Proportional Representation: a cure worse than the disease
Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 8:22 am
People sometimes ask me about proportional representation as an alternative to representational enlargement.
There are two aspects of proportional representation which are important to understand. First, because the U.S. Constitution specifies single-member districts, implementing proportional representation would require a constitutional amendment. In contrast, representational enlargement (with single-member districts) can be implemented without an amendment. Though I favor an amendment to compel enlargement (by establishing a maximum district population size), such an amendment is not a prerequisite.
The second point is that the root causes of our problems stem from the massive size of the congressional districts, not the number of Representatives. (This is explained in Taking Back Our Republic.) The main problem with proportional representation is that it preserves the oversized districts and, therefore, all the problems they produce (e.g., political party control, lobbyist and special interest control of the Reps, etc).
As a practical matter, I don't believe there are any success stories we can point to relative to proportional representation. A list of countries using this method is provided by Wikipedia; none of which are paragons of representative democracy.
There are two aspects of proportional representation which are important to understand. First, because the U.S. Constitution specifies single-member districts, implementing proportional representation would require a constitutional amendment. In contrast, representational enlargement (with single-member districts) can be implemented without an amendment. Though I favor an amendment to compel enlargement (by establishing a maximum district population size), such an amendment is not a prerequisite.
The second point is that the root causes of our problems stem from the massive size of the congressional districts, not the number of Representatives. (This is explained in Taking Back Our Republic.) The main problem with proportional representation is that it preserves the oversized districts and, therefore, all the problems they produce (e.g., political party control, lobbyist and special interest control of the Reps, etc).
As a practical matter, I don't believe there are any success stories we can point to relative to proportional representation. A list of countries using this method is provided by Wikipedia; none of which are paragons of representative democracy.