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Comment by brianolson | Hacker News Reader

All it takes is an amendment to a state constitution to change how one of the houses of its legislature is elected. Sounds lovely. Can even do this by direct democracy ballot initiative in a handful of states, let's do it!

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This is simply not true. The us constitution demands geographical representation of the House. State constitutions can not change this only us constitutional amendment can.

Edit: After rereading the parent again I think he might be talking about the state house not us house.

Actually, it is an act of Congress that mandates single-member geographical districts (1967 Single-Member District Mandate). Several states over the years have had at-large districts, and it has been a debate since at least the 1842 Apportionment Act. The debate has gone from one focused on federalism (states should decide how to elect reps) to equal protection (black people should get not get drowned out by racist southern states. flip side, gerrymandering is easy to do, hard to prevent). Nothing in the US Constitution prevents at-large House reps.

There is only a requirement that the voters of the state elect members of the US House. How that is done is not specified.

That it is subject to regulation by Congress is specified in the Constitution, and Congress has acted under that power and mandated single-member, geographic districts.

until the Justice Department gets involved and insures minority candidates have adequate chances based on the Voting Rights Act. This creates a problem where one party is effectively eliminated from a district while the opposite party may be weakened outside of it.

It's not the Constitution but rather a federal law that was passed in 1967. FairVote's Fair Representation Act, which was introduced in Congress this year, seeks to change that for example.

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