8,300 House of Representatives
“When people in a society lose faith or trust in their institutions and in each other, the nation collapses…” David Brooks writes in America Is Having a Moral Convulsion.
Distrust is rampant in America:
35% of Americans trust scientists
20% trust Congress
37% trust each other.
Expanding the House of Representatives from 435 to 8,300 members will reduce our distrust problem, political gerrymandering, political under-representation of minority ethnic groups and big money’s influence on the House.
Our Funding Fathers enacted the Great Compromise of 1787 which specified that the House of Representatives would be composed of one Representative for every 40,000 “inhabitants” with slaves counting as 3/5th of an inhabitant. Initially there were 59 members of the House which serially increased until Congress capped membership at 435 in The Reapportionment Act of 1929.
As a result of the 435 limitation, the number of people represented by a House member has increased far beyond our Founding Fathers’ intent. Today there is one Representative for every 760,000 inhabitants. With so many constituents, it’s impossible for the majority of Americans to interact with their Representative and this leads to Americans’ distrust of the Federal government and a belief that it is out-of-touch with America.
Further exacerbating America’s distrust problem, some states have more “representation” in the House than others. For example, Rhode Island has 1 representative per 528,000 constituents whereas Montana’s ratio is 1:1,089,000.
If we redesigned the House of Representatives consistent with our Founding Fathers intent, so that every Representative had only 40,000 constituents, it would redress several of Americas’ problems with no downside risk while bringing the total House membership to about 8,300.
The creation of small Congressional districts will nearly eliminate political gerrymandering as the districts will be too small to dilute-out a minority’s political power by including them in a district with a much larger group of citizens who have dissimilar political convictions. It will also be impossible to reduce the political power of minority ethnic groups by packing all minority groups into a single district.
The creation of small congressional districts will also reduce the influence of “big money” as it will be logistically more expensive and complicated to “buy-off” a majority of 8,300 politicians vs 435.
David Brooks said: “trust is an imprint left by experience.” With many fewer constituents, Representatives will be able to meet with their constituents regularly and repeatedly. These interactions will help reduce the enmity many Americans now direct at our Federal government.
As most Americans live in enclaves where they share similar sociopolitical opinions as their neighbors, small Congressional districts will increase the probability that a Representative’s constituency will be relatively homogenous. As a result, the Representative will be able to aggressively champion the proclivities of his/her constituents without concern that they might alienate another, larger constituency. Their ability to aggressively champion the unique cultural needs of their constituents will increase the citizenry’s faith that our governmental institutions will serve their needs.
Some may argue that a House of 8,300 members will be incapable of conducting business. Recent history has shown this is an erroneous conclusion.
America’s private sector’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has demonstrated that many medium and large businesses can function effectively with their employees working from home.
In October 2020 the US Senate’s Judiciary Committee had a Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Judge Barrett. The meeting was conducted efficiently even though some Senators attended in-person while others attended remotely.
Clearly, a House of 8,300 members would be able to function efficiently using some combination of remote and on-site work.
We must begin the process of repairing America’s lost “social trust,” which is a precondition for rebuilding an America that works for all Americans. This can be accomplished by an Act of Congress that reconfigures the House so that each member had only 40,000 constituents.
America needs a reboot. The only “wrong” solution is to maintain the status quo.
