Centerfield

I've been in favor of something like this for years. In 1790 each Congressional representative had a constituency of about 38,000. Washington thought that was too large a constituency advocating a maximum of 30,000. Now it's almost 680,000.

Communications and travel have improved a lot since 1790 so I do think a Congressman can be an effective representative for more people than back then. Those same improvements in communications and travel also mean it's possible for Congress to operate constructively with a significantly larger number of members than in the third quarter of the 19th century (when the decision to freeze the size of the House was made).

One of the great things about this reform is that it wouldn't require a Constitutional amendment to enact.

And this reform is an anti-gerrymandering reform. It reduces the pay-off for gerrymandering and consequently de-motivates it. It would create greater opportunies for political and ethnic minority populations to secure greater representation. I like it.

Posted by: Dave Schuler at January 13, 2005 09:49 AM

There are some points in favor, but I think it would make the House even more parochial than it already is. Right now you have clowns getting elected to the House based on extremely narrow interests or local credentials. Granted, it would be more democratic in a way, but at the expense of making it even harder to get anything done and bringing in members with even less committment to national interests. Eventually, you are going to have to enlarge the House, but I don't think this kind of wholesale increase would, on balance, be beneficial.

As far as it being less democratic now, that's a pretty funny charge considering we still elect presidents using the electoral college. I still believe in REPRESENTATIVE democracy, not personal representation.

Posted by: MWS at January 13, 2005 10:02 AM

I think this could cut down on campaign-finance abuses, but I agree with MWS, could a House of 1,300 Representatives get much done? I think national issues would get thrown to the wayside while local issues, while relevant, would dominate the discourse due to the sheer volume of Representatives. I've thought of this before, as well, but now maybe I'll take a closer look. But upon first reflection, I'm not so sure it's feasible.

Posted by: scott at January 13, 2005 10:08 AM

Having been through similar discussions on the local level, I'm certain the question is academic. I've never met an incumbent who thought he needed to shrink his constituency and power base.

Like all things, there would be benefits and drawbacks.

Posted by: Tully at January 13, 2005 10:46 AM

Tripling the number of representives implies tripling the number of bills introduced, which implies tripling the amount of time it takes to weed through them all and enact any of them. One cannot feasibly reduce Congressional salaries, because representatives must both a) travel to and from the constituents in their districts, however far from Washington, D.C., and b) rent a place to live in D.C. during session. Staff sizes and costs would actually rise, not fall, because of the amount of new legislation that would flow forth from the new representatives and the research and committee work that that would result. Unless, of course, you plan to limit the amount of bills each member can introduce, cut the length of time each bill has for consideration (which cuts the length of time each representative has to consider or debate the bill), or extend the terms of representatives because two years just isn't enough--but if you're handicapping the legislators in this way, you're handicapping their representation of their constituents. So what would be the point?

This doesn't even begin to address the structural costs: you couldn't fit 1300 members in the chamber. Do you add a new chamber? How long does a roll call take of 1300 members? (And there are roll calls, not least on the first day of session.) What about office space? The market effect on housing in already cramped D.C.? Traffic? Do committee memberships triple correspondingly? Where do the triple-sized committees meet? Not their current committee rooms.

Increasing the House from 435 to perhaps 500 may not be ridiculous, but would it be enough to get what you want out of this idea? Probably not. You'd add about 15%, and (someone check my math) reduce constituents per district by about 20%--from about 674,000 to maybe 590,000.

Posted by: The Jaded JD at January 13, 2005 12:29 PM

I'd want salaries lowered and staff size per congressman diminished as mentioned.

Well, that's makes this idea moot. No one is going to agree to a pay cut and loss in power.

It reduces the pay-off for gerrymandering and consequently de-motivates it. It would create greater opportunies for political and ethnic minority populations to secure greater representation.

How? It seems to me that the state legislatures have more opportunities to draw the maps for more not less gerrymandered districts.

Posted by: EG at January 13, 2005 12:33 PM

A few responses to the cons raised:

Tully et al's never gonna happen:
Not today or tomorrow. But if it becomes an issue due to grass roots support and politicians are required to take a stand, it COULD happen. And even if it didn't happen, the threat of it that comes with people thinking it's a good idea could help forward districting reform. But agreed, over the short and intermediate term, it's not going to happen.

it doesn't impact gerrymandering
I disagree. The smaller the number of people represented, the harder it is to put together a district one town wide and and 12 towns long. Representing almost 700,000 people makes this easy.

JJD's logisitical concerns
You are definitely right about a lot of these things, and I agree with the ways you could conceivably address some of them, like limiting the number of bills one person can introduce, and maybe requiring wider sponsorship. Further, given that it's the 21st century, I wonder how certain we should be that congress needs to be held in a big room with nearby offices. Maybe congress needs to move to cyberspace and only the most important councils get held in real space.

Maybe. But consider this. Just maybe the way national issues are identified would change. Would lobbyists and special interest groups have it easier or harder with more congressmen to buy? If there were triple the number of representatives, each representing fewer people with LESS diverse concerns, maybe national issues of true importance to everday people would emerge better from the grass roots. Because maybe a representative from Massachusetts who cared most about tax policy for funding local schools would spend more time talking with a guy from Texas, a woman from South Dakota, and so on.

In other words, i'm not convinced that more reps with a smaller plate of priorities would be bad.

I think more reps for smaller numbers of people are likely to focus more on nuts and bolts like safe bridges, pothole-free roads, adequately financed schools, insurance coverage gaps, and so on. The smaller the district, the less dough interest groups have to spread around per rep. AND, the more likely that the voters will want to reject a candidate who is taking a lot of money from a big national interest group that should mind its own business. The more likely you get people saying "I don't want the ACLU or the Steel Assn. or the AFL-CIO deciding who represents me.

Posted by: bk at January 13, 2005 01:03 PM

I worked on a motion in King County to actually reduce the size of their council from 13 to 9, which for a local government I thought was more reasonable, but I definetely think inserting new blood into Congress by making it bigger is a great idea! It would be a way to get some centrists involved, also.

Posted by: Mathew at January 13, 2005 01:18 PM

It's a good idea to add fresh blood and cause Reps. to get back in touch with their people, but I think the cost is too high. I think it takes the House too long already to get things done. Imagine what it would be like with three times the amount of people?

The smaller the number of people represented, the harder it is to put together a district one town wide and and 12 towns long.

Sure, it'll be harder, but they'll still do it. I've seen hourglass shapes of redistricting. That's the thing - someone will always find a way to cheat the system. Posted by: CleverWes at January 13, 2005 02:00 PM

Sure, it'll be harder, but they'll still do it. I've seen hourglass shapes of redistricting. That's the thing - someone will always find a way to cheat the system.

True, but if you make something harder to do, less people generally do it. It happens less often. I am sure there are exceptions, but there have to be a gazillion cases where it is true. People follow the path of least resistance.

Consider that if this did happen, the simplest and least controversial way to make the new districts would be to split them in thirds. Now, you can cut a loaf of bread in slices lengthwise, but people generally do it crosswise, because its easier. I expect this principle would apply.

Oh BTW, a few posters have been talking up the "imagine how long it would take congress to do things if we triple its size" angle. As most of us know, not everyone is convinced that congress doing less would be a bad thing.

Posted by: bk at January 13, 2005 02:17 PM

District maps are no longer done by humans but via computer programs. And is there any federal law that says a district needs to be contiguous?

Posted by: EG at January 13, 2005 03:20 PM

Those who don't think more smaller districts would have any effect on gerrymandering aren't seeing the point. When you increase the number of districts the dollar value of the district becomes smaller. Consequently the pay-off for any single district is much smaller. Gerrymandering all the districts becomes much, much harder and much, much more timeconsuming. The state legislatures barely have enough time to do it now.

There are some points in favor, but I think it would make the House even more parochial than it already is.

The House is supposed to be parochial. In my view the problem now is that it's not nearly parochial enough.

To those who think it would be too inefficient, the House is not supposed to be efficient. It's supposed to be representative. It would certainly be much more efficient if there were only one representative elected at large over the entire United Statees. Would that be better? I realize this is burden-of-proof shifting but why is the number of representatives we have now the perfect number?

Posted by: Dave Schuler at January 13, 2005 03:24 PM

District maps are no longer done by humans but via computer programs.

Is that supposed to be a joke? they're done by humans who use computer programs written by other humans.

Posted by: bk at January 13, 2005 04:01 PM

I think representation should be by area. Alaska gets the most, Rhode Island the least. Then we won't have urban states sending their pollution and trash to the rural states unless the rural states want it.

Posted by: tim at January 13, 2005 04:36 PM

It's the Colossus Project run amok, Brian. ("Dr. Forbin, please call the office.")

Posted by: Tully at January 13, 2005 09:04 PM

My initial gut reaction to the idea is negative.

But, my immediate knee-jerk response is the following: Before we radically change the format of "government" can we improve on the "representative" part first. When you look at State offices such as our state senator or representative, though they represent much smaller constituencies the voter turnout for their elctions is much poorer that for the national offices. What's worse, a congressman who "represents" 30% of 680,000 or one who respresents 15% or 100,000?

Posted by: Chris at January 14, 2005 10:59 AM

Besides, if you want "participatory democracy" join a blog! ;-)

Posted by: Chris at January 14, 2005 11:00 AM

Turnout is a function of caring. if you care more, you are more likely to turn out, and if you couldn't care less, you don't turn out.

The question is whether having smaller districts would increase or decrease turnout. I am reluctant to make assumptions about what the results would be. For one, turnout is driven by the national election at least half the time. And for another, it's often said of academia that there's so much contention and vitriol because "the stakes are so low." Smaller district elections might be MORE contentious.

I am very reluctant to make assumptions based on comparing turnout for state elections to turnout for federal elections as you do. People follow the path of least resistance. My guess is that federal election turnout rates are higher because 50% of them coincide with a presidential election. Correspondence rate is much lower at the state and local levels.

Then there's the question of whether it's really true that an election with 20% turnout is somehow less representative than an election with 30% turnout. I don't buy it. IMO, not bothering to vote is really a form of a vote. But I do think that the ratio of reps to constituents really IS a measure of representativeness.

Posted by: bk at January 14, 2005 11:56 AM