[Pfhreak]

Because America is balanced on a knife's edge, and the Senate and Electoral college basically runs the show.

If you introduce a new state that leans blue, that's two more blue senators and N more electoral college votes for a blue president. Republicans will staunchly oppose this. And vice versa.

If the senate were proportional to population, and if the electoral college were likewise apportioned via popular vote, then maybe you could be more flexible with state boundaries.

[ericmay]

You're in the wrong frame of reference here and trying to balance out some sort of America that I think is likely to not exist all that long.

The senate thing though wouldn't be relevant based on what this article is saying. Oregon would have 2 senators as it does now, Idaho would have 2 as well. Potentially could have an effect on the house though but that depends on the population demographics.

> If the senate were proportional to population, and if the electoral college were likewise apportioned via popular vote, then maybe you could be more flexible with state boundaries.

Well no I don't think that would change much. But I also view the senate as it currently exists as good. Frankly, legislation was intended to be difficult to pass - it should be even more difficult to pass. If something doesn't have broad consensus then getting a slight majority and ramming it down the other side's throat (why are there only two sides anyway) is a lightning rod for partisanship.

But also, why would there be states in a hundred or two hundred years? Maybe nuclear weapons will keep the nation state together like it has Russia. Idk.

[throwaway0a5e]

It shouldn't be hard to divy up states (granted you might have to cut a state into more than two parts in some cases) in a way that results in no net gain for either party. It's a simple math problem.

[Pfhreak]

But that doesn't solve the problem. If the problem is, "East Oregonians feel disconnected from West Oregonians", I don't think there's a way to split Oregon that results in a net equal number of new representatives and simultaneously addresses the "we're too politically divided" concern.

Yes, you could slice Oregon in half horizontally and maintain the same number of reps, but then you'd have two new states with the East feeling divided. If you split it vertically, then you have the problem of uneven representation.