Why is the number of Representatives arbitrarily capped at 435?

[guillaumeb]

I had no idea, so I did some research. Well, a little research.

And this is what I found:

The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929
On this date, the House passed the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, fixing the number of Representatives at 435. The U.S. Constitution called for at least one Representative per state and that no more than one for every 30,000 persons. Thus, the size of a state’s House delegation depended on its population.

To read more:

https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Permanent-Apportionment-Act-of-1929/

Informed voters know that most voters live in urban and suburban areas, but this Act caps the number of Representatives at 435. If however, the number depended on population, it is very likely that well populated urban areas would gain more Representatives.

If the District could have no more than 711,000 residents, for example, California would gain 2 seats.

[Kaleva]

1. Some states, while growing in population, are losing seats.

In 1940, Michigan had 17 seats but now has 14 even though the population has nearly doubled.

[guillaumeb]

2. Exactly.

This seems to be motivated by a desire to protect small rural states, and mostly conservative areas. And it definitely discriminates against urban areas.

[No Vested Interest]

9. Ohio will lose a seat after the 2020 census; will go from 15 to 14, I believe.

Not that Ohio is losing population overall, but other states, mainly in the South and West, are growing faster than Ohio.

[unblock]

3. At some point a cap makes sense. Do we really want 10,000 representatives?

Our current cap probably increases the effect of gerrymandering, and maybe doubling it might work.

But one rep per 30,000 is just no longer workable.

[guillaumeb]

4. But this cap shifts power to the smaller states.

Even 1 Representative per 250,000 could shift the balance from rural to urban.

[Roland99]

5. Slice cities up into grids of 2x2? 3x3?

Combine disparate demographics together that way. Even things out?

[guillaumeb]

10. Drawing up Districts is left to each state.

And the result is often gerrymandering. Perhaps computer generated Districts could be a solution, but who decides which company gets the contracts?


The current system, by design, gives less populated areas more power in the House, and in the Senate. Thus the GOP can control the Senate, and the Electoral College, by representing around 40% of the population.

[Wounded Bear]

39. Computers exacerbated our current situation...

Gerrymandering has always been a problem, but with demographic software that has come out this century, Repubs used it to cook the books and set the districts in several states. You can set the program to do what you want it to do. Want more districts to one side? Just tell the computer. It just follows orders.

We still need neutral, or at least bi-partisan committeess overseeing the process.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. I think the British Parliament has something like 600+ MPs

IMHO, they need to serious increase the number of reps to make the constituencies smaller. That way people would have a better chance at more intimate interaction with their reps.

[Humanist_Activist]

11. The cap is far too low, and with Gerrymandering, even the lower house is not very democratic...

small "d" emphasized.

Also, given modern technology, why not have 10,000(or another larger number of) representatives? They don't need to meet in Washington DC anymore, why not remote representation, hell, it would also allow representatives to be closer to their constituents. It would also limit the effects of lobbying members, and make it more expensive for lobbyists to affect legislation. Representatives would more closely reflect the values of their constituents, and be more responsive to their needs. Elections would be far less expensive for each representative to run, allowing more people to participate in the system. Gerrymandering would be harder to pull off successfully, and the overall makeup of Congress will, as a result, more accurately reflect the makeup of the nation as a whole.

[NotASurfer]

12. To make the math work, some Representatives would have to cover more than one state

So several low-population states would have to be combined into a single representation district once you set the minimum number of people needed per Representative

Odds on that kind of Amendment are about the same as tTrump walking through the Pearly Gates to a divine welcome

10,000 representatives would need to meet in multiple bodies, more of a logistical problem, if we intended to keep each group to a small enough size so there would be a degree of familiarity where you could know enough other fellow Representatives to appreciate them as individuals and human beings.

Technically nothing prevents building a new 10,000 seat auditorium somewhere that would work for conducting business, but the scale borders on Speerian

[GulfCoast66]

23. Amendment? Representatives covering multiple states?

Neither are correct. If we grew to the size of, say the Bundestag, with around 700 seats, then the republicans would never win the house again. If each congressional district was 400,000 persons, small states would gain few of them. Nor would rural areas. Urban areas would get the majority. That is the reason congress capped it. The rural areas could see the writing on the wall and passed the act while they still had the power.

But it was not a constitutional amendment. If the Democratic Party were to control both houses and the presidency they could, with a simple law, raise the number of representatives to 700. And we should do so. Germany has 700 members with less than 1/3 of our population.

A 435 member House is the most insidious example of gerrymandering there is.

[Qutzupalotl]

26. It worked for the Senate of the Galactic Republic

in Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones.

On second thought, no it didn’t, that movie was tedious as hell. Carry on.

[Blue_true]

29. I think that it is now one Rep per 600,000+.

That is why California has 53 Reps. Florida is actually becoming bluer in the US House level because the state is adding population at a good clip. What happens when a state adds pop fast is that gerrymanders can't easily slice up urban areas and suburbs into little pieces into many areas filled red voters, thereby negating the power of populated areas.

[Spider Jerusalem]

66. cap it relative to the population of the least-populous state, then

that'd be Wyoming (around 563K people); based on that, the size of the House should be around 570 representatives, if every district had about the same number of people.

[Garrett78]

67. There would still be major discrepancies.

With 1 Representative for every 563,000 people, states that have nearly (but not quite) twice as many people as Wyoming would also have just 1 Representative.

Even if we set aside the outliers of Wyoming, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota and Montana, we still have some states with as many as 100,000 more/fewer persons per Representative than other states (based on the 2010 census). For instance, Idaho has 1 Representative per 783,791 people, according to the 2010 census, while Washington has 1 Representative per 672,454. Of course, Idaho also has the same number of Senators as Washington (not to mention California), so I have a hard time feeling bad for Idahoans, but that's a whole other discussion.

And, as the rate of growth continues to vary from state to state, the discrepancies will only become greater, so long as we have a cap on the number of Representatives. We will reach the point of absurdity (one could argue we already have) given that we have some states that are barely growing in population while others are growing at rates of 6, 8 or even 12 percent. Population growth is exponential. Given that reality, we either make systemic changes or we become utterly dysfunctional.

But, as others have said, having 10,000+ Representatives presents some challenges, as well.

[SWBTATTReg]

6. Thanks for posting. I've too, have wondered how they came up w/ this number. nt

[moose65]

7. This is one of those things that I wish got more attention

After every census since 1790, the size of the House had been increased. After 1910, the size became 435, and then it wasn’t changed after the 1920 census. Why? 2 reasons I think: Republicans had gained control of Congress for the first time ever, and they feared that more districts would allow more Democrats to be elected (sound familiar)? Also, there was the fear that all of the immigrants who were pouring into the large cities would give the states that contained those cities, and the immigrants, more representatives (again, the more things change....)

So, right now, in 2018, we have a House that is the same size that it was over 100 years ago, before New Mexico, Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii were states; when most women couldn’t vote; when almost all African Americans and Native Americans couldn’t vote. It is ridiculous that the average size of a House district is over 700,000 people, when it was around 200,000 in 1920. It is ridiculous that 700,000 US citizens in Washington, DC do not have a representative in the House.

One of our goals for after the 2020 census should be to add seats to the House.

[guillaumeb]

14. Well said.

The goal for the GOP is to keep power. And their power base is in Southern and rural areas.

[Blue_true]

30. As southern cities grow, they are losing power.

What the GOP wants is to keep a large amount of the population ignorant and very religious, that is how they maintain power.

[guillaumeb]

41. Voter supression is also a tactic that they use.

[Lithos]

28. Add in DC and Puerto Rico as states

That would give us a +4 gain in Senate and I think a future-proof majority in the House.

L-

[former9thward]

46. DC does have a representative in the House.

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton. She can vote in committees and on procedural matters. She can't vote on the floor.

[moose65]

52. Yes, and because of that....

She is not a full member of the House, and 700,000 DC residents have no representation. DC has more people than Wyoming and Vermont.

[former9thward]

56. It is not a state.

Constitution says states provide the representatives so it would require a Constitutional amendment.

[cynatnite]

13. Montana has over a million people and only one representative...

I get needing to cap because the population has grown significantly, but I also understand that it would even be more difficult to try to cover the entire US with representatives as directed by the constitution.

This act has no real direction or structure to address equal representation in the house.

At one time there were 437 representatives and that was when Alaska and Hawaii became states if I remember right.

[guillaumeb]

15. And 2 Senators.

Chicago has nearly 3 million people. 3 Montanas.

[cynatnite]

16. It's crazy, ain't it? n/t

[guillaumeb]

17. Crazy, or designed that way?

I vote for design.

[cynatnite]

18. Both, most definitely. n/t

[Igel]

38. Yes, the senate versus house *was* designed that way.

It was to be a stopgap between a fast-paced, quick-acting chamber that turned over every 2 years, reflected small constituencies, and reflected popular-mood-at-the-moment and a chamber with slower, gradual turnover that would have a longer-range perspective and larger constituencies.

Foolish actions are typically quick actions. Longer, slower actions can be foolish, but they stand a lesser chance. The impatient often want things done now--tomorrow morning is far, far, too late--with the outplay that they wind up making virtues out of mistakes.

A lot of people talk about minority rights, diversity, power sharing, but one of the biggest disasters over time has been running a country to serve rather cleanly either the minority or the majority. Majorities when allowed turn into "me, me, me" mobs, and screw over the minorities. We're used to that with race. We're having that battle with sexual minorities. It works for all other kinds of minorities, the majority just gives props to those that fit in with their religion, morality du jour, or power needs.

The Ukrainians speak of a Holodomor; in the '20s there was a fairly large famine in the USSR. Crops failed. The central government's actions made the famine worse--both by what it did before the crop failure, helping to make it worse, and by what they did when the crops failed, helping to make the famine worse. It's often presented as a "collectivist" scheme--disbanding larger, more efficient farms in the name of political rightness, and to some extent it was; to the extent it was political it was also an attempt to dispossess tertiary and quaternary power bases in the rural expanse to allow for more effective and efficient (or, as it turned out, corrupt and self-serving) administration by the "democrats" in Moscow who demanded absolute power and absolute compliance. But it was also very clearly a proletarian/agrarian divide, where the power base of the politicians was so urban that the general attitude was, "Let the farmers eat cake". The proletarian revolution needed to keep the cities placated, so the famine wasn't even hardly noticed in the cities, even as starvation was rampant in the hinterland. The Soviet PTB were scared that in the event of famine reaching the city, there'd be Russian Revolution II. They couldn't appeal, as such governments do, to xenophobia for this.

And the enlightened, educated, politically savvy urbanites didn't know, didn't care to know, and when they learned typically said, "Rubes. Let them starve, what do they do for me--we're so much better?"

The cap was put on mostly to make sure power was shared--and whenever I see people who don't like sharing power and where "minority rights" only means "give me power, not them", I see proto-despots. The cap was also put in place because it was simply getting harder and harder to shoe-horn people into the chambers where they meet. Tradition was taken to matter, instead of tradition being a bad thing when it got in the way of power and a great thing when used to cudgel opponents over the head.

[GulfCoast66]

24. The senate is dictated by the constitution

It would only take a law to raise the number of house members.

This needs way more attention. If we were to make the house more representative(fewer residents per house member) the republicans would never win another seat. That is the very reason it was capped at 435; to reduce the power of urban areas.

[Polybius]

32. So why did Democrats go along with it?

We had super-majorities when it passed.

[moose65]

34. Go along with what?

The Constitution? It was a different world and party back then. No one could have foreseen the mess we’re in now.

[Polybius]

42. I meant go along with voting for The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929

However, I did not realize that in 1929 Democrats were in the minority. Still, I'd like to see a roll call of Party breakdown of the vote. Searching came up empty.

[GulfCoast66]

36. The Democrats were not in control in 1929

And besides, it was more a rural state vs a southern state issue.

[LakeSuperiorView]

35. Maybe never win another House Majority?

They would certainly win seats, but likely not win a majority.

[GulfCoast66]

37. Thank you. My bad.

Obviously they would win seats.

[former9thward]

47. Chicago has 7 representatives.

So by your math we should have just 3 if compared to Montana. The city has been sliced into 7 sections to create districts where city votes will override suburban votes. Should we give the suburbs 4 more votes?

[guillaumeb]

50. The suburbs have less population. eom

[former9thward]

55. No, they don't.

Chicago has 2.7 million. Chicago metro has 9.5 million. Suburbs have far more population.

[guillaumeb]

58. Only if you make the metro area nearly everything north of I-80.

[former9thward]

60. I am not making anything.

I am using U.S. Census figures. What are you using? It is obvious that you are happy with the gerrymandering that takes place in the Chicago area. I am opposed to all gerrymandering. Others may differ.

[LanternWaste]

62. Bless your little heart for again pretending a sentiment no one has implied

"It is obvious that you are happy with the gerrymandering..."

(if you learn the difference between imply and infer, it may help you out. A lot)

[moose65]

19. Yes

The total was also briefly raised to 437 when New Mexico and Arizona became states in 1912, but then it reverted back to 435 after the next census. At the very, very least there should be 5 seats added to account for those 4 states that were added after 1910 and to finally give DC a full member of the House. That would lead to 440 seats, but I think it should remain an odd number so that the vote could never be tied. 445? 455? I don’t know. 475 sounds good as well. 435 was arbitrary, so it could be increased to ANY value that we decide.

[sarah FAILIN]

20. I try to educate people on this all the time

Until 1911 we regularly increased representatives according to the census. Supporters of the Electoral College try the argument that our founding fathers said..blah blah.. and I point out what was really said about representation and how it was changed.

[SFnomad]

21. The problem with small states having oversized influence isn't because of the House, but the Senate

It's those two Senators per state, no matter the size, that gives them the oversized influence. About the only way to get rid of that influence in Presidential Elections would be to increase the number of House Representatives so that every state would get at least 3 representatives. Then, subtract the 2 representatives that are counted in the Senate.

Using this as a population base:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States_by_population

A there would be a House Representative for say 190,000 people which would give us 1714 minus 100 or 1614 House Representatives. The largest and smallest states would look like this ...

California - 39,536,653 - 208 minus 2 - 206 Representatives
Texas - 28,304,596 - 148 minus 2 - 146 Representatives
Florida - 20,984,400 - 110 minus 2 - 108 Representatives
:::
S. Dakota - 869,666 - 4 minus 2 - 2 Representatives
N. Dakota - 755,393 - 3 minus 2 - 1 Representative
Alaska - 739,795 - 3 minus 2 - 1 Representative
Vermont - 623,657 - 3 minus 2 - 1 Representative
Wyoming - 579,315 - 3 minus 2 - 1 Representative

This would never happen. Republicans are more than happy with the way things are right now.

[dflprincess]

27. The House is a problem as well

Wyoming has 1 rep for 573,720 living there.

California has 53 for 39 million people
Minnesota has 8 for 5.63 million people

If we used Wyoming's population as the number of people per each Congressional District, California would have 69 reps; Minnesota would have 10 (we're expected for to drop to 7 after the next census).

If you divide the population of the U.S. by Wyoming's population/ (327,722,355/573,720) that would give the House 571 representatives (+ 100 senators).

It won't solve the problem of over representation in the Senate but maybe the size of the House should be set using the population from the smallest (in terms of people) state.

[SFnomad]

31. Those numbers, while not balanced, are nowhere near the problem I described

The biggest problem is the electoral college. Balancing the House will not minimize that problem enough unless we increase the size of the House to several thousand Representatives.

[Hortensis]

33. Agree with the math for both. :) We actually shrank

the house last time it was tinkered with. Everyone agrees the house has some serious structural problems impeding its internal functioning which really need to be addressed, so that apportionment/representation is only one of them.

I've read, though, that applying two major algorhithms would both yield over 550 seats after the 2020 census, though, while an article in Time claims the perfect number for representation would be 900-something. Not sure even Nancy would be that good a vote counter.

More and smaller districts that get to elect people who overall think more like "them" should have an exciting democratizing and energizing effect, but how to do it right to minimize and block the worst of the inevitable other giant effects of change. Those committed to corrupting the processes, because they can't win power otherwise, will be determined to build in and to identify new opportunities, and they will have a say in any changes.

Btw, this is apparently the way it's done today, which shrank the number when first applied:

Congress has tried five different algorithms to tackle the problem since 1789, finally landing on an elegant process called the “equal proportions method,” which has been in use since 1940. The way it works is quite clever. After comping every state one representative, this algorithm uses a round-robin system to apportion the remaining 385 seats one at a time to the state that needs another seat the most, until every seat is assigned and so ends the game of musical chairs. That neediness is calculated by taking each state’s population and dividing it by the square root of the number of seats it has thus far in the process multiplied by that number plus one — which is to say, a weighted prediction of how much better its people-per-representative figure would get if it was awarded the next seat. (This is known as the “geometric mean.”) After each seat is assigned, this neediness is recalculated and usually a different state rises to the top of the priority list.

[Garrett78]

22. At 1 Representative per 30,000 persons, we'll have 10,857 Representatives. And counting.

We better build a much, much bigger United States Capitol. Even 30,000 people is a hell of a lot of people for 1 individual to represent.

Of course, the US Senate is an even bigger problem.

[Freddie]

25. I've always understood

That the number was capped to limit the influence of big cities at a time when they were teeming with recent immigrants. Recent immigrants from places like Ireland, Italy, Eastern Europe...countries where drinking was a common part of everyday life. Of course these people were very opposed to Prohibition. The run-up to Prohibition was a huge factor in setting the cap on the # in the House.

[MineralMan]

40. You answered your own question.

It's the law. Congress could change that law, if it chose to do so. It is unlikely to do that, however. Existing members of the House do not want to dilute their power. So, don't expect any proposals to increase the number.

[treestar]

43. At the very least, the districts should have equal populations

Even if they have to be redrawn constantly. This is how the Democrats get more votes but still don't have a majority in the chamber. It is happening in state houses, too. That is wrong.

[Garrett78]

44. They're supposed to be approximately the same already.

But Wyoming, of course, has the same number of Representatives as Montana (1) in spite of having half the population. Meanwhile, Rhode Island has the same population as Montana but twice as many Representatives.

750,000 people (current US population divided by 435) is really too many for 1 Representative.

[treestar]

45. Clearly wrong, RI should have only one then

I'm from Delaware, which has only one - about 900K people. One for every million people seems reasonable. We don't want the House to be unmanageably huge. But OTOH, it is inexcusable for it not to be proportional, given the Senate and EC already are.

[Garrett78]

48. Without having far fewer people per district, there's no escaping disproportionality.

Wyoming can't have 1/2 of a Representative. If we have ~500,000 per district, then Wyoming gets 1 Representative. Montana, Rhode Island and Delaware get 2 Representatives. But then what do we do about those states with ~750,000? 1.5 Representatives?

The fewer people per district, the easier it is to have proportionality.

[treestar]

54. True a state with less than the minimum

has to get at least one. Small states get disproportionate say in the Senate and EC already, but in the House it has to be minimized, since it is supposed to be proportional. It bugs me that the Democrats can get more votes and yet not have the majority! Maybe an at large system for each state (though that would mean Californians have to vote for 50 people, which would turn out strange.).

[Jim Lane]

61. No, it's not wrong.

There are two factors operating here. First, when you rank the states by population, there can always be instances in which one state has almost as many people as the next one up, but the cutoff line for number of representatives happens to fall between them. If you cut Rhode Island down to one seat, then Rhode Islanders can complain that they're not very far behind Maine, which still has two.

Second, the allocation of seats is based on the decennial census. In 2010, Rhode Island had about 60,000 more people than Montana. Montana has been growing more rapidly, however. The Census Bureau estimates for 2017 have Montana only about 9,000 behind Rhode Island, but we don't re-allocate based on interim estimates. In the census, Mississippi had more people than Nevada, but the 2017 estimate for fast-growing Nevada is higher than that for Mississippi.

You can also look at Census population per House seat, i.e., how many people there were in 2010 divided by the number of seats. Because the number of Representatives must always be an integer, there will be discrepancies among the states. Right now, Rhode Island, at 526,466 people per seat (2010 Census numbers), is the lowest. Bust it down to one seat, however, and it would be at 1,052,931 people per seat -- far and away the highest. Right now Montana, at 989,417, is the highest, but give it a second seat and it would obviously become the lowest, getting under Rhode Island by about 30,000.

Your suggestion of one representative per million people wouldn't eliminate such discrepancies. Assuming you round to the nearest million, you'd see Idaho's 1,567,652 people getting two Representatives while Hawaii's 1,360,301 got only one.

I'm getting all my data from this Wikipedia article.

[treestar]

63. as long as Montana gets another seat after the next census

then I'm OK with it on that ground. I suppose the count can only be made on the census data. In modern times, we might be able to take more frequent censuses.

[Jim Lane]

65. Whether that happens will depend on the mathematical formula.

The only sensible reaction is to be "OK with it" if the established formula is applied fairly and accurately. We know there will be winners and losers. Montana, like the other small states, is greatly overrepresented in the Senate and therefore in the Electoral College.

Let's remember also that the 693,972 residents of the District of Columbia don't get any voting members of Congress.

[Garrett78]

64. Drastically reducing the number of persons/Representative is the way...

...to drastically reduce discrepancies. But having 10,000+ Representatives would present some problems.

[former9thward]

49. The law was finalized in 1941 not 1929.

Over the years since the ratification of the Constitution, the number of Representatives has varied, but in 1941 Congress resolved the issue by fixing the size of the House at 435 members.


https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R41357.html

Democrats had super majorities in both the House and Senate in that Congress.

[PatrickforO]

51. It should grow with the new Census.

Now, the GOP is all for cheating and undercounting people, which drives our political districting, and which is why Trump wanted the citizenship question.

You want the Census to be fair?

Then start a Complete Count Committee in your community, or join it if it already exists - it is that important! And, if you are a 'voice of trust' in your community, it is even more important to convince people that might be afraid to report that it is a very valuable thing because the Census is a huge part of what gives us our representative voice.

This is hugely important for our democracy (or in some cases to inject democracy where the GOP has cheated it away).

[Garrett78]

53. All that will grow is the average number of people per district.

Because, as the OP points out, the number of Representatives has been capped at 435.

[NCjack]

57. I suspect that it is an acknowledgment that if the number goes up,

Last edited Mon Dec 3, 2018, 08:47 AM - Edit history (1)

it reduces the cash amount of bribes per Rep to unacceptable levels. (Assumes that each lobbyist has a cap on each issue for bribes.)

[guillaumeb]

59. A very important consideration. eom

[pnwmom]

68. The good news is it's an Act --not something in the Constitution.

And an act can be repealed and replaced.

[Garrett78]

69. But what should the cap be raised to? Or should there not be a cap?

What are your (or anyone else's) thoughts on having 10,000+ Representatives?

[pnwmom]

72. This is from the NY Times Editorial Board, whose expert suggests 593.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/09/opinion/expanded-house-representatives-size.html

The House’s current size — 435 representatives — was set in 1911, when there were fewer than one-third as many people living in the United States as there are now. At the time, each member of Congress represented an average of about 200,000 people. In 2018, that number is almost 750,000.

This would shock the Constitution’s framers, who set a baseline of 30,000 constituents per representative and intended for the House to grow along with the population. The possibility that it might not — that Congress would fail to add new seats and that district populations would expand out of control — led James Madison to propose what would have been the original First Amendment: a formula explicitly tying the size of the House to the total number of Americans.

The amendment failed, but Congress still expanded the House throughout the first half of the nation’s existence. The House of Representatives had 65 members when it was first seated in 1789, and it grew in every decade but one until 1920, when it became frozen in time.

There’s a solution, which involves adding 158 new seats to the House of Representatives, making it proportionally similar to most modern democracies. To understand the implications of a larger House, we enlisted software developer Kevin Baas and his Auto-Redistrict program to draw 593 new congressional districts for the entire country. (Read on for an explanation of how we chose that number.) Then we used historical partisan scores to determine which party would win each district.

SNIP

[Garrett78]

73. Better but insufficient.

For starters, how does a single lawmaker stay in touch with the concerns of three-quarters of a million people? The answer is she doesn’t. Research shows that representatives of larger districts are more likely to take political positions at odds with what a majority of their constituents want. These representatives are also ripe targets for lobbyists and special interests, whose money enables them to campaign at scale, often with misleading messages. Special interests are more likely than regular voters to influence policy positions and votes.

Second, the cap on the number of House members leads to districts with wildly varying populations. Montana and Wyoming each have one representative, but Montana’s population — 1.05 million — is nearly twice the size of Wyoming’s. Meanwhile, Rhode Island, which has roughly the same population as Montana, gets two seats. These discrepancies violate the basic constitutional principle of one-person-one-vote, causing voters to be unequally represented in the chamber that was designed to offset the Senate, where every state gets two seats regardless of population.

Third, the size of the House determines the shape of the Electoral College, because a state’s electoral votes are equal to its congressional delegation. This is one of the many reasons the college is an unfair and antiquated mechanism: States that are already underrepresented in Congress have a weaker voice in choosing the president, again violating the principle that each citizen should have an equal vote.

While 593 is an improvement, all 3 of the problems listed would remain problems.

[guillaumeb]

71. All that is lacking is the political will.

But given that the set up favors the GOP, my view is that nothing will be done.

[scarletlib]

70. Yes

A new Congress could reform this bill and also address how the districts are to be created, i.e. compact, and contiguous.