Interactive representation

Interactive representation is a proposed governance system in which elected officials have the same number of votes as the number of people that voted for them. [cite web|url=http://www.cfer.org/learn/gloss.html|title=Glossary|publisher=Californians for Electoral Reform|accessdate=2008-02-19] It was proposed in Oregon in 1912 by William S. U'Ren [cite web|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=980CEED91E3CE633A25753C3A9609C946396D6CF|title=Government by Proxy Now: Oregon Plan Would Present Ideas of Representative Lawmaking|publisher=New York Times|date=1912-06-30|accessdate=2008-02-19] and in Virginia in 2001 by Bill Redpath. [cite web|url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/01/metro/metro_redpath101201.htm|title=Bill Redpath|date=2001-10-12|accessdate=2008-02-19|publisher=The Washington Post]

In 1912, the People's Power League, led by William S. U'Ren, [cite web|url=http://home.vicnet.net.au/~prsa/history/hoag&hal.htm|title=Proportional Representation|author=Hoag, Clarence and Hallett, George|publisher=The Macmillan Company|date=1926accessdate=2008-02-19] proposed an amendment to the Oregon Constitution to allow each legislator to cast a number of votes equal to the number of votes he received in the last election. Thus, a legislator who received 25,000 votes would have had more voting power than two legislators who received 12,000 votes apiece. A majority of all the votes cast at the preceding election would have been required to pass a law. This proposal would have abolished the Oregon Senate and placed the state's legislative power in a single assembly of sixty members serving four-year terms. The Governor of Oregon and his defeated rivals would have been ex officio members of the Assembly representing voters whose candidate was defeated. If a Socialist legislative candidate were defeated, for instance, then the votes of his supporters would have been cast in the Assembly by the Socialist candidate for Governor. [cite web|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=980CEED91E3CE633A25753C3A9609C946396D6CF|title=Government by Proxy Now: Oregon Plan Would Present Ideas of Representative Lawmaking|publisher=New York Times|date=1912-06-30|accessdate=2008-02-19] The measure failed by a vote of 71,183 to 31,020. [cite web|url=http://bluebook.state.or.us/state/elections/elections12.htm|title=Initiative, Referendum and Recall: 1912-1914|publisher=Oregon Blue Book|accessdate=2008-02-19] That same year, a similar measure was contained in a proposed new Portland charter called The Short Charter. Article 22 provided simply, "A majority of all the votes cast at the election and represented in the commission, as in this article provided, shall be necessary to pass any measure. Each member of the commission shall represent in the commission the voters who elected him; and in voting on any ordinance, resolution, charter amendment, or other roll-call in the commission, each member shall cast the number of votes for or against the same by which he was elected." [citation|publisher=The Twentieth Century Magazine|date=1912|pages=292|author=Tyson, Robert]

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