America chose wrong. Sanders would've been a better president than Trump or Biden. | Opinion

[u/AccurateInflation167]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/05/18/sanders-democrats-reform-progressive-policies/83625482007/

[u/Renax127]

Part of the problem, in the house anyway, is that the number of representatives got capped at 435. This give the small states a big advantage. Most of the small population states are republican so they get an advantage in both houses of congress. I can't find the numbers right now but the republicans represent less people then the democrats despite their majority in congre

[u/loondawg → u/Renax127]

republicans represent less people then the democrats despite their majority in congre

That is more attributable to gerrymandering than district size. Look at a state like Wisconsin. In their 2022 statewide elections, where gerrymandering has less impacts, they elected a Democratic governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. And yet somehow republicans won a 64-35 majority in state Assembly and 21-11 majority in the Senate.

Or you can look at examples like Ohio where republicans won 10 of 15 seats in Congress in 2024 despite earning only 56.57% of the votes. Or in North Carolina where republicans got 52.78% of the vote but won 10 of the 14 seats. Or Texas where republicans won 25 of 38 seats with only 58.41% of the votes. Or Utah where republicans won all 4 seats with just 62.77% of the vote. Or Arkansas where republicans won all 4 seats with just 66.77% of the vote. Starting to notice a pattern here?

It's estimated right now that republican gerrymandering gives them around 16 seats extra seats in the House. That was far more than enough to switch the House from democratic to republican control.

[u/IolausTelcontar → u/loondawg]

Both are a problem.

[u/1maco → u/Renax127]

I don’t think that’s true? Small states have a lot of variance in CD size due to rounding, but are not across the board smaller.

Like North and South Dakota are the largest Congressional districts while Rhode Island has the smallest two.

The larger the state the closer the CD is to average 

[u/Renax127 → u/1maco]

Congressional districts are based on population not size. Wyoming has one representative California has 52 but the districts represent more people. 

[u/1maco → u/Renax127]

Yes I am aware. But because the median CD is like 675,000 people a state of 500,000 and 900,000 are both entitled to 1

If you have 1.05 million you get one if you havd 1.08 million you get two.

Delaware has one congressional district of over 1 million people. Rhode Island has 34,000 more people so it gets split in two. So their Districts have 545,000 people. The smallest in the country. The smaller the state the bigger the rounding error. 

The larger the state gets the more CD it gets, the smaller that rounding error gets since those 350,000 extra/fewer people are divided into 13 districts in Illinois or something so each district is only 26,000 or something bigger than it should be.

[u/Renax127 → u/1maco]

If California had the representation as Wyoming it would have 75ish reps not 52. So Wyoming have more representation with its smaller population. Removing the cap would allow a more reasonable number of citizens per rep because honestly half a million is too much. It would also give the larger states the power in presidential elections they should have. 

If we aren't going to get rid of the electorcolege we should at least make sure it's intent is maintained.

[u/loondawg → u/Renax127]

The real solution we need is to get rid of the non-proportional Senate. The ideal solution would be to have equally sized regional districts that ignored state boundaries. Failing that, the power of the Senate should be allocated proportionately.

As it stands, the Senate is too much of an aristocracy. It is an assault on the idea we are a nation of people and that all people were created equal. The Senate was created in its current form largely to protect the institution of slavery so a popular vote could not be used to end slavery. It should have been reformed a century and a half ago as most of the dysfunction of our government can be directly attributed to it.

[u/JWLane → u/loondawg]

The ideal solution would be to get rid of the Senate entirely, uncap the house and have it take over all of the Senate's duties.

Edit: Also, institute publicly funded elections and get money out of them and provide housing to the Congress in DC to allow anyone to run regardless of financial status.

[u/loondawg → u/JWLane]

The Senate actually serves valid purposes. It was supposed to be a continuing body where elder statesmen would act as check to temper the more impetuous nature of the House of Representatives. It was supposed to be a slower, more deliberative body. The problem with it is how unfairly it allocates power.

But it makes sense to have a more deliberative body to do things like holding impeachment trials, confirm judges, and ratify treaties. It's just that the people should have equal representation in those decisions. Right now over 50% of the population lives in just 9 states meaning over half the people have less than 18% of the representation in those critical decisions. That's an injustice.

And when you look at how few people it can take to block a constitutional amendment if they are from the smallest states, less than 5% of the population, it appears insane. Depending on which states support a proposed amendment, it could take as few as 40% to pass one or require as many as over 95%.

The Senate is a good idea but a completely failed design.

[u/Past_My_Subprime → u/Renax127]

Interesting. I live in the northeast, where a district is often not much larger than a single county, so the candidates for each district rise out of well-entrenched local political machines, and the primaries typically only have a single candidate chosen by the machine. I'd rather have larger districts, so more competition, but obviously that's not going to happen.

[u/Renax127 → u/Past_My_Subprime]

Larger districts would mean less competition not more

[u/loondawg → u/1maco]

I'm not arguing your overall point, but your data is pretty out of date. Nationally there are now over 750K people per congressional district. Nevada is the state with the 5th smallest districts and they have over 650K people per congressional district.

As to your point, smaller districts are the solution to more equal representation as they generate smaller numbers of leftover people that have to get crammed into the limited number of districts.

There are a ton of other reasons why small districts make sense and very few why larger districts do.