What Is True About the House of Representatives

Last November revealed the capstone of misrepresentation in American republic when Hillary Clinton won the pop vote by 2.9 1000000 votes simply lost in the Electoral College.

But what about the U.S. Congress? How representative of the American people is the House of Representatives? My Brookings colleague Molly Reynolds finds the Republican Party'south current "seat bonus"—a college percentage of seats than of votes—aligns with the historic advantage for whatever majority party in the House over the last 70 years, back to 1946.

This post focuses on how representative the new 115th Congress is on a state-by-state level.

Bulk party over-represented

Despite its proper noun, the Firm of Representatives is not so representative.

As the chart below shows, the total vote differential between the 2 parties for elections to the House in 2022 was 1.2 pct. Merely the difference in the number of seats is ten.8 percent, giving a total of 21 extra seats to Republicans.

Effigy 1: National Distribution of Votes for Congress

	NUMBER		PERCENTAGE
Party	Republican	Democrat	Republican	Democrat
Votes	63,164,365	61,750,858	50.6%	49.iv%
Seats	241	194	55.4%	44.vi%
"Misrepresented Seats"	21	-21	4.eight%	-4.eight

Over-representation past land

This aggregate over-representation of the majority party is considerably extreme when looked at state-past-land. In red states (run across Figure 2), Republicans garnered 56 pct of the vote only 74.6 pct of representation. In blue states, Democrats won 60.3 percent of the vote simply 69.1 percent of representation.

Well-nigh all states are "true"—"true red states" have a Republican majority of votes and representation; "true bluish states" have a Democratic bulk of votes and representation. 2 states are "flipped blue states;"in Virginia and Wisconsin Republicans received a majority of seats despite Democrats winning a bulk of the votes for Congress.

Misrepresentation is considerably larger within each red and blue grouping than in the U.S. as a whole. Translated into seats in the Business firm, Democrats over-represent blue states (excluding the two flipped states) past 19 seats, whereas Republicans over-represent true red and flipped blue states by twoscore seats. Republicans over-represent red states (true and flipped) past 16 percentage points, while in united bluish states the disparity is 11 percentage points.

Figure ii: Majority Political party Wins Disproportionate Representation

Misrepresentation in minor and large states

For individual states, misrepresentation is even larger. The level of misrepresentation is 20 pct or greater in 23 states—almost half the state—and over 30 percent in 12 states.

To a certain extent, misrepresentation is partly a function of state size. In modest states with a single fellow member—Alaska, Delaware, Montana, N Dakota, S Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming—there is no alternative to the votes of a portion of the citizens not existence represented. In these states, on average, 37 percent of voters selected the losing political party. Fifty-fifty states with ii representatives—New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Maine, and Idaho—have a big caste of misrepresentation, on average 28 per centum. This is non surprising in a winner-have-all system. Overall, the misrepresentation from these small-scale states cancels out in the aggregate—in the 17 seats of these states there is only a iii per centum point disparity betwixt the distribution of votes and the distribution of seats.

On the other farthermost are the four 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: Betwixt them, the distribution of votes and seats was equal, with less than i pct difference between votes and representation (45 per centum for Republicans, 55 for Democrats).

Figure 3: Misrepresentation in Small and Large States 2016

Note: The level of misrepresentation is computed as the divergence betwixt percent of votes and percent of seats.

Misrepresentation in midsized states

That leaves the 34 midsized states, with 275 seats amidst them, to account for the observed misrepresentation. Figure 4 plots the number of seats from each state against the level of misrepresentation. Large and small states are grayness; midsized states are blood-red. In general there is an inverse correlation between the number of representatives from a state and the level of misrepresentation. States with iii to five representatives range between 11 to 36 percent points of misrepresentation, while those with 10-20 representatives range from 4 to 24 percentage points of misrepresentation.

Effigy 4: Number of Seats in Congress Compared to Level of Representation

Figure 5 beneath shows the level of misrepresentation in the 34 midsized states, ranked in club of the level of misrepresentation with blue and red states shown separately. This effigy shows the quite large level of disproportionate representation in many states. Out of the 34, more than 1-3rd (xiii) have a disparity between votes and representation of twenty pct or larger, and in all but five states the disparity is greater than 10 pct.

Midsized crimson states have on average a considerably higher percent level of misrepresentation—in these states, while 58 percent of the votes went to Republicans, they took 76 percent of the seats—an 18 percentage betoken difference that translates into 34 seats. Comparatively, in the midsized blue states, 59 per centum of votes were for Democrats, who obtained 72 per centum of seats—a xiii percentage bespeak difference that translates into 11 seats. Furthermore, red states make upward nine of the xiii states with an backlog of twenty points or higher misrepresentation.

Effigy 5: Misrepresentation in Midsized States in 2016

Notation: Level of misrepresentation computed every bit the divergence between percent of votes and percent of seats.

Redistricting

What is underlying this outcome? In principle, such results are possible even if most of the state is competitive, but one party has an border in the majority of the districts. In practice, how districts are drawn can also affect outcomes. In fact, some states have moved to take redistricting away from elected land politicians by instituting independent redistricting commissions. The four large states that have independent commissions—California, New Jersey, Washington, and Arizona—have less than x percent misrepresentation. The two other states with independent commissions, Idaho, and Montana, with two and one congressional representatives respectively, accept greater than 30 percent misrepresentation. There is no getting effectually size!

Overrepresentation past 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

Note: Measured in congressional seats (compared with distribution of the votes).

Implications

The independence of the U.S. was launched by a revolt over the lack of representation. Misrepresentation can lead to social and economical policy distortions, feed distrust, and drive discontent in government. Gerrymandering hinders political party competition and the resulting political monopoly feeds extremism in the bulk party. The edge provided by this misrepresentation gives the bulk party asymmetric power that is particularly destabilizing and dangerous in an era of heightened polarization and partisanship.

The information suggest that the most serious problem is in midsized states, a trouble that could be alleviated by the design of districts by independent bodies.

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Source: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/02/22/misrepresentation-in-the-house/

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