But wait! The VRA was passed to deal with a different problem: the legacy of slavery and slaveholder power more than a century after the end of slavery in elections. What the VRA did was make it possible to elect candidates in some measure proportional to their racial identity by creating districts in which a substantial plurality of a Black voters have a reasonable chance of electing Black representatives. What might happen to Black representation in a PR system???
Anyway, the ostensible purpose of single-member districts is to have House members who represent their districts, not their states as a whole. Republicans are disingenuously discarding that understanding in justifying gerrymandering.
But if the claim now is that a state’s Congressional delegation should represent the whole state, then proportional representation follows almost purely logically. The only way it doesn’t is if you believe that it’s state legislatures, not voters, who have the right to select Representatives.
There is no question (in my mind) that proportional representation, if done right, will be a huge improvement over the "lesser evil" system we have now. Unfortunately, like every other reform or change we need there is no way that the Republican Party will agree to do this. Without a two-party buy-in nothing will happen. Good ideas abound, but since we have two fundamental problems (for my purposes now) neither of which is likely to improve in any conceivable future.
The first problem is the woeful quality of our electorate. One of my favorite quotes comes from Thomas Jefferson.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be."
We've managed to muddle through for 2-1/2 centuries, but as has been pointed out we were never remotely a democracy until the VRA was passed. The way we bounce back and forth between party majorities is a result of the sad reality that a relatively small number of voters makes the deciding choice in each election. The reasons for their choice are rarely grounded in rationality or thoughtful, informed voting. The "deciders" are the least knowledgeable and least well-informed voters. In 2024, those voters decided that based on the thoroughly unbelievable campaign promises of Trump, this country's most notorious liar in history, they would base the future of this country on his promise to lower prices "on day one." No thoughtful, informed person could believe that, but that isn't who decided the election. Now that Trump has not only not lowered inflation, but has increased it through several extremely stupid policy choices, those same voters are reputedly swinging back to Democrats. That doesn't reflect their being better informed or smarter – they aren’t – it is simply the result of their having their poor choice(s) in 2024 coming back to haunt them in a form they can’t ignore and don’t have to make any effort to discover. They simply have to buy things.
The second problem we face is that there is no longer a second party with any interest in democracy, free and fair elections, integrity, a just, prosperous nation, or any of the other requirements of a healthy system. We now have “the party of Lincoln” as a full-fledged racist party wholly owned by an incompetent, autocratic criminal.
There is no way I can be optimistic about the future of this country. Even with an ignorant, poorly informed electorate the country could survive if both parties fundamentally believed in democratic norms, free and fair elections, societal justice, and honesty. We no longer have that. The Democratic Party is a shell of what we need on the left. It is satisfied with weak leadership and relying on being the lesser evil. On the right is a party fully on board with autocracy, racism, misogyny, rigged elections, anti-science, and corruption. The list of negative attributes of today’s GOP is too long to list here, but suffice it to say, consistent with that party’s leader, Donald Trump, I can’t think of a single positive quality that either the Republican Party or its members have. There are extremely isolated cases of Republicans doing the right thing, but those are all instances of limited applicability. Yes, Thomas Massie has been forthright in trying to get the Epstein Files released to to the public, but recent poling concerning his reelection is not looking good. Apart from Epstein, I can’t think of anything else favorable to say about Massie.
Proportional Representation is a fine idea. If someone can offer any, even minimally plausible, way for us to get there, I am listening. Not being optimistic is not equivalent to being pessimistic. I am being realistic. I feel strongly that we should try with every possible resource to raise this issue and work to get it accomplished. I just wouldn’t bet a penny that it will happen.
One major question is what does the Republican Party become once Trump is dead. I don’t say merely out of office, because he may still be able to cause trouble and influence the party even if he isn’t president. I have no doubt that if he is alive, he will not willingly be silent.
The thought of a successor GOP led by either JD Vance or Marco Rubio is not a confidence builder. The entire party has signed on to autocracy, corruption, rigged elections, etc., and it has paid off for them. There is no sign of a Republican with a realistic chance of getting the party's nomination for president in 2028 who would be substantially different. The only thing that has any credible chance of changing that is for Republicans to be wiped out in several successive elections. If they are powerless to even obstruct the Democrats, they might rethink their options, but their character will still be worse than suspect.. It is difficult to imagine a positive future in which the current Republican Party has any significant role.
". . . states make multi-member districts. . . . Doesn't this allow the majority party to influence the election of representatives? I suggest an independent Citizens Redistricting Commission to create the multi-member districts and cumulative voting. This ensures a representative House.
But wait! The VRA was passed to deal with a different problem: the legacy of slavery and slaveholder power more than a century after the end of slavery in elections. What the VRA did was make it possible to elect candidates in some measure proportional to their racial identity by creating districts in which a substantial plurality of a Black voters have a reasonable chance of electing Black representatives. What might happen to Black representation in a PR system???
I appreciate Lee’s optimism.
Anyway, the ostensible purpose of single-member districts is to have House members who represent their districts, not their states as a whole. Republicans are disingenuously discarding that understanding in justifying gerrymandering.
But if the claim now is that a state’s Congressional delegation should represent the whole state, then proportional representation follows almost purely logically. The only way it doesn’t is if you believe that it’s state legislatures, not voters, who have the right to select Representatives.
There is no question (in my mind) that proportional representation, if done right, will be a huge improvement over the "lesser evil" system we have now. Unfortunately, like every other reform or change we need there is no way that the Republican Party will agree to do this. Without a two-party buy-in nothing will happen. Good ideas abound, but since we have two fundamental problems (for my purposes now) neither of which is likely to improve in any conceivable future.
The first problem is the woeful quality of our electorate. One of my favorite quotes comes from Thomas Jefferson.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be."
We've managed to muddle through for 2-1/2 centuries, but as has been pointed out we were never remotely a democracy until the VRA was passed. The way we bounce back and forth between party majorities is a result of the sad reality that a relatively small number of voters makes the deciding choice in each election. The reasons for their choice are rarely grounded in rationality or thoughtful, informed voting. The "deciders" are the least knowledgeable and least well-informed voters. In 2024, those voters decided that based on the thoroughly unbelievable campaign promises of Trump, this country's most notorious liar in history, they would base the future of this country on his promise to lower prices "on day one." No thoughtful, informed person could believe that, but that isn't who decided the election. Now that Trump has not only not lowered inflation, but has increased it through several extremely stupid policy choices, those same voters are reputedly swinging back to Democrats. That doesn't reflect their being better informed or smarter – they aren’t – it is simply the result of their having their poor choice(s) in 2024 coming back to haunt them in a form they can’t ignore and don’t have to make any effort to discover. They simply have to buy things.
The second problem we face is that there is no longer a second party with any interest in democracy, free and fair elections, integrity, a just, prosperous nation, or any of the other requirements of a healthy system. We now have “the party of Lincoln” as a full-fledged racist party wholly owned by an incompetent, autocratic criminal.
There is no way I can be optimistic about the future of this country. Even with an ignorant, poorly informed electorate the country could survive if both parties fundamentally believed in democratic norms, free and fair elections, societal justice, and honesty. We no longer have that. The Democratic Party is a shell of what we need on the left. It is satisfied with weak leadership and relying on being the lesser evil. On the right is a party fully on board with autocracy, racism, misogyny, rigged elections, anti-science, and corruption. The list of negative attributes of today’s GOP is too long to list here, but suffice it to say, consistent with that party’s leader, Donald Trump, I can’t think of a single positive quality that either the Republican Party or its members have. There are extremely isolated cases of Republicans doing the right thing, but those are all instances of limited applicability. Yes, Thomas Massie has been forthright in trying to get the Epstein Files released to to the public, but recent poling concerning his reelection is not looking good. Apart from Epstein, I can’t think of anything else favorable to say about Massie.
Proportional Representation is a fine idea. If someone can offer any, even minimally plausible, way for us to get there, I am listening. Not being optimistic is not equivalent to being pessimistic. I am being realistic. I feel strongly that we should try with every possible resource to raise this issue and work to get it accomplished. I just wouldn’t bet a penny that it will happen.
One major question is what does the Republican Party become once Trump is dead. I don’t say merely out of office, because he may still be able to cause trouble and influence the party even if he isn’t president. I have no doubt that if he is alive, he will not willingly be silent.
The thought of a successor GOP led by either JD Vance or Marco Rubio is not a confidence builder. The entire party has signed on to autocracy, corruption, rigged elections, etc., and it has paid off for them. There is no sign of a Republican with a realistic chance of getting the party's nomination for president in 2028 who would be substantially different. The only thing that has any credible chance of changing that is for Republicans to be wiped out in several successive elections. If they are powerless to even obstruct the Democrats, they might rethink their options, but their character will still be worse than suspect.. It is difficult to imagine a positive future in which the current Republican Party has any significant role.
Interesting to see this today. Yesterday, I tried to distill the benefits of combining proportional representation and ranked-choice voting into proportional rank-choice voting. Please go to this link to see my attempt: https://www.urbanexus.com/pikeurbanexuscom/2026/5/11/combining-proportional-representation-and-ranked-choice-voting
". . . states make multi-member districts. . . . Doesn't this allow the majority party to influence the election of representatives? I suggest an independent Citizens Redistricting Commission to create the multi-member districts and cumulative voting. This ensures a representative House.