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For whatever reason, the size of the United States House of Representatives was frozen at 435 by the Reapportionment Act of 1929. The population of the nation has grown a lot since then. Would having a larger number of Representatives be a good idea? Why or why not?
What difference would it make? Do you think they'd listen to the people they represent (the real constituents) any better if there were more of them?
Actually, that's possible. With more representatives, there would conceivably be fewer constituents per Rep., making it more possible to be heard, and more possible for representatives to listen.
Although, having too many representatives would be pretty unwieldy. Then again, The House of Commons manages with over 600 members in a country of only 63 million.
Yes, this would have the effect of shrinking legislative districts bringing Congresspeople closer to their constituents, which is the whole point of that House. Also the smaller each district becomes the harder it is to gerrymander them helping to solve that problem as well.
Lastly, it solves the problem of unequal vote value where a vote in a rural state is worth much more than the vote in an urban state. The idea of one man, one vote, and all votes being worth the same is exactly what we should be attempting to achieve.
It would certainly help to reduce partisan dysfunction in the house too as there would be more reps and with smaller districts there is less room for gerrymandering. As an added benefit more regular people could be elected because having smaller districts means regular folks could actually campaign door to door where as in the giant mega districts in the urban states you have to have deep pockets to buy media air time as it is impractical to have one man knock on hundreds of thousands of doors. Heck, people might actually even live in the same neighborhood as their rep or even know who he is. That would be great.
Unfortunately, the congressional districts were juryrigged by state politicians to make seats untouchable. That's why with a ~10% approval rate you have ~90% of incumbents winning. That's what needs to be fixed. More seats won't help.
I'm sure you guys don't realize it, but that's the cause of the complaints above.
The last thing we need is a few more democrats and republicans to tell us how to live.
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