An Argument For Increasing The Size Of The House Of Representatives

skews13

Diamond Member
Mar 18, 2017
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Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution states that "[t]he number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative." The argument for the 30,000 figure was made by James Madison in Federalist No. 56, who argued that figure as a reasonable compromise between a too-large constituency that would cause greater disconnect between the elected representative and the needs and wishes of the people of that constituency, and a too-large House of Representatives that would prove unwieldy and unable to work out its differences and complete its business.

Recognizing that the population of the fledgling republic would likely increase as time progressed, Madison noted that the number of Representatives would increase as population increased, and Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3 established that a census would be taken every ten years starting in 1790 to determine (among other things, such as allocation of federal moneys collected through taxation) the number of Representatives to be encumbered by each state.

 
An Argument For Increasing The Size Of The House Of Representatives

The House has been 435 members for over 100 years, and in that time the population has more than tripled.
 
interesting..

based on that number,
Los Angeles would have 135 representatives,

Chicago would have 90

NYC would have 272

Brooklyn itself would have 76

Nothing like stacking the deck, right?
That is the entire point of this thread. They want to ensure they have superior numbers. Imagine if you will, the conservative areas of the country where to pick up numbers that exceeded theirs. They'd drop it in a hot NY minute.
 
interesting..

based on that number,
Los Angeles would have 135 representatives,

Chicago would have 90

NYC would have 272

Brooklyn itself would have 76

Nothing like stacking the deck, right?

The deck is stacked in favor of the two party system. If we even kept parity from 100 years go, that would create 800 additional seats which would mean that there would be a hell of a lot of turf to defend for either of the parties. You would start seeing liberatarians coming out of the south, greens coming out of the west, etc.
 

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