[EM] Competitive Districting Rule

[Brian Olson]

On Jul 8, 2006, at 9:26 AM, James Gilmour wrote:

>> Brian Olson Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2006 8:53 AM
>> I still think I want a bicameral legislature with one
>> districted body and one PR/proxy/asset body.
>
> If you want a bicameral legislature, why would you want one chamber  
> elected so that it is unrepresentative of those who
> voted for its members?  You can have both districts and PR for the  
> same chamber.  Of course, you cannot have
> single-member districts and PR, but STV-PR offers a good compromise  
> of effective local representation (in modestly sized
> multi-member districts) and overall PR.

Single member districts still have some benefits. They're well  
understood. The practice of having a local representative who  
interacts with constituents is well established. And I think that  
some issues really do still have a local or regional basis which  
makes sense to take account of by geographic representation. They're  
easy.

To have meaningful PR we need at least 5 seats per election? To do  
this we can either merge districts in sets of 5 or grow the size of  
the legislative body (by up to 5 times its current size). Some  
legislatures and many districts are already too large. But I guess  
both of those don't often happen in the same place so maybe by  
choosing one or the other growth it could be made to work acceptably.

By splitting the representation methods, having a fully at-large  
undistricted PR body and an anti-gerrymandered local representation  
districted body, I think both representation styles are covered and  
there isn't a need to hybridize them.

Perhaps part of the problem with districts is that it needs to be  
made clear to representatives that it is their duty to represent  
_everyone_ in their district and not just the people who voted for them.


Brian Olson
http://bolson.org/


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