Opening up the door to multimember districts for legislatures in H.R. 1

08Mar19

So, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 1 pretty much on party lines today. This is a huge bill with many sections on different aspects of election reform (campaign finance reform, election rules, etc). This is the Democrats putting themselves on the record for what they might look to pass if/when they gain control of the presidency and possibly Senate. Many people are writing about ways the bill could be even better, and this bit about the section to end gerrymandering really grabbed me.

Nicholas Stephanopoulos writes: ‘the word “single-member” in the provision requiring states to “establish single-member congressional districts” should be excised. This seemingly minor deletion would open the door for states to experiment with multimember districts…’

Multimember districts – combined with some kind of ranked voting – are one of the most promising ideas I’ve seen in the last few years for getting America’s legislatures to better reflect the diversity (in *all* senses) of the people. What do you think of multimember districts, or other ways that H.R. 1 could be improved?

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Ballotpedia on multimember districts in federal & state U.S. legislatures

Archived FairVote article on districts – This does not consider how ranked voting would affect multimember districts, but does provide background on single member vs. multimember vs. at-large, and on the lack of Constitutional clarity on federal involvement in states’ elections.

tangent – The main author on Election Law Blog is Rick Hasen, author of this book on Antonin Scalia’s self-contradictions.

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