By Brian Litwin
If Democrats manage to escape the traditional midterm curse and don’t drop a single vote from 2020 to 2022, they would still lose control of the House of Representatives simply as a consequence of Republican gerrymandering following the census. Congratulations, Republicans, the people have spoken, and apparently, you have a mandate to oppose President Biden. Incredibly, gerrymandering, the process where politicians choose their voters instead of vice versa, isn’t the only problem with the People’s House.
In 1789, James Madison worried that the House of Representatives would have too many people in each district to be properly represented. He proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would have required that each congressional district contain no more than 50,000 citizens. Though Madison’s idea was not adopted, Congress still expanded the House throughout the first half of its existence; growing in every decade with our population until 1920, when it became frozen in time. In 1920, Americans were flocking to cities, and rural lawmakers, unwilling to cede more seats to fast-growing urban centers, refused to do their constitutional duty and reapportion the House seats among the states. In 1929, as the next census approached, rather than expand the House, they passed a law permanently capping the number of seats at 435, which would be reapportioned among the states after each census.
Each member of the House currently represents around 750,000 Americans. The main reason America has such massive districts, compared to European countries, is not because it’s the best way to run a country. It’s because a bunch of lawmakers refused to yield power a century ago. The minuscule size of our House poses a danger to American democracy. How does a lawmaker stay in touch with the concerns of 750,000 Americans? They don’t. Secondly, the cap on the number of House members leads to districts with wildly varying populations. Montana and Wyoming each have one representative, yet Montana’s population is almost twice that of Wyoming’s. Most importantly, the size of the House determines the shape of the Electoral College, because a state’s electoral votes are equal to its congressional delegation.
There’s no constitutional basis for a membership of 435; it’s arbitrary, and it could be undone by Congress tomorrow. Many western democracies use what is known as the cube-root law (the size of the representative body is roughly the cube root of the country’s population). Applying this law would expand the House to almost 600 representatives. Expanding the House would equate to a government that is truly more representative. A larger House would be far more responsive to the needs of individual constituents. It would help restore public trust in government, and allow members to consider the specific local needs of their districts, as was originally intended. Above all else, a larger House would give the country confidence that it can meet the most basic requirement of a democracy: When the people call, their representatives should answer.
Brian Litwin is a Colorado State University graduate and Longmont resident.
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Brian Litwin: We need a bigger House - Longmont Times-Call
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