One Man = One Vote?

One of the tenets of our political system is the (inaccurate) concept that one person in Illinois has the same vote as one person in Mississippi. Of course, the Electoral College and the Senate make this a complete facade, but the concept is still one of the great myths of our democracy.

Now a group is trying to attack it based on unequal voter distribution by Congressional district. A group called Apportionment.US has found filed a lawsuit on behalf of a voter in five states, Mississippi, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota and Utah, claiming that these states have a Congressional apportionment that is inferior to other states, specifically Wyoming, Rhode Island, Nebraska, Iowa and West Virginia. They state that while a US House district in Rhode Island has 525K or so people in it, a district in Mississippi has 713K or so.

Apportionment.US argues that the deviation in populations between US House seats is much wider than deviations that the Supreme Court have found unconstitutional in local elections. They cite Karcher v. Daggett, and argue that if the Supreme Court in Karcher found a deviation in district populations of 0.6984% unconstitutional, the deviation currently in US House seats of 5.75% is also unconstitutional.

To remedy this, Apportionment.US would like to vastly increase the size of the US House. They offer two plans, either making the House have 932 members or 1,761 members and claim that this could cut the deviation in House seats from 5.75% to 1.48% if there were 1,761 members of the House.

Adding members of the US House is a great idea. 600K+ residents per US House District is much too high. Great Britain, a country of about 61 million people, has a House of Commons with 646 members, and they will add 4 members to the Commons by the next election. If Britain can have a legislature of 650 members for a country that size, the US House could easily double or triple its membership. Adding members to the US House would not only fix this apparent discrepancy between state populations and representation, but it would also cut the costs of elections. With fewer constituents, US House members could do more retail politicking and have less of a need to spend money on television, particularly when any television campaign will be directed at more people who are not in their district than in their district. It will make national politics more local, and cut the entry cost for new candidates. Here's hoping Apportionment.US succeeds.