Thoughts on increasing the House size

[Horns11]

I'm kind of torn on this one. We're pretty much the only "reliably" democratic country in the world that has 1 representative for every 750K people. The impetus for keeping it at 435 was kind of a political backroom deal where both parties could see the demographics changing throughout the 1910s-20s and didn't want to lose control of certain important seats. But there were only 120MM Americans then. Plus, the physical size of the chamber itself was seen as a huge hurdle.

We can vote by proxy now, and using the HoR as the site of the State of the Union every year is more of a tradition than a requirement.

I also don't know what the new cap should be. I was kind of thinking what about 1:500K for reps and that would put it around 662. That might be too big a jump for the first attempt.

It would also create a lot more variances in the electoral college, although that's not my primary concern.

 

[militaryhorn]

I would make it larger like 1.5 million per representative. That way larger cities get less Democrat representation.

 

[Horns11]

I would make it larger like 1.5 million per representative. That way larger cities get less Democrat representation.

That's what India does, but again, seems like size restrictions because they have 4x our population.

 

[Seattle Husker]

More representation, better matching their constituents is always better. Already the power of a voter in WY is 4x more powerful than someone living in Los Angeles.

 

[Horns11]

More representation, better matching their constituents is always better. Already the power of a voter in WY is 4x more powerful than someone living in Los Angeles.

Well, for the EC they do. I think that lowering the number of people per representative makes the lawmaking more closely resemble the population they're representing. Plus, there's a far better chance of being represented by someone from your neck of the woods.

I feel like on a national level, the GOP controls more state legislatures, so in a sick way, they could come up with a lot more red seats in the House. At least that would be the case after the 2020 census results. I don't think it alters the EC a lot, except for making people from WY, ND, SD (red) and VT, DE, RI (blue) feel a little left out.

 

[Seattle Husker]

Well, for the EC they do. I think that lowering the number of people per representative makes the lawmaking more closely resemble the population they're representing. Plus, there's a far better chance of being represented by someone from your neck of the woods.

I feel like on a national level, the GOP controls more state legislatures, so in a sick way, they could come up with a lot more red seats in the House. At least that would be the case after the 2020 census results. I don't think it alters the EC a lot, except for making people from WY, ND, SD (red) and VT, DE, RI (blue) feel a little left out.

We need to outlaw Gerrymandering. That will never happen. There's no reason that a computer program couldn't be more appropriate in determining districts.

 

[nashhorn]

No reason except that someone has to write the program. Now that could be a fun debate.

 

[Monahorns]

Yes. More granular representation.

 

[Chop]

Thoughts on Increasing the House Size.

One thing you could do is convert your garage to a play room / extra den.

 

[Seattle Husker]

Speaking of representation, do you know who else hates the Electoral College?

This guy...

 

[Garmel]

Speaking of representation, do you know who else hates the Electoral College?

This guy...

Trump was also pro-choice at one time too. I also bought into the neo-con position of toppling middle east nations. People change positions over time. If you want to continue this disagreement let's take it elsewhere. I'm sure Horns11 doesn't want us to hijack his thread.

 

[Horns11]

Trump was also pro-choice at one time too. I also bought into the neo-con position of toppling middle east nations. People change positions over time. If you want to continue this disagreement let's take it elsewhere. I'm sure Horns11 doesn't want us to hijack his thread.

Meh, it's fine. Someone should really show the president all of those twitter threads about being a republic and not a democracy.

Side note: there really was no provision for popular vote choosing electors in the original intent of Article II. The founders figured that the state legislatures would pick other landowner dudes to be the electors and cast their votes between 3+ candidates, and then the House would step in as the hero and appoint the new President because it's the chamber closest to the people. Plus, Madison made sure the House would be *cough* "fairly" representative of southern states with the whole 3/5ths thing. Virginia was 40 percent slave when the Constitution was ratified, and basically controlled the House (and the Presidency) for most of the country's early spats. Little did he know that states would soon move to use popular vote to pick electors instead of affirmation, and along with the developing two-party system, kind of ended up skewing his idea about electors. Hamilton's dream of electors being these sage, educated choosers of candidates was a pipe dream.

The UK has 1 member of the HoC for every 100K. That would put our HoR number at over 3300 members. As insane as that would "look" in an auditorium or arena or whatever, I don't think anyone could argue that people weren't being represented by someone closer to their interests. The map-drawing would be insane. You'd have to zoom in on individual BLOCKS of Brooklyn and Manhattan to make districts.

 

[horninchicago]

Democrat's never change their stance on issues.

 

[horninchicago]

Cue the "Ted Cruz posted that? Haha" BS. This is from WaPo.

 

[Horns11]

Democrat's never change their stance on issues.

I bet there's just as many videos of quotes of Republicans saying they can't fill Scalia's seat in an election year.

Put me down as someone in the camp who thinks Clinton should have resigned rather than be removed by the Senate. I was fine with the partisan House impeaching him, and if the size of the House increased today, it just makes that impeachment more "legit" in terms of raw numbers. It would have given Gore a little bit of time to put together an executive branch and come up with a better election strategy going into 2000.

 

[horninchicago]

Yep. Politicians do flip flop. I think it is clear Democrats do it more than Republicans. They also speak in whatever dialect of the part of the country they are in so they so full of crap.

The difference, too, of course, is that Trump wasn't a politician when he made those tweets in 2012.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Jonah Goldberg has written on this, and I think he makes some good points. Link. I could be convinced to expand the House. Honestly, I'm just not sure where we should draw the line or how strong that line should be.

For some perspective.

 

[Horns11]

Jonah Goldberg has written on this, and I think he makes some good points. Link. I could be convinced to expand the House. Honestly, I'm just not sure where we should draw the line or how strong that line should be.

For some perspective.

And on top of that, growing states are basically penalized and held back by the likes of New York and Illinois, where the variance in somewhere like Montana has basically been upped to 1MM per Congressman to half of that for Rhode Island. More reps mean that the variance wouldn't be anywhere near half a million people. Maybe half that if we tried to cap the population per representative at 500K.

 

[Monahorns]

Deez, representation should be more granular. Just mathematically, 1 rep per 10,000 is better representation than 1 rep per 100,000. Bring the politician closer to the people, so that the people know the rep, live by the rep, and the rep has to live in the same situation as the people. It doesn't solve everything, I wouldn't expect, but we should do everything possible to make reps more accountable to people, and not just by vote.

 

[Horns11]

Deez, representation should be more granular. Just mathematically, 1 rep per 10,000 is better representation than 1 rep per 100,000. Bring the politician closer to the people, so that the people know the rep, live by the rep, and the rep has to live in the same situation as the people. It doesn't solve everything, I wouldn't expect, but we should do everything possible to make reps more accountable to people, and not just by vote.

When the Constitution was written, it was supposed to be 1 per 30K, and then Congress adjusted the law after every census. Plus, the expectation would be that there would only be about 1 landowning, taxpaying voter for every 10 men. It's gone up in a "slow" exponential rate to today, with the biggest increase obviously post-WW2.

One of the big factors is honestly room size. I think we could work around that by allowing a lot more distance debate. If the pandemic has taught us one thing, it's how to create workarounds for daily problems. I don't necessarily want to spend taxpayer dollars on a complete reno of the Capitol to make the south wing much larger.

 

[Seattle Husker]

One of the big factors is honestly room size. I think we could work around that by allowing a lot more distance debate.

Honestly, with Covid we've seen that Representatives can spend MORE time in their District and still represent in DC with virtual voting. Having our elected representatives spend more time in the place they are supposed to be living is NEVER a bad thing.

 

[Seattle Husker]

Honestly, with Covid we've seen that Representatives can spend MORE time in their District and still represent in DC with virtual voting. Having our elected representatives spend more time in the place they are supposed to be living is NEVER a bad thing.

I'll add one more thought...having the representatives spread out around the country makes it harder for the myriad of lobbyists to reach them in person.

 

[Mr. Deez]

I don't necessarily want to spend taxpayer dollars on a complete reno of the Capitol to make the south wing much larger.

Honestly, with Covid we've seen that Representatives can spend MORE time in their District and still represent in DC with virtual voting. Having our elected representatives spend more time in the place they are supposed to be living is NEVER a bad thing.

I agree with the sentiment of all of this - that members spending more time in their districts and appearing remotely would be a good thing. In fact, it would be a great thing.

However, as a practical matter, there will be times when the full House will need to meet in person. Accordingly, if there was going to be a significant expansion of the House, there would almost surely have to be a substantial renovation of the Capitol. That's hard to imagine, because it has looked basically the same for as long as anyone alive can remember, but it has been expanded several times since the original structure was built. In fact, the Senate doesn't even meet in the same room that it used to meet in. No reason why it couldn't be expanded again.

 

[Seattle Husker]

I agree with the sentiment of all of this - that members spending more time in their districts and appearing remotely would be a good thing. In fact, it would be a great thing.

However, as a practical matter, there will be times when the full House will need to meet in person. Accordingly, if there was going to be a significant expansion of the House, there would almost surely have to be a substantial renovation of the Capitol. That's hard to imagine, because it has looked basically the same for as long as anyone alive can remember, but it has been expanded several times since the original structure was built. In fact, the Senate doesn't even meet in the same room that it used to meet in. No reason why it couldn't be expanded again.

Use a Convention Center for the handful of times the House needs to meet in person. Maybe the basketball arena if the representative group was too large. There are plenty of options without spending billions to renovate the existing House.

 

[bystander]

Speaking of representation, do you know who else hates the Electoral College?

This guy...

Have you ever changed your mind?

What did Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton and even Obama once say about gay marriage. Have they always been on board?

What about immigration enforcement?

Shall we post all these things?

This is a real circle jerk and the people being defended by us (including you) do not deserve our time or our enabling.

 

[SabreHorn]

Deez,

This is not a criticism, but have you been to the nation's capitol? Have you ever seen either the house or Senate vote? it's not like the Texas legislature. The read light is flashing in the office buildings and the tunnels alerting members that there is a vote and meaning they have ?? minutes to get in and cast their vote. Members don't go to "their desk", but rather the most easily accessible desk - push the button and leave. Very disappointing to show your children.

I agree that it would be much better for the elected officials to stay in their districts and go to that cesspool only when necessary. A few of them might actually avoid corruption.

 

[Duck Dodgers]

Oh Lord have Mercy. Between wanting the Supreme Court expanded, another 2 or 4 or 14 states added to the Union, now the leftists want about 800 new Representatives added.

Stop trying to game the system for your own political advantage.

 

[mb227]

More representation, better matching their constituents is always better. Already the power of a voter in WY is 4x more powerful than someone living in Los Angeles.

And yet this makes sense given that the citizens of Wyoming seem to have a much better grasp on fiscal responsibility and the damage that wave after wave of illegal aliens can do to an economy.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Use a Convention Center for the handful of times the House needs to meet in person. Maybe the basketball arena if the representative group was too large. There are plenty of options without spending billions to renovate the existing House.

I hear ya, but I think the egos of the House members will dictate that they still have their own Capitol offices and fancy-*** seats. I just don't see them accepting meeting in convention centers and basketball arenas with the charm of a Home Depot and sitting in rickety temporary chairs.

 

[Seattle Husker]

I hear ya, but I think the egos of the House members will dictate that they still have their own Capitol offices and fancy-*** seats. I just don't see them accepting meeting in convention centers and basketball arenas with the charm of a Home Depot and sitting in rickety temporary chairs.

You're raining on my dream of the lobbyists being relegated to the "Expo Hall" wistfully waiting at their booth hoping and praying the Reps would visit them for some shwag. The big lobby firms would have gigantic booths while the smaller niche environmental groups would have tiny booths on the outside. The lobbyists would all be handing out their business cards, inviting the Representatives to happy hour and dinner. Best yet, it would all be out in the open for all their constituents to see rather than the halls/offices of the Capitol building.