This post follows up on my earlier advice to consider minority-party representation (MPR) as an anti-gerrymandering measure. Its basics are described here and reproduced at the bottom of the post.
This week’s news has been about the potential for new Republican district maps to reduce the number of Black members of the U.S. House of Representatives. MPR can be designed to address that problem too.
One solution is to use closed (or maybe flexible) party lists to allocate the “at-large” seats. Here’s an example of how those work.
Let’s say Party X ends up entitled to three at-large seats. It has fielded five at-large candidates. There are many ways to decide which three candidates get the seats. A “closed-list” procedure does not let the general election alter the order of the list. Therefore, as long as the target candidates are at the top of the list, a closed one will get them into office.
There would be other details to discuss.
My purpose in writing is not to advocate. It is to show that there are options.
Here is an alternative called minority-party representation (MPR). I call it that because its main effect would be to give more seats to the largest underrepresented party in each state. Start with some modest addition to the overall size of the House.1 Apportion these seats to states in proportion to their populations. These seats then become ‘at large’ in any state that gets them. At each election, allocate these seats to parties in declining order of their deviations from seats/votes proportionally, accounting for their seat numbers at each stage of the process.
Thus described, MPR would reduce the effects of gerrymandering and ‘natural’ packing/cracking under the current SSD [single-seat-district] regime.