Bigger U.S. House could renew fading Congress

 

Gordon L. Weil

Jared Golden is trying to close a circle that’s as old as the Constitution.

As one of Maine’s U.S. House members, he wants the House to take a new look at an old subject.  He has proposed that the House of Representatives should consider adding members.

During the drafting of the Constitution, the Framers debated the size of the House.  The original argument was so heated that it was the sole issue that caused George Washington to speak out at the Constitutional Convention.

How many people should be represented by a member of the House?  Too few would be undemocratic and but too many might be hard to manage.  James Madison, the chief drafter and later the fourth president, argued the problem would solve itself.  As more states joined, the House would naturally grow.

That worked until 1900, when the number of members stopped at 435.  In 1929, it was formally frozen there.  When Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii had joined, their seats were taken from other states.

The result is that the number of people in any single House district is now larger that the entire population of some states.  Each Maine district includes more people than the entire population of the state of Wyoming.   The math shows that a voter in Wyoming has more power than a voter in Maine.

An easy path to voter equality would be to set the population for each district across the country at the population of the smallest state, Wyoming.  I calculate that would increase the House to about 573 members, an added 138 seats.  Even a larger House could make sense.

Adding new states should mean more seats were added, as originally intended.  The number of House seats should also increase as the national population grows. The purpose should be to keep the House representative and its members in touch with voters.

That increase would still leave the U.S. with a higher population per voter than any other major nation.  Citizens would remain distant from their representatives, and members might remain limited as true representatives of their people’s pulse.

One advantage of expansion would be the need for thorough redistricting into smaller districts.  That would make racial or political gerrymandering more difficult by making districts more compact. And it would certainly open the way for many new faces in Congress, which could enable more women and minorities to gain seats.

With a larger House, each member would not need to be assigned to several committees. Assigned to fewer committees, they would have more time to become more expert.  There might also be more committees or subcommittees, allowing each to have a far sharper focus than is possible today.

House expansion, allowing members to become more expert on specific subjects, is not political daydreaming; it could turn out to be critically important.

The Supreme Court is moving steadily toward stripping regulatory agencies of their independent powers. When it completes its works, perhaps quite soon, their decision-making powers would end up with the president.  Yet regulation is nothing more than powers that Congress could itself exercise by law.  Congress, not the president, could take on more responsibility.

A larger Congress should include enough members that focused House committees could take on more detailed decision-making.  Such targeted committees could produce strict, general rules, allowing less room for special interests to work out deals with regulators behind closed doors. If Congress fails to act, it will continue to lose its powers to the president.

There’s another benefit to the proposal for expanding the House.  Many want the electoral vote for president to better align with the popular vote.  One major reason they can misalign is the unbalanced voting power of some states over others. Each state’s electoral vote is the sum of the number of its House and Senate members.

If the House were larger, the Electoral College would be larger.  The number of voters per electoral vote member would be closer to equal than it is now.  With electoral votes better distributed based on population, the electoral vote will come closer to reflecting the popular will. 

Of course, each state would retain at least one House seat and two senators, no matter its population.  That’s what the Constitution requires and would prevent a fully popular vote for president.

While amending the Constitution is almost impossible given today’s political divide plus and the growing efforts by the Court to apply its constitutional views, some issues like term limits or maximum ages of officials cannot be addressed. But Congress can change the number of House members, which could breathe some new life into an old system.

Unlike many of his colleagues who routinely accept the current system, Golden has a good idea that could produce major bipartisan reform.  It’s worthy of study and action.

Harris could win EV, lose popular vote

 

Gordon L. Weil

After Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, defeating Hillary Clinton who had been supported by most voters, the National Popular Vote campaign gained momentum.   The similar result in the election of George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000 had laid the groundwork.

The conventional wisdom, appealing to Democrats who are the traditional losers when minority popular vote presidents are elected, is that the electoral vote system favors the Republicans. 

NPV supporters assert that the will of majority should not be ignored, despite the outmoded electoral vote system found in the Constitution.

Based on the compromise that brought the states on board, the presidential election is a collection of elections in the states and D.C.  Because all states are constitutionally guaranteed a minimum of three electoral votes, individual voters in the small, usually rural, states have more voting power than those in larger states. By strict proportionality, small states like Maine might get one electoral vote, which is clearly politically unacceptable.

The National Popular Vote campaign seeks an agreement among states with a majority of electoral votes that their electors will vote for the candidate winning a majority of the sum of the popular votes of all jurisdictions.  With enough participation, that group of states could determine the outcome of the election no matter if others chose not to join.

Today, because of separate state elections, elections focus on the few states where the outcome is not in question.  Thus, the campaigns concentrate on those swing states while taking for granted the result in other states.  With a national popular vote, all individual voters are in play, which should result in a truly national election and a better reflection of the people’s preference.

If National Popular Vote were adopted, this disproportionate weight of voters would largely be solved.   But each state would continue to have its usual number of electoral votes, continuing to tilt the Electoral College somewhat toward small states.

Until now, states with 207 Electoral Votes in 2020 have voted for the NPV.  All of them voted Democratic in that election.  No state that voted Republican has signed on.

For the NPV states to automatically determine the Electoral College winner, additional states with 61 electoral votes would have to support the proposed compact among states.  In 2020, eight states with 86 votes voted Democratic, but have not signed on. 

Not all are likely to accept the NPV.  Among these states are swing jurisdictions – Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia and Nebraska’s Second District – that had 43 Electoral Votes.  If they do not support NPV, only 43 votes remain among the Democratic-voting jurisdictions, not enough to make NPV a reality.  No GOP state is likely to join.

The conclusion is clear.  The NPV is partisan.  If there were enough NPV states for the Democrats to overcome the supposed GOP Electoral Vote advantage, the Democrats would win without needing the NPV. 

To be sure, the NPV could mean something if expected Democratic states voted for GOP candidates or if some Republican states accepted the NPV.  If this were to happen, a state would accept being bound to a result opposed by a majority of its own citizens.  In theory, NPV makes sense; in practice, it may not.

If the electoral vote and the popular vote more closely coincided, the underlying reason for the NPV would be weakened.  That may be happening this year.

In 2016, Clinton won a substantial majority of the California vote, which helped boost her national popular majority.  Some of her votes there produced no electoral votes for her and were, in effect, “wasted.”

It seems possible that this year, there will be fewer such unneeded votes.  In effect, the gap in swing states between Kamala Harris and Trump could be closer to the national popular vote gap between them.  

Trump may be gaining support in overwhelmingly Democratic California and New York.  He’s also polling better in states that went strongly for Republican congressional candidates in 2022.  But his gains in either case would not earn him more electoral votes, though they would contribute to a narrower national popular vote margin.

At the same time, Harris is doing better than expected in swing states.  While her gains may involve fewer total voters than Trump’s gains in solidly Democratic states, they indicate that she could win the election with a narrow national popular vote margin.

Because this analysis is based on polling of varying quality, these conclusions may be problematic.  And it’s unknown if the polls fairly account for new voters or if some voters will be denied access to the ballot box.

Conventional wisdom has suggested that a Democrat needs to win the national popular vote by a comfortable margin to be sure of winning most electoral votes.  That may not be the case. 

 

Harris' biggest campaign event; Trump's 'best'?

 

Gordon L. Weil

The debate revealed a split between the presidential candidates going beyond their differences on the issues.

At several points, Kamala Harris directly addressed viewers, reaching beyond the limits of the ABC debate set.  Donald Trump, expected to be on offense but finding himself mostly on defense, never left the limits of the debate.

After the war of words, Trump told the media, “It was the best debate I’ve ever had.”  That may be a case of wishful thinking or an attempt at campaign spin. But that statement amounted to his giving himself a grade on his performance.  He was telling the voters that this was him at his best.

The presidential election is held in each state for its electoral votes.   Trump played to his core backers in the belief that he had locked up safe states and could raise doubts about Harris in the swing states.  Of course, Harris has her own safe states, but she was reaching for voters in both swing states and on Trump’s own turf.

It’s all about electoral math. Just below the surface of the presidential election lies a politically deadly force that could pick the winner despite the will of the people.

This forecast is not merely a possibility; it is a certainty.   When the votes are counted on and after November 5, the outmoded Electoral College will determine the winner, no matter the popular vote.

The practical effect of the Electoral College is that the Democratic candidate for president must win by much more than a slim majority in the national popular vote.  If Harris leads by one or two percent in the polls, that’s probably not enough.  She needs more than a national squeaker to be assured of enough support across enough states to prevail.

The reverse is true for the Republican candidate.  They may win less than a majority of the vote nationally, but still be elected.  This seems to be an iron law: every time since 1824 when there has been a minority winner, the victor was a Republican.  Trump can win with less than a popular majority, as he did in 2016.

While a narrow national margin either way may mean a Trump victory, Harris can win by carrying swing states, and she can win big by taking one or two safe Trump states.  If she trails in swing states, even while winning the national popular majority, Trump’s electoral vote could overrule her majority.

So, Harris had to accept the electoral math and tried to turn the debate to her national advantage.  For her, it was not so much a debate as a way to talk directly with swing voters all across the country.  For Trump, it was a matter of reinforcing his hold on his MAGA core and raising doubts about Harris with other Republicans and possibly with independents. 

She stuck to her case and often avoided answering some moderators’ questions.  She needled him. He boldly asserted untruths, knowing there was not enough time to refute them all.  He was so intent on his false claims, some of them wild, that he failed to successfully link her to President Biden.

Whatever the points the candidates thought they scored in the debate format, Harris sought to use it as her only national campaign stop.  In what was clearly the best answer given by either candidate, she forcefully laid out the case for reproductive freedom for women.  This was an attempt to reach voters in all states.  If successful, she could overcome the electoral math.

The effect of the Electoral College can only be defeated in one way – turnout.  Motivated voters showing up to vote can undermine the implicit assumptions about the way states will decide. 

When voter turnout is unexpectedly high, it can upset what polling forecasts.  A surge in support for a candidate might overturn the expected outcome, flipping the electoral math.  This might occur in both the swing states and in supposedly safe states.  Momentum can make swings happen anywhere.

The debate was Harris’s chance to recover her momentum and Trump’s chance to block it.  If she rekindled enthusiasm for her candidacy, the debate could have helped her in swing states, but also to reach into Trump’s supposedly safe states.  It seems less likely that Trump could have loosened her hold on her safe states.

If one party invades the other party’s safe states, then a voter anywhere can make a difference.  That’s possible this year, because Trump may have peaked, leaving Harris nowhere to go but up.

Growing enthusiasm helps boost momentum.  Watch the number of small contributions; they reflect that enthusiasm.  Also, the surge in voter registration may be a positive sign for either candidate.

Will there be another debate?  It could help either candidate, but in hugely different ways.