As the 2020 redistricting process comes to a close, it is clear that our winner-take-all system—where each U.S. House district is represented by a single person—is fundamentally broken. We call on Congress to adopt inclusive, multi-member districts with competitive and responsive proportional representation.
According to a recent analysis of the newly-redistricted House map, more than 90% of districts are effectively a lock for one of the parties this November. This means that many millions of voters have no meaningful say in general elections, with the overwhelming majority of Congress effectively chosen by low-turnout primaries. In other words, winner-take-all increasingly means we already know the outcome of almost any given race.
This collapse in competitive elections helps explain why Congress today is so polarized and held hostage by obstructionist politics. Because 90% of House members don’t have to worry about general elections and are beholden only to their district’s small number of primary voters, extreme elements are overrepresented to the point where one party in our two party system has been taken over by members that reject democracy itself.
Contrary to popular belief, geography—not gerrymandering—is the primary cause of this districting crisis. As the country has sorted geographically, with Democrats concentrating in cities and Republicans in rural areas, it is often impossible to draw competitive single-member districts that offer any semblance of geographic continuity and that keep communities of interest together. In fact, maps drawn by nonpartisan commissions in this redistricting cycle had just as few highly competitive districts as those drawn by politicians.
At the same time, our political divisions are far less dire than our electoral system implies. At the level of narrow, winner-take-all districts, only the majority opinion gets represented and we appear divided between fully Democratic and fully Republican districts. But on the scale of our communities, regions, and states, the United States remains a diverse and complex political tapestry. In 2020, there were more Trump voters in California than any other state and more Biden voters in Texas than in New York or Illinois. The vast—even overwhelming—majority of Americans don’t fit precisely into the ideology of their single-member congressional representation.
Congress has the ability to embrace this political richness by joining most other advanced democracies in moving to more inclusive, multi-member districts made competitive and responsive by proportional representation.
The effects would be far-reaching and salutary. More proportional representation would render gerrymandering obsolete and help ensure that a political party’s share of votes in an election actually determines how many seats it holds in the House. Larger, multi-member districts would mean almost every voter could cast a meaningful vote, regardless of where they live. And as the Supreme Court further weakens the Voting Rights Act, proportional representation allows communities of color to have their voices reflected—and their candidates elected—at the ballot box.
This fix would require only an act of Congress. Proportional, multi-member districts are not only constitutional, they are broadly consistent with American history and political norms. In fact, multi-member House districts were common across the country for over 150 years—albeit without proportional representation, which proved a fatal flaw, as at-large districts were used to effectively disenfranchise minority groups and grossly over-represent narrow majorities. Congress must now improve upon, not ignore, this history.
This redistricting cycle is a wake-up call for voters and our elected representatives. Our arcane, single-member districting process divides, polarizes, and isolates us from each other. It has effectively extinguished competitive elections for most Americans, and produced a deeply divided political system that is incapable of responding to changing demands and emerging challenges with necessary legitimacy.
Accordingly, we urge Congress to ensure that this is the last redistricting cycle under a failed single-winner system and to adopt inclusive, multi-member districts with more proportional representation.
Sincerely,
Daron Acemoglu
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
William Aceves
California Western School of Law
Peter Christian Aigner
CUNY Graduate Center
John Aldrich
Duke University
Tyler Anbinder
George Washington University
Anne-Marie Angelo
University of Sussex
Elisabeth Anker
George Washington University
Bettina Aptheker
University of California, Santa Cruz
Deborah Avant
University of Denver
Robert Axelrod
University of Michigan
David Barker
American University
Naazneen Barma
University of Denver
John Barry
Tulane University
David Bateman
Cornell University
Rachel Beatty Riedl
Cornell University
Ruth Ben-Ghiat
New York University
Paul Bender
Arizona State University
Sheri Berman
Barnard College
John Bieter
Boise State University
Robert Blair
Brown University
Jon Bond
Texas A&M University
Adam Bonica
Stanford University
Nikolas Bowie
Harvard Law School
John Brooke
The Ohio State University
Nadia Brown
Georgetown university
John Carey
Dartmouth College
Simone Caron
Wake Forest University
Alton Carroll
Northern Virginia Community College
Dan Carter
University of South Carolina
Alessandra Casella
Columbia University
Katherine Charron
North Carolina State University
Erica Chenoweth
Harvard University
Beverly Cigler
Pennsylvania State University
Joshua Cohen
University of California, BerkeleyLizabeth Cohen
Harvard University
Josep M. Colomer
Georgetown University
Mark Copelovitch
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Michael Coppedge
University of Notre Dame
Robert Cottrell
Gary Cox
Stanford University
Melody Crowder-Meyer
Davidson College
Matt Dallek
George Washington University
Christian Davenport
University of Michigan
Hannah Demeritt
Duke University School of Law
Matthew Dennis
University of Oregon
Lee Drutman
New America
Thomas Dublin
State University of New York at Binghamton
Chris Edelson
American University
Mark Edwards
Spring Arbor University
Nate Ela
University of Cincinnati
Kevin Esterling
University of California, Riverside
Matthew Evangelista
Cornell University
Sara M. Evans
University of Minnesota
Christina Ewig
University of Minnesota
David Faris
Roosevelt University
Christopher Federico
University of Minnesota
Ronald Feinman
Florida Atlantic University
Steven Fish
University of California, Berkeley
Dana R. Fisher
University of Maryland
Jill Frank
Cornell University
William Franko
West Virginia University
Caroline Fredrickson
Georgetown Law
Amy Fried
University of Maine
Scott Frisch
California State University, Channel Islands
Francis Fukuyama
Stanford University
Daniel Galvin
Northwestern University
Marshall Ganz
Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Martin Gilens
University of California, Los Angeles
Simon Gilhooley
Bard College
Annalise Glauz-Todrank
Wake Forest University
Benjamin Goldfrank
Seton Hall University
Sara Goodman
University of California, Irvine
Jake Grumbach
University of Washington
Hannah Gurman
New York University
Nancy Hagedorn
State University of New York at Fredonia
Hahrie Han
Johns Hopkins University
Gretchen Helmke
University of Rochester
Charlotte Hill
University of California, Berkeley
Jennifer Hochschild
Harvard University
Wesley Hogan
Duke University
Aziz Huq
University of Chicago
Jeffrey Isaac
Indiana University, Bloomington
Karl Jacoby
Columbia University
Dolores E. Janiewski
Victoria University of Wellington - Te Herenga Waka
Joel Johnson
Colorado State University - Pueblo
Nathan Kalmoe
Louisiana State University
Nancy Kassop
State University of New York at New Paltz
Richard Katz
Johns Hopkins University
Peter Katzenstein
Cornell University
Thomas Keck
Syracuse University
Nathan Kelly
University of Tennessee
Robert Keohane
Alex Keyssar
Harvard University
Helen Kinsella
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Rachel Kleinfeld
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
James Kloppenberg
Harvard University
Louise W. Knight
Northwestern University
Richard Kohn
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Ronald Krebs
University of Minnesota
Daniel Kreiss
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Aleksander Ksiazkiewicz
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Tim Lacy
Loyola University Chicago
David D. Laitin
Stanford University
Derek Larson
The College of St. Benedict/St. John's University
Bruce Larson
Gettysburg College
Jeffrey Lerner
Wake Forest University
Margaret Levi
Stanford University
Peter Levine
Tufts University
Steven Levitsky
Harvard University
Robert Lieberman
Johns Hopkins University
Robert Lifset
University of Oklahoma
Arend Lijphart
University of California, San Diego
Kriste Lindenmeyer
Rutgers University
Nancy MacLean
Duke University
Scott Mainwaring
University of Notre Dame
Thomas Mann
Brookings Institution
Jane Manners
Temple University
John Martin
Duke University
Seth Masket
University of Denver
Fritz Mayer
University of Denver
Eleanor McConnell
Frostburg State University
Jennifer McCoy
Georgia State University
Jason McDaniel
San Francisco State University
Bonnie M. Meguid
University of Rochester
Walter Mignolo
Duke University
Terry Moe
Stanford University
Ralph Morelli
C. Daniel Myers
University of Minnesota
Carol Nechemias
Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg
David Niven
University of Cincinnati
William Nomikos
Washington University in St. Louis
Brendan Nyhan
Dartmouth College
Stan Oklobdzija
University of California, Riverside
Peter Onuf
University of Virginia
Annelise Orleck
Dartmouth College
Benjamin I. Page
Northwestern University
Richard Parker
Harvard University
Josh Pasek
University of Michigan
Thomas Pepinsky
Cornell University
Isabel Perera
Cornell University
Rick Perlstein
Benjamin Peterson
Alma College
David Peterson
Iowa State University
Minh-Thu Pham
Princeton University
Dirk Philipsen
Duke University
Brian Pollins
The Ohio State University
Ethan Porter
George Washington University
Charles Postel
San Francisco State University
Lawrence N. Powell
John Quist
Shippensburg University
Ben Railton
Fitchburg State University
Miles Rapoport
Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Daniel Richter
University of Pennsylvania
Kenneth Roberts
Cornell University
Bert A. Rockman
Purdue University
Joel Rogers
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Deondra Rose
Duke University
Anne Sarah Rubin
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Vicki Ruiz
University of California, Irvine
Larry Sabato
University of Virginia
Anoop Sarbahi
University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
Martha Saxton
Amherst College
Ethan Scheiner
University of California, Davis
Stephen Schlesinger
Vivien Schmidt
Boston University
Philippe Schmitter
European University Institute
Sanford Schram
Hunter College and the Graduate Center CUNY
Robert Shapiro
Columbia University
Matthew Shugart
University of California, Davis
Peter Siavelis
Wake Forest University
Dan Slater
University of Michigan
Jason Scott Smith
University of New Mexico
Steven Smith
Washington University
Rogers Smith
University of Pennsylvania
Shannon Smith
College of St. Benedict/St. John's University
Joe Soss
University of Minnesota
Thomas Spragens
Duke University
Leonard Steinhorn
American University
Susan Stokes
University of Chicago
Jennie Sweet-Cushman
Chatham University
Rein Taagepera
University of California, Irvine
Paul Taillon
University of Auckland
Bob Pepperman Taylor
University of Vermont
Steven Taylor
Troy University
Alexander Theodoridis
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Susan Thorne
Duke University
Chloe Thurston
Northwestern University
James Traub
New York University
Chuck Tryon
Fayetteville State University
Mustafa Tuna
Duke University
Antonio Ugues Jr.
St. Mary's College of Maryland
Jennifer Victor
George Mason University
Penny Von Eschen
University of Virginia
Barbara F Walter
University of California, San Diego
Elizabeth Wemlinger
Salem College
Tisa Wenger
Yale University
Robb Willer
Stanford University
Garry Wills
Northwestern University
Amanda Wintersieck
Virginia Commonwealth University
Daniel Wirls
University of California, Santa Cruz
Christopher Witko
The Pennsylvania State University
Alex Zakaras
University of Vermont
Michael Zuckerman
University of Pennsylvania