California Losing Four Seats in the House of Representatives
Last November revealed the capstone of misrepresentation in American democracy when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by two.9 meg votes but lost in the Electoral College.
But what nearly the U.Southward. Congress? How representative of the American people is the House of Representatives? My Brookings colleague Molly Reynolds finds the Republican Party's current "seat bonus"—a higher pct of seats than of votes—aligns with the historic advantage for any bulk party in the House over the final 70 years, dorsum to 1946.
This postal service focuses on how representative the new 115th Congress is on a state-by-land level.
Majority party over-represented
Despite its proper name, the House of Representatives is not and then representative.
As the nautical chart beneath shows, the total vote differential between the two parties for elections to the House in 2022 was 1.ii percent. But the deviation in the number of seats is 10.8 percent, giving a total of 21 extra seats to Republicans.
Figure 1: National Distribution of Votes for Congress
| NUMBER | Percentage | |||
| Party | Republican | Democrat | Republican | Democrat |
| Votes | 63,164,365 | 61,750,858 | 50.6% | 49.4% |
| Seats | 241 | 194 | 55.4% | 44.half-dozen% |
| "Misrepresented Seats" | 21 | -21 | 4.eight% | -4.viii |
Over-representation past country
This aggregate over-representation of the majority party is considerably extreme when looked at state-by-state. In red states (run across Figure 2), Republicans garnered 56 percent of the vote only 74.vi percent of representation. In blue states, Democrats won 60.3 percent of the vote merely 69.1 percent of representation.
Almost all states are "true"—"true blood-red states" have a Republican majority of votes and representation; "true bluish states" have a Democratic majority of votes and representation. Two states are "flipped blue states;"in Virginia and Wisconsin Republicans received a majority of seats despite Democrats winning a majority of the votes for Congress.
Misrepresentation is considerably larger inside each red and blue grouping than in the U.S. as a whole. Translated into seats in the House, Democrats over-represent blue states (excluding the two flipped states) by xix seats, whereas Republicans over-stand for true crimson and flipped blue states by 40 seats. Republicans over-represent red states (true and flipped) by 16 percentage points, while in united blue states the disparity is 11 percentage points.
Effigy 2: Bulk Party Wins Disproportionate Representation
Misrepresentation in pocket-sized and big states
For private states, misrepresentation is even larger. The level of misrepresentation is twenty percent or greater in 23 states—nigh half the country—and over xxx percent in 12 states.
To a certain extent, misrepresentation is partly a function of state size. In modest states with a single member—Alaska, Delaware, Montana, N Dakota, Southward Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming—at that place is no alternative to the votes of a portion of the citizens not beingness represented. In these states, on average, 37 per centum of voters selected the losing political party. Even states with two representatives—New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Maine, and Idaho—take a large degree of misrepresentation, on average 28 pct. This is not surprising in a winner-take-all organization. Overall, the misrepresentation from these pocket-size states cancels out in the aggregate—in the 17 seats of these states there is only a 3 percent point disparity between the distribution of votes and the distribution of seats.
On the other farthermost are the iv largest states—New York, Florida, Texas, and California. Together, these states send 143 representatives to Congress. Each has less than 10 percent misrepresentation—votes from the losing party in one district are compensated in other districts. Moreover, the overall distribution from these states is the storybook picture of democracy at work: Between them, the distribution of votes and seats was equal, with less than one pct divergence between votes and representation (45 percent for Republicans, 55 for Democrats).
Effigy three: Misrepresentation in Pocket-sized and Large States 2016
Annotation: The level of misrepresentation is computed every bit the difference between percent of votes and percent of seats.
Misrepresentation in midsized states
That leaves the 34 midsized states, with 275 seats amongst them, to business relationship for the observed misrepresentation. Figure 4 plots the number of seats from each state confronting the level of misrepresentation. Large and small states are gray; midsized states are cherry-red. In general there is an inverse correlation betwixt the number of representatives from a state and the level of misrepresentation. States with three to v representatives range between 11 to 36 percent points of misrepresentation, while those with ten-20 representatives range from 4 to 24 percentage points of misrepresentation.
Figure 4: Number of Seats in Congress Compared to Level of Representation
Effigy 5 beneath shows the level of misrepresentation in the 34 midsized states, ranked in order of the level of misrepresentation with blue and red states shown separately. This figure shows the quite large level of disproportionate representation in many states. Out of the 34, more than than one-tertiary (thirteen) have a disparity between votes and representation of 20 percentage or larger, and in all just five states the disparity is greater than 10 per centum.
Midsized red states have on average a considerably higher percent level of misrepresentation—in these states, while 58 pct of the votes went to Republicans, they took 76 percent of the seats—an 18 percentage bespeak difference that translates into 34 seats. Insufficiently, in the midsized blue states, 59 percent of votes were for Democrats, who obtained 72 percent of seats—a 13 percentage point difference that translates into 11 seats. Furthermore, red states brand upwardly nine of the 13 states with an excess of twenty points or higher misrepresentation.
Figure 5: Misrepresentation in Midsized States in 2016
Note: Level of misrepresentation computed as the difference betwixt percent of votes and percent of seats.
Redistricting
What is underlying this effect? In principle, such results are possible fifty-fifty if most of the state is competitive, merely ane party has an edge in the majority of the districts. In practice, how districts are drawn tin can also touch outcomes. In fact, some states take moved to have redistricting away from elected country politicians by instituting independent redistricting commissions. The four large states that take independent commissions—California, New Bailiwick of jersey, Washington, and Arizona—accept less than 10 pct misrepresentation. The two other states with independent commissions, Idaho, and Montana, with two and one congressional representatives respectively, take greater than 30 percent misrepresentation. At that place is no getting effectually size!
Overrepresentation by number of seats per state
As to states with the most number of "extra" seats, Democrats dominate in California, with almost five addition seats. Republicans have approximately 3 extra seats in Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.
Figure 6: Over-representation of Majority Party
Annotation: Measured in congressional seats (compared with distribution of the votes).
Implications
The independence of the U.S. was launched by a defection over the lack of representation. Misrepresentation can lead to social and economic policy distortions, feed distrust, and drive discontent in government. Gerrymandering hinders party contest and the resulting political monopoly feeds extremism in the majority political party. The border provided by this misrepresentation gives the majority party asymmetric power that is especially destabilizing and dangerous in an era of heightened polarization and partisanship.
The data propose that the about serious problem is in midsized states, a problem that could be alleviated by the design of districts by independent bodies.
Source: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/02/22/misrepresentation-in-the-house/
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