WASHINGTON — In America, democracy follows the simple principle of one person, one vote, right?
Unless, that is, you live in Montana, where your vote carries a little more than half as much weight in the House of Representatives as that of someone living in Rhode Island. Or if you live in Utah, where your vote counts about two-thirds as much as it would in Iowa.
With the 2010 Census around the corner, Washington and the various state capitals will soon turn their attention to carving out congressional districts across the nation. And once again, political leaders are preparing to cobble together a patchwork quilt of districts that will leave some Americans underrepresented.
Redrawing the lines will address some of the population shifts over the last decade, but much of the disparity will remain, because it is built into the system. In theory, every member of the House represents roughly the same number of people. But because each state gets at least one seat, no matter how small its population, and because the overall size of the House has not changed in a century, the number of people represented by a single congressman can vary widely.
The most populous district in America right now, according to the latest Census data, is Nevada’s 3rd District, where 960,000 people are represented in the House by just one member. All of Montana’s 958,000 people likewise have just one vote in the House. By contrast, 523,000 in Wyoming get the same voting power, as do the 527,000 in one of Rhode Island’s two districts and the 531,000 in the other.
That 400,000-person disparity between top and bottom has generated a federal court challenge that is set to be filed Thursday in Mississippi, charging that the system effectively disenfranchises people in certain states. The lawsuit asks the courts to order the House to fix the problem by increasing its size from 435 seats to at least 932, or perhaps as many as 1,761. That way, the plaintiffs argue, every state can have districts that are close to parity.
This is a step in the right direction, I like the idea of 30,000 Representatives better.
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