Two members of the US House, Representatives Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and Jared Golden (D-Maine) have introduced legislation proposing the establishment of a bipartisan select committee to examine alternative electoral methods other than our current winner-take-all system. The Select Committee on Electoral Reform would investigate the issue, hold public hearings, and submit recommendations on how to create a healthier democracy. They introduced a similar bill last session, and the legislation has the public support of more than 170 political scientists who submitted a public letter of support to the House of Representatives.
According to Reps. Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden, one of the major reasons Congress needs to consider reforms is because of the growing number of people who say they don’t trust their government and who question the health of our democracy. And this public sentiment isn’t off base: political scientists agree our democracy is backsliding. A large majority in the US feel that the best way to improve our democracy’s health is to pursue comprehensive election reform.
Reps. Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden wrote a op-ed last month discussing some of the reforms they believe should be considered. These include multi-member districts with proportional representation, ranked choice voting, expanding the size of the House, and independent redistricting commissions.
What do we know about their suggested reforms?
I could spend all day detailing all the potential reforms named in the proposal but instead let’s go through what science says about two—expanding the size of the House and adopting multi-member districts with proportional representation—and how they could strengthen democracy. While I don’t discuss the issues of gerrymandering and independent redistricting commissions in detail here, we have outlined these issues in our Fair Maps Fact Sheet and in several previous blog posts.
Expanding the House of Representatives
Representatives Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden specifically recommend considering expanding the number of seats in the House of Representatives. A 2022 report written by UCS in collaboration with the Democracy Reform Scholar-Advocate Council and other experts also called for the expansion of the House (as well as city councils).
The US House of Representatives has not been expanded since the Great Depression and the Reapportionment Act of 1929 when the chamber’s size was set at 435. A 2021 report by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences found that in 1790, each representative had about 35,000 constituents, but by 2021 that figure grew to nearly 777,000.
Compared to other countries’ legislatures, the ratio of representatives to constituents in the US House is an outlier. In the United Kingdom, the House of Commons has 650 members, a ratio of 1 representative for every 101,000 constituents. In Germany, the legislature has 709 members and a representative-to-constituent ratio of 1 to 116,000. And in other countries, the number of seats in the lower legislative chambers has changed over time.
In The Case for Enlarging the House of Representatives, a report published by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, researchers propose adding 150 seats and establishing regular expansion based on population growth. Others argue that the ideal number of representatives in a legislature should be equal to the cube root of the country’s population, as is seen in many democracies. The reasoning behind this theory is that as the number of representatives increases, the relative benefit of adding another representative decrease, or has diminishing returns, partially due to the complexity of decision making and collaboration in larger groups. The cube root law suggests that the number of representatives should grow at a slower rate than the general population. This would mean expanding the House to 593 members.
Expanding the size of the House to this number would decrease the population of representatives’ districts, leading to a stronger connection between House members and their constituents. Larger districts make it more difficult for representatives to get to know their constituencies, while also making it more difficult for constituencies to get to know, or even meet and talk to, their representatives.
A 2008 study found that residents in smaller districts were more likely to have contact with their representatives and were also more likely to approve of their representative. Importantly, decreasing the number of people per House district will place more electoral power in the hands of every voter. And as districts, and therefore the threshold for victory, become smaller, “the easier it is for a minority group to become a pivotal voting bloc.”
Scientists also theorize that expanding the number of House seats would diversify who runs for Congress by reducing the substantial costs of and barriers to running for elected office which disproportionately impact groups such as, women, women of color, immigrants, and young people. A 2021 study (cowritten by a former UCS fellow) examined elections across 13 states and election results from Australia, Ireland, and the Netherlands, and found smaller district populations are connected to “larger numbers of parties seating candidates of color.”
Multimember districts and proportional representation
Another reform proposal Reps, Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden point to is adopting proportional representation and multimember electoral districts. This type of electoral reform would encourage more political parties. Single-member districts elected through winner-take-all elections tend toward two political parties, which limits voters’ options.
The US public’s approval ratings of Congress have been on a relatively steady decline since 2000s with small peaks around 2008 and 2020. As of late last year, Gallup found only 17% of the public approved of the way Congress was handling its job. Importantly, recent trends suggest that this disapproval is bipartisan. And they also largely disapprove of both major political parties. Once again, the US is an outlier—having the lowest effective number of political parties of any OECD country.
Proportional representation (PR), therefore, may be a better fit for geographically large and culturally diverse country like the United States. In fact, more than 200 US-based political scientists signed a public letter asking Congress to adopt multimember districts with proportional representation.
But what is proportional representation? Put simply, in a proportional system, multiple members are selected to represent each district, in proportion to the number of people who vote for their party. In other words, if a political party receives 20% of the vote, they get 20% of the seats in the district. This is a stark contrast to our current system, wherein a candidate can win 51% of the votes—or even less—and still win 100% of seats in a district. Across the country, results in single-member, winner-take-all districts can produce unrepresentative outcomes.
Just last month, the New York Times published a op-ed by Jesse Wegman, a member of the Times’ editorial board, and Lee Drutman, a political scientist and fellow at New America, advocating for proportional representation in the United States. Based on a sample of 5,000 US residents, Wegman and Drutman hypothesized about a six-party system (and a larger U.S. House) where proportional representation would allow a wider range of views.
How does this work? In a winner-take-all scenario, voters are often scared of “wasting” their vote by voting for a candidate who isn’t from either of the two major political parties. But under a proportional system, even if a party receives a small percentage of the vote, it can still get representation in the legislature.
Today, many US congressional seats are “safe seats” that are uncompetitive, including a significant number of candidates running uncontested. In 2024, only 10% of House races were considered competitive. The number of competitive House seats has been on a steady decline for years. Competitive districts are important for several reasons. First, there is evidence suggesting that legislators in uncompetitive districts are less legislatively productive than their counterparts in electorally competitive districts. Second, there is some evidence that more competitive House districts result in “more moderate” voting records of winning candidates. Finally, competitive districts may also increase voter turnout rates. Competitive elections make it easier for voters to hold their representatives accountable.
Lack of electoral competitiveness in Congress is partially due to extreme partisan gerrymandering. In addition to their inherent tendency to produce disproportionate results, single-member districts are easier to gerrymander than multimember ones, further biasing electoral outcomes. While there are ways to quell gerrymandering (some of which we discuss in our Fair Maps fact sheet), these reforms have less impact than multimember districts with proportional representation would. An analysis of a collection of the most extreme gerrymandered House districts in the US “would produce fair outcomes if existing gerrymandered districts were combined into multimember districts and seats were allocated to parties proportionally.” Since candidates wouldn’t be competing one-on-one for a single seat, there would be more incentive to affirmatively appeal to voters and less pure partisan polarization of elections.
Of winner-take-all elections, political scientist Larry Diamond wrote they “are ill-advised for countries with deep ethnic, regional, religious, or other emotional and polarizing divisions.” The United States is a diverse country, with increasing racial, religion, class, and ideological differences. Single-member, winner-take-all systems weaken the voice of minority groups. As a report by Protect Democracy and Unite America states, “[t]he non-proportional effects of single-member districts are especially pronounced among historically disenfranchised groups, including racial and ethnic minority voters and candidates.” However, multimember proportionality districts give voters, including often-marginalized groups like minority racial groups, the power to elect the representatives of their choice.
It’s time to think bigger
Political science research has been very clear: we need electoral reform if we want a thriving and healthy multiracial and multiparty democracy. And we badly need solutions that can bridge the gap between members and their voters and rebuild public trust. In 2021, over 500 political scientists supported repealing the law that establishes single member districts, and several states already use multimember districts in their own legislatures.
Congress should seriously consider expanding the House and adopting proportional representation with multimember districts—both of which can be changed through legislative action. Reps. Gluesenkamp and Golden are right to encourage their colleagues to think big about the future of democratic elections.