There was a diary that (inaccurately) listed the number of seats each state would get per the “Wyoming rule”, which was deleted, presumably due to its in accuracies.
This got me thinking about the whole issue of uneven representation and why the Wyoming rule is not a very good solution to the problem.
Under the current reapportionment scheme, the rep from Montana represents 994,416 people, while a rep from Rhode Island would represent 527,623 people, which is a ratio of 1.88. The “Wyoming Rule” would mandate that the house districts be set at the size of the smallest state (ie. Wyoming) to correct this inequity. This would increase the size of the house to 544.
However the inequity doesn’t go away, just shrinks slightly. Alaska still has 721,523 people per rep, while South Dakota has 409,880, a ratio of 1.76. By adding over 100 new members to the house, you only drop the ratio by 0.12.
What would by a “fair” maximum inequity? 1.5? 1.3? 1.1? Those would require 843, 1392, and 3265 representatives respectively.
So in conclusion, the Wyoming rule does not work, and the other only fix would be to have a huge house or to amend the constitution to allow house districts to cross state lines.
The source for this is a modified version of this perl script:
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/…
If you want to see my modifications, let me know and I’ll post them in comments.
Here are the number of seats under the “Wyoming rule”:
AL-8,AK-1,AZ-11,AR-5,CA-66,CO-9,CT-6,DE-2,FL-33,GA-17,HI-2,ID-3,IL-23,IN-11,IA-5,KS-5,KY-8,LA-8,ME-2,MD-10,MA-12,MI-18,MN-9,MS-5,MO-11,MT-2,NE-3,NV-5,NH-2,NJ-16,NM-4,NY-34,NC-17,ND-1,OH-20,OK-7,OR-7,PA-22,RI-2,SC-8,SD-2,TN-11,TX-45,UT-5,VT-1,VA-14,WA-12,WV-3,WI-10,WY-1
With 843 seats, the most underrepresented state would be South Dakota, and the most overrepresented state would be Wyoming, both with 2 seats, for a ratio of 1.44.
With 1392 seats, the most underrepresented state would be Alaska and again Wyoming would be most overrepresented, each with 3 seats, for a ratio of 1.27.
With 3265 seats, the most underrepresented state would be Hawai’i, with 14 seats, and the most overrepresented state would be Vermont, with 7 seats, for a ratio of 1.08.
Look how those big states benefit with the Wyoming rule
California 66 seats
Texas 45 seats
New York 34 seats
Florida 33 seats
Illinois 23 seats
That’s 201 seats among the top five states!
Under the Wyoming rule, the size of the house would change every ten years to match the population of the smallest state. Under the current 435 system the size of the house is fixed and so the inequity increases every year.
and that of course there is an electoral college implication on the Wyoming rule. These numbers have become too big for me to cipher out but do you have a clue from a spreadsheet what the plus or minus in the ECV would be for 2008 & 2004.
I say 2004 because obviousily any change in numbers would not have affected 2008. My guess on 2004 that with NY, CA, MI, IL and PA that would have surely have narrowed the Gap between Kerry & Bush.
when you consider that the states and individuals that would be “disadvantaged” under it reap a huge benefit from outrageous overrepresentation in the Senate.
The biggest beneficiaries seem to be states that are either a.) growing rapidly or b.) have had seats arbitrarily taken away from them to satisfy the stupid 435 seat rule. CA and TX end up even bigger thanks to Latino migration – and how many of those new seats in both cases would be VRA Hispanic? FL, GA, and NC just end up big, period. Regular census punching bags such as IN, CT, IL, OH, MT, and NY get their old seats back, and in many cases are better off than they’ve been in decades.
The only states that really seem to get screwed are the ones that are only slightly larger than Wyoming in the first place. Of which there aren’t very many. I do have to ask, though: the Wyoming rule clearly benefits minorities in large states, but wouldn’t it also proportionally benefit Republicans a great deal as well, thanks to growth in the South? Of course, we also get a lot of seats back in blue and purple states that only had their seats taken away because of that dumb cap, so it probably evens out.
It’s still inequity, it’s just a different KIND of inequity. The Wyoming Rule at least corrects the stupid “let’s take a seat away from a populous and still growing northern state and give it to a southern one that’s growing faster, just because we need to maintain the 435 seat cap”.
The districts will be too small to connect Democratic eastern coastal Monmouth County with another liberal center of population (ie Middlesex County). If it becomes an all-Monmouth district, or even a mostly-Monmouth district then it will be too Republican.