One Ballot Initiative, Six Times the Fun

My op-ed in Fox & Hounds Daily is here. 

Here is an excerpt:

California is huge. I do not necessarily mean that as a compliment.

California is the nation’s most populous state. More than thirty-eight million people live in the Golden State. That is roughly twelve percent of the nation’s population. Add up the populations in about twenty-one of American’s least populous states and that will still not equal the number of people who live in California.

How many people represent these thirty-eight million people in the state legislature? One hundred and twenty. If that doesn’t seem like much, it is because it isn’t. California has the largest state legislative districts in the country. There are eighty State Assembly Districts (which each hold more than 466,000 residents) and forty State Senate Districts (which each hold more than 931,000 residents).

Want to get cozier with your state senator? You could move to Montana, Vermont, or Wyoming where around 20,000 people live in each state senate district.