I enjoy bits of history when they illuminate today’s events, illustrating how yesterday’s decisions, foolish or as well-meaning as they may be, force people today into odd contortions. Take, for example, the fact that there are 435 members of the House of Representatives, and has been since 1929.
Other than setting a minimum of at least 65 representatives and requiring that each state have at least one, the Constitution does not specify a size for the House. But the framers intended for the size to increase alongside the country’s population, which essentially happened until 1910.
In 1910, Congress approved a reapportionment of House seats and an increase in the size of the House to 433. The membership was further increased to 435 in 1912 to accommodate the entry of Arizona and New Mexico as states. However, Congress was unable to pass legislation reapportioning the House in 1920. Congress finally passed new legislation in 1929, but it froze the size of the House at 435. That number, however, was an arbitrary cap. In the interest of political expediency, those members who voted for the limit forced their successors to represent two to three times as many constituents as they themselves represented. The cap of 435 members still exists today, and it creates a host of problems for
our representative democracy. [“Why the House of Representatives Must Be Expanded and How Today’s Congress Can Make It Happen,” Caroline Kane, Gianni Mascioli, Michael McGarry, Meira Nagel, Fordham University School of Law]
The more constituents per Representative, the less service they can provide. And then scantily populated States get disproportionate power – also true of the Senate, but there’s not much to be done there.
Of course, if the number of Representatives was increased, they’d have to grow the physical size of the House.
