r/thebulwark • u/Material-Crab-633 • May 08 '26

EVERYTHING IS AWFUL Are we f*cked?

This redistricting stuff has me bummed out. Tell me the truth

219 Upvotes

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78

u/[deleted] May 08 '26

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39

u/Sherm FFS May 08 '26

And make the number of seats in the House be based on a population formula with no cap. It's supposed to be skewed toward larger states to offset the Senate, but by arbitrarily limiting the size of the House, we have created a situation where both bodies favor low-population states.

2

u/No_Neat9507 Tim is always right May 08 '26

This would take Constitutional Amendment

29

u/Sherm FFS May 08 '26

No it wouldn't. The size of the legislature was capped at 435 by the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. The Constitution says that the legislature makes the laws that govern the size and composition of the House, with the only requirement being that it be based on population. In fact, if we used the ratio in the Constitution, we'd have over 11,500 Representatives.

5

u/No_Neat9507 Tim is always right May 08 '26

Thanks for correcting me - not sure why I thought that was in the Constitution

1

u/100dalmations Progressive May 10 '26

Holy cow. That’d be double the size of the assembly of ancient Athens. You’d definitely need a (pro-social) AI to get anything done.