That would result in some of the representatives being elected on a national basis. So any voting bloc that makes up 5% of the population nationwide, but doesn't have a majority anywhere in the country, would still be able to get representation in Congress - they would have 5% of the proportionally elected seats.
This would also be a big step towards eliminating the two-party situation we're currently stuck with and greatly increase political competitiveness. If you had 100 proportionally elected representatives, for example, any party with 1% national support could get one representative in the House. This would allow for 3rd parties to get a political foothold which they could then use (if they become popular enough) to eventually unseat the Democrats or Republicans in non-proportional seats as well.
While we are at it, why not move to a delegative system. Every voter can directly vote for or against any given bill. They can also 'give' their vote to any other voter, who can vote on their behalf or pass the vote to yet another voter.
At any point in time, you can change who has your vote, or overrule them on a given issue. (And the person who you gave your vote to can do the same if he delegated it to a third person, and so on down the line.)
This has the advantage that if there is a bill that you care about, you can be sure that your vote goes the way you want. And otherwise, you can give your vote to the politician whose views most align with your own, and politicians have power directly proportional to their support.
I like the idea. The biggest problem would be to make it safe against voter intimidation/vote buying etc. by making it possible to build hierarchies of delegated votes small enough to chase down individuals.
Unfourtuantly, the problem of vote buying is even easier to implement than that, as some could confirm that you actually gave your vote to them. You might be able to use cryptology to construct a system where it is impossible to confirm who delegated there votes to you (although this would likely limit the any-time switching of your vote, or reduce the granularity for which someone can know how many votes (s)he has).
Have you looked at California's system of requiring voter approval of certain tax bills? That does not seem like something I would want to emulate elsewhere.
That's easy to say if you feel your concerns are aligned with the majority in your region.
Not so easy for the large number of people who get totally disenfranchised by it because their views are not aligned with a party that stands even a chance of getting representation that way.
My interests would be better served by a representative that I was close to ideologically, than one who happens to live in the same area.
But in any case, there's an easy solution to your concern: Multi-seat constituencies and a smaller pool of non-geographic seats. E.g Norway splits it's parliament into seats for 20 regions + one non-geographic pool of 8 seats. The seats are allocated by geographic region first, and then any "leftover" votes the parties did not need to win seats in a region are pooled nationally and used to determine which parties gets the seats in the non-geographic pool (with a limit you might like or hate, that excludes parties that got less than 4% from getting representatives from the non-geographic pool). The representative that gets these seats are picked so that they are assigned from the region where the party lost a seat with the smallest margin, further reinforcing the regional link.
You get your regional tie. Those with minority views still gets something resembling representation.
Read my original post again. I said some proportional representatives should be added. Did I ever say that they should replace all the geographical representatives?
And can you honestly say that your congressman knows or cares about the issues facing your community? These days, they're more interested in toeing the party line so that they don't lose in the primaries.
And the importance of geographical location has greatly declined in the last half century. Not only is long distance communication much easier, but people are moving around more than ever.
> Doesn't adding representatives necessarily decrease the influence of local representatives?
Yes, that is the whole point of my suggestion. Political power is a zero sum game. In order to give a voice to groups who are geographically dispersed but make up a significant portion of the American electorate, it will be necessary to include proportional representatives.
This will result in the formation of 3rd parties with real political power. If those parties have fresh ideas and don't just succumb to lobbyists' and campaign donors' wishes, then they will gain popularity and eventually be able to challenge the Democrats and Republicans. This could cause a sea change in American politics, since politicians would know that they'd have to do more than just be better than the other guy, since there would be more than just one "other guy".
Moreover, there are ways to include a geographical aspect to this, as in the Norwegian system explained by vidarh.
> Yes, I honestly think my congresswoman knows and cares about issues in my community. YMMV.
Mileage varies for a large number of Americans. For example, if you live in a congressional district that is 60+% red and 40-% blue (or vice versa), you are essentially disenfranchised in the House if you're in the minority. This has increasingly become the case over the last 20 years[0].
Also, if you do not agree with either major party, you are disenfranchised.
