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We're talking about Federal districts here, not state. It'd take a constitutional amendment to alter the single-member, FPTP practice, wouldn't it? That's much,
by tunesmith 6y ago
We're talking about Federal districts here, not state. It'd take a constitutional amendment to alter the single-member, FPTP practice, wouldn't it? That's much, much, MUCH harder than passing a state law to change redistricting / gerrymandering practices.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> We're talking about Federal districts here, not state. Yes. > It'd take a constitutional amendment to alter the single-member, FPTP practice, wouldn't it. Nope, the single-member district requirement is a federal statute that was adopted in response to states turning to, or at least considering, multimember at-large FPTP districts (majority-take-all) to prevent effectively enfranchising minorities (well, specifically blacks). Which was certainly a good motive, and single-member FPTP districts are better than that, but the same law could be retuned to prevent that but allow (or even require, in states large enough to support it) multimember districts with a candidate-centered proportional scheme like STV.
- tunesmith 6y agoAh, thank you - I had been unable to find the details on that. Suffice to say that it would take a federal statute to allow MMD outside of NM and Hawaii? That still seems like a heavier lift than passing state-level gerrymandering reform. And they don't need to be set against themselves anyway - if MMD were allowed, state-level gerrymandering reform is still valuable, for those that stick with single districts. Unless you're talking about a federal law to mandate MMD, which is even harder.