It's been pointed out to me that the size of the House of Representatives is set by statute not by the constitution (which makes sense since 435 would have been a ton of members in the 1790s given the size of the country) so the Sabato Plan may not be as unrealistic as I thought.
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House Expansion Update
21 Mar 2008 10:17 am
Comments (23)
The problem is, would Congresspeople vote to let in 500 more members and half he size of their own districts (and the weight of their votes?) Plus, you would have to build new chambers for the House to meet in. And, there is no way of knowing you would not run into the problem again down the road when the population increases.
For a real radical idea, I heard the idea somewhere to move the Capitol to St. Louis. It would be fairer, the argument goes, to Congresspeople who have to go long ways between the Capitol and their constituents/family/fundraisers, etc. Maybe that would keep Congress closer to home and more responsive.
It would be rather unfair to the Washington, D.C. area, whose existence and prosperity is based on the presence of the federal government.
The chances of a substantive increase in the number of House members occurring is roughly equivalent to the chance that an NBA team could beat the Big Texas Three - San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas - in consecutive games. Which is exactly what the Celtics did last night.
Never say never, in other words.
Oh, and the Celtics rule.
Re-posting from the earlier thread...
As was mentioned before, this is an idea that's been floating around for some time, but that certainly doesn't dilute it's validity.
I'm for it 100%. Really, as Richard Campbell notes above, we should be aiming for 3,000 members.
The practical political effect would be to dramatically enhance the voting power of urban and (perhaps moreso) suburban constituencies versus their rural counterparts. It would be nothing less than revolutionary in effect. In fact, it might be the single best way for a 3rd Party to finally gain a permanent foothold.
As far as the "But there's not enough space in Cannon, Rayburn, or Longworth for that many Congressmen!" factor -- who says they all have to be in DC? We have copious amounts of technology that would remotely allow these members to communicate with one another, "attend" committee hearings, and vote securely.
If we ever do need to bring them all together physically, then we can always just rent out Constitution Hall or perhaps we can build our own version of the Great Hall of the People.
John 10:28: You're misreading Matt's post. He's explaining that he realizes 435 could not possibly have been the number of Congressment in 1789.
Would this also dilute the effect of small states and the electoral college?
rs.
The practical political effect would be to dramatically enhance the voting power of urban and (perhaps moreso) suburban constituencies versus their rural counterparts.
Consolidation of Wyoming, Alaska, Nebraska, Utah, Idaho, and Nevada into one state with ~average population would help more.
Thing the Congressional district side is a problem?
Try these California/LA statistics:
The State Senate has only 40 members - more than 10 fewer than US Representatives - one for every 950,000 or so people.
The LA City Council has 15 members, one for every 270,000 people.
The result? Big money, big donors control everything.
Smaller districts make gerrymandering easier.
I think the other practical effect within the House would be to dramatically increase the power of party leadership. With the power of a single Representative's vote diluted so much (even, probably, on the expanded committees), it's likely that Representatives will travel in packs, so to speak. That's not nearly as big a problem in Parliamentary systems where parties campaign as parties, and the Legislative leader is the party's head -- it's even less of a problem in systems where voters vote for parties and seats area allocated proportionately. But it's not necessarily great in the American system, where party leaders are elected after elections in smoke-filled rooms.
hopeless pedant,
Yeah, I pointed out those Cali numbers on the other thread. The worst situation in the Southland is the LA County Supes -- there are 5 Supervisors for a county with over 9.9 million residents.
Anonymous at 11:09 has a good point. Representation isn't evenly distributed across America. Do we just say "too bad" to Wyoming when they effectively lose clout?
Do we just say "too bad" to Wyoming when they effectively lose clout?
yes. why should they be overrepresented in both Houses ?
The problem is, would Congresspeople vote to let in 500 more members and half he size of their own districts
Given that they've done so many times in the past, the answer to this question is pretty unambiguously Yes.
Given that they've done so many times in the past, the answer to this question is pretty unambiguously Yes.
I don't think that's right. Previously, the norm was to continue to expand. But that norm was eliminated a century ago. I think it is much more difficult to reintroduce the norm now after a century than it was then to simply continue it.
A friend of mine proposed two more congressional reform ideas:
- Members of congress would be required to remain in their districts whenever congress was in session, the idea being they'd be more accessible to their constituents than to the lobbyists.
- Members of congress would be required to do their own taxes, using only a pencil and paper and whatever help the IRS provides for free to the general public.
lemuel pitkin:
Given that they've done so many times in the past, the answer to this question is pretty unambiguously Yes.
But the thing is, when they used to do it they also were adding more states. Because when you add more states without adding more Congresspeople, someone loses a seat. In fact, the expansion of the house ended at around the same time we reached 48 states and stopped adding new states for awhile. So the current situation, without any new states, is different I think.
You'd probably have to kick the can down the road -- pass a law that calls for the expansion of the House under a certain set of conditions to be met in 10 or 15 years: either at a specific date, or when the census indicates a population of X millions of people. 2024 would probably be the target in either case. You can get brownie points for a reform vote without actually changing anything, but once the plan's in place you'd look really bad passing a repeal or, as president, signing one.
I think it is much more difficult to reintroduce the norm now after a century than it was then to simply continue it.
Not only that, but even the old norm was increase the size by a few seats at a time, so the dilution of power was negligible. That's not true when you're more than doubling the number of seats.
I'm all for expanding the House, but it seems unrealistic to expect Congress to pass it.
Pesto -- good call on the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. I've heard that the 2-million-person supervisorial districts are the most populous single-representative legislative districts in the world. Not sure if that's verified, though.
Furthermore, there is very little turnover in the seats; the members are sometimes referred to as "five little kings." Yvonne Brathwaite Burke is retiring later this year, but before that, the membership hadn't changed since 1996. The five members were also unchanged from 1980 to 1988.
I think it is much more difficult to reintroduce the norm now after a century than it was then to simply continue it.
That's silly. It's not as if the expansion of all legislative bodies has been on hiatus for the past century. It's not friggin' slavery. It's something that's happened on the state level; it's something that's under regular discussion; it's not intellectually or emotionally archaic.
Two-year terms representing 750,000 constituents is equally silly, particularly when you think of the amount of time spent fundraising for the next election.
There is the 'uh, federal system' objection to expanding the top legislative tier; that's offset by the joke status of most of the other tiers. You want your Congresscritter to be effective; you really don't care 95% of the time about your state rep.
I'm all for expanding the House, but it seems unrealistic to expect Congress to pass it.
Well, not without some kind of public campaign. but compared with many, many reforms *that have actually happened*, this one looks pretty easy.
"It's not realistic" is conservatives' response to anything they can't argue against on the merits. And they've been wrong again and again and again.
It's a moronic idea which is utterly irrelevant to what is wrong with this country.
Get a fucking clue, Matt.
Oh, we have something new on the Atlantic site! When I submitted this, I got "Too many comments from you in too short a time. Try submitting later."
What is this? Slashdot? "It has only been one minute since you last submitted a comment. Give other people a chance to comment."
How about speeding up your frickin' server so we don't see three to ten of the same posts over and over? At least Slashdot doesn't have that problem.
Nitwits.
Comments closed April 04, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
There were not 435 congressmen in 1789. There were 65 (and 26 senators). It got up to 435 only in the twentieth century. At that point, they stopped expanding it because they ran out of room in the House Chamber, which appears to be the key stumbling point.
Posted by John | March 21, 2008 10:28 AM