AHC-increase the size of the House of Representatives

No one has mentioned the first article of the Bill of Rights? It was almost ratified and would have assured a representative in the House for every fifty thousand inhabitants. The House could have swollen to more than six thousand elected officials, the largest legislative body in the world, if US population grew at a similar pace to OTL.

No doubt that would've long since been amended once politicians realised how unsustainable that was.
 
That amendment doesn't say what you think it says. This seems to be a frequent mistake on the internets, though you can look up the original text:

"After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons."

Like with the rest of the 1787-91 part of the Constitution, this is horribly worded. But it sets MINIMUM population sizes for districts, not MAXIMUM population sizes. In today's conditions, it sets a minimum population size of 50,000 for each district, and a minimum size of the House of 200 members. It was never passed not because it was unworkable -its completely workable- but because its completely irrelevant. It conceivably be an obstacle to a dictator or oligarchy whose schemes involved setting the size of the House at just one person.

"You got me curious. Your objection to Nevada is?

I'm aware Vegas was one cash cow for the mob for a good long while."

That. And Vegas had a terrible impact on US culture. Plus the system, like most federal systems but a little worse in this case, has too many damn low population states.
 

Hnau

Banned
Like with the rest of the 1787-91 part of the Constitution, this is horribly worded. But it sets MINIMUM population sizes for districts, not MAXIMUM population sizes. In today's conditions, it sets a minimum population size of 50,000 for each district, and a minimum size of the House of 200 members. It was never passed not because it was unworkable -its completely workable- but because its completely irrelevant. It conceivably be an obstacle to a dictator or oligarchy whose schemes involved setting the size of the House at just one person.

You just need the article to be ratified with slightly different wording: "... nor less than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons." That's how it was written originally, and yes, it's bad writing but it would have gotten the job done. Congress would still probably take over its own apportionment eventually, but if it was able to function with a thousand or so Representative, people would be more used to the idea of giant legislative bodies.
 
No one has mentioned the first article of the Bill of Rights? It was almost ratified and would have assured a representative in the House for every fifty thousand inhabitants. The House could have swollen to more than six thousand elected officials, the largest legislative body in the world, if US population grew at a similar pace to OTL.

Wrong! The amendment specifically says that (once the House reaches two hundred members) there shall not be *more* than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons, not that there shall not be *fewer.* So very likely Congress is the same size as today. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment

(And no, I don't believe, not do most historians, that it was a clerical error.)
 

Hnau

Banned
From August 24th to September 24th 1789, the House's version of the amendment did specifically read that there should not be "less than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons." Did they have a good reason to change the text? It seems like they did. That doesn't mean that they couldn't have decided to retain the original version of the amendment drafted by the House. This is alternate history; events such as these are possible, even if they are unlikely.

Better yet, you could have a different person end up at the Constitutional Convention that argues for representation to be impossible or dangerous if the constituency of each representative is more than 50,000, which is much larger than the population of most Greek city-states that historically practiced direct democracy. There was a lot of fear that the House could be taken over by elites who didn't actually interact with most of the people they represented (which did happen). By the time the Bill of Rights is debated, it might have become a much more popular idea. I bet Thomas Paine would have liked to argue such a point, if he had been present.
 
Wow, I've been slow at responding to my own post. I like the suggestions that I'm hearing. Without getting into too much of a discussion as to what the optimal size of the House would be (which again, would move this tread to the political discussion board), I will say that based on our population, IMO, 435 is too small, while anything above 1000 would be too big. This is just off the top of my head, as I just think 1 representative for 740,000 people is not going to give the public adequate representation, while 1000 people would be very unwieldy and hard for the members to reach a consensus.

There is one thing that would at least ensure equitable representation, regardless of the size of the House, but it would never fly. That would be to divide the United States as a whole into equal sized congressional districts, regardless of the state borders. For example, we have a House of 850 members. Then divide the U.S. into 850 congressional districts, each with a population of 378,000 people (calculation is based on U.S. population of 322 million). Each district would then elect its own individual member. This would get rid of the problem of the smaller states having disproportionately greater representation than the larger states. But I don't pretend for a minute that such a suggestion would ever come to pass in the U.S. There is simply too much tradition for and attachment to the federal system.

And for those wondering how the Electoral College would work under my idea, I would simply abolish the E.C. and go to direct popular vote-another idea very unlikely to pass.

As to my original question about how to increase the size of the House, I do agree with what a couple people already suggested-revisit the 1929 bill some time during the New Deal.
 
. . . And Vegas had a terrible impact on US culture. Plus the system, like most federal systems but a little worse in this case, has too many damn low population states.
I lived in Vegas for two years in the mid-2000s! :) To me, a lot like other big cities, with the occasional casino sprinkled around. People would sometimes joke that the name of the city was "Lost Wages," although it was an old joke. And to myself, I'd refer to going to the Strip as going to Vegas.

Are you talking about the kitsch and the middle-brow? I'm actually in favor of that stuff.
 
Is the US short on politicians given the spread of power? The US has thousands of State Legislators and a bit more power than Australian states for example. In addition you have Counties and Municipalities which when compared to Australia take on many of the roles we give to state governments such as police and schools.

So while the US doesn't have a lot of representatives at the Federal level there are a lot of representatives at lower levels of Government who generate considerable tax revenue and exercise considerable power and influence discharging their duties. Maybe that is enough?
 
Is the US short on politicians given the spread of power? The US has thousands of State Legislators and a bit more power than Australian states for example. In addition you have Counties and Municipalities which when compared to Australia take on many of the roles we give to state governments such as police and schools.

So while the US doesn't have a lot of representatives at the Federal level there are a lot of representatives at lower levels of Government who generate considerable tax revenue and exercise considerable power and influence discharging their duties. Maybe that is enough?

Sadly, it isn't. Local elections are far too often ignored. Earlier this year, I tried to be placed on the ballot for the Tennessee State House. All I needed was 25-30 valid signatures of residents in my county and the county next over, and I would be on the ballot against the local Republican politician. I didn't get that far thanks to my own laziness (I was actually noted in the county paper as one of the candidates who applied but wasn't placed on the ballot). That Republican is now running unopposed. It seems that in elections where the Republican runs against either a third party or a random non-established independent, the Republican wins, but the other candidate still gets a significant amount of votes. And I'd be nothing short of amused if thousands of people were voting for me, even if I handedly lost.

These low barriers to election for state legislatures are very common in the US. And most Americans tend to ignore their state legislature and focus way too much on the politicians in DC. It's true that those in their state have way more influence on them, but not a lot of people in the US know that, hence why that state elections often have horrible turnout, especially in non-presidential election years.

The counties and municipalities, well, most all of them are commonly perceived as corrupt by locals. I know my own county (Cheatham County, Tennessee) has had corruption issues in the recent past, in the county supervisor position, several mayors of towns, and especially the sheriff's department. By that, I would suspect that most American's trust in their local government isn't very high, be they living in a rural area or urban area. People seem to much more trust their politician in DC than the politicians in the state, many of whom they might not even know the name of. I suspect that trust in the national government in DC is higher than both state and local governance. These are just common analyses based on what I've encountered. I also know that these local politicians tend to be both approachable and yet, well, your typical "politician" type. Case in point, a certain Tennessee State Representative Tommy Head represented my district when I was growing up, and he had numerous encounters with my father (either in my father's job--he needed construction equipment, my father dealt in that field--or once on a golf course of all places), and each time when my father questioned him on certain votes and certain positions he had taken, Rep. Head evidently displayed remarkable ways of avoiding the question and presenting himself as "neutral" by resorting to "well, my constituents say..." as a counter-argument.

All of this, I think, is a very good illustration on local government in the United States and the common perception of it. I notice, though, when you make it a national matter, behaviour like the aforementioned Tommy Head's becomes less common and less known. It becomes an American matter, and since less people know their senator or representative, you don't hear as much bad things and less stories about them are spread. That's basically why a larger House (maybe 700-800 in terms of size) could only be for the benefit of American democracy. The Wyoming Rule, of course, is only a start.

How do you convince people of this? Well...that's gonna be a problem. But voters could certainly be convinced.
 
An independent should never run against the incumbent, it's a sure fire way to do your dough. Wait until the incumbent retires or otherwise leaves office of their own accord, that takes away the personal power of incumbency and creates a far more level playing field. That's how a friend of mine got onto council and ignoring it saw him get flogged in a state election.

But I digress.

Just because people don't know what level of government does what doesn't mean the federal government needs more representatives. This would only be needed if the federal government took on more responsibility currently being done by lower levels.
 
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