2024 Redistricting Session; Though a Win, Not a Permanent Solution
By Elai Levinson, Louisiana State University student & Louisiana Progress College Fellow
Earlier this year, the Louisiana legislature held a special redistricting session where state legislators redrew the state’s congressional districts. Their addition of a second majority-minority district was a victory for democracy, but a legal challenge from non-Black voters imperiled that victory when a federal district court in Shreveport ruled that the map was an illegal racial gerrymander. Fortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in and ordered that the upcoming congressional elections use the map that includes the second majority-minority district.
The series of federal court rulings that left Louisiana’s congressional map in limbo, along with the obligatory redraw of Louisiana’s congressional map that will take place following the 2030 Census (and maybe sooner, if the case about the racial gerrymander comes back into play), has led me to believe that we must find a new, innovative way of redistricting the U.S. Congress.
Among the many ideas I’ve heard about that would make American democracy more, you know, democratic, is a proposal to increase the size of the U.S. House of Representatives. Currently, there are 435 U.S. congress members, and that number has remained the same since 1929. Since then, the U.S. population has increased by more than 200 million people, from approximately 123 million to around 331 million as of the 2020 U.S. Census.
The Constitution does not set a limit on the number of House representatives. Originally set at 65 members in the 18th Century, the number of congresspeople continued to increase as new states were admitted to the union and the U.S.’s total population grew. The current number, 435, was first reached in 1913, upon the convening of the 63rd Congress, following the 1910 Census. Then, in 1929, Congress passed the Permanent Apportionment Act, setting a limit on House membership that has lasted (apart from temporarily expanding to account for Alaska and Hawaii’s admissions as states in 1959) until today. The average district had roughly 280,000 constituents in 1930, but that number has risen to approximately 760,000 today. In a federal legislative body that was designed to be closer to the people and more representative of their wants and needs, can one person actually represent the interests of more than 750,000 constituents?
Drawing maps with fewer people per district could help address some of those representational problems. Smaller districts would make it easier to draw boundaries that align with communities of interest, create more competitive seats, and incentivize representatives to fight for their constituents. Most current congressional districts are gerrymandered. Gerrymandering is typically implemented by either packing or cracking communities; stretching out a district to encompass separate areas, or by dividing an area into multiple districts. Louisiana’s current congressional map packs neighborhoods from Baton Rouge into a New Orleans-based district to consolidate just one majority-minority constituency. The new congressional map solves this particular problem, but it cracks (splits) communities such as Monroe, Lake Charles, and Lafayette into two districts.
The total number of congressional districts also plays a major role in our country’s Electoral College system. The 538 electors that make up the Electoral College accounts for the sum of 100 senators and 435 congresspeople, along with three additional electors from Washington D.C. Since each state has two senators and at least one representative, small states, like Wyoming, inherently have far more power per capita than large or even medium-sized states.
If you divide Wyoming’s population by its number of electoral votes (576,851➗3) you get 192,284 people per electoral vote. California, on the other hand, produces a total of 732,189 people per electoral vote. While some may consider this as a positive feature of the system, it’s worth noting that mid-sized states such as Louisiana are also disadvantaged by this process. Louisiana’s 4,657,757 residents will be given eight electoral votes in the upcoming presidential election, which is a ratio of 582,220 per electoral vote, a number significantly higher than Wyoming’s. And Louisiana is not alone. Kentucky, for example, will have each electoral vote representing 563,230 people. In South Carolina, it’s 568,714. In Missouri, it’s 615,491.
If the U.S. House expanded to a size where the population per district could not exceed the population of the smallest state–Wyoming, which is why this proposal is known as the Wyoming Rule–each district would have a maximum population of 576,851, increasing Louisiana’s total number of congresspeople to 8, and electoral votes to 10. Then, under the same methodology, one electoral vote would be divided among 465,776 Louisianians, down from 582,220. And while it may seem obvious to call for an end to the Electoral College in order to remove disparities between states, that would require a Constitutional amendment, and I doubt that’s coming anytime soon.
Louisianans should be glad that after years of effort, a second majority-minority district has been added. The state’s Black population, which accounts for one-third of Louisiana’s total population, will no longer be represented by just one-sixth of its congressional delegates. However, in 2030, a new congressional map will have to be drawn.
On a national level, I believe that expanding the number of congressional districts should be considered a mainstream proposal. Even though it does not fix all of the problems associated with our democratic systems, it’s an innovative idea that begins to address issues such as lack of proportional representation, gerrymandering, and the Electoral College; all of which would contribute to improving democracy in Louisiana and across the U.S.
