Tackling the Proportional Representation Problem

COLUMBUS— Read the latest column by Senator Louis W. Blessing, III (R-Colerain Township), who has introduced Senate Joint Resolution 6:

The results are in and it’s official: Issue 1 was rejected at the ballot. While opponents are rejoicing and reformers are disappointed, it would be a mistake to think that Ohioans are perfectly fine with the status quo and that this election is dispositive of the issue. Though Trump and Republicans prevailed, if history is any guide the intervening years will be challenging for the party in power at the ballot box.

One of the primary goals of Issue 1 reformers was to foster proportional representation for legislative and Congressional seats. As a brief example of their concern, the Ohio Senate, at the time of the election, was composed of twenty-six Republicans and seven Democrats, thus Republicans held 79% of the Senate seats. At the same time, statewide elections in recent years have roughly resulted in victories averaging around eight points, or a 54% Republican advantage. Reformers asserted that the system was broken if Republicans could hold 79% of the state Senate seats, for example, but could never muster that percentage in any statewide campaign, hence the impetus for efforts like Issue 1. The question I have is whether redistricting reform is the best approach to solving this specific problem It’s debatable, so I’ve introduced SJR 6 as I believe it alleviates the proportional representation problem for state legislative seats irrespective of who is drawing the maps. It does this using a simple tool: mathematics.

For context, Ohio has thirty-three state Senators and ninety-nine state Representatives. As of the last Census, the size of these districts in terms of population are roughly 358,000 and 119,000, respectively. For comparison with other states you can look here. You’ll notice that Ohio has the fourth largest state Senate seats, and sixth largest state Representative seats, yet Ohio is the seventh most populous state. The average for all states is 161,000 and 61,000, respectively. SJR 6 simply makes the modest move to smaller districts by changing the composition of Ohio’s legislative seats to fifty-one state Senators and one hundred and fifty-three state Representatives. This would mean Senate and House district sizes of roughly 232,000 and 77,000, respectively. Ohio would still have legislative districts in the top ten in terms of population, a dubious honor, but it would be a step in the right direction. The question is how is this related to solving the proportional representation problem?

Fundamental to the study of Calculus is the idea of a limit: what happens to a function as an independent variable approaches some given number? In our case, proportional representation is a function of district size. Let’s look at statewide districts. Ignoring minor political parties at the moment, the result is either 100% Republican or 100% Democrat. Thus if the statewide voting preferences of Ohio are roughly 54% Republican and 46% Democrat, the party that loses a statewide office has no elected representation in that office, thus proportional representation would be as far off as mathematically possible. Looking at the other extreme, what happens if each citizen is their own representative, thus a direct democracy? Proportional representation would be matched each election cycle by definition. That’s good, but unfortunately pure direct democracy is very bad for a whole host of reasons. The answer to the proportional representation problem lies in finding the optimal legislative district sizes.

How would this work? For many years the state Senate has been over 70% Republican, while the state House has never been able to achieve 70%, at least not in living memory. The reason is that state House seats are one third the size of state Senate seats, and the mathematics make getting to 70% next to impossible irrespective of who is drawing the maps. Should SJR 6 be put on the ballot and passed, I strongly believe that the proportion of Republicans to Democrats would more closely approach proportional representation through no other means than mathematics. Had SJR 6 been in place years ago, it wouldn’t surprise me to see today’s Senate Republican split less than 70% Republican and the House less than 60%.

I would be remiss if I didn’t point out other ancillary benefits to this approach. Moreover, it’s not a radical idea as there are groups currently pushing to increase the size of Congress. Interested readers may be able to find more here. Other than proportional representation, smaller districts more firmly anchor legislators to their districts. They would represent fewer communities and constituents, and could devote more time to them. The power of money in politics would be diminished with more and smaller districts. We can see this effect with statewide campaigns being the most expensive, while village and township elections, which can be run entirely out of pocket from those of modest means, are the least expensive. Incumbency would be less of a factor, and we’d likely see elected officials more closely mirror the electorate they represent: more teachers and electricians, and fewer wealthy businessmen.

In the end, I hope we consider this approach as a more organic way to tackle the proportional representation problem. It wouldn’t necessarily make districts more competitive; in this respect I think it would be a wash, as the most truly competitive areas are still the suburbs. However, in negotiations on legislation, the majority party would have fewer members to lose and would likely give centrist members a stronger voice. This is as it should be.