The Size of the House of Representatives

[osofaux]

I searched the forum here to ascertain if this has been covered before, and found nothing, so I'd like to ask others their thoughts on a particular subject. Until even just recently, I've been pretty clueless about our system of government, but Ron Paul has changed all that. I find myself wanting to better understand his positions, and critically examining our history, our constitution, etc.

Having prefaced with that, I've not seen the size of the House of Representatives really discussed much, although there is a website dedicated to the subject at the following link:

http://thirty-thousand.org/

From what I've read there, it seems like a fairly important issue. In fact, it was so important that some of the states would not ratify the Constitution without a promise to settle the size issue with an amendment. The drafters apparently were not concerned about the House being to big, but too small, lest it be too private and too easy to corrupt.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this with everyone here, as I presume since we are all Paul supporters that we are all interested in matters pertaining to the Constitution. I'd love to hear some thoughts on this.

Brian

[foofighter20x]

Had Article I of the Bill of Rights been ratified (Article II is the 27th Amendment; Articles 3-12 became Amendments 1-10) the current size of the House would be somewhere around like 630 members.

[osofaux]

Had Article I of the Bill of Rights been ratified (Article II is the 27th Amendment; Articles 3-12 became Amendments 1-10) the current size of the House would be somewhere around like 630 members.

[edit - pardon my ignorance of the ratification process, I'm learning] :)

According to the website, had it been ratified, the House would now have a minimum size of 200 and a maximum size of 5,628, as of the year 2000.

Had the House version not been changed, the range would be from 5,628 to 9,380, again for the year 2000.

[foofighter20x]

Uh... :confused: No.

The first veto had nothing to do with the proposed Bill of Rights as the president has no constitutional role in proposing amendment (see: Article V).

The first veto had everything to with the apportionment formula Congress devised to divy out House seats after the first census.


Edit to your edit... Yes. I reread this... You are correct with your edit.

Although... I'm trying to remember where I got that 630 member number. I read it somewhere years ago. I'm thinking it was incorrect... Hmm...

[foofighter20x]

Anyway...

My proposal for the House is this:

1) Chuck reapportionment. It's stupid.
2) Fix House size at an odd number between 275-325.
3) Elect the body nationally by party list voting.
4) Once parties have their seats, let them district the country to their seats as they see best.

Example:
A) Assuming the House size was 325, each political party would publish a list of 325 candidates to fill all the seats if they were to win all the votes.
B) The voters then vote for the list of candidates they like best.
C) For every 0.3% of the national vote a party gets, that party gets 1 seat.
D) If a party wins 100 seats, the first 100 candidates on their list get seated.
E) If a seat becomes vacant, the party that possesses that seat then puts the next candidate on their list in that seat.
F) If a person is listed on multiple party lists, that person must declare which party he will caucus with. All other parties then skip his name on their list.

[Bradley in DC]

Anyway...

My proposal for the House is this:

1) Chuck reapportionment. It's stupid.
2) Fix House size at an odd number between 275-325.
3) Elect the body nationally by party list voting.
4) Once parties have their seats, let them district the country to their seats as they see best.

Example:
A) Assuming the House size was 325, each political party would publish a list of 325 candidates to fill all the seats if they were to win all the votes.
B) The voters then vote for the list of candidates they like best.
C) For every 0.3% of the national vote a party gets, that party gets 1 seat.
D) If a party wins 100 seats, the first 100 candidates on their list get seated.
E) If a seat becomes vacant, the party that posses that seat the puts the next candidate on their list in that seat.
F) If a person is listed on multiple party lists, that person must declare which party he will caucus with. All other parties then skip his name on their list.

Just curious, but you think the Aussie thing helps your cause? :D

Apportionment follows the census and makes total sense in that context. The number of seats is currently fixed at 435 (not counting non-voting delegates from DC, PR, Guam, Amer VI--more complicated than that). There is an active proposal right now to add two seats (one for DC and another for Utah which got cheated on the last census with missionaries abroad).

[foofighter20x]

Just curious, but you think the Aussie thing helps your cause? :D

*Shrug* I'm active duty USAF stationed overseas... I'm just being honest in saying where I currently live. :p

And you are right, apportionment does make sense in the context of giving each State representation.

My argument against that is such: small states, like WY, don't even have enough people to meet the 0.3% seat requirement in my example, but it's irrelevant; they have 2 guaranteed Senate seats! That more than makes up for any lack of a dedicated seat in the House. Not to mention that under my proposal political parties winning seats will cut their districts out of the whole country... Like, say 5 parties have seats, then that's at least 5 seated members who will have WY in their district. That's WAY more representation than they get in the House right now with only 1 seat.

[LibertyCzar]

I think in the 1920s, a law was passed to stop the growth of the House. They didn't want it to get too big, so it was frozen at 435 seats.

And we wonder why things are so bad? Representatives have more people in a district than was intended. In the Constitution, it refers to tens of thousands, but now we are nearing a million.

Committees also distort the Founders' intent of Congress. All people should have a say, through Representatives, on the formation of legislation, and not just in the amendment process. I actually like the idea of political party slates, and a smaller total. The States would still have equal representation in the Senate.

[DAZ]

Speaking about the nature of Congress, what about the fact that most if not all senators are now popularly elected instead of elected by the various state legislatures? I don't believe it is stated explicitly in the Constitution how they should be elected, but this swing towards popular election of Senators has left no one in the U.S. Congress beholden and accountable to the state legislatures. That means no one to protect our state governments from unfunded mandates. The individual citizen does not need to be represented by members of the Senate because we already have representation in the House of Representatives. Plus, if you think the number of constituents per Rep. is bad, think about how many constituents (on average) a Senator has.

[Bradley in DC]

My argument against that is such: small states, like WY, don't even have enough people to meet the 0.3% seat requirement in my example, but it's irrelevant; they have 2 guaranteed Senate seats! That more than makes up for any lack of a dedicated seat in the House. Not to mention that under my proposal political parties winning seats will cut their districts out of the whole country... Like, say 5 parties have seats, then that's at least 5 seated members who will have WY in their district. That's WAY more representation than they get in the House right now with only 1 seat.

If an election were not decided by the Electoral College and thrown to the House, my guess is that WY would want a vote!

[joenaab]

Anyway...

My proposal for the House is this:

1) Chuck reapportionment. It's stupid.
2) Fix House size at an odd number between 275-325.
3) Elect the body nationally by party list voting.
4) Once parties have their seats, let them district the country to their seats as they see best.

Example:
A) Assuming the House size was 325, each political party would publish a list of 325 candidates to fill all the seats if they were to win all the votes.
B) The voters then vote for the list of candidates they like best.
C) For every 0.3% of the national vote a party gets, that party gets 1 seat.
D) If a party wins 100 seats, the first 100 candidates on their list get seated.
E) If a seat becomes vacant, the party that possesses that seat then puts the next candidate on their list in that seat.
F) If a person is listed on multiple party lists, that person must declare which party he will caucus with. All other parties then skip his name on their list.

What's "reapportionment"?

I am very intrigued by this post in that it appears to represent a form of "proportional representation", of which I am a great proponent. For example, if 10% of Americans are Libertarian, they should have 10% of the seats in the House. Same goes for Constitutionalists, Greens, Socialists, etc. In our current system of "mob rules", we are only "represented" geographically (i.e. someone who lives "nearby"), but not always ideoligically. To be ideologically represented (i.e. political party) means much more to me than choosing the "republicrat" from my neighborhood who is not going to represent me.

I don't quite understand in your idea how parties would "district the country". Is this necessary? Maybe it is constitutionally, but I really don't care where they come from, as long as say, for example, me and my fellow Libertarians could put a proportionately representative number of Libertarians in the House. I would even support more innovative ideas such as, for example, if everyone had ten votes to divide amongst the "party lists" available.

foofighter, let's say your idea or a version of it gains momentum. What is the constitutional process to make this happen?

[foofighter20x]

The Constitutional process is amendment...

Sadly, I doubt it'd ever happen as there is no way the small states would ever give up their dedicated seat.

Reapportionment is the process of:
1) Taking the Census every 10 years
2) Based on the new census data, redistributing House seats to each state in proportion to the percentage of the national population the state has in order to reflect population growth/shift over those past 10 years.

Lastly, by districting the country, I mean this: if a party won 12 seats, they'd split the 50 states amongst those 12 seats (most likely following population lines) so as each seat represented an equal 1/12th of the country's population.

My way is better, I think, for the following reasons:
1) you no longer have the problem of Gerrymandering as each party must cut out districts themselves on a national level... they will want to make sure they represent the whole country, and they will include all areas as they know they won't get the votes of people they deliberately cut out
2) the fact that you'd only need, as in my example, like 0.3% of the national popular vote, smaller parties could easily get a seat... as it becomes easier to get a seat, more people will be enticed to vote... just look at the libs and greens and constitutionalists... they each get like 1% every prez election year, which would be an easy 3 seats. also, you can be sure a lot of people would balk from the main parties as their smaller parties are more electable.
3) instead of having to wait every 10 years, under this system the seats will redistribute themselves every 2 years, more rapidly and more accurately representing the voting population
4) vacancies are obviously never going to be a problem
5) the parties themselves will strategize via their candidate list the best representational order that will get the people they want into office, yet at the same time appeal to the broadest base of support possible in order to get the most votes.



Bradley... I'd leave the Electoral College as it is, maintaining the current method of apportioning electoral votes as it currently stands. there'd need to be an amendment further stating this though...

[joenaab]

Lastly, by districting the country, I mean this: if a party won 12 seats, they'd split the 50 states amongst those 12 seats (most likely following population lines) so as each seat represented an equal 1/12th of the country's population.

So there'd be a type of "overlapping" in that each party would divide up the entire country in 1/Xth divisions based on number of seats? Each citizen would then have as many representatives as there are parties with seats in the House (i.e. one designated Rep per party per citizen)?


2) the fact that you'd only need, as in my example, like 0.3% of the national popular vote, smaller parties could easily get a seat... as it becomes easier to get a seat, more people will be enticed to vote... just look at the libs and greens and constitutionalists... they each get like 1% every prez election year, which would be an easy 3 seats. also, you can be sure a lot of people would balk from the main parties as their smaller parties are more electable.

I think this is the key point. Participation will skyrocket. I think within the first or second election cycle the sum of democrat and republican seats wouldn't exceed 50%. Your estimate of 1% is very conservative. Here's what I'm seeing:

1) Of the 100 million eligible voters who don't vote, whatever number of them entered the political process would all enter in the non-D&R parties. This could be 50 million or more.

2) There would be a FLOOD out of the two big parties, led by those who already associate themselves with libertarians, greens, etc., and followed by those who would immediately find that they are better represented by these other parties.

3) The democrat and republican parties would morph quickly into taking platforms more representative of what Americans want based on where they are running to. They might even split into specialized parties, such as green-democrats or constitutionalist-republicans.

My personal belief is that there can never be fair representation without this type of proportional representation. The powers that be would fight this will all their might.

I helped some friends in British Colombia several years ago who were championing an initiative to implement this at the provincial level. The hurdles to get it on the ballot were brutal. Had it made the ballot, it would have passed easily, but you needed 10% of the population in each and every district in the province to have signed a petition to get it on the ballot. They didn't have enough manpower to canvas the entire province, and only fell short of getting 10% in a few districts. They encountered almost no opposition among the people.

[foofighter20x]

Your estimate of 1% is very conservative.

Don't get me wrong. I was just going on historical voting rates... I know there are lots more than that, but those that don't vote their party are the asshats that prop up the 2 party system. If the system worked this way, they wouldn't find themselves holding their nose and picking the less smelly of the two options.

[joenaab]

Don't get me wrong. I was just going on historical voting rates... I know there are lots more than that, but those that don't vote their party are the asshats that prop up the 2 party system. If the system worked this way, they wouldn't find themselves holding their nose and picking the less smelly of the two options.

I figured that's what you were basing it on.

I used to be one of those asshats. Then I started voting Libertarian across the board about sixteen years ago. When that didn't help I moved to Brazil.

[constituent14]

Talk about conspiracy. There are more people in Shiner than the House of Representatives.