This is a proposal to add a third legislative body to the federal government of the United States of America.
Original House of Representatives
The original house of representatives had one representative for every 33,000 people in the U.S. It roughly maintained that ratio until 1911 when it was decided to free the size of the House to 435 members – a ratio of one for every 212,000 people. The House is the same size today with a ratio that averages out to one congressperson per 700,000 – more than 20 times more than the original House. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/us/politics/18baker.html
This leads to a few problems. First, It is very hard for an average citizen to get the attention of his or her representative. Second, the way we vote makes it very difficult for third parties to have any voice at all in Congress. Third, the people in Congress have a tendency to be rich and that means they tend to care about the issues of the rich. It has been proposed to simply increase the size of the House of Representatives and that the House does not need to meet physically. In that regard, the proposal at thirty-thousand.org is very similar to this proposal and this proposal is definitely inspired by thirty-thousand.org. https://www.thirty-thousand.org/
One key distinction made here is to create a third segment of the federal legislative branch. The problem with simply expanding Congress is that it likely requires a constitutional amendment. The Virtual House (VH) could function for a while at “low power” as a kind of experiment that needed just a small amount of funding.
Increase the political power of 3rd parties
I state without proof that it would be useful if the U.S.A. had more than two political parties. Obviously, we do have third parties but they are not only weak they tend to be destructive. The third-party effort by Ralph Nader caused the 2000 Presidential election in Florida to be so close that a Supreme Court 5-4 decision made George W. Bush the next president. The Green Party candidate may have caused Donald Trump to win Michigan in 2016. Members of the third party say they are voting their conscience but you can’t vote your conscience if you are unconscious of the impact of your vote. As a result, we see new calls for ranked voting also called instant runoff voting.
https://www.fairvote.org/rcv#where_is_ranked_choice_voting_used
This would allow third parties to vote for their hopeless candidates first and a practical choice second. However, that only makes 3rd parties less destructive. Except in rare, almost always local, election, the 3rd party still has no voice.
Increase citizen participation
Even with a total population beyond 300 million people, adding 10,000 people to the legislative branch makes it easier for the average citizen to be involved.
Reduce legislative gridlock
Here is one quick way to make the Virtual House relevant. The Senate could pass a rule saying that a filibuster cannot exceed 30 days if the VH votes for cloture. Some impressive legal wording will be necessary to see to it that some parliamentary quirk isn’t used to restart the clock or otherwise subvert the process.
Solve inconsistencies
Montana has about 900K people per Representative. Wyoming has had 500K per representative. California has more than 700K per representative. This is due to rounding errors and the discrepancies are not found in the VH simply because it is larger and the rounding errors rarely show up.
Personality contests are reduced
Since a person nominated for the VH can’t ask for votes explicitly for him or her, voting would be on the issues as each party sees fit.
What it consists of
1000 Representatives for California
The state with the highest population will get 1000 members in the Virtual House and every other state (including D.C., USVI, Guam, and Puerto Rico) will get a proportional amount. With recent population figures, this means the total size of the Virtual House will be about 10,000. A few other states:
| State | Population | VH reps |
| California | 39557045 | 1000 |
| Texas | 28701845 | 726 |
| New York | 19542209 | 494 |
| Alabama | 4887871 | 124 |
| Arizona | 7171646 | 181 |
| Guam | 165718 | 4 |
| USVI | 104914 | 3 |
| DC | 702455 | 18 |
| Wyoming | 577737 | 15 |
| Puerto Rico | 3195153 | 81 |
| Kentucky | 4468402 | 113 |
| Colorado | 5695564 | 144 |
| Oregon | 4190713 | 106 |
| Minnesota | 5611179 | 142 |
Virtual House Administration (VHA – needs a better name)
The Federal government will establish and fund a small group that acts as the administration for the Virtual House. This group is responsible for:
- Sending a laptop to all of those that have been elected for the following term.
- Notifying those that are elected
- Verifying that collaborative software is working for all members.
- Teaching Deliberative Democracy to the Elected during the first week of the term (i.e. the first week in June each year).
No pay
With the few exceptions noted below, there is no recompense for being in the VH with a few exceptions noted below. The people in the Virtual House Administration are paid – expect a maximum of 10 employees with a total payroll of around $1M.
Laptop
Each person is given a laptop which contains the required software. This laptop is to be returned to the VHA when the person’s term is about to expire and that person is not re-elected. If a person leaves the VH they should return the laptop though there may be other procedures to be followed.
Software
Software used will include
a)AntiVirus software
b)Meeting software (e.g. WebEx)
c)Collaborative software (TBD)
Internet Access suitable for meetings
The VHA will verify that all members are able to use the Internet for official Virtual House tasks.
Elections
Yearly – one weekend in early May
The Virtual House term is for one year starting June 1. The election takes place over multiple days. For example, if May 1 is a Wednesday, the VH elections are carried out via the Internet starting May 1 and continuing through the following Tuesday, May 7.
One household cannot serve more than 2 years in a row
In this version of term limits, a person can actually serve for many years but no more than two in a row. Likewise, it is not allowed to have a married couple take turns and effectively keep the spot in the family. It is up to the party to determine if they want to allow two siblings with different addresses to take turns in the VH.
Must be 20 years old by May 1
The minimum age for being in the VH is 20 years old. Again, it would be up to the parties to determine if there should be a maximum age.
Each Party makes a list
It is not practical to draw boundaries for so many positions. Therefore, all members of the Virtual House are considered “at large” within their state. Each registered political party (each state may have its own method of determining how a political party is registered) creates an ordered list of candidates.
Consider this example. Let’s say California has 5 political parties: Democratic, Republican, Libertarian, Green, Peace and Freedom. The voter will either select one party or multiple parties. If choosing multiple parties, the voter will assign a percentage for each party. So Voter A may vote only for the Democratic Party and that increases the vote count for the Democratic party by 1. Voter B may choose to vote 50% for the Republican Party; 30% for the Libertarian Party; 20% for the Green Party. Thus the vote count for the Republican Party will increase by 0.5; the count for the Libertarian Party will increase by 0.3; the count for the Green Party will increase by 0.2. Percentages used by the voter must be a multiple of 10.
If California has 1000 seats in the Virtual House and the Democratic Party gets 52% of the vote then the first 520 candidates in the Democratic Party’s list is elected. If the Peace and Freedom party gets 10% of the vote, then the first 100 names on the Peach and Freedom’s list is elected. Some rounding may occur.
The Elected must take a class on deliberative democracy
The Elected must take a class on deliberative democracy which is given by the VHA.
The Elected must read the materials assigned by the VHA.
The Elected must faithfully vote when a vote is called by the VHA (A simple majority of the Virtual House can determine that a vote is needed and the VHA must comply).
If a member of the Elected decides they are no longer able or willing to perform their Virtual House duties, there is no mechanism to replace or remove them other than the election process.
Voting over the Internet – Security concerns
One value found in the Virtual House is that it will be a testbed for determining how voting over the Internet can be done securely.
What Would it do
Stop filibusters – Only requires a rule change in the Senate
Permanent Poll Respondents
The Virtual House can be used as a source for polling. This would not be a perfect polling solution but the relatively static nature of those polled might be of interest.
Other Questions
What about people who do not belong to a political party?
The speculation is that if the Virtual House is created then more political parties will be created and most people will find one party that they like. If not, they would have to convince a party to nominate them regardless. Of course, a person with no party affiliation could still vote for one or more parties in the VH elections.
What if a party only nominates people who are more loyal to party than to country?
Couldn’t a party nominate nothing but white guys who are at least 85 years old? Yes, they could but likely that would hurt their chances in the VH elections.
Why not just increase the size of Congress?
Even if you tripled the number of representatives you still are far from the original size of the House. Also, you now have the awesome task of drawing all of those congressional districts while avoiding gerrymandering. It is true that the House of Representatives could only meet via the Internet so the size would not be an intractable problem but why would Congress ever agree to that?
Wouldn’t Ranked Choice voting help?
Ranked Choice voting solves one important problem – it allows a person to vote a person who has virtually no chance of winning and also vote for one of the candidates that have a chance of winning. It allows a locality to require a 50% vote to win an election while avoiding a costly runoff election. This does not solve the other problems.
What if the party’s list is not available before the election?
A party’s refusal to provide a list of nominees before the election would make that party ineligible for the election. They can try again a year later.
What if the party’s list contains the names of people who are not illegible?
It is the party’s responsibility to make sure the nominations are valid. Illegible nominations are ignored. Thus if a party is successful in getting 20 seats in the election but person #17 on their list lives in another state, that party will only have 19 seats in the VH.
What if the party’s list is not long enough?
It is in each party’s best interest to nominate as many candidates as practical. Imagine a party in California that only nominates 50 candidates but gets 10% of the vote and is entitled to 100 elected VH representatives. The other 50 slots are left empty until the next year’s election. On the other hand, it may be true that no party would ever get more than 75% of the vote. It doesn’t matter if no party nominates more than 750 candidates
Why are representatives “at large”?
Defining 10,000 districts nationwide, 1000 alone in California, is just too much for humans (or computers) to manage. This is why simply expanding the current Congress is not proposed here because it ends up with the same problems. We have several states where the gerrymandering has been struck down by the courts. How complex will the districts be if the numbers of congressional districts are multiplied by 20?
