A Constitutional Amendment to Reform Congress

A Proposed Amendment to the US Constitution

1. Any state that is allocated five or fewer seats in the US House of Representatives shall have a single congressional district.

2. Any state that is allocated six or more seats in the US House of Representatives may establish multiple congressional districts within their state's borders and assign its allocated seats to their congressional districts in proportion to the number of registered voters residing within each of their congressional districts. However, no congressional district shall be established that would, based on the number of registered voters residing within the district, be assigned less than three seats.

3. When multiple congressional districts are established within a state, the districts shall not be required to have the same number of registered voters residing within them. Nor shall the districts be required to have the same number of assigned seats. However, the borders of each district shall be adjusted so that each district shall have approximately the same number of registered voters per assigned seat. Any difference between the number of registered voters per assigned seat within each of the state's congressional districts and the number of registered voters per allocated seats for the entire state shall not exceed the limit established by Congress.

4. The registered voters within each congressional district shall elect the representatives that will occupy the seats assigned to the district by the state. For such purpose, a multi-winner election employing ranked preference voting shall be employed whenever possible.

An Example

Suppose, for example, a state was allocated eight seats in the US House of Representatives. It could create two congressional districts, where one (District A) would be assigned five seats and one (District B) would be assigned three seats.

When elections are held in the state to elect representatives to the US House of Representatives, each voter in District A would rank the candidates on their ballot based on the voter's preferences. When the ballots are tabulated, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes would be eliminated. The order of the candidates on each ballot would then be adjusted to account for the candidate that was eliminated. And then the ballots would be retabulated. The tabulation, elimination, and adjustment process would continue until only five candidates remain. Those remaining five candidates would then be declared the winners of the election.

The same election process would be employed for District B. However, the tabulation, elimination, and adjustment process would continue until only three candidates remain.

Comments

Note that a state with 17 allocated seats, such as Illinois, could create a maximum of 5 congressional districts. Three of the districts (call them District A, District B and District C) could be assigned 3 seats each (accounting for a total of 9 of the state's 17 allocated seats). As for the state's 8 remaining allocated seats, the remaining districts, call them District D and District E, could then be assigned 4 seats each; or one could be assigned 3 seats, and the other could be assigned 5 seats.

Note also that a state could create as many congressional districts as its allocated seats allow. However, states would not be required to create the maximum number of districts permissible. So, for example, a state like Illinois with 17 allocated seats could create 5 districts. But it could instead create 4, 3, or just 2 districts. Or it could have just 1 district. But, in most cases, states would likely want to create the maximum number of districts their seat allocation allows.

This proposal would promote the use of multi-winner elections and ranked preference voting for the purpose of electing US representatives and would thereby allow most if not all voters within each state to have at least one representative preferred by them serve in Congress. This proposal would also reduce the impact of gerrymandering and reduce voter apathy.