Legislation to increase the size of the House and Senate and restore the Supreme Court to its original role

[NovaSaber]

I don't know what the chances are of these bills passing, but I like the sound of it:

Casten Introduces Legislation to Increase Size of House and Senate, Change SCOTUS’ Jurisdiction | U.S. Congressman Sean Casten

The Official U.S. Congressional website of Congressman Sean Casten

casten.house.gov

“The fundamental promise of our democracy is to fulfill the will of the people,” said Rep. Sean Casten. “In recent years, we have failed to meet that promise. There is a growing list of issues – from climate action to gun control to healthcare to voting rights – where the federal government has consistently ignored the priorities of the majority of Americans. This failure not only breeds cynicism but ultimately risks the very survival of our government. We must act against the counter-majoritarian institutions of our political system and seek to reestablish the government as a stalwart for the people.

“The Equal Voices Act will increase the size of the House to be in line with the growing population of the United States. Not only will this bill create smaller districts to allow Members to be more responsive to the needs of their constituents, it will also rebalance inflated representation between districts, and allow for greater diversity that is more representative of our great nation. On top of that, it will grow and equalize the Electoral College, better aligning outcomes with the national popular vote.

• This bill directs that after the first census following enactment, the size of the House be equal to the total US population divided by the population of the smallest state and rounded to the nearest odd whole number.
• This would bring the size of House districts in line with US population growth since the last expansion of the House in 1911 and reduce disparities in district size across states.
• If this method of apportionment had been implemented after the 2020 census, a congressional district would have added 138 new members in the 2022 election, growing to 573 total seats, and the average district size would have been 585,516, roughly the population of Wyoming.
• By increasing the size of the House, this would also expand and rebalance the Electoral College, bringing outcomes more in line with the popular vote.

• This is a constitutional amendment to establish 12 at-large senators to be elected through a nationwide system of ranked choice voting.
• All voters eligible to vote in presidential elections will be eligible to vote for these senators.
• This would also establish 12 at-large Electors who shall cast their votes in the Electoral College for the winner of the national popular vote.

• Restructures the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United State to align with Article III of the Constitution
• Allows for any party to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to be heard and determined by a district court of three-judges.
• Creates a 13-judge multi-circuit panel to hear cases that the United States or a Federal agency is a party, cases concerning constitutional or statutory interpretation of Federal law, or cases clarifying the functions or actions of an executive order.
  • This panel will consist of 1 judge randomly selected from each circuit court of appeals (minus the federal circuit) and 1 chief judge randomly selected from the same circuit courts of appeals.
  • Each judge of the multi-circuit panel shall serve during the period beginning at 10amET on the first Monday in October and ending at 9:59amET on the first Monday in October of the following year.
  • A supermajority of not less than 70% of judges shall be required to affirm any decision which holds that any Act of Congress is unconstitutional, unlawful, or otherwise invalid.
• Actions before a court of the United States seeking injunctive relief restraining the enforcement of any Federal statute, regulation or order against a nonparty will be transferred to the U.S. Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia Circuit.
  • The Courts shall have the power to consolidate several cases concerning the same matter.
• The SCOTUS, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and Multi-circuit panel will have to issue a written explanation supporting decisions which shall be published on the respective websites and must be signed by the judge or judges.

 

[Sjogre]

I know that the House hasn't been expanding to keep pace with population, but I hadn't realized the stop was that long ago.

What I got out of the Supreme Court changes that this was a fancy way to say "Explain you bullshit." Some other stuff too, but that went over my head.

Overall this sounds necessary, so I'm doubtful that it'll happen any time soon.

 

[Pocket]

Honestly, given that the House was meant to represent the people at large, ideally we should do away with Congressional districts entirely and have all of its members be elected by all voters. But there's not really any good way to do that. You can't expect every single voter to pick a couple hundred candidates out of a list of thousands. And there's no WAY I'd accept a system where they just pick which party they prefer and let the winning party decide who to appoint; it's bad enough that we only get one candidate per party as it is.

 

[Pocket]

Also, the cap on the number of representatives might have been motivated by the concern that they were going to run out of room in the House chamber. If they're planning to add over a hundred more all at once, they'd better be prepared to start offering a remote-work option.

 

[Stepwise]

Also, the cap on the number of representatives might have been motivated by the concern that they were going to run out of room in the House chamber. If they're planning to add over a hundred more all at once, they'd better be prepared to start offering a remote-work option.

Yeah, I was wondering about those logistics, too. There's a whole list of pros and cons to these bills, but at what point do they just run out of space?

 

[DefaultOption]

I love the ideas of expanding the House and reining in the Judiciary. When you look at how the House is divided up now because of the Reapportionment Act of 1929, it becomes obvious how much people in larger states, particularly California, are under-represented because their House districts end up being so large.

Also, I think the Senate should either have some kind of proportional representation, or be devolved to having only advisory and cermonial duties like the UK's House of Lords, but that's a whole other ball of wax.

These sound like really good ideas for reforming government, so they definitely won't get any traction in the GQP-controlled House.

 

[Ungnome]

Might not get much traction in the house period. It reduces the power held by individual representatives, after all. I'm sure there's a few dems in the house who don't want that.

 

[wonko the sane?]

The simple space solution would be to instead of calling on individual rep, you have all the individual reps create "state councils" to tally vote for that state then only send one rep to the house that would declare the average vote of the state. Use ******* the electoral college against them for once.

 

[Ungnome]

Actually, that would make things worse, especially in gerrymandered red states. The blue areas of those states would essentially have no representation. There's no need for all the representatives to be in the same room anymore outside of tradition. Heck, there really hasn't been since the turn of the 20th century and the advent of widespread voice telecommunication.

 

[Anonymous X]

Incidentally, we have people over here who ask “why do we need to have 650 MPs in the House of Commons, America has just 435 seats in the House of Representatives with a far bigger population?”, who as you can see are oblivious about that whole federalism and decentralised states thing that the USA is built upon. The same individuals will of course cry out in anguish if you suggest abolishing the House of Lords with its 780 unelected lords, baronesses and bishops.

(The current UK government was going to reduce the seat count in the House of Commons to 600, ‘conveniently’ abolishing swathes of seats in cities and urban areas which usually vote Not-Tory. I think the plans were either abandoned or put on the back burner, however.)

 

[wonko the sane?]

If there was a plan to remove voting power or right from people at all: it has not been abandoned, they are simply not talking about it. It WILL be back.

 

[Anonymous X]

If there was a plan to remove voting power or right from people at all: it has not been abandoned, they are simply not talking about it. It WILL be back.

Oh, that’s happening as well. The local elections this May will be the first elections to require photographic ID, which the government are making no effort to publicise

Low uptake for free UK voter ID scheme among elderly and young people | Local elections | The Guardian

Statistics suggest many older and younger people could be disenfranchised at England’s May local elections

amp.theguardian.com

(To make this more on-topic, this is another example of how American conservative political chicanery, deliberate voter suppression in this case, quickly gets copied across by their counterparts across the Atlantic.)

 

[KidTDragon]

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I guess. Sucks that they only want to imitate the worst parts.

 

[Pocket]

That's how it always works. One bad apple, flowing downhill, etc.

 

[Paladin]

It'll fail.