Representation in the Legislature

[Jonathan Buhacoff]

Proposal:

A legislature is comprised of representatives, with at least one representative from each voting constituency and at least one representative from each non-voting constituency. A legislature must have at least one voting constituency. A legislature is not required to have any non-voting constituency.

The voting constituencies for a federal legislature are the individual states, with each state assigned a number of votes based on its population. The non-voting constituencies for a federal legislature are the territories under the control of the government that have not become a state or cannot become a state.

The voting constituencies for a state legislature are the provinces or counties, with each province or county assigned a number of legislature votes based on its population. The non-voting constituencies for a state legislature are the reservations or autonomous zones which are located within the boundary of the state.

This proposal does not address how non-voting constituencies elect or appoint their representatives.

The number of legislature votes assigned to each constituency may depend on its population, such as in an assembly, or it may be the same number for each constituency, such as in a senate.

The number of legislature votes assigned to each constituency must be equal to or greater than the number of voting representatives from that constituency. Non-voting representatives participate in debates but not in voting, and therefore are not assigned any legislature votes.

A local government such as a city council or board of supervisors is not a legislature, but may also adopt this proposal as the method to elect members. A local government with a large population may have neighborhoods or other named locations with distinct boundaries which can be considered as voting constituencies for the purpose of implementing this proposal, with each one assigned a number of votes based on its population. A local government with a small population may consider itself to have a single voting constituency.

When there are more candidates in an election than the number of representatives allowed for that constituency in the legislature, the corresponding local, regional, state, or federal government may have a primary election in which the candidates with most support are selected to appear on the election ballot, up to the number of representatives which may be elected. The primary election mentioned in this proposal would be a government-run primary election which is separate from any intra-party primary elections. This proposal does not address how parties select their candidates.

Each elected representative will be assigned a number of legislature votes proportional to the popular support the candidate earned in the election. The popular support is translated to legislature votes using the concept of support blocks. One support block is created for each legislature vote assigned to the constituency in the legislature.

A support block size, expressed as a percentage of the popular vote, would be determined in advance of the election and the threshold would be indicated on the ballots and apply to all candidates for legislature for that election. For a fixed-size legislature, the support block size is computed as one hundred percent divided by the number of votes allocated to the voting constituency in the legislature. For a variable-size legislature, the block size is set at one percent.

The number of support blocks multiplied by the support block size equals one hundred percent.

Decimal numbers such as percentages and ratios shall be rounded to three decimal places unless the election rules explicitly indicate a different number of places.

Each voter casts a single vote for the candidate they most want to represent them in the legislature. In each constituency, a tally is certified for each candidate with the number of votes cast for that candidate. The sum of all the candidate tallies is the total number of votes cast in the candidate election.

The percentage of support for each candidate is determined as the number of votes cast for that candidate divided by the total number of votes cast in the candidate election in that constituency.

Each candidate is assigned a number of legislature votes equal to the number of whole support blocks earned by the candidate plus up to one remainder support block per candidate.

The number of whole support blocks earned by each candidate is computed as the percentage of support for each candidate divided by the support block size, rounded down to the nearest integer.

Each candidate’s allocated support is computed as the number of whole support blocks earned by that candidate multiplied by the support block size. Each candidate’s unallocated support is computed as the difference between the percentage of support for that candidate and the allocated support for that candidate.

If the total number of support blocks earned by all candidates is less than the number of support blocks created, remaining support blocks are assigned to candidates by sorting candidates according to their unallocated support, in descending order from greatest to least unallocated support, and assigning one remainder support block to each candidate in that order until all support blocks have been assigned.

The total number of votes in the legislature will therefore be the sum of legislature votes assigned to each constituency, which will also equal the sum of legislature votes assigned to each voting representative.

Thresholds for the number of votes required to enact a law by majority or supermajority shall be set as a percentage of the sum of the number of legislature votes assigned to all representatives, instead of the number of elected representatives.

When a legislature forms committees, each representative in a committee is assigned one vote for the committee regardless of how many legislature votes they represent from their constituency.

When a legislature votes on procedural rules or motions or resolutions, the threshold may be set as a percentage of the total number of legislature votes assigned to representatives who are present, rather than the total of all legislature votes assigned, so that absentee representatives will not be able to block proceedings.

Intent:

The legislature should represent all the people. This proposal prevents situations where a majority of the legislature was elected by a narrow margin in their districts and it appears they have a strong mandate when in fact they have a lesser majority. It also allows representatives of a smaller minority of people to speak and debate in the legislature even when those representatives have fewer votes when it is time to count.

In legislative committees, all members of the committee are equal and can be selected based on their interests and qualifications, without consideration for how many legislature votes they earned in their last election.

Discussion:

While at least one representative from each voting constituency is required to participate in the legislature, a legislature with only one representative from each voting constituency suffers from under-representation of the people.

Instead of having one elected representative from each constituency, where that representative represents as little as 51% of the people from their constituency, and the other 49% are not represented, there could be multiple elected representatives from each district where each of them represents the people who voted for them. This ensures that all people have a voice in the legislature.

Following the principle of “one voter one vote”, each voter casts a single vote for the candidate they most want to represent them in the legislature.

Fixed-size legislatures are typically created to ensure that votes are allocated in a particular way. For example, in the United States Senate there are always two representatives from each state, so with 50 states there are always 100 available seats in the Senate, and in the United States House of Representatives there are 435 seats and they are allocated to each state according to its population, so some states have more influence in that body than others.

However, there are at least two major disadvantages to a fixed-size legislature.

First, a common practice for creating voting districts is to group together a subset of the population to vote for a representative. That representative then ostensibly represents that subset of the population in state or federal legislatures and there is an assumption that because the voters elected that representative, the voters also want whatever that representative’s party is offering. This is not necessarily true, especially when districts have been gerrymandered. When a representative wins a seat with 51% of the vote, that representative is representing barely more than half of their constituents every time they vote and the other half is not being represented, especially when votes are about topics for which the party votes are predictable. So there can be an improvement towards representation for more people in every district.

Second, the rise of national parties has caused representatives to vote along party lines most of the time. This means that whatever representatives did get elected tend to vote the same way. And that means tax dollars are being wasted on salaries for representatives who are redundant. When sending representatives to a fixed-size legislature, voting districts or states could send less representatives who carry multiple votes and thereby use the people’s tax dollars more efficiently.

The people would be better represented if, instead of electing multiple representatives of the same party, each state elected a single representative for each party and that representative is then assigned a number of votes instead of just one vote.

Cost savings

In some cases, this proposal could lead to significant cost savings if a smaller number of representatives in the legislature can effectively represent the people. The number of representatives is disconnected from the number of legislature votes assigned to each constituency, which means a fewer number of representatives in the legislature can potentially represent even more people. Consider the House of Representatives in the United States, with 435 representatives. The United States has two dominant political parties, so in most elections the House of Representatives ends up with about 200 Democrats and about 200 Republicans, which is a lot of money to pay for people to travel to Washington DC and express merely two points of view and vote along party lines. Instead of sending ten or twenty representatives, each state could send a much lower number, such as five representatives, where each one actually represents a different point of view and has a number of legislature votes assigned proportional to their popular support in the state. This could reduce the number of representatives needed by about half, saving a considerable amount of money.

Example – Alabama in the House of Representatives

In the United States, Alabama gets 7 votes in the House of Representatives. To control a legislature vote, a party must win a block of at least 1/7 (14.285%) of the popular support in the state. In 2022, that was 6 Republicans and 1 Democrat. Each of Alabama’s 7 districts has approximately equal populations, between 700,000 and 730,000 people. If people in Alabama were able to elect their representatives in a state-wide election instead of district elections, the results might be that Republicans get 74.9% of the total vote, Democrats get 21.1% of the total vote, Libertarians get 3.7% of the total vote, and independents get 0.3% of the total vote. Under the proposed changes, Alabama would send two representatives to the House of Representatives — one Republican with 5 votes (74.9% / 14.285% = 5.24 so 5 votes) and one Democrat with 2 votes (21.1% / 14.285% = 1.48 so 1 vote plus the remaining 7th vote because Democrats earned .48 compared to Libertarians 3.7% which is 0.26 of a block and Republicans .24 of the remainder and Independents with 0.3% of the vote which is 0.02 of a block).

With this proposal, the number of representatives is disconnected from the number of legislature votes they are assigned. So the House of Representatives could double the number of votes assigned to each state, keeping the proportions the same, but allowing better resolution in assignment of popular support to votes. Continuing with the same example, the new block size in Alabama would be 7.14% and results would be one Republican with 10 votes (and a remainder of .49), one Democrat with 3 votes (one from remainder of .95), one Libertarian with 1 vote (from a remainder of .518), and no Independents (a remainder of 0.04).

If the number of votes assigned to every state is doubled again to have even better resolution, the new block size in Alabama would be 3.57% and the results would be one Republican with 21 votes (20 and one from a remainder of .98), one Democrat with 6 votes (5 and one from a remainder of .91), one Libertarian with 1 vote, and no Independents (a remainder of 0.08). Now it’s very close to the amount of popular support, with 21 of 28 votes earned by Republicans closely matching the 74.9% of the popular support they earned, and 6 of 28 votes earned by Democrats closely matching the 21.1% of popular support they earned, and 1 of 28 votes earned by Libertarians closely matching the 3.7% of popular support they earned.

The parties are then represented very closely with their popular support when voting in the House of Representatives, but the state of Alabama only needs to send 3 representatives instead of 28.

Non-voting constituencies

This proposal does not address how non-voting constituencies elect or appoint their representatives.

Non-voting constituencies could use the same method outlined in this proposal, using the number of representatives the constituency can send instead of the number of votes assigned.

Alternatively, non-voting constituencies may already have an internal government that can appoint one or more representatives with or without a vote.

Comparison with the United States

In the United States in the 2022 election for the House of Representatives, 213 Democrats and 222 Republicans were elected. There were no independents or members of any other party elected to the House of Representatives. The salary for members of the House of Representatives in 2022 was $174,000. Multiply that by 435 representatives to see that the United States spends at least $75,690,000 every year to hear just two voices in the legislature: Democrats and Republicans. This does not include special leadership positions that get paid more, or any of the additional benefits these members receive, or any of the fundraising that they do to get elected, or the Senate, which is also populated by Democrats and Republicans with few independents.

To represent only two parties from each state in the House of Representatives, we need only 100 representatives, not 435. For example, if this proposal were in place in 2022, the House of Representatives would be comprised of 100 voting members, 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, where the Democrats have a total of 49% of the vote and Republicans have a total of 51% of the vote. This is the same distribution of power as under the current system, but instead of 40 Democrats and 12 Republicans from California voting along party lines, it would be 1 Democrat with 40 votes and 1 Republican with 12 votes voting along party lines. If there were no gerrymandering in California, this would be the same result as the existing system but less expensive. Instead of 435 representatives there would be only 100, a 77% reduction in expense — at least $58 million in savings annually.

The proposal would also allow the election of independents and minority parties, with corresponding fewer legislature votes, and at least the chance to be heard in debates, for a marginal additional expense for the states who have enough independent or minority party voters to get one of these representatives elected.

Currently American Samoa, District of Columbia, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands send non-voting delegates to the House of Representatives.

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