DEMOCRACY SOS Why We Need a City-State Revolution

This article was originally published by DemocracySOS. DemocracySOS would like to welcome political scientist Thor Hogan as a guest author. Image created by Joe Mathews with Google Gemini.

For more than two centuries, American democracy has been defined by its foundational paradox: a system designed to represent We the People that systematically undermines the will of the majority. In my book Hydrocarbon Nation, I argued that the Madisonian system never functioned particularly well. America’s extraordinary energy abundance simply allowed us to overcome its institutional weaknesses—with the notable exceptions of slavery and southern apartheid. But the time when rising material prosperity could paper over structural flaws has passed. Today, our federal system is in full crisis. It dramatically underrepresents the urban majority, distorts national policymaking, and blocks reforms with broad popular support—from national security and economic stability to environmental sustainability and democratic accountability.

For too long, Democrats wrongly assumed that the ship of state would right itself—while Republicans reveled in its dysfunction, which served their purposes. At best, progressives and centrists floated the idea that a constitutional amendment might save the day, or pinned their hopes on some imagined Supreme Court ruling to correct fundamental imbalances. But this was always fanciful. Ours is the hardest constitution in the world to amend, and our increasingly conservative judiciary has grown openly hostile to majoritarian values. If we’re serious about restoring democratic legitimacy, we need a strategy that works within the Constitution as it stands—one that bypasses the nearly impossible task of amendment while confronting the structural rot eating away at our political system.

At least one such strategy exists, which I detailed in my book Closing the Urban-Rural Power Divide. It would involve more than doubling the number of states to create a more proportional U.S. Senate. Instead of basing these new jurisdictions on arbitrary boundaries, the focus would be on creating city-states—aligning Senate representation with where people actually live. This would be difficult, no doubt. But it isn’t a fantasy. It’s fully achievable without a single constitutional amendment.

Our System is Broken

As regular readers of DemocracySOS are all too aware, America no longer has a functioning democracy. In my view, the single biggest reason is that our system values land and geography more than people. Rural voters hold vastly disproportionate power, and a minority of the population can control all three branches of government.

This is most evident in the Senate. In 1790, the most populous state (Virginia) had twelve times the population of the least populous (Delaware). Today, California has seventy times the population of Wyoming—yet both get two senators. Because population growth has been concentrated mostly in about fifteen states, it has been estimated that by mid-century, seventy senators will represent just thirty percent of the population. In a nation where eighty percent of the population lives in metropolitan areas, this is intolerable. We are facing a near future where rural populations will not only be able to block broadly popular legislation—they’ll be able to gain approval for extremely unpopular policies.

This occurs because the Electoral College incorporates the Senate’s imbalance—allocating two electors per state based on Senate seats—which overrepresents less populous states. As a result, small, rural states have roughly three times the voting power in presidential elections compared to large, urban-dominated states—and that discrepancy will only worsen in the future. It certainly doesn’t help that lifetime judicial appointments are confirmed by that same unrepresentative Senate body. As Jonathan Rodden argues in Why Cities Lose, even the House of Representatives, because it’s organized around single-seat districts, exhibits a troubling rural bias. At every level, therefore, the system is now rigged against urban majorities and pluralistic values.

Why We Can’t Amend Our Way Out

Some reformers believe significant amendments are needed to fully reform our Constitution. But here’s the reality: the U.S. Constitution is almost impossible to amend. That’s why, beyond the Bill of Rights, we’ve managed to do it only seventeen times in more than 225 years—a rate of just once every thirteen years. I’m fifty-four, and only two amendments have been approved in my lifetime.

The most common amendment method requires two-thirds of both national legislative chambers to approve—meaning that senators representing just eight percent of the population can block adoption. And when it comes to ratification, three-quarters of the states must approve, which means that legislators representing only about four percent of the total population can prevent any constitutional change.

This creates a trap that reformers should avoid falling into: the very states that benefit from the current system—or at least believe they do (I argue in my book that they’re probably wrong)—hold the power to preserve it. That’s not democracy, it’s minoritarian entrenchment. This means that relying on amendments is, in all likelihood, a dead end.

We need to think differently. If we can’t get through the front door of constitutional amendment, we need to find a side door—one the Constitution still leaves open.

A Legal Path: Partitioning States

Here’s that door: Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution allows for the creation of new states. Between 1791 and 1959, we admitted thirty-seven of them. Four—Vermont, Kentucky, Maine, and West Virginia—were carved out of existing states. For some reason, we’ve forgotten this legacy.

But this precedent is more than historical trivia—it’s legal bedrock. There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents California, Texas, Florida, or any other state from being partitioned. If Congress and the originating state legislature agree, new states can be admitted by simple majority votes. No constitutional amendment is required.

This opens the door to one of the only viable strategies for making the Senate more proportional—and thus fairer—in the near term. But for this reform to succeed—and be seen as legitimate—it must be conducted in a way that ensures transparency and democratic accountability. That’s why an enabling law, though not constitutionally required, is politically desirable.

What an Enabling Law Would Do

The majority of states were admitted under enabling laws, in which Congress set guidelines for how territories or regions could join the Union. Kentucky, Maine, and West Virginia—each carved from existing states—followed such procedures. A modern enabling act would apply this precedent to our current crisis, establishing a national framework for partitioning existing states in a way that prevents political abuse and earns public trust. Among its core components:

• Population: New states should target a population of approximately 2 million residents, which aligns with other potential structural reforms aimed at fostering fairness and functionality.

• Community: New states should reflect a shared political identity, where possible using the counties within existing Metropolitan Statistical Areas or Combined Statistical Areas as core building blocks. These urban centers should include only minimal rural hinterlands.

• Borders: New state boundaries should follow modern political and cultural lines—especially city and county margins—rather than outdated colonial borders or arbitrary grids.

• Debt: New states should assume a fair share of their original state’s debt, weighted by population, income, and wealth.

• Infrastructure: New states should assume legal responsibility for shared infrastructure. They should maintain and coordinate critical systems like water, energy, and transit—supported, where needed, by federal transition funding.

• Water Rights: New states should inherit existing interstate water compact privileges, with a federal commission overseeing transitions and disputes.

The enabling law would empower both new city-states and the remaining federated-states to achieve the kind of equal representation our federal system has long denied.

California as Ground Zero

As the most populous state in the nation, California is also its most underrepresented. In the Senate and the Electoral College, its vast population translates into little meaningful political power, more than offsetting the influence gained through its large House delegation. Yet if it were an independent nation, California would boast the fourth-largest economy in the world—surpassing India, the United Kingdom, and France. Californians know this, which helps explain why polls have shown meaningful levels of support for secession.

As I’ve written on my Substack, Thor’s Forge, I believe there’s a non-trivial chance that America could face a civil war within the next decade. In such a scenario, a state like California might begin seriously exploring its options. That would be a disaster, but it also underscores why California presents the greatest opportunity to test what I’ve called a City-State Revolution. No other state has more thoroughly considered partition: in the past sixty years, both chambers of the California legislature have voted in favor of subdivision proposals (the State Senate in 1965, the State Assembly in 1992). And because the state is now so firmly Democratic, the idea has actually found growing support among conservatives who feel politically marginalized. All of this makes California an ideal starting point for any serious effort to make representation in the Senate better reflect our population—aligning national representation with where Americans actually live.

Partitioning California would center on existing metropolitan regions, reflecting their coherent social, economic, and geographic identities. As shown in Figure 1, I’ve proposed dividing the state into sixteen new jurisdictions that meet the standards outlined in the enabling law—each given a notional name reflecting its regional or cultural identity. Thirteen of these would be city-states: heavily urban areas with limited rural hinterlands. These include San Diego, Orange, Imperial Valley, Los Angeles (limited to the central city, with the remaining eight million residents assigned to other states), Bradley, San Fernando, Chavez, Santa Clarita, San Bernardino, San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco, and Sacramento. The remaining three—San Joaquin Valley, Central Coast, and Shasta—would function more like traditional federated-states, blending small cities with significant rural areas. Under this arrangement, the citizens of present-day California would go from having two senators to thirty-two, dramatically increasing their relevance in national politics.

No doubt, gaining approval for such a partition would be challenging (a subject I explore in depth in my book). But it offers our best hope for changing the political calculus in this country and bringing government closer to the people. One reason: if California were to take this step, it’s unlikely the City-State Revolution would end there.

A Contagious Idea

If California were to successfully partition itself into a significant number of new states, other large states would almost certainly follow. Many books and articles support granting statehood to Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico (which we should absolutely do) or splitting California into three or four parts—but then they assume the process would stop there. But if California went from two to thirty-two senators, as I propose, other states would be compelled to redress the resulting power imbalance. Texas might resist most, given its deep-rooted identity and storied history, but even Texans would have to weigh the cost of remaining underrepresented. Ultimately, I believe at least the fifteen most populous states would pursue partition, potentially increasing the number of jurisdictions to over 125. Another thirteen states would technically meet the population threshold set by the enabling law, though only a handful of these would likely choose to subdivide given their current internal politics.

If fifteen to twenty states were to partition, as I’ve outlined, this reform alone would largely break the Senate’s structural bias. We’d move closer to a more population-aligned form of proportionality. When I first wrote my book, I thought this reform might offer a marginal advantage to Democrats—but I’m less convinced of that now, given Republicans’ recent gains among non-white voters. This isn’t about benefiting one political party. It’s about restoring fairness to our political system.

In any case, such projections may be beside the point for at least two reasons. First, a more proportional Senate would force both major parties to recalibrate their platforms to appeal to a reshaped electorate. This would be especially true if local governance were revitalized by giving cities greater influence in national policymaking—potentially boosting voter engagement by making the connection between federal representation and local votes more tangible. Second, and more importantly, the City-State Revolution would hopefully be just the beginning. In my view, it could—and should—lay the groundwork for dismantling our dysfunctional two-party system.

Toward a Third Founding

Rebalancing the Senate—and, by extension, altering the Electoral College—could lay the groundwork for a broader democratic transformation: what I’ve called a Third Founding, building on Eric Foner’s notion of a Second Founding. The political momentum behind the City-State Revolution could well inspire a wider effort to realign American institutions with the values of majority rule and pluralistic representation.

Ideally, this would begin with reforming the amendment process—making it more accessible, and perhaps even empowering everyday citizens through a national referendum ratification process. It could continue with a complete rethinking of the federal judiciary, with the goal of reducing partisanship in that branch. In my view, the most critical follow-on reform would be to replace single-seat House districts with multi-seat districts using proportional ranked-choice voting, while also expanding the House to 1,000 seats—bringing it more in line with the population-based scale envisioned by James Madison and other Founders. I also believe we should eliminate staggered terms for federal officeholders—presidents, senators, and representatives should all serve synchronized four-year terms. These and other second-wave reforms—as well as a wide range of political discussions and policy ideas—are the focus of my Substack, Thor’s Forge, for readers looking to supplement the offerings from the consistently superlative DemocracySOS.

Our current system is unsustainable. It rewards minority rule, which leads to obstruction, disenfranchises urban voters, and locks out the policy preferences of most Americans. But we are not powerless. We can act within the Constitution to reclaim our democracy. If we want to rescue the American experiment, I firmly believe we need a City-State Revolution. We can start in California and help it spread wherever democracy demands it.

The pathway is open. The precedent is clear. And the stakes could not be higher.

Thor Hogan ‪@thorhogan.bsky.social‬