party that is in power in that state. This has led to two things. One, really strange looking districts and two, the two major parties making sure no other party can get into power or to even have a share of power. 

Another issue with single district elections is that people who do not vote for the winner, get no representation in the House of Representatives. Technically they do because the winner still represents them but in reality, they do not represent all in their district. This is one reason why congress approval as a whole hovers around a lofty ten percent and their incumbency rate hovers around a slim rate of 90 percent. As John Oliver once put it, our house is the Time Warner Cable of elected bodies of government. 

There is a simple solution to this problem. We amend the Constitution to end single district elections and to create a system based on proportional representation within each state. Proportional representation could be used for the country as a whole but that would hurt federalism. That would not be a good thing in my humble opinion. 

Proportional representation in a nutshell is people going into the booth and voting for a party. Then the number of representatives assigned to that state would be divided among the parties based on what percentage of the population voted for them. Using Texas as an example, there are 32 representatives in the House. If Republicans won 50 percent of the vote, they would get 16 representatives. If the Democrats received 40 percent of the vote, they would get 13 representatives. If Libertarians received 10 percent of the vote, they would get 3 representatives. While minority parties would not have a huge voice, they would have some. 

This would only apply to the House and not the Senate. Senators would still be elected on a state level. This would also not apply to states that have only one representative in the House. 

This system seems counter-intuitive to democracy for some but if someone looks at the pro and cons of it, they will see that it is a far better way of representing the individual and breaking up the power monopoly in this country.