It's time to increase the size of the House of Representatives

Understanding the Apportionment Act of 1929 makes evident that there is no mathematical or well-founded politically principled reason for 435 members; it was largely an accident. Due to the freeze at 435 members, the average House district now represents over 760,000 people, which is set to increase to over 800,000 by 2030. Worse yet, House members effectively represent more constituents than every other major Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development country in the world. Pakistan ranks second to the U.S. at just under 600,000 people per district, and most other countries, such as the U.K., have well under 200,000 people. What distinguishes the U.S. relative to other OECD countries is that the size of its lower legislative chamber shares more similarities with competitive oligarchical/authoritarian nations such as Russia, China, Brazil and Pakistan, than actual representative democracies, such as Canada, the Netherlands, and Germany. There are a host of issues arising from a high ratio of constituents to representatives. The most notable one — related to the justification for creating the U.S. House in the first place — is the break in the constituent-representative link. James Madison in Federalist 56 justified the ratio of 30,000 constituents per representative on the premise that a “representative ought to be acquainted with the interests and circumstances of his constituents.” With a ratio of more than 750,000 constituents to one representative, it is nearly impossible for any representative to know their constituents. There are simply too many in-the-weeds local issues to keep track of given those numbers. Political scientist Brian Frederick finds through mass survey evidence that constituents in larger districts are less likely to be contacted by their representatives, and relatedly, constituents approve less of their members when in larger districts. Political scientist Robert Hogan confirms that much of the disparities in campaigning in a district system can be attributed to population size; with larger districts, it costs more to reach out to every voter during campaigns. When districts are so large that constituents and representatives feel alienated from each other, the system fails to meet the necessary conditions to ensure that representatives are acquainted with those they serve.
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