Gerrymandering, more often than not, is used to disenfranchise people who live in cities and scatter their votes into outlying districts. It doesn't have to be this way.Ray has more in his Instagram post.
[T]here have always been embarrassingly bad, nakedly partisan congressional maps, but things went to a whole ‘nother level in 2026. And it’s bad enough that it’s impacting the balance of power in the legislative branch, but what really sticks in my craw is how it stacks the deck against cities.I agree with both of Ray's legislative fixes, repealing the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 and replacing it with the Wyoming Plan, which Ray calls the Wyoming Rule. I wrote about both, particularly the Wyoming Plan, in Vox explains 'The House of Representatives is too small. Here is one way to fix it.'
So today’s video tackles a couple questions: how big should the House of Representatives be, and how should we be drawing districts to make sure city dwellers and rural folk both get legitimate representation?
(Side note: I spent more hours on this video topic than any I’ve ever done, partly because it comes with a companion piece on my site — nerd4cities.com — that also ate up a bunch of hours. The time kind of flew by, though, so...call it a labor of hate)
I find all three formulas converging on one district for every 500,000 people encouraging. It tells me that my support for the "Wyoming Plan," which has the population of every district being the size of the smallest population state, is well founded. It's also why I'm not terribly eager to add the U.S. Virgin Islands; their population would make the Wyoming Plan unwieldy, if not downright impracticable. Fortunately, the last referendum overwhelmingly supported territory status...However, making the population of a district 500,000 and not that of the lowest population state would remove those reservations.Ray advocating for the Wyoming Plan/Rule bolsters my support.
As for Ray's preference for keeping communities of interest together running afoul of the Voting Rights Act, I think he shouldn't worry too much about it as long as the current Supreme Court justices are serving. As I wrote in Vox and MS NOW explain 'The voting rights case that could set us back 60 years' and repeated in 'Last Week Tonight' examines redistricting, "the conservative majority of the Supreme Court shot multiracial democracy in America in the leg, if not an even more vital part of the body. The bullet is still traveling, injuring tissues and organs on its way." Much, if not most, of the redistricting that Ray is objecting to is the result of that decision.
That's a wrap for today. I have an appointment in the morning and will return to the office tomorrow afternoon, so stay tuned for another short evergreen educational entry I can share next month, which begins on Tuesday.
