I will be talking about why we should increase the number of house members to 888 which would more than double the current number of 435. First, I would like to share why I chose the arbitrary number of 888 and it is simply because it is doubling the current amount which i think should happen anyway but also because 888+888 is 1776 the year America declared independence and so I hope this can get the patriotic conservatives who have been the ones against increasing the number of house seats to agree with this change.
And so Here is a hemicycle chart of the current number of house members and which party they belong to. This amounts to 435 with 222 belonging to the democrats and 213 belonging to the republicans. The current simple majority is 218 and a super majority, which is ⅔, is 290. Each representative represents over roughly 754,000 constituents.
and here is what it would look like with 888 members of congress if the party lines dont change, with 453 democrats and 435 republicans. The new simple majority would be 445 and a super majority of 592. Each representative would represent over roughly 369,000 which is still more than the number of constituents per representative in 1929 when the limit of house members was set at 435. In 1929 the average representative represented roughly 280,000.
Yes 888 is an even number so there could be a tie but by increasing the total number makes a perfect 50/50 split of 444 very unlikely but if it does occur The vice president could be the tie breaker since they already are the tiebreaker for the Senate.
What Would This Do?
Well it would do a number of things such as increase the number of people available to work in committees and subcommittees. Right now Members of house have to work in multiple committees and the workload per person has only increased meaning as the number of committees and subcommittees has increased that the work done is of lesser quality as members are known for leaving committee meetings early in order to go to another committee meeting. By increasing the number of representatives we can decrease the workload per representative and so they can specialise in only one or two committees instead of having to do more than they can handle.
The expansion will also decrease the number of constituents per representative making the representatives more representative of their constituents. The increase of the number of people per representative makes the average person feel like they are not being represented especially as representatives put the work load on unelected bureaucrats, this won't be entirely fixed with the expansion but it will make individuals more represented.
The expansion will increase the number of representatives who can propose laws, and so there will be more politicians who can make suggestions on what bills to pass.
This would also decrease the cost of campaigning as less constituents means less people needed to campaign for. This will also increase competition as more house seats means more people can run and people who are on the margin of running or not now will be encouraged to do so.
Increase internship opportunities as the increase in representatives will increase the need for aids and other helpers which will increase the number of Americans who participate in government.
Lobbying would also be affected as it will become more expensive to lobby for double the representatives in order to achieve the same congressional power. Lobbying wont go away however, that would require separate legislation.
Amend the 1929 Apportionment Act to increase the number of Representatives from 435 to 888
Have the number of representatives increase by 50 every ten years until 888
This would take 90 years and the last change would increase by 53
If we increase by 100 every ten years then it would take 40 years and the last change would be 153
Fun Fact: If the 1929 apportionment act was never put into place and the number of constituents per representative which was 280,000 did not change the current number of house members would be around 1172
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