[relaxing]

A couple interesting references in this article-

- The constitutional debate with Elbridge Gerry (MA), the name behind Gerrymandering

- The proposal to increase the size of the House of Representatives from one representative for every 40,000 people to one for every 30,000, which if continued today would make it much harder to gerrymander, among other things.

[bobthepanda]

Right now it’s not even one for every 40,000. The size of the house is capped at 435 by an act of Congress.

One for every 40,000 might be overkill given that would result in 8,500 reps in the House.

[ianburrell]

There has been observation of the number of representatives in many legislatures follow cube root of population.

For US population, the ideal number would be 693 representatives. That would be close to 500,000 people per district.

[EasyMark]

~1000 would seem like a logical next step, would take out some of the money too.

[kiba]

I am not sure if that's overkill. It might be a logistical issue with the current building though.

1 per 40,0000 is like the mayor of a town.

[saulpw]

What if it were a two-tiered system, in which 8500 local representatives elected their set of ~435 national representatives?

[unyttigfjelltol]

You're almost describing the Senate as originally configured.[1]

[1] https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/electing-ap...

[kiba]

I am not sure why you think thousand of representatives are inherently difficult to manage.

[BuyMyBitcoins]

Consider that for each representative you add, each individual representative becomes less influential and has fewer opportunities to affect change. While I do believe the house should be larger, perhaps 600 representatives, once the house gets too large you simply won’t be able to allocate speaking time on the floor in a reasonable way.

The house would organize itself around voting blocs and certain representatives would naturally end up exercising an undue amount of sway because they control those blocs. With each individual representative having much less influence, they’d have no choice but to gang together to try and achieve something.

[umanwizard]

This is how every functioning democracy already works. The blocs are called political parties.

Almost everyone chooses who to vote for based on which party best matches their ideology, not based on the individual candidate who happens to be endorsed by the party in their congressional district. So it’s not obvious why it’d be bad to decrease the influence of these individuals and increase the influence of parties.

[relaxing]

Floor time isn’t all that important. The important work is done in committee anyway (or in back rooms with lobbyists, but with 10x the representatives to lobby the value proposition there shifts a bit.)

[EasyMark]

they aren't supposed to be influential, they are supposed to vote on laws.

[slt2021]

you are describing China's political system

[readthenotes1]

A friend of mine suggested that one for every 40,000 would be exactly the right amount of representation.

Not only would there be much more accurate representation, and much more accountable representation, it would also be much more difficult to bribe enough

[vkou]

The reps actively seek bribes, because they need campaign warchests.

Whether there are 8,000 of them, or 400, that dynamic isn't going to change.

Also, at the moment the problem isn't bribes, the problem is that the tail is wagging the dog, and the Party will destroy anyone in it who dares to push back on the glorious leader.

[Mountain_Skies]

Using the 14th Amendment to give corporations free speech rights combined with the belief that campaign contributions are a form of speech is a big part of the problem. The intention of the 14th Amendment had nothing to do with corporations but someone wanted that hack and the consequences have been immense.

If we went back to campaigns being funded by individuals, the pandering to mega-corporations would be significantly reduced. Since wealth disparity exists, it still wouldn't eliminate the influence of wealthy donors but without corporations being able to effectively purchase elected officials, it's likely that wealth concentration would also be reduced.

[MisterBastahrd]

Corporations are just groups of people, and the Constitution says that people have the right to associate. Restricting corporations from donating to campaigns just shifts the donations to wealthy individuals.

A proper constitutional amendment would ban corporations from political speech and donations and ban individuals from using more than X dollars towards a political campaign or PAC or commercial, dollar adjusted by year. That way, corporations are out of the picture altogether and the rich can't just self-fund political campaigns and ads.

Of course, that'll never get past Congress much less a bunch of state houses.

[bobthepanda]

I actually think the advantage is that it is significantly more realistic to fund a campaign for a 40,000 size seat than a couple hundred thousand, so it’s easier to have upstart campaigns from third parties.

[vkou]

And yet if you look at who drives politics and finances all the campaigns in a small town, it's all the usual suspects. Landowners and major employers and sometimes some out of town gigacorp that wants to ban municipal broadband, or open a coal mine, or something of the sort.

For some reason, you never really get some field of a thousand flowers of unique political insights blooming.

[relaxing]

> For some reason, you never really get some field of a thousand flowers of unique political insights blooming.

Not sure what you’re looking for, but the national scene howls whenever a locality gets creative with decriminalization or harm reduction or de-policing or school curriculums etc etc.

[unyttigfjelltol]

I would put it like this-- politics is a business. Being good at that business sometimes is simply about vilifying your opponents or taking stubborn uncompromising positions on issues that cry out for cross-aisle collaboration. When you brag about it in podcasts and mailers, people send you money, and that is good business, regardless of public policy.

[vkou]

None of that matters when the king wants your head for crossing him.

When given the choice between opposing Trump and making bad choices in governance, the people who did the former all lost their jobs, while the people who did the latter were all rewarded.

And that's how you get the current congressional crop.

[linguae]

This is very interesting to think about, though. What if there were many more representatives? It doesn't have to be one for every 40,000, but suppose there were 2,000 representatives. Of course there are logistical challenges to increasing the number of representatives, such as needing an increased budget for legislators' salaries, as well as having sufficient space for all of the legislators to meet.

I do see potential benefits to having more representatives, though I'm not a political scientist and these may just be educated guesses and aspirational hopes:

1. Since each representative's constituency would be smaller, we may see a greater mix of political reviews reflected in the House of Representatives, since larger constituencies may have an "averaging" effect.

2. It may be harder for special interests to exert their influence on 2,000 representatives compared to 435. Simultaneously, it may be easier for everyday people to influence their representatives since each district is smaller in population. Consider the impact somebody living in a small town has on government there, compared to someone living in a large city.

3. Related to #2, it may be harder for political parties to impose their will on representatives since they have a lot more people they have to influence.

4. If there were more opportunities for everyday people to serve as elected officials, then perhaps people may feel more invested in their government rather than seeing government as a distant entity that runs counter to the well-being of society. This could serve as an effective counter to the disaffectedness we see in modern American society.

Once again, though, these are just educated guesses.

[IncreasePosts]

We have legislated racial gerrymandering which that would do nothing to combat. The simple fix against gerrymandering is to get rid of the concept of districts and just let people vote on house members at the state level, and have enough representatives that one populous locale couldn't dominate the reps

[klipt]

Proportional representation as used by many parliamentary democracies solves gerrymandering.

[EasyMark]

It doesn't solve it, but it does make it much more difficult and should allow a 3rd party to get some power and possibly even a 4th one. I can see the republicans easily have a split of MAGA off as its own thing as more republicans grow disillusioned with the current chaos and thuggery.

[dogsgobork]

I would think that majority-minority districts would arise more naturally with smaller districts. Currently the average district covers over three quarters of a million people, more than the population of Seattle. Something like fifty thousand people per district would give the neighborhood of Harlem in NYC four representatives.