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The Hill
America
has outgrown the House of Representatives
By Matthew Cossolotto
November 21, 2001
The
2000 census has highlighted an important issue � the woefully
inadequate size of the U.S. House of Representatives. New York and
Pennsylvania are slated to lose two House seats while eight other
states � Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi,
Ohio, Oklahoma and Wisconsin � will lose one each.
What�s going on here? After all, the framers of the
Constitution envisioned that the House would grow in size along with
the country�s population. This was supposed to take place every 10
years as part of the reapportionment process following each
decennial census.
As
James Madison wrote in Federalist Paper 55: �I take for granted �
that the number of representatives will be augmented from time to
time in the manner provided by the Constitution.� A number of
prominent commentators, including syndicated columnists George F.
Will and Robert Novak, and Paul Jacob of U.S. Term Limits, have
forcefully advocated increasing the size of the House from its
present 435 members.
Americans should be asking a simple question: Why 435? There
is absolutely nothing magic or sacrosanct about 435. And yet, the
public and the media seem to have grown so accustomed to a
435-member House that we accept it as the natural order of things,
almost as if it was mandated by the Constitution.
But
the number 435, which was set in 1911 when the population reached 92
million, is completely arbitrary. The Constitution does not
stipulate an upper limit to the number of representatives in the
House. We could just as easily have 535 or 835
members.
Through some legislative sleight-of-hand following the 1920
census, the House decided, contrary to established practice, not to
increase its size. The House did by statute what should arguably
require a constitutional amendment � capping its membership at
435.
As a
result, after every decennial census we go through an agonizing
process of zero-sum reapportionment. Based on the latest census
data, we determine which states will lose and which states will gain
seats in the artificially capped 435-member House.
But
it doesn�t have to be this way. Instead of a zero-sum game pitting
state against state, reapportionment could be a much fairer, win-win
process if the House would only lift its self-imposed, cartel-like
ceiling on the supply of representation in America. Call it
�supply-side� representation.
Some
historical perspective is in order. In 1789, the very first House of
Representatives consisted of 65 members. Since the nation�s
population was roughly 4 million people at the time, each member of
the House represented approximately 62,000 people.
As the U.S. population grew, so too did the
supply of representation. By 1911, the year the House increased its
membership to the current level, 92 million Americans enjoyed a per
capita representation � the total population divided by the number
of House members in any given year � of roughly 210,000.
After
the 2000 census, each member of the House will have to represent an
average of 650,000 people. Consider that the next time you try to
set up an appointment with your �representative.�
The
country has changed a great deal since 1911. Not only has the
population more than trebled � from 92 million to 281 million �
we�ve also seen a dramatic and long-overdue expansion of the voting
franchise.
Consider the changing nature of the electorate since the
1920s � with women�s suffrage, the civil rights and voting rights
movements in the 1960s and the reduction of the voting age to 18 in
the 1970s. These changes mean that a much higher proportion of the
total population is eligible to vote and to demand representation
than ever before.
Compared with other established democracies, a 435-member
House is decidedly on the cramped side. The British House of
Commons, for instance, has 651 members who represent a population of
about 60 million. The French National Assembly consists of 577
members for about 60 million people. Only the smaller countries of
Europe, with populations well below 20 million, have national
legislatures smaller than our House of
Representatives.
The
House prides itself on being �the People�s House.� But the reality
is a far cry from that ideal. The country has effectively outgrown
our old 435-member House. It�s like a starter home for a young
couple. Once the kids arrive, it�s time to get a bigger house. In
the past 90 years the American family has added lots and lots of
kids. So it�s time to enlarge the House to give our growing and
diverse population greater access to the representation they deserve
� the level of representation envisioned in the
Constitution.
If the House of Representatives refuses to
raise its OPEC-style, self-imposed and self-serving ceiling of 435
members, the representation-starved American people should raise the
roof!
Matthew Cossolotto
was an aide to former Speaker Jim Wright (D-Texas.) and former Rep.
Leon Panetta (D-Calif.), and is the author of The Almanac of
European Politics and vice president of the Center for Voting &
Democracy in Yorktown Heights, N.Y. He can be reached at www.fairvote.org
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