On Sun, 24 Oct 2004 12:50:11 -0500, Robert Seeberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The problem with the electoral college is not in the electoral > college, but in the way populations are represented in Congress. I > would think that this lack of representation on an everyday basis > would be of much greater concern. > > Just to make sure my message is clear: *The Problem Is A Lack Of Fair > Representation* > > Using Wyoming as a benchmark, where you have 1 congressperson per > (roughly) 500,000 people, 2 Senators (as always) and 3 Electoral > votes. > > Compare to California where you have 1 Congressperson per 639,088 > people, 2 Senators, and 55 Electoral votes. > That doesn't sound all that bad offhand, but if California had > representation equal to Wyomings you would get 67 Congresspersons and > 69 Electoral votes. That is a net gain of 12 Congresspersons and 14 > Electoral votes. > > This lack of representation effects at least 48 states that I can > identify. Of those states, 25 are short one representative, and 10 are > shorted by 2. Only Iowa and DC are represented in the same proportion > as Wyoming and the rest are shorted between 3 and 14 representatives.
As I was seeing it, I'd say that the tiny states are over-represented rather than that the larger states are being under-represented. Then only 3 are out of whack, rather than 48. ;-) I did address this to some degree, because the small states' EV advantage is directly related to it. John can probably argue this better than I can (and probably agrees more strongly than I do in favor of it), but as I understand it, the intent was to prevent the urban high-pop states from having all the federal power over the rural low-pop states. Tyranny of the majority and all that. My feeling is that for congressional representation, where there's lots of state-to-state porkbarrel competition and wrangling going on, this balance is probably a good thing. For the presidential election, the over-representation strikes me as unfair and less necessary, but I still understand the intent and didn't want to fight that battle when I was trying to sell a non-constitutional-change fix to an unfairness in the EC system that I perceived. > Law limits Congress to 435 Representatives, but if representation were > proportional there would be 549, an increase of 114 representatives. > I do not see why this number should be unwieldy or why it would cause > difficulty. IIRC, the Congressional size is fixed at 435 at this point, with the state-by-state allocations just shifting as populations change. I'm not sure if it's believed that higher numbers would cause problems in practice, or if it's just that everyone likes the status quo. By the cube-root proposal mentioned here: http://www.prb.org/Content/NavigationMenu/PT_articles/Growth_in_U_S__Population_Calls_for_Larger_House_of_Representatives.htm http://tinyurl.com/5v4wa there should be around 593 reps these days. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
