When I recently read dreaminonempty's post Did GOP Gerrymander Itself Out of Power?, it reminded me of an issue that I have given some thought to before, namely: how to transform the U.S. into a country that more proportionately represents the will of the voters. Gerrymandering -- which is a device used by both political parties since the beginning of our Republic -- prevents representation based on how citizens actually vote. I think it is better that our electoral process be based on ideas, rather than manipulation of political districts.
My idea would be to divide seats based on the percentage of votes the respective political parties get in any given election. I would suggest that seats should be divided based on the representative portion each political party gets in the statewide election. Votes would be for political parties rather than for individual candidates. An alternative would be that primaries could decide what individuals would represent the political parties in the general election.
For example, in my native state of Oklahoma, there are five congressional seats. Currently, four of them are held by Republicans even though statewide the Republicans get maybe 55% of the votes in all congressional elections. Political parties would then choose representatives for each 20+% of votes they get in a statewide election. In this case, the Democratic party would gain a net of one seat in Congress. In larger states such as Texas or California, smaller political parties would have a chance to seat their candidates making Congress more representative of the cross-section of the American political community.
In order for this system to work, it would require that elections become uniform nationwide. It might even require a Constitutional Amendment.
The benefits of such a system are multi-fold:
- It makes elections more representative of the mood of the country at any given election;
- It reduces the "cult of personality" problem and makes elections more about ideas than personalities;
- It potentially would reduce the corruption of individual members of Congress as elections would be less about a single Congressman and elections would be more focused on ideas.
I'm curious to hear from other Kossacks as to any potential problems that would result from such a proposal, if implemented.