Expand the House

[Huckleberry 32702]

The time to expand the House of Representatives is so far in the past that it's absurd at this point. In this thread we will discuss why expanding the House needs to happen, effects expanding would have both real and imagined, and ridicule those opposed to the idea. What won't happen is anyone giving a good and persuasive reason why we shouldn't expand the House. Even you, Mr. Lobbyist who posts on surly (no callouts!).

A brief summary of the ironclad reasons it should be expanded:

1. The Constitution mentions a maximum ratio of one Representative for every 30,000 citizens. Right now it's over 750,000. So all you ORIGINAL INTENT! and FOUNDING FATHERS! fans should be in favor.

2. In case you haven't noticed, the population of the United States has grown quite large. Also, the ol' USA still cranks out a decent economy. What happens when a population grows really large and keeps generating money on a per capita basis while the number of Representatives stays the same? The amount of money per Representative grows exponentially. And what happens when the amount of money per Representative grows exponentially? The ability to buy enough votes to affect policy gets exponentially easier. Higher population + static number of legislators = easier corruptibility. In real dollars the biggest companies today have somewhere on the order of 6 times as much cash on hand as the biggest companies (like General Motors) had in 1950. And yet they have the same number of Representatives to "lobby" as the companies in 1950 had. Expanding the House would lower corruption because math.

3. But Huck, the building is only so big! You may have heard of Zoom or other online conference services. The Constitution says that Congress must assemble once per year, so let's have an argument about the various definitions of assemble. I say that gathering online meets the definition in the 21st century. Not only that, but make lobbyists fly all over the country to try to buy votes instead of putting all the fish in a single barrel for them.

4. More Representatives means more responsiveness to local constituents. Right now a Republican Representative in Alabama cares more about what Republicans in California want than Democrats in Alabama. Increase the number (and lower the ratio) so that Representatives actually know a much higher percentage of the people they represent.

Effects 

1. More constituent service
2. Less corruption
3. Electoral college not really affected

Right now some of you are saying "wait, what?" about #3 above. Well, it's true. You can run the analysis on your own if you like but expanding the House would not materially affect Presidential election results. Now sure this sucks if you hate the Electoral College, but it's good news if you want to get Republicans on board with expanding the House like I do.

If you expand the House to 1500 Representatives, Biden would have won this election 913-692 (Give DC 5 electoral votes to match the smallest States). That's 56.9% of the electors. In reality, Biden won 306-232 which is, you guessed it, 56.9% of the electors. Flipping Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada would make this year's election 269-269. Doing it with a House size of 1500 would make it 804-801 in favor of Trump. If you want to fix the electoral college then you need to fix the way the States divvy up their electors.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Huckleberry

[Firemans4Horn 17833]

Isn’t gerrymandering the biggest current issue with how the house is currently elected?

How do we solve that problem when quadrupling the amount of reps?

[gmr548 16513]

I’m in simply for watching America try to figure out EC math in the thousands.

[Francisco 2.0 32341]

4 minutes ago, Firemans4Horn said:

Isn’t gerrymandering the biggest current issue with how the house is currently elected?

How do we solve that problem when quadrupling the amount of reps?

Silly.

It will be super gerrymanded.  

Wisconsin (and other state's) GOP should be salivating at that prospect.

[softlynow 1783]

Do the same for the Senate. Other than #1 in the OP, the same reasoning applies. To come up with a population parallel, let's say 2 senators per state is good for every 50 million in total population. Each state should get 12 senators going forward. When we pass 350 mil. in a few years, every state gets 2 more.

[FondrenRoad 4378]

9 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Silly.

It will be super gerrymanded.  

Wisconsin (and other state's) GOP should be salivating at that prospect.

It will be harder to gerrymander with smaller districts. Gerrymandering requires giving away districts by packing them with your opponents. There will be more of those. But also, the margin needed to create a "safe" gerrymandered district for yourself is 10 to 15 points.  Right now, the disenfranchised team needs to swing 50 to 100k votes to flip it. That margin would be 5k with smaller districts. Something that can easily be flipped by a grassroots effort.  So if you wanted to make it safe, you'd have to pack more of your voters in, and in doing so, give even more Sheila Jackson Lee districts to your opponent.

Edited November 16, 2020 by FondrenRoad

[Js1 85110]

Wyoming Rule!!! 

[FondrenRoad 4378]

Just now, Js1 said:

Wyoming Rule!!! 

States should also have a minimum population to be states and have Senators. If they don't have it, they can merge with another state or revert to territory status. 

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

@Huckleberry you seem to like crunching numbers. I just posed a question on another thread about how the EC would look if every state divvied theirs up by district, and if that would better match the popular vote. Is it rational to assume that more districts would more closely match EC with popular vote for president, in much the same way that calculus is first taught that more rectangles under the line means a more accurate area calculated, with the PV being the maximum number of rectangles?

[RDCanecutter 26276]

Just make everybody a House Rep.

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

3 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

States should also have a minimum population to be states and have Senators. If they don't have it, they can merge with another state or revert to territory status. 

Seems to me that a bunch of people in populous states trying to take power away from the less populous states, as seen in this quote, is why the rules protecting the less populous states exist in the first place. 
i suspect your real issue is that most of them vote republican.  

Edited November 16, 2020 by Pato del Muerto

[Huckleberry 32702]

1 minute ago, Pato del Muerto said:

@Huckleberry you seem to like crunching numbers. I just posed a question on another thread about how the EC would look if every state divvied theirs up by district, and if that would better match the popular vote. Is it rational to assume that more districts would more closely match EC with popular vote for president, in much the same way that calculus is first taught that more rectangles under the line means a more accurate area calculated, with the PV being the maximum number of rectangles?

Was already planning to run that once district level results are available but that usually takes a while. I'll probably do it for 2016 here shortly. 

[Tuco 5076]

The biggest negative I would see is that it would shift more power to the political parties.  Trying to get committee positions and bills prioritized is already a challenge.  If you triple the House, then access becomes more valuable, and the parties gain more strength.  But, they already have a ton of power, and while philosophically it would slant things their way, I don't believe it would make a practical difference.  And maybe that would be offset by reducing financial leverage the parties have. (Larger districts = more money required to campaign = more party (and lobbyist) power.) 

So, yeah, I favor it.  There are ways to get around the other issues. 

Unfortunately, I wonder how many Representatives would vote to reduce their power.  Tripling the size of the House means reducing the amount of influence any individual Rep has by a third. 

[Fudge Nuggets 19151]

I don’t know,it seems we are already scraping the bottom of the barrel to fill out the current number of representatives. 

[FondrenRoad 4378]

8 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Seems to me that a bunch of people in populous states trying to take power away from the less populous states, as seen in this quote, is why the rules protecting the less populous states exist in the first place. 
i suspect your real issue is that most of them vote republican.  

Not at all. They have disproportionate voting power. It is anti-democratic.  I dont care how they vote. The vote of every US citizen should be equal. 

The less populous states have the Senate to keep their voice heard. They should not have been given the reins to the 2 most powerful parts of our government. 1 is a check. 2 is tyranny.  This has allowed them to be tyrants from a minority position. This has also led to our current state of polarization, and why this nation will not survive without reform. 

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

1 minute ago, FondrenRoad said:

Not at all. They have disproportionate voting power. It is anti-democratic.  I dont care how they vote. The vote of every US citizen should be equal. 

The less populous states have the Senate to keep their voice heard. They should not have been given the reins to the 2 most powerful parts of our government. 1 is a check. 2 is tyranny.  This has allowed them to be tyrants from a minority position. This has also led to our current state of polarization, and why this nation will not survive without reform. 

If you take away their statehood, you take away their senate seats as well as their electoral college votes. 

[hobbes2702 12845]

This might have been posted already or it might not even be a good idea but...

I don’t understand why we don’t have remote members of the house. Have a small collection of the leadership teams that stay mostly in Washington and everyone else Is remote and stays in their districts. Keeps them closer to their constituents than lobbyists and forces them to be available for their constituents. 

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

Because the constitution!!!

[bolverk 29399]

This issue first came up on my radar a few years ago due to an Op-Ed in the NYTimes, I believe. Since then, I've been following the issue and am fully supportive of expansion. A little while ago, I came across this research article that discusses the optimum size for Congressional Districts and provides some comparisons. 

@Huckleberryand some of the other numbers guys, I'd like to hear your feedback on this:

http://statchatva.org/2017/11/15/u-s-house-districts-are-colossal-whats-the-right-size/

[Js1 85110]

5 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

If you take away their statehood, you take away their senate seats as well as their electoral college votes. 

DC has no senate seats or statehood but still gets 3 EC votes.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Js1

[FondrenRoad 4378]

Just now, Pato del Muerto said:

If you take away their statehood, you take away their senate seats as well as their electoral college votes. 

I dont really want to take away their statehood. I simply think that playing by rules from the 1800s designed to gobble up land from coast to coast is a dumb way to govern in the 21st century. There is no more land left to gobble up. Time to start focusing on the people instead of the land. 

So I dont think that Wyoming with 600,000 pepple should have the power it has over California's 40 million people.  Let the 40 million people speak for themselves.  If the only option is to revoke statehood, then we do that.  But I'd prefer we just reform our fucked up system instead. 

[Huckleberry 32702]

7 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Not at all. They have disproportionate voting power. It is anti-democratic.  I dont care how they vote. The vote of every US citizen should be equal. 

The less populous states have the Senate to keep their voice heard. They should not have been given the reins to the 2 most powerful parts of our government. 1 is a check. 2 is tyranny.  This has allowed them to be tyrants from a minority position. This has also led to our current state of polarization, and why this nation will not survive without reform. 

The People don't elect the President, the States do. Saying every vote should be equal in that election is nonsensical. You want to completely change the nature of the election, which is fine, but be honest about it. 

Besides, this isn't the thread for that. 

[FondrenRoad 4378]

Just now, Huckleberry said:

The People don't elect the President, the States do. Saying every vote should be equal in that election is nonsensical. You want to completely change the nature of the election, which is fine, but be honest about it. 

Besides, this isn't the thread for that. 

I've never been dishonest about that. The people should pick the President. Period.

And sure this thread isn't about that. Its about reforming another part of government. One that also will never be reformed peacefully because we would need a tyrannical minority to stop wanting to be tyrants in order to do so. This was really always going to end one way.  Trump was incompetent, but the next tyrant probably won't be. 

[blacklab 11850]

I’m all for it. 
I think another benefit should be additional parties getting seats. The smaller the area and population the better chance they have of getting elected. 

[Huckleberry 32702]

7 minutes ago, bolverk said:

This issue first came up on my radar a few years ago due to an Op-Ed in the NYTimes, I believe. Since then, I've been following the issue and am fully supportive of expansion. A little while ago, I came across this research article that discusses the optimum size for Congressional Districts and provides some comparisons. 

@Huckleberryand some of the other numbers guys, I'd like to hear your feedback on this:

http://statchatva.org/2017/11/15/u-s-house-districts-are-colossal-whats-the-right-size/

I'd take a 700 person House as an improvement but I don't see 1500 as too unwieldy. One Representative for every 200-250k people even seems like not enough when you think in those terms.

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

5 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

I dont really want to take away their statehood. I simply think that playing by rules from the 1800s designed to gobble up land from coast to coast is a dumb way to govern in the 21st century. There is no more land left to gobble up. Time to start focusing on the people instead of the land. 

So I dont think that Wyoming with 600,000 pepple should have the power it has over California's 40 million people.  Let the 40 million people speak for themselves.  If the only option is to revoke statehood, then we do that.  But I'd prefer we just reform our fucked up system instead. 

Wyoming has 1 US house rep and 3 electoral college votes. What power does it have?

if huck gets his way, it will have a couple more house reps. 3 out of 1500. 

[gsoda3 3236]

are you paying these reps the same as they are now?

[Huckleberry 32702]

2 minutes ago, gsoda3 said:

are you paying these reps the same as they are now?

Yes

[Helobious 9481]

Is it concerning that I see nothing wrong with this & think it’s a good idea?

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

Pack the Lege!

would this increase be accompanied by rules of how districts can and cannot be drawn?  A basic grid system certainly doesn’t make the most sense, but there should be some new constraints introduced.  But I don’t know if the point of districts is to put similar voting people together to ensure representation in Congress, or to just have chunks of the population apportioned to their own vote rep by geography. 

Edited November 16, 2020 by Pato del Muerto

[hobbes2702 12845]

41 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Seems to me that a bunch of people in populous states trying to take power away from the less populous states, as seen in this quote, is why the rules protecting the less populous states exist in the first place. 
i suspect your real issue is that most of them vote republican.  

Or that every citizen in those states has a significantly larger voice than I do in deciding who’s represented.

[DigDug 1649]

39 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Just make everybody a House Rep.

 

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

7 minutes ago, hobbes2702 said:

Or that every citizen in those states has a significantly larger voice than I do in deciding who’s represented.

Move to one of those states then and you will magically have the same voice as they do. 
But the easiest thing is to either elect more reps to get more EC votes and dilute the 2 extra per state ECVs, or just change the EC to where it isn’t 1 for 1 with reps so that it effectively does the same thing without introducing more reps. 

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

Funny how nobody brings up Vermont as the example when this small state discussion happens.

[Huckleberry 32702]

1 hour ago, Pato del Muerto said:

@Huckleberry you seem to like crunching numbers. I just posed a question on another thread about how the EC would look if every state divvied theirs up by district, and if that would better match the popular vote. Is it rational to assume that more districts would more closely match EC with popular vote for president, in much the same way that calculus is first taught that more rectangles under the line means a more accurate area calculated, with the PV being the maximum number of rectangles?

 

1 hour ago, Huckleberry said:

Was already planning to run that once district level results are available but that usually takes a while. I'll probably do it for 2016 here shortly. 

Work was already done:

https://www.270towin.com/alternative-electoral-college-allocation-methods/?year=2016

[Don Johnson 4745]

1 hour ago, FondrenRoad said:

States should also have a minimum population to be states and have Senators. If they don't have it, they can merge with another state or revert to territory status. 

Conversely, should their be a maximum population allowed for a state?   If they go over, they have to divide in 2 or 3?  

[Wulaw Horn 18981]

I like this approach. I think the ideal size for a district would be that basically everyone is one degree of separation away from their house representative. I think that’s probably 100k or so. I assume that in my town of kingwood/ humble anyone in charge is probably a friend of a friend of mine. At that level you can “know” your rep and they damn sure ought to be responsive to anyone in the district. 

[hobbes2702 12845]

48 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Move to one of those states then and you will magically have the same voice as they do. 
But the easiest thing is to either elect more reps to get more EC votes and dilute the 2 extra per state ECVs, or just change the EC to where it isn’t 1 for 1 with reps so that it effectively does the same thing without introducing more reps. 

Why should I need to move to another state to have my vote matter? Not sure that’s how a democracy should work

[TexLonghorn 5592]

1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

Just make everybody a House Rep.

 

59 minutes ago, DigDug said:

 

[Tuco 5076]

42 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Funny how nobody brings up Vermont as the example when this small state discussion happens.

 Ok.  Vermont has a 1.4% black population.  Wyoming is 1.3% black.  Alaska is 3.7%.  North Dakota is 3.4%.  South Dakota is 2.3%.  Those are the five smallest states by population. 

#6 Delaware - 23.2% black (the lone outlier) 

#7 Rhode Island: 6.2% black

#8 Montana: 0.8% black

#9 Maine: 1.2% black

#10 New Hampshire: 1.8% black

The US as a whole is 13.4% black.

Obviously Donald Trump utilized white grievance as a campaign strategy.  Less obviously, the Republican Party has been doing so for years.  Do you think the small state advantage rewards that strategy, or hurts it?  

In our current system, the average white person has a greater political voice, because white people are more likely to live in the small states than black people. That was not the intent, but that is the reality.

The small state advantage is bad.  The idea that 800k people in Wyoming should have equal voice in the Senate as 39 million people in California is just fucking stupid.  The fact that this advantage flows along racial lines should absolutely be part of the discussion.  

So, we aren't going to rewrite the Constitution.  We know that.  But let's stop pretending that 230 years ago a bunch of slave owners were able to form a government structure that would adequately deal with these inequities.  They didn't.  I do not find any nobility in trying to preserve whatever flawed vision they might have had when confronted with the completely undemocratic, and racially unjust system that actually evolved.  

 

 

 

 

[FondrenRoad 4378]

40 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

Conversely, should their be a maximum population allowed for a state?   If they go over, they have to divide in 2 or 3?  

Yes. 

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

The people don’t have a voice in the senate, the states do. Wyoming has the same voice that California does. Purposefully.  Now, should that have changed when senators became directly elected instead of appointed by the state legislature (or governor, I don’t recall off hand)?  Probably, but that’s essentially the same argument as eliminating electoral college in favor of popular vote, but at a state level. 
or, should that change to directly elected senators never have taken place?  That’s relatively new to our country. 

[Huckleberry 32702]

12 minutes ago, Tuco said:

The small state advantage is bad.  The idea that 800k people in Wyoming should have equal voice in the Senate as 39 million people in California is just fucking stupid. 

Disagree. There is a States' chamber and a People's chamber. And that's a good design based on how the country was and is designed. 

It's a foundational aspect of the nation and changing it would essentially be such a huge change that a complete dissolution and reorganization would be called for (and the expectation should be that many States would no longer want to be included).

p.s. This thread is about the People's chamber. 

Edited November 16, 2020 by Huckleberry

[blacklab 11850]

15 minutes ago, Tuco said:

The small state advantage is bad.  The idea that 800k people in Wyoming should have equal voice in the Senate as 39 million people in California is just fucking stupid. 

Has anyone in the history of the Untied States said to themselves: "Man, the ratio of people to senators is so much better in Wyoming compared to my state. I'm moving there!"

[Tuco 5076]

 

1 minute ago, Pato del Muerto said:

The people don’t have a voice in the senate, the states do. Wyoming has the same voice that California does. Purposefully.  Now, should that have changed when senators became directly elected instead of appointed by the state legislature (or governor, I don’t recall off hand)?  Probably, but that’s essentially the same argument as eliminating electoral college in favor of popular vote, but at a state level. 
or, should that change to directly elected senators never have taken place?  That’s relatively new to our country. 

States, particularly Western states, are fairly arbitrary constructs of democracy.  To prioritize those constructs over democracy itself is fucking stupid.  California and Wyoming having the same power in the Senate is fucking stupid.  Tradition should not trump logic.  An appreciation of history does not excuse the acceptance of a bullshit situation.  If there is any historical characteristic that Americans should embrace it's that history does not dictate the future.  If it did, we'd still be English. 

 

 

[Tuco 5076]

9 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

Disagree. There is a States' chamber and a People's chamber. And that's a good design based on how the country was and is designed. 

It's a foundational aspect of the nation and changing it would essentially be such a huge change that a complete dissolution and reorganization would be called for (and the expectation should be that many States would no longer want to be included).

p.s. This thread is about the People's chamber. 

I concur that we aren't going to change the Senate, or the Electoral College for that matter.  But appreciating the practical obstacles to that change and agreeing that the current situation makes sense are two vastly different things.  

[FondrenRoad 4378]

6 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

The people don’t have a voice in the senate, the states do. Wyoming has the same voice that California does. Purposefully.  Now, should that have changed when senators became directly elected instead of appointed by the state legislature (or governor, I don’t recall off hand)?  Probably, but that’s essentially the same argument as eliminating electoral college in favor of popular vote, but at a state level. 
or, should that change to directly elected senators never have taken place?  That’s relatively new to our country. 

Its unsustainable to have such a disparity in population and revenue generation, yet provide them the same exact power to govern. 

Wyoming should supply 1/50 of US tax revenue then. Instead, they send Californians to die overseas on California's dime. 

Pretty much every thing that conservatives complain about with the EU is barely present in the EU which actually considers population and economic output in governance.  Cyprus doesn't have the same power as Germany in the EU.  Nor should it. Likewise, Wyoming should not have the same power as California. 

Conservatives need to decide if they actually want the USA to be a nation or not.  What you seem to really want is a confederacy of otherwise independent states.  If thats the case then you are going to have to let blue states self govern and manage their own tax burdens, and pay up into the confederate system according to a schedule.  The top down system doesn't work.  There isn't another nation in the world that allows its poorest and least populated regions to rule with an iron fist. 

[pyrohornIII 4809]

I agree with all your arguments, Huck.  It makes much more sense to do business using the technology available than trying to do it according to a model built during the horse and buggy days.  

Put the reps back in their districts.  Make them available to all their constituents.   Don't let them go hide in DC.  

I would gladly support the salary and staffing costs increase to the influence of my input on my representation. 

Also go to 4 year terms on representatives not 2.  But consider term limits, like maybe 16 years?  

 

2 hours ago, FondrenRoad said:

I dont really want to take away their statehood. I simply think that playing by rules from the 1800s designed to gobble up land from coast to coast is a dumb way to govern in the 21st century. There is no more land left to gobble up. Time to start focusing on the people instead of the land. 

So I dont think that Wyoming with 600,000 pepple should have the power it has over California's 40 million people.  Let the 40 million people speak for themselves.  If the only option is to revoke statehood, then we do that.  But I'd prefer we just reform our fucked up system instead. 

Robert?  Robert Reich?  

[Dnaguy 11776]

2 hours ago, FondrenRoad said:

States should also have a minimum population to be states and have Senators. If they don't have it, they can merge with another state or revert to territory status. 

State style relegation?

United States of the Premier League?

I like it!

[Guest]

I'm cool with the expansion...but the total congressional payroll and benefits stay at what they are now, relative to GDP.

 

 

Who am i kidding?  They make their income off underhanded deals and racketeering.   Oh well... it sounded good.