Although this is an Articles of Confederation moment, we do not need a Constitutional Convention. Two critical redesigns can be achieved by state or federal legislation.

First, increase the size of the House of Representatives by 50. The representative branch needs to be a place where majority and minority viewpoints are folded into a working synthesis. Majorities must be blocked from trampling minorities; minorities cannot have a veto on all actions flowing from the majority point of view. As in “Goldilocks,” the balance must be just right.

Our institutions have always given extra weight to rural minorities, but the tipping of our population to urban centers has exacerbated that weighting. Expanding the House would rebalance our representative body. More populous states currently have more constituents per representatives than less populous states, so we’d use the 50 seats to rebalance the numbers. Wyoming probably wouldn’t get a new seat, for instance, but many more populous states would (and while we’re at it, the District should get one, too). This change would simultaneously rebalance the electoral college.

Second, introduce ranked-choice voting in presidential, House and Senate elections.