The USA has about 336,000,000 inhabitants (persons, residents...). The House of Representatives currently has 435 members from states and a few more from other territories; the Senate has 100 members, two for each state.

The smallest state by population is Wyoming with about 580,000 inhabitants, represented by 3 persons; the largest is California with about 39 million, represented by 55 persons. This means in effect that the voting power of one person in Wyoming 3/580K is equal to 55/38000K, or about 280 times as great. It's easy to make a case that this is disproportional, to say the least. There are some who say that people in Wyoming are inherently wiser than those who live elsewhere; all of the former live in Cody. ????

If the US were organized into regions with populations equal to Wyoming, there would be 579 regions. A House of Representatives with 579 seats could probably be accommodated within the existing HR chamber given a modest remodeling. That leaves only the problem of what to do with the States and the Senate. It does not seem unreasonable to ask why we have them and whether we need them.

The Senate is in part constituted as a counterweight to the passions of the moment, ideally populated by wise citizens who consider the long-term implications of any proposed action by the government. History suggests that this is not always true, but the idea retains merit though the individuals elected might not always make the cut.

The States are another matter. There are some broad types: the original 13 and those derived from the British, Spanish, French, and Mexican cessions of the 18th and 19th centuries. This ignores for the moment the overseas possessions, which are special cases for various reasons. There are also the large and the small*.

Nine of the original 13 are among the currently most populated states. The other four are among the very smallest. Of the ten largest, just four are of the originals. These vary widely in both area and population.

For people west of the Appalachians, it is hard to imagine how land grants by unremembered British sovereigns in unmapped territories they had never seen are a reasonable basis for political organization after 250 years. But I digress.

I've given this a modicum of thought, and I humbly suggest that we might reorganize our representation along the following lines, which is possible in the Internet era but could not have been imagined in the 1780s.

IMHO, the States should play no role in the election of the President and Vice-president. History tells us that state rivalries have caused more problems than they have solved, the most notable examples being the failure of the Constitutional Convention to eliminate slavery and the Civil War. Most states are creations of the federal government itself, created during the imperialistic 19th Century at the expense of indigenous peoples not to say virtual genocide, and are not co-founding institutions.

A House of Representatives with one representative for every district of at least 500,000 population and not more than 750,000 population would roughly match the 579 mentioned above.

Districts should recognize the discontinuity of the nation, creating at least one district for any territory separated by at least 100 kilometers of water from the contiguous states. (That other relic of the British empire, the mile and all its relatives, goes away, as we must define our space so the rest of the world will grasp its extent. However for clarity, that's about 62 miles, enough to enclose the offshore islands of Alaska, Hawaii, Washington, California, Texas and Florida.) Mostly that affects Alaska and Hawaii which at the moment would have one representative as they do now.

For purposes of election of representatives, each voter should be a resident of the district and shall be duly registered prior to casting a vote in any federal election, where residency and registration would be regulated by law and be consistent nationwide, with registration to be national without regard to state boundaries.

Each district is a bounded territory based on a central city of at least 100,000 persons regardless of population density. The boundaries should be redefined after each decennial census as now. Redistricting shall be carried out by an independent Commission of Electoral Geographers and ratified by Congress within two years of each census. Neither Congress nor any Court shall make individual modifications of boundaries but must accept or reject the allocations as a whole. The purpose of the electoral districts is ONLY for the purpose of choosing national officers and should have no effect on the collection of taxes or the provision of services to the people of the nation.

There are probably other criteria and procedures that might improve the general concept. The overriding objective is to have truly national elections for national offices. Finally, the cost of a single, national, computer-driven system would surely be less than maintaining the current 3,000 plus county elections offices, which would be relieved of the burden — and in this era of political violence the danger — of national elections.

Let's return to the States.

A case can be made for the retention of states. The main reason for preserving them is to provide for local services rendered in a timely fashion. They should play no part in national elections. It might actually be good to have more of them, but they should be relatively compact and organized around service, not legacy. At present some are large enough to have become unwieldy and some are small enough to be inefficient. There are many examples in which territorial exchanges or division into multiple states or actual elimination might be warranted. Each state's investment in obsolete, often dysfunctional capitol buildings could be recouped by turning them into tourist attractions and charging admission. This requires additional study; we have a large investment in state services, and it would be foolish to throw the baby out with the bath water. That is a topic for another time.

And now to the Senate.

The idea of the corpus of wise citizens affirming law and government action is time-honored. We might just change the way we choose them.

The traditional role of the states having a minimum number of senators is reasonable, as it promotes consideration of regional issues and avoids concentration of power in certain areas. The direct election of senators is one way to populate the Senate, But it is not the only way.

We could keep the principle of a minimum number of senators per state while adding others chosen by other means, perhaps doubling the size of the Senate. One possibility might be to allow the House of Representatives to elect nominees to empty seats. Representatives might choose from among their own numbers or maintain a list of respected individuals from which to choose whenever a vacancy might occur, or some combination of the two. As now, the term of a senator should be at least two or three times the length of a House term, as the idea is to build up expertise and continuity in government. In effect the relationship is analogous to the motor and the anchor of a ship; which works rather well at sea and in life.

Another reason to retain the states is geography, ideally the management should not be far from the population served. It would be prudent to apply rules specifying maximum distance or travel time to access government services. The territories of units like counties should not be more than one hour from the most distant resident, and a state might extend no more than four hours from the capital. This is why we have geography departments at state universities, said the former geography professor.

Voting

Finally, all presidential elections should use ranked-choice voting to promote consensus and reduce bias. Here’s how it works.

Courage

We should not be afraid of changing the ways we are organized. The core principles of American government would still be the right to vote and equal justice under law. The rest is detail.

* Largest:  California, Texas, Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, New Jersey, Virginia, Washington, Arizona, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Wisconsin, Colorado, Minnesota, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana.
Smallest:  Kentucky, Oregon, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Utah, Iowa, Nevada, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kansas, New Mexico, Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, Wyoming.