Gerrymandering is bad, but No One wants to Implement the Obvious Solution

A few weeks ago, rumblings started about the states of Texas and Ohio(which are dominated by Republicans) redrawing their congressional district maps to help tip the balance of power to Republicans. All states go through this process after the census every decade. However, a mid-decade map redraw is rare and usually only done by court orders. In Texas, the Republican argument is that certain districts racially discriminate against certain groups, so they feel compelled to redraw the maps. The President is letting the cat out of the bag, openly admitting that the purpose is to gerrymander the state's districts. To fight against this, Texas Democrat State Congresspeople fled the state en masse to prevent the local legislature from having a quorum to proceed with the new map. If they had stayed, state police are allowed to arrest them and bring them to appear in the statehouse.

This obviously turned into a huge media stunt leaving Texas Gov. Greg Abbot furious. Unfortunately for Democrats, this tactic can only delay the proceedings, and they will eventually be forced to return. It does bring to the forefront a Constitutional issue that the country has yet to grapple with. Gerrymandering has always been an issue baked into the US's history, going as far back as 1812. When biased politicians are the ones responsible for the creation of voting areas, it is impossible to be non-partisan when creating them. For the Democrats, their solution is to create so called non-partisan commissions to determine state districts. Such entities now exist in California, Colorado, and Michigan. These commissions have had mixed results and create more unelected bureaucrats that the people have to trust are fair. Since all people are inherently biased, it is a myth to think that an independent commission wouldn't eventually fall into partisan bickering or corruption.

The solution to this issue is one that no one wants because it would be "too chaotic", "break up power too much", and "create a more complicated legislative process." That solution is to just increase the size of the House of Representatives.

Did you know that the size of the House is not set in the constitution? It has been set by law passed by Congress. James Madison wrote a proposed constitutional amendment fixing the number of representative to a proportion of the population. Its original size was 65, and it gradually increased as the country grew until 1929. That is when Congress passed the Permanent Apportionment Act which fixed the number of representatives at 435, the current number. They did this to preserve the political power of the rural population against the rapidly expanding urban centers. However, the result of this change has been tragic for the representation of the country. In 1929, the US population was about 122 million making the average Representative have a constituency of about 280,000 people. Today the population of the US has tripled to around 340 million making the average representative have a constituency of around 780,000 people. This has made each representative less accountable to each constituent, opening the door for special interests, lobbyists, and partisan bickering.

Keeping the same proportions of 1929 would be too chaotic with over 1,200 Representatives, but increasing the number to 680 would drop the average constituency by 35% to 500,000 people. The downside would be that individual Representatives would be less vital for votes than before, dulling each district's power. It would also slow down the process as it would take more votes to pass legislation.

I say good, its about time political bosses(i.e. Trump, Pelosi, etc.) stop forcing through legislation over the concerns of every day citizens. With more districts, it forces states to create more districts. This would dampen the opportunities for gerrymandering and force Representatives to be more accountable to their constituents.