There is a lot of discussion about gerrymandering and the redistricting commissions, but I think there is a fundamental flaw underlying all of these suggestions. I don’t think California is gerrymandered to any great extent (and I will revisit this in a later diary, with some statistics) but I do think there are some issues with the legislature and Congress.<\/p>\n
To put it simply, they are too small.<\/p>\n
Ever since 1980, the state senator’s district has been larger than that for a member of the House of Representatives. The state assemblyman represents 420,000 people. The census will probably put those numbers over 450,000 for an assemblyman and over 900,000 for a state senator. This is too large a district to represent effectively.<\/p>\n
The US Constitution originally specified one member of the House of Representatives for every 30,000 “people” (with the slaves defined as 3\/5ths of a person each.) Congress gradually increased in members and district size through the 19th Century. The number of representatives is not fixed by the Constitution, but by Public Law 62-5. At the time, the US population was 92 million, so the districts were roughly 210,000 people in size.<\/p>\n
Smaller districts would have benefits. They would reduce the cost of getting elected, and one hopes reduces the need to constantly raise funds. Smaller districts should mean closer representation. The risk is that with larger legislative bodies, the demands for time to speak might slow already torpid legislative processes.<\/p>\n
At the national level, smaller districts would also alleviate some of the imbalance between the smaller states, that don’t reach the population threshold for a congressional district (see: Wyoming) and get closer to one man one vote on a national level.<\/p>\n
For the state, I’d suggest reducing the sizes of the districts to 100,000 for the assembly (~360 assemblymen) and 200,000 for the senate.<\/p>\n