Badly Broken

“Grim” has some thoughts on the dismal state of the federal government. I agree with most of them, including repealing the Seventeenth Amendment, except for this suggestion:

I suggest the elimination of Congressional districts, so that all representatives are elected in a single statewide election. If a state were to have ten representatives, then, a hundred people could run — the top ten vote-getters would take office. That would restore the force of electoral pressure to the House, where it is designed to be. It would increase turnover of Representatives, and cut down on the corruption in the government.

It would do those things, and those are good things, but it would have undesirable consequences as well. Like eliminating the electoral college, it would effectively disenfranchise rural voters, leaving them at the untender mercy of the voters in the big cities who would elect all representatives, and not just their own.