Cube Root Congress

[jimrtex]

The following is an apportionment of the House of Representatives based on the cube root rule, where the total number of representatives is the cube root of the total population.  For the 2000 Census, this would result in 655 representatives.  States are apportioned representatives to a resolution of 0.2, where each 0.2 fraction will entitle a State to an extra representative in one of the five sessions of Congress during the decade following the census.  For example, Alabama with an apportionment of 10.4 representatives, will have 11 representatives for 2 sessions and 10 representatives for the other 3 sessions.

The population of the District of Columbia is included with Maryland for apportionment purposes, and residents of the district will help elect the Maryland representatives, just as they did in the late 18th century, following cession of the area to the legislative jurisdiction of Congress.

Apportionment was done using St. Lague's method (apportioning 655 x 5 units, where each unit is equivalent to 0.2 of a representative.  Montana got an extra 0.2 representative over what it would have received if independent rounding had been used.  Entitled to 2.0998 representatives based on its population, it is granted 2.2.  No adjustment for small States was needed since the 50th largest, Wyoming, was entitled to 1.2 representatives based on its population.

Note that this approach differs slightly from the method I used for the State unicameral legislatures.  In that case, the individual districts were drawn, and then the apportionment made based on district population.  But the US Constitution requires an apportionment be made to each individual State, with the representatives chosen by the People of each State.

Districts will be drawn within States entitled to more than 6 representatives, based on a secondary apportionment of the State's representatives.  The representatives from the 16 smallest States (ME, NH, VT, RI, DE, WV, ND, SD, NE, MT, WY, NM, ID, NV, AK, and HI) will be elected from a single statewide district.



To ensure that there are never more than 655 representatives for any session, it is necessary to arrange that States receive their extra representative in different sessions.  States are entitled to 637 whole representatives, and the remaining 18 representative positions float among the States from session.  In addition, other representative positions will float among districts within States.

Several States are grouped together, with each group entitled to 1 or 2 representative positions which will float among the States of the group.  This geographic stratification will ensure that there is not a dramatic shift in geographic representation from session to session.  For example, the southeastern states of SC, GA, AL. and FL have 75 representative apportioned to the 4 States (9, 19, 10, and 37, respectively).  A 76th representative position will float betwen the States (2 terms in SC, 2 in AL, and 1 in FL).



Is this system constitutional?  Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is yes,  The representatives are apportioned among the States according to their respective numbers as determined by the census enumeration, and each State has at least one representative.

And it is more equitable and fair than the current system.  This can be illustrated by the following analogy.  A customer of the lottery, we'll call him Monty, approaches a vending machine and inserts all his spare change, a total of $1.40, and is dispensed one ticket, and a flashing "No Change".  If it happened once, Monty might mark it up to bad luck.  But if it happens week after week, he may realize that he is being systematically cheated.

He may try to argue that he should get two tickets all the time, "if I were to split my $1.40, and give $0.70 to my children Helen and Bill, they would each receive 1 ticket".  But he can't convince the vendor to change the system, since it would cause another customer to lose a ticket.

After watching Rhoda place $1.60 in the vending machine and getting two tickets repeatedly, Monty might fume some more.  She only spends $0.20 more, but gets twice as many tickets.  Monty notes, perhaps she could get one more ticket than me only once in 5 times.  After all, over those 5 times, she would spend a dollar more which is the nominal ticket price.

If Monty were to spend $1.40 over 5 days, he would spend a total of $7.00, and might receive 7 tickets.  If over the 5 days, I received 2 tickets twice and 1 ticket the other 3 times, I would receive the 7 tickets that I paid for.  Meanwhile Rhoda could receive 2 tickets thrice, and 1 ticket the other two days, and thus over the 5 days would receive 8 tickets for $8.00.  Over time, this is much fairer than a system that has perpetual losers and winners.

[Padfoot]

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No, this system is in clear violation of the "one man, one vote" principle as applied to Congressional districts in Wesberry v. Sanders.  Both the "floating representative" and the provision that smaller states elect all their representatives at-large are both at odds with this ruling.

[jimrtex]

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No, this system is in clear violation of the "one man, one vote" principle as applied to Congressional districts in Wesberry v. Sanders.  Both the "floating representative" and the provision that smaller states elect all their representatives at-large are both at odds with this ruling.

There is no problem with requiring a State to elect all its representatives at large.  <i>Wesberry</i> itself notes that a State without districts is automatically compliant with the one man, one vote principle:

"We hold that, construed in its historical context, the command of Art. I, 2, that Representatives be chosen "by the People of the several States" means that as [376 U.S. 1, 8]    nearly as is practicable one man's vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another's. ₁₀ This rule is followed automatically, of course, when Representatives are chosen as a group on a statewide basis, as was a widespread practice in the first 50 years of our Nation's history. ₁₁"

Footnote 11 noted that as late as 1842, 7 States still elected representatives at large.  It was not until after <i>Wesberry</i> that Congress required States to universally be divided into districts.  And as Justice Harlan notes in his <i>Wesberry</i> dissent, perhaps as few as 37 representatives in the 88th Congress were lawfully elected with respect to Court's decision, with 22 of those 37 being elected at large.

While Congress was certainly within its prerogative to require district elections, it would also be acting within its prerogative to require at-large elections.   There is absolutely nothing in <i>Wesberry</i> that supports your argument with regard to at-large election of representatives.