Our system for electing Congress is reaching the breaking point.  The partisan gerrymandering death spiral is only going to accelerate further, as Democrats re-draw maps before 2028 to catch up with recent Republican gains.  The addition of mid-decade redistricting to the gerrymandering wars has further eroded voter confidence in the legitimacy and integrity of the democratic process.  Large majorities of voters from both parties consider these partisan manipulations a “very serious problem.”  On top of all this, the Supreme Court’s recent Voting Rights Act decision has catalyzed demands for a response from those concerned with fair racial representation.

What can be done that is politically plausible?  Any solution must come from Congress.  The Supreme Court has eliminated any potential role for the federal courts in constraining this democratic death spiral (full disclosure:  I represented Common Cause in the case in which the Court rejected our efforts to limit partisan gerrymandering).  State-by-state solutions are unstable, as most states do not want to disarm unilaterally.  Reform groups have floated proposals to get rid of individual congressional districts and create a five or six party Congress, but these proposals are politically unrealistic.

Instead, the most plausible path for reform begins by retaining the existing 435 individual districts, in which voters have a specific representative they can identify as their representative.  We can then add 150 seats to Congress, allocated to each state according to population.  That would be beneficial in its own right.  Even at 585 seats, Congress would be smaller than the legislatures in other major democracies, with our representatives still representing far more people per district.  The U.K. House of Commons, for example, has 650 representatives; Germany’s parliament has 630.  A member of the U.K. House represents 106,000 people; in Germany, it’s 134,000 people.  In our current districts, a member of Congress currently represents around 786,000 people.  The U.S. House was fixed at 435 representatives in 1929, when the population was around 121 million.  Today it stands at around 340 million.

These additional seats would be elected on a statewide basis.  Their purpose would be used to bring each state’s congressional delegations more into line with each party’s actual level of support in the state.  In other words, these new seats would counteract partisan gerrymandering; indeed, this approach would dramatically reduce the incentives to gerrymander in the first place.  In Florida, for example, Republicans now hold 71% of the seats, due to gerrymandering, but President Trump only won 57% of the vote.  Under this proposal, Florida would be entitled to an additional 10 seats.  Based on the 2024 election, Democrats would be entitled to 8 of these seats, Republicans 2.  That would make Florida’s congressional delegation 58% Republican – almost perfectly in line with each party’s actual level of support.  This approach would similarly benefit Republicans facing Democratic gerrymanders.  Kamala Harris won 55% of the vote in Illinois, but Democrats hold 14 of Illinois’ 17 seats in Congress (82%).  Illinois would gain 6 new seats, all of which Republicans would be entitled to.  That would reduce the Democratic share of Illinois’ delegation to 61%, much closer to the statewide level of support for each party.

This proposal has at least five benefits.  First, as noted, it counteracts partisan gerrymandering, which also weakens the incentives to gerrymander in the first place.  Second, it retains the 435 single-member districts that we have long had.  That maintains the connection between voters and a specific representative from their district; that connection is particularly important for lower socio-economic constituents, who depend on their congressional office for help with public benefits, Social Security, and other constituency services. 

Third, this approach is more effective than trying to get Congress to adopt standards to ban or limit partisan gerrymandering, even if that would be desirable.  But any standards Congress sets will be gamed by the parties and would then require judicial oversight to be enforceable.  Instead, this approach builds fair representation directly into the structure of Congress.  Fourth, it would create new incentives for voters to participate even in “safe” districts, because their votes would still count toward the party’s share of the statewide seats to which it would be entitled. Fifth, and of major importance, this approach does not threaten the seats of incumbents and might draw some degree of bipartisan support, since Democrats benefit in red states and Republicans in blue ones.  This approach also works within the two-party system, hence making it more realistic than proposals that assume the major parties are going to be happy to break themselves up into three or more sub-parties.  Moreover, the proposal raises no constitutional issues.

What about the issue of racial representation?  Democrats are already facing significant political pressure to figure out a response to the Supreme Court’s elimination of racial redistricting.  Take the three states that have already lost one Voting Rights Act district as a direct result of the Court’s decision.  Under this proposal, Alabama and Louisiana would each gain two additional seats; Tennessee, where a Memphis-based district was recently broken up, would gain three.  Democrats would be entitled to each of these seats, based on the two parties’ level of support in each state.  Because Black Democrats are such a large share of the Democratic primary electorate in these states (around 50% in AL and LA), they would undoubtedly have a major voice in who would fill the new statewide Democratic seats in these states.  This approach also raises no constitutional issues, unlike those that would be directly race-based.

Congress should leave the states latitude in determining how these new statewide seats would be filled.  In most states, voters from each party in their regular primaries can choose the nominees to fill the statewide seats to which their party is entitled.  The baseline for determining how many statewide seats each party is entitled to can be the statewide vote share for each party in that year’s House elections. 

The most difficult issue is how the largest states should choose these statewide candidates.  California would be entitled to 18 new seats; Texas, to 14 seats.  One option would be to divide these states into three or four regions, in each of which voters would select 4-5 statewide candidates for their parties.  Another option would be to permit the state political parties to put together an ordered list of the nominees who would fill these statewide seats.  Those lists would represent the various interests and groups to which each party seeks to appeal.  A variation on that would give voters the power to express their preferences between these candidates the parties have listed.  These are details to be debated in the legislative process.  While this mixed system of traditional individual districts, combined with some statewide seats, would be novel here, it would be an American version of a system Germany and other countries have long used. 

Getting Congress to engage in political reform, even non-partisan reform such as this, is a tall task, to be sure.  But the partisan gerrymandering wars, combined with recent Supreme Court decisions, are pushing our system of political representation to the breaking point.  Members of Congress in both parties recognize that the current process has reached a point that alienates voters and is bad for American democracy.  Congress is going to be under increasing pressure to rein in this process, with Democrats facing particular concerns about fair racial representation.  When the window for reform opens, it will be important to have politically realistic options on the table – ones that take into account the inevitable role partisan and incumbent self-interest will play.  The addition of 150 statewide seats to Congress takes these political realities into account, while offering a path to revitalize our system of fair political representation in the face of today’s challenges.