Redistricting prompts new look at House size

 

Redistricting prompts a new look at the oldest subject

This should be election issue

 

Gordon L. Weil

The U.S. House should take a new look at an old subject.  It should consider adding members.

Frenzied congressional redistricting and the failure of Congress have made this proposal an option that merits serious and early consideration.  This column recaptures and updates my earlier pieces.

The Constitution’s Framers debated the size of the House.  The argument became so heated that it was the only time that George Washington spoke on issue at the Constitutional Convention.

How many people should each House member represent?  Too few would be undemocratic but too many might be unmanageable.  James Madison, the chief drafter and later the fourth president, argued the problem would solve itself.  As more states joined, the House would naturally grow from the original 65.

That worked until 1900, when the number of members reached at 435.  In 1929, it was formally frozen there.  When five more territories became states, their seats were taken from other states.

Today, the number of people in some House districts is larger that the entire population of some states.  Each Maine district includes more people than the entire population of the state of Wyoming.   That means a Wyoming voter has more power than a Maine voter and far more than a voter in California.

An easy path to voter equality would be to set the population for each district across the country at the population of the smallest state, Wyoming.  I calculate that would increase the House to about 573 members, an added 138 seats.  An even larger House could make sense.

Adding new states should mean more seats were added, as originally intended.  The number of House seats should also increase as the national population grows. The purpose should be to keep the House representative and its members in touch with voters.

That increase would still leave the U.S. with a higher population per voter than any other major nation.  Citizens would remain distant from their representatives, and members might remain limited as true representatives of their electorate.

One advantage of expansion would be the need for complete redistricting into smaller districts.  Racial or political gerrymandering would become more difficult as districts became more compact. And it would certainly open the way for many new faces in Congress, which could enable more women and minorities to gain seats.

With a larger House, each member would not need to be assigned to multiple committees. Assigned to fewer committees, they would have time to become more expert.  There might also be added committees or subcommittees, allowing each to have a far sharper focus than is possible today.

The Supreme Court is moving steadily toward stripping regulatory agencies of their independent powers. When it completes its works, their decision-making powers would end up with the president.  Yet regulation is nothing more than powers that Congress could itself exercise by law.  Congress, not the president, could take on more responsibility.

A larger Congress should include enough members that focused House committees could take on more detailed decision-making.  Such targeted committees could produce strict, general rules, allowing less room for special interests to work out deals with regulators behind closed doors.

It would also be possible to convert independent agencies into advisory adjuncts of Congress.  Their decisions would be recommendations, which could then be approved or disapproved by a vote of the relevant committee and, ultimately, the full Congress.  This procedure would still retain the presidential veto power, but White House control would no longer be absolute.

If Congress doesn’t act, it will keep losing its powers to the president.

There’s another benefit to the proposal for expanding the House.  Many want the electoral vote for president to better align with the popular vote.  One major reason they can be misaligned is the unbalanced voting power of some states over others. Each state’s electoral vote is the sum of the number of its House and Senate members.

If the House were larger, the Electoral College would be larger and the Senate votes would be diluted.  The number of voters per electoral vote would be closer to equal than it is now.  With electoral votes better distributed by population, the electoral vote would come closer to reflecting the popular will. 

Of course, each state would retain at least one House seat and two senators, no matter its population.  That’s what the Constitution requires and would prevent a fully popular vote for president.

While amending the Constitution is almost impossible given today’s political climate and the influence of the Supreme Court, some issues like term limits or maximum ages of officials cannot be addressed. But Congress itself can change the number of House members, which could breathe some new life into a failing system.

House expansion is not political daydreaming; it could turn out to be critically important.