From the Ashes, What Would A ‘Re-Founding’ of American Democracy Look Like?

Things rarely change unless there is a crisis. The present administration has certainly precipitated unprecedented challenges at all levels of our government. With the likelihood that the crisis will only deepen, the more pertinent question is how far will the destruction go?

A society’s capacity for change is often proportionate to the disaster’s depth. From the ashes of the Civil War, the ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments would go on to play such an important role in the American polity that their passage is considered by some to be a “Second Founding” of American democracy. Amidst the backdrop of decades of political decay and voter cynicism due to gerrymandering, inequities in voter representation, and political gridlock, we do not have the luxury of hoping after the current administration that “things will go back to normal.” Depending on the scale of the mounting assaults challenging our Constitutional system—made even more dire with concerns that future elections may be disrupted or manipulated—we must be prepared to harness a potential groundswell to pass reforms that update our democracy in the most concrete and durable ways.

Three ambitious proposals must be prioritized to structurally strengthen the American people’s connection to the national government, thereby helping redefine the role of the American citizen and securing the vibrancy of our nation’s democracy for generations to come.

I. Expanding the House of Representatives

Designed to be the governmental body with the most direct connection to the average American, the House of Representatives grew along with the early republic, reaching its final size of 435 members in 1911. Since then, the average population per Congressional district has ballooned to comical levels, reaching an average of 760,000 people per representative.

Expanding the House—specifically through the Wyoming Rule, which pegs district size to the least-populous state/district—would increase the chamber to approximately 574 members, an addition of 139 members. This structural update would generate a domino effect that addresses disparities in voter representation, gerrymandering, and Congressional stagnation.

The current cap causes massive “rounding errors” that deepen voter inequity. For example, Idaho has two House seats for a population of 1.84 million, meaning each representative serves about 920,000 people. In contrast, Wyoming’s lone House Representative represents 580,000 people, diluting the voice of Idaho voters. By raising the cap, these rounding errors in district partitioning could be corrected, bringing far more equitable voter representation in Congress.

Gerrymandering relies on the principles of packing (reducing the power of the opposition’s voters by compacting them into a single seat) and cracking (spreading the opposition's voters so thinly across districts that they cannot win). Smaller districts make both strategies riskier; packing becomes harder because opposition voters are forced to spill into other districts, making them more competitive, and cracking becomes more perilous as safety margins within districts shrink.

Often cited as a deterrent to expanding the House of Representatives, an increase in the 435-member cap will require greater investment in facilities, staff, and other structural aspects of the people’s chamber. For a chamber that has been so impotent and moribund during the current Presidential administration, any change should be welcomed at this point. The past few decades have seen a hollowing out of Congress's administrative manpower. Expanding the House of Representatives will inject much-needed energy into Congress.

II. Proportionality in Presidential Elections

Originally conceived as a layer of protection against demagoguery, the Electoral College now simply obfuscates the value of individual votes. The malapportionment of districts under the current Congressional apportionment formula means that voters in certain states, such as California and Texas, are significantly underrepresented. Lastly, the winner-takes-all system generates distortions that completely silence minority voters and artificially funnel all electoral efforts into a few battleground states.

Two distinct paths could alleviate these distortions.

The more conservative route is to couple the expansion of the House of Representatives with proportional voting systems for each state whereby a state’s electoral votes are divvied up based on the voter percentages within the state. These reforms would produce a far more representative picture of the American electorate by reducing representation gaps and giving minority voters a voice. An important consideration is that proportional voting would allow third-party candidates to win electoral votes, empowering alternative parties that could change the political landscape.

The national popular vote is the more radical choice. While a Constitutional amendment would be the traditional path, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact—an agreement among states to award their electors to the popular vote winner—offers a theoretical legal bypass. The beauty and durability of the popular vote is the purity that every person’s vote is completely equal in value. All such distortions caused by the Electoral College would vanish in an instant. Though a steep uphill climb, there is clear precedent for change—the 17th Amendment, ratified in 1913, established direct election of senators.

III. A “Rigorous Flexibility” Model for New Amendments

To truly reconnect citizens to the Constitution, we must break the bottleneck of Article V, and what better way to make citizens feel connected to the Constitution than the knowledge that they can play a direct role in shaping it? Previous calls for citizen involvement in the amendment-making process exist, with Senator Robert La Follette advocating for direct democracy in the ratification of new amendments during the early twentieth century.

I propose a “Rigorous Flexibility” model. For a new amendment to be ratified, it must fulfill two out of three paths:

1. 2/3rd approval in both Houses of Congress
2. 2/3rd approval from state legislatures
3. 2/3rd approval in a national popular vote, requiring that a majority of states show majority approval

This two-out-of-three system draws on the principle of “double security” envisioned by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in the Federalist Papers, in which, when the people need aid, they can pursue alternate paths for support at either the state or national levels. This proposal incorporates direct democracy, maintains the high bar for constitutional change, and prevents a single political machine operating at the national or state legislative levels from permanently blocking progress. The result is that the Constitution will become a more responsive document.

While ambitious, passage of these major structural reforms would foster a deeper connection between the American people and the national government—increasing their stake in the American experiment and helping to usher in a more sustainable democracy.

Jeremy Chang is a physician-scientist at the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program in New York City, earning his PhD from Rockefeller University. He spends his time studying the microscopic systems of DNA damage and pondering the macroscopic systems of American government. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Chicago.