Proportional Representation in the Texas Legislature

The Texas legislature is made up of two houses in parallel to the U.S. Congress; that is, it has a House of Representatives, the lower house, and a Senate, the upper house. The House of Representatives is apportioned by district based on population, and each member represents a smaller number of people per district than members of the Texas Senate. The Senate originally represented the counties. Each county was represented by one Senator. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, however, that this violated the fourteenth amendment provision ensuring equal protection under the law. It is unconstitutional for the States to mirror the federal principle with the counties as their subunits because the counties are mere administrative districts under the law, rather than sovereign entities. So, to give people in less populous counties the same representation as those in more populous counties was deemed in this way to be unconstitutional. After this decision, the Texas Senate began to represent districts apportioned by population, albeit larger ones than the House of Representatives.

As such, the Texas Senate and the Texas House of Representatives effectively represent the same constituencies, even if each Senator represents more of the people than each Representative. There is no real point to a bicameral legislature in which both houses represent the same constituencies. The purpose of a bicameral legislature is either to ensure equal representation for two different constituencies, or it is to slow or complicate the legislative process. One could make an argument that the Texas legislature is an attempt at the second; however, if the two houses represent the same constituencies, then how can it possibly offer any protection?

So, then, the Texas legislature should either be reduced to a unicameral system or one the two houses should be made to represent a different constituency. In the first case, we would be removing one of the barriers to passing legislation, and the entire thrust of the Texas Constitution is to ensure that power is divided as much as possible and that the government governs as little as is possible. Therefore, removing one of the two houses is out of the question. If we are to attempt the second, and county-by-county representation in the Senate is also out, what should we do?

We could implement a system of proportional representation in the House. Proportional representation essentially means that each voter would cast his or her vote for a political party instead of for a particular candidate. Once the votes are tallied, the percentages of votes for each party are calculated and seats in the House are awarded at the same proportions. For example, if the Republicans received sixty percent of the popular vote State-wide, they would be awarded sixty percent of the seats in the House of Representatives. This would ensure that the voices of each individual voter are heard and their votes actually matter. In the single member district system - the system both houses of the Texas legislature currently use, nearly half of the population in any given district could go without representation if that district is highly competitive. Proportional representation also weakens the two-party system, allowing for third parties whose supporters may not ever have received a single representative in the legislature in the single member district system to have seats, if enough of the population State-wide supports them.

Political parties are already regulated by the State, so there would be no need to adopt any new laws concerning them. Some might balk at the notion of voting directly for a political party in lieu of specific candidates, especially in the State of Texas. To alleviate this concern, instead of voting for a party per se, each party could nominate, in convention or primary election, from among their members one hundred fifty candidates, ranked in order from one to one hundred fifty, most preferred to least. A citizen who votes in an election for the Texas House would then be voting for a slate of representatives en bloc, just as we now vote for electors for President. Seats would be awarded to the slate based on the principle of proportional representation. If a slate received, for example, ten percent of the popular vote State-wide, then the top fifteen candidates on the slate would be awarded seats in the House.

Because each citizen who votes in the election actually has representation, citizens could contact any or all of the representatives, who were elected from his or her chosen party, in order to express his or her wishes to the House on issues concerning the State at large. At the same time, citizens would still be free to contact Senators, who would still be elected through the single member district method, concerning issues in their district specifically.