List of Republicans in the House of Representatives

Final November revealed the capstone of misrepresentation in American commonwealth when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.9 million votes but lost in the Electoral College.

Simply 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's current "seat bonus"—a higher percent of seats than of votes—aligns with the historic reward for any majority party in the Firm over the final 70 years, back to 1946.

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

Majority political party over-represented

Despite its name, the Business firm of Representatives is not so representative.

As the nautical chart beneath shows, the total vote differential between the two parties for elections to the Firm in 2022 was 1.ii percent. Just the deviation in the number of seats is ten.8 percent, giving a total of 21 extra seats to Republicans.

Figure 1: National Distribution of Votes for Congress

	NUMBER		Percent
Party	Republican	Democrat	Republican	Democrat
Votes	63,164,365	61,750,858	l.half-dozen%	49.4%
Seats	241	194	55.four%	44.six%
"Misrepresented Seats"	21	-21	iv.viii%	-iv.8

Over-representation by land

This aggregate over-representation of the majority party is considerably extreme when looked at state-past-state. In ruby states (see Effigy 2), Republicans garnered 56 percent of the vote but 74.6 percentage of representation. In blue states, Democrats won 60.iii percent of the vote but 69.1 percentage of representation.

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

Misrepresentation is considerably larger within each red and blue group than in the U.S. as a whole. Translated into seats in the Business firm, Democrats over-represent bluish states (excluding the two flipped states) by 19 seats, whereas Republicans over-represent true red and flipped blue states past 40 seats. Republicans over-stand for ruby-red states (true and flipped) by 16 percent points, while in united blue states the disparity is xi percentage points.

Effigy ii: Majority Party Wins Disproportionate Representation

Misrepresentation in minor and big states

For individual states, misrepresentation is even larger. The level of misrepresentation is twenty percent or greater in 23 states—most one-half the country—and over 30 percent in 12 states.

To a certain extent, misrepresentation is partly a function of state size. In small states with a unmarried member—Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming—in that location is no alternative to the votes of a portion of the citizens not being represented. In these states, on boilerplate, 37 percent of voters selected the losing party. Even states with two representatives—New Hampshire, Rhode Isle, Hawaii, Maine, and Idaho—have a large degree of misrepresentation, on average 28 percent. This is non surprising in a winner-take-all system. Overall, the misrepresentation from these small states cancels out in the aggregate—in the 17 seats of these states there is simply a 3 percentage point disparity between the distribution of votes and the distribution of seats.

On the other extreme are the iv largest states—New York, Florida, Texas, and California. Together, these states transport 143 representatives to Congress. Each has less than 10 percent misrepresentation—votes from the losing party in ane commune are compensated in other districts. Moreover, the overall distribution from these states is the storybook moving-picture show of democracy at work: Betwixt them, the distribution of votes and seats was equal, with less than 1 pct difference between votes and representation (45 percent for Republicans, 55 for Democrats).

Figure iii: Misrepresentation in Small and Large States 2016

Note: The level of misrepresentation is computed as the difference between percent of votes and percentage of seats.

Misrepresentation in midsized states

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

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

Figure 5 below shows the level of misrepresentation in the 34 midsized states, ranked in order 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 (thirteen) accept a disparity between votes and representation of twenty percent or larger, and in all simply five states the disparity is greater than 10 percent.

Midsized red states have on average a considerably higher percent level of misrepresentation—in these states, while 58 per centum of the votes went to Republicans, they took 76 percent of the seats—an 18 percentage signal difference that translates into 34 seats. Comparatively, in the midsized bluish states, 59 percent of votes were for Democrats, who obtained 72 percent of seats—a 13 percentage point difference that translates into eleven seats. Furthermore, red states brand up 9 of the xiii states with an excess of xx points or college misrepresentation.

Effigy 5: Misrepresentation in Midsized States in 2016

Notation: Level of misrepresentation computed equally the departure between percentage of votes and per centum of seats.

Redistricting

What is underlying this outcome? In principle, such results are possible fifty-fifty if most of the state is competitive, merely ane political party has an edge 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 state politicians by instituting independent redistricting commissions. The 4 big states that have independent commissions—California, New Jersey, Washington, and Arizona—have less than 10 percent misrepresentation. The two other states with contained commissions, Idaho, and Montana, with two and one congressional representatives respectively, accept greater than 30 percent misrepresentation. There is no getting around size!

Overrepresentation by number of seats per land

As to states with the most number of "actress" seats, Democrats boss in California, with virtually five addition seats. Republicans have approximately three extra seats in Texas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina.

Figure vi: Over-representation of Majority Party

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

Implications

The independence of the U.Southward. was launched by a defection over the lack of representation. Misrepresentation can lead to social and economic policy distortions, feed distrust, and bulldoze discontent in government. Gerrymandering hinders party competition and the resulting political monopoly feeds extremism in the majority party. The border provided by this misrepresentation gives the majority party disproportionate power that is particularly destabilizing and unsafe in an era of heightened polarization and partisanship.

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

freemanthenecolasty43.blogspot.com

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

Share this post