The Lemur is publishing a selection of the most original, compelling, and persuasive final op-eds written in Fall 2025’s Public Policy 301: Political Analysis for Public Policy-Making, taught by Dr. Deondra Rose.
California voters passed Proposition 50 this past November. It shamelessly gerrymanders five Republican-held congressional districts in favor of Democrats, in response to Texas doing the same earlier this year for Republicans. Politics should never have to be this way. We should not have to fight gerrymandering with gerrymandering. Instead, we should make our electoral system better. Transitioning from single- to multi-member congressional districts would help restore political competitiveness and better represent voters.
California and Texas’ latest round of controversial gerrymandering contributes to a larger nationwide problem: the lack of competitive congressional districts. In 2024, only 16 districts voted for different parties for president and the House of Representatives. These so-called crossover districts are often politically competitive, but they have declined dramatically in number, from 86 in 2000 to 16 in 2024.
Margins of victory in House races also are a telltale sign of noncompetitive districts. In 2022, more than 360 of the 435 House races were won by at least 10 percentage points. Noncompetitive races mean a district’s dominant party primary plays a greater role in deciding the election. This is problematic because primary voters are more ideologically extreme than the average voter, so they will often choose more extreme candidates. Conventional wisdom tells us a competitive general election counteracts the ideological polarization of the primaries. Primary winners must moderate to win middle-of-the-road voters to supplement their base as they build a coalition capable of winning the general election. Otherwise, primary winners who remain extreme and fail to moderate would typically lose the general election. However, in a noncompetitive district, primary winners do not need to appeal to moderate voters, because their party base alone is strong enough to win the general election. This forces moderate voters to either stray from their party of preference or swallow their discontent and vote for the more extreme primary winner.
This process of candidate polarization leaves the political middle unrepresented, despite a sizeable 34 percent of voters describing themselves as moderate. It is simply unjust for 34 percent of voters to routinely lack the choice of a candidate who represents their interests. Even more partisan voters should recoil at this problem. Greater representation of diverse political views makes politics more effective, because it fosters more open, constructive discourse. This leads to more compromise, accounting for more people’s interests. Improving representation is vital to the effectiveness of our democracy. 34 percent of voters should not be structurally boxed out and unrepresented because of partisan gerrymandering and other drivers of political polarization.
The setup of our congressional elections with single-member, winner-take-all districts creates this serious problem. Supporters of the losing candidate, even if they comprise 49 percent of the vote, get nothing. They go unrepresented. However, it is in politicians’ interest to gerrymander and take advantage of the single-member district system. It helps them keep their party in power. Who could blame them for playing smart politics?
To break out of this system and better represent all voters, we should transition to multi-member districts. The percentage of the vote each party wins determines the number of the district’s seats they receive. Voters who support the second- or third-place party have their views represented, while the winning party is still rewarded most by the election’s outcome. This creates more competitive districts, where widely appealing moderates win more votes while more extreme candidates win fewer. Most democracies use multi-member districts to great success, especially in Europe. They have many third parties representing voters who do not fit neatly into the major parties.
Single-member districts theoretically make each representative closer to their constituents to better understand their concerns. By design, single-member districts let representatives be divided across many smaller districts instead of fewer, larger multi-member ones. However, congressional districts originally had about 30,000 people. Today, members represent districts of nearly 800,000. It is no longer possible for members to be as close to their constituents. Also, with most districts being noncompetitive, members only need to satisfy their majority party constituents. In this sense, there is little harm in transitioning to multi-member districts.
Multi-member districts are far from unprecedented in the United States. Before they were outlawed in 1842, as much as 31 percent of the House was elected in multi-member districts. In the 1960s, nearly half of all state legislators were elected in multi-member districts. Today, 10 states already use them for state legislative elections.
Our country needs to revive multi-member districts, because our electoral system needs to represent all voters, not just the winning 51 percent.
by Zane Holley
