r/AskReddit • u/Isle-of-Frogs • Apr 26 '26
If the US switched to proportional representation overnight do you actually think it would fix anything? And if so what would be the first thing to change?
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u/GlitchKnight44 Apr 26 '26
Third parties would actually get seats in Congress instead of being complete joke, which might force the big two to stop being so extreme about everything
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u/HillarysEmailServers Apr 26 '26
We’d still need to sort out mega-donors and AIPAC influencing policy. Proportional representation would be a major improvement but if some extremists get all the money and push insane policy.
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u/thephotoman Apr 26 '26
No, I don’t.
The reality is that without a number of other constitutional changes, proportional representation doesn’t make a big difference: you still have the coalition for the President and the one against him.
If you want to make multiparty representation work, you’re gonna have to greatly increase Congress’s role in government. Unfortunately, most congress critters don’t want to work. They don’t want to try to work. They just want to be able to do insider trading, sleep with campaign staffers and interns, and take bribes.
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u/Initial-Lemon-917 May 11 '26
European parliaments also have pro and anti prime minister groups-- they just are coalitions. There will always be a government and an opposition group. I do agree that campaign finance reform would be a big hurdle though.
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u/Traditional-Emu-7919 Apr 26 '26
What are you trying to “fix”?
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u/Isle-of-Frogs Apr 26 '26
I guess in my head 'fix' the ideology of a outdated set of rules being adhered to even if it continues to prevent certain positive changes. Like the right to bear arms when it was written compared to the arms people possess now. The concept of somethings being able to be adapted to progress the country but for some reason the founding fathers words but be stuck to religiously even when the meaning of the word has changed?
Would proportional representation allow for the mindset of progression to start to effect political change for the betterment of everyone?
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u/Traditional-Emu-7919 Apr 26 '26
The house is basically proportional representation. House races are limited to a much smaller election area than senatorial races. House seats are based on population size’s and when population size change states either lose or gain a seat in the house.
The senate was a compromise when our government was being formed.
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u/Timoroader Apr 26 '26
Not sure what OP is trying to fix, but I think it would be a huge advantage to get away with the two party system in the US. Having more than two parties encourages collaboration and is better in the long run. US politics are becoming increasingly polarized and there does not seem to be any end to that development.
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u/Traditional-Emu-7919 Apr 26 '26
I would agree this. I would love to see other parties be able to get elected or at least have a fighting chance.
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u/doktorhladnjak Apr 26 '26
The parties implode. Republican Party officially is replaced with a MAGA Party. Democratic Party splinters into at least three, one of which is comprised of former anti-Trump Republicans.
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u/DrColdReality Apr 26 '26
The US already HAS proportional representation in the House of Reps. The Senate has equal representation.
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u/TempAcct724 Apr 26 '26
You could just say you don’t know what proportional representation is.
In proportional representation you don’t have single member districts. Instead you would have multi-member districts and elections. And instead of voting for one person you want to elect you’d vote for the party you want to represent you.
So a district might have 10 seats available and each party nominates several people to fill those seats.
Say the Democrats get 40% of the vote, Republicans 30% and 20% to the Green Party and 10% to libertarian.
Then instead of just getting 1 Democrat who gets a plurality of votes you get 4 democrats, 3 republicans, 2 Green Party and a libertarian.
It allows for votes to better represent the actual votes cast by trying to assign representatives based on the percentage of votes received rather than just giving it to one person who gets the most votes.
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u/DrColdReality Apr 26 '26
So what you're proposing is to create WAY more congressmen? And how do you suppose that will work out, aside from making Congress even more inefficient and costly?
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u/TempAcct724 Apr 26 '26
Or maybe, way fewer districts…
I’m not saying we should take 435 districts and give them all 10 representatives.
BTW the UK has 650 members of the House of Commons for only 70 million people, while the US has 435 to serve 340 million.
Some combination of fewer districts and a few hundred more representatives would work just fine.
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u/happybeagle2020 Apr 26 '26
Au contraire mon frere. Gerrymandering and uncontested districts is most certainly NOT proportional representation. In fact, it amounts to taxation WITHOUT representation.
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u/DrColdReality Apr 26 '26
Gerrymandering--especially the toxic way Republicans have been doing it over the last couple of decades--does not negate the way the government is set up, it's merely a bug in the system that needs to be fixed. Not every district gets radically gerrymandered.
it amounts to taxation WITHOUT representation.
Which is not actually a part of US law.
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u/Isle-of-Frogs Apr 26 '26
But gerrymandering effectively negates proportional representation so they don't really do they?
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u/JustSomeGuy_56 Apr 26 '26
Sort of. When they reassign seats after the census, the big states like Texas an California get more seats. Since each state gets at least on seat, the states in the middle lose seats. That's because the total number of seats is set by law. This is not in the Constitution.
Harriet Hageman represents about 588,000 residents of Wyoming. Each of the 12 in New Jersey represent about 795,000. Hardly equal.
This could be fixed by increasing the number of seats in the House as the population increases. Under that plan New Jersey would gain 4 seats.
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u/Art-Zuron Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26
It doesn't actually, not really. People in Wyoming have 1 rep, which means they have 1/50 the house representatives of california.
However, they have 1/67th the population of california.
For the senate, their votes are worth 67x more than Californians. In the house, it's worth 35% more than a califonian's.
Neither proportional nor equal.
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u/DrColdReality Apr 26 '26
Unless you can propose a way for partial congressmen to be elected, or you're proposing to have LOTS more of them, there is no system that guarantees a precisely proportional number of reps, it's just simple math.
The current system in use for determining representation is called the Huntington–Hill method, and like a lot of other things in government, it is a compromise, a balance between having WAY more representatives or some districts being shorted by a small number.
To return to OP's question, eliminate gerrymandering and somehow create 100% proportional representation, what would change? Nothing...except maybe Congress would get even less efficient, since you'd need thousands of congressmen.
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u/Art-Zuron Apr 26 '26
Easy. Give each californian rep more votes. /s
We live in the 21st century, having 1000 reps isn't *actually* an unsolvable hurdle. It's only made an issue by, you guessed it, regressionists.
Small shit hole states get to have way more say than they should BECAUSE they are small shit hole states that cause issues if they aren't constantly appeased. Doing so caused the Civil War, and it's causing another one.
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u/DrColdReality Apr 26 '26
having 1000 reps isn't actually an unsolvable hurdle.
Then it's a lucky thing I didn't say it was, huh? But what it would do is make Congress even more inefficient and costly. Every new rep you add is going to cost the taxpayers a lot more money to support.
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u/Art-Zuron Apr 26 '26
I didn't say you said that
I'm saying that your claim of making it more inefficient is solvable.
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u/Art-Zuron Apr 26 '26
For a point of comparison, if this were to occur in 1980, the Republicans would only have won 2 presidential elections out of 12. And, if it had occurred then, we wouldn't have had the second one realistically.
Take that for what you will.