Gilda Geist is a rising sophomore at Brandeis University and an intern at RepresentWomen. The non-partisan organization advances women's representation and leadership by advocating for reforms so that more women run, win, serve, and lead.
In response to the recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld partisan gerrymandering, Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia reintroduced the Fair Representation Act on July 25. This bill would implement ranked choice voting, multi-member House districts and rules for congressional redistricting.
What do all three have in common? They're simpler than they seem and are important for increasing women's representation in American government. Currently, women make up 24 percent of Congress, 29 percent of state legislators, and 0 percent of all U.S. presidents. This is because our current voting system protects incumbents, limits competition and perpetuates the status quo.
One way the Beyer bill would tackle this issue is ranked choice voting. This is an electoral method where instead of choosing only one favorite candidate, voters can rank the candidates in order of preference.
Here's how it works when electing one candidate in the smallest states, like Wyoming and Vermont, which have just one House seat. If a candidate earns more than half of first choices, that candidate wins. If no candidate has more than 50 percent of the vote, the last place candidate's votes are redistributed from those voters' next choice candidate. This process of eliminating last-place candidates and redistributing their votes repeats until one person has a majority of votes and is declared the winner.
Under the Beyer bill however, most states would use ranked choice voting to elect more than one person in each congressional district. When more than one candidate wins, more voters can help elect one of their favorite candidates because the Fair Representation Act is an American, candidate-based form of proportional representation. With three people getting elected to represent one district for example, just over three out of every four voters will elect a favorite candidate because each candidate can win with just over a quarter of the vote. The ranked choice voting tally adds a couple of extra steps to accomplish this goal, but remains just as easy for voters.
What's most important is what ranked choice voting does for fairness. It helps increase women's representation because it is more representative of the electorate. While the current winner-take-all system favors incumbents and reinforces the status quo, ranked choice voting and multi-member districts create opportunities for all underrepresented groups, including women.
At RepresentWomen, our research shows that multi-member districting is another electoral reform that strengthens women's representation in government. The Fair Representation Act would establish that any state with fewer than six seats would simply run a statewide election with ranked choice voting. Larger states would create districts that elect between three and five seats.
Women traditionally have done much better in running and winning in elections with multi-winner districts than single-winner districts. For example, in the Maryland General Assembly, women hold 25 percent of seats in single-winner district, but 45 percent in multi-winner districts — a substantial difference.
Just as with ranked choice voting, multi-member districts increase womens' representation because they change incentives for people to run and expand opportunities to underrepresented groups. Proportional outcomes and a wider variety of candidates provide more choices and greater diversity, thereby giving more women a chance to run and win.
The final component of the Fair Representation Act involves implementing rules for drawing lines for multi-member districts. The bill requires that a state must create an independent redistricting commission if it wants to redraw its district lines. Once the commissions are created, they must be sure to draw districts that comply with the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. Districts must not be completely safe for any one political party and they must provide minority groups equal opportunity to engage in the electoral process. This will ensure political representation is reflective of the population.
The Fair Representation Act is a non-partisan, common sense piece of legislation. People of all political parties, genders, and races would benefit because this bill would ensure that representation is accurate and fair to all voters.
Nearly 100 years after the 19th Amendment became part of the Constitution, we are still making painfully slow progress toward gender parity in government. The only way to achieve equal representation for women in a timely manner is by making changes to the rules and systems that have reigned unquestioned for years. We cannot wait for the culture surrounding women in politics to change. Instead, we have to be proactive in making politics accessible to women. After we successfully do so, the culture will start to change. Strong legislation that takes a stand like the Fair Representation Act will allow us to move toward this goal of gender parity in government.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.