A Fairer Representation

I recently read this article in the NYT that really thrilled me. For years I've known that our representative form of democracy was deeply flawed when it comes to the House of Representatives.

In the article called: "Expand The House?" this inequity is clearly described here: "The most populous district in America right now, according to the latest Census data, is Nevada’s 3rd District, where 960,000 people are represented in the House by just one member. All of Montana’s 958,000 people likewise have just one vote in the House. By contrast, 523,000 in Wyoming get the same voting power, as do the 527,000 in one of Rhode Island’s two districts and the 531,000 in the other."

But rather than just being angry about it, there is someone taking steps to challenge the status quo. "That 400,000-person disparity between top and bottom has generated a federal court challenge that is set to be filed Thursday in Mississippi, charging that the system effectively disenfranchises people in certain states. The lawsuit asks the courts to order the House to fix the problem by increasing its size from 435 seats to at least 932, or perhaps as many as 1,761. That way, the plaintiffs argue, every state can have districts that are close to parity." I lean toward to 932 figures and actually shoot for 935.

This means that each representative would speak for a district of about 312,000 constituents. To this end I've begun recalculating the possible state delegations based on their latest census numbers and projected growth patterns to the year 2010 (next year....) As a result, in this new scheme, the state of Maryland would go from 8 members of the House to 17.

The map shows my best guess at the 17 new congressional districts. Unlike the current districts, I have completely eradicated the bazaar and profoundly partisan gerrymandering that characterizes MD 02, 03 & 07. (I despise the practice of gerrymandering and find it to be one of the greatest enemies of our still fledgling experiment of representative democracy. Just some personal disclosure.)

Taking my map to its possible ultimate conclusion, I have attached actual politicians to the districts. Incumbents first, our present delegation of 8 based on where they live. (And here I have fouled up the current delegation with my geographically compact based map, but I don't know if I've messed up Elijah and Dutch, or Dutch and John. In any event, I have no doubt that the offended party given this new reality would be only too happy to relocate in order to maintain their seat. For the remaining 9 seats, I chose politicians who hold the highest elective office in the most populace political division within their jurisdiction. This meant mayors and county executives for the most part, but I also looked at presidents of school boards, county police chiefs, et. al.

NOW & THEN

The present delegation; of 8 from Maryland includes 7 men and 1 woman; 6 whites and 2 blacks, 7 democrats and 1 republican. Using these same comparisons and my choices for the new seats based on the afore described criteria, the new delegation; of 17 would include 13 men and 4 woman; 12 whites and 5 blacks, 14 democrats and 3 republicans. And the bottom-line is truer, closer representation.

Would this lawsuit to succeed in more than reigniting political wonk's imaginations (guilty as self-identified!) what an amazing and exciting time it would be for democracy. Nothing short of a new constitutional convention could compare. And given the paradigm shift from greedy, ignorant, self-serving, pseudo-Christian, white males to a vastly more pluralistic populace, this idea bears a certain inevitability. Why arrive here kicking and screaming, when we have the choice of a deliberate and thoughtful move forward?