“A further improvement should be to do away with the present limits on the size of the US House and at least double the size of it in one fell swoop.”
I think it needs to be quadrupled personally. In fact, that might not be enough :-). It’s the one aspect of FedGov I want to see increase ... more Reps in the House :-).
The main reason that will never happen is control. If you’d expand the House, you’d lose the two party stranglehold (it wouldn’t cost as much to run a campaign), it’d be far more difficult to corrupt (costs a LOT more when you’re facing 1200 people to buy vs 435), and the Reps would be a lot more in tune with their constituents (an added bonus here is if your candidate lost, you probably won’t get the communist whackjob alternative).
I can’t see much of a downside to growing the House significantly ... doubling it would be a start, but I don’t think you’d see an improvement until it’s quadrupled in size or more. I know there are issues with the salaries and pensions, but that can be addressed if the idea would ever gain some momentum.
I was thinking in terms of sustained chaos to really kill off the swamp.
Doubling throws every incumbent into a district that isn’t their own turf against new blood and it also surrounds them with new blood.
But as you say, doubling isn’t enough.
That’s why I referred to steady movement in increments towards a smaller maximum population districts to happen over time. Combined with actual growth in the population the result would be constantly shifting boundaries in congressional districts. Incumbents in that sort of environment have fewer advantages. Where with a rapid one time explosion in numbers you just don’t get that, incumbents can get cozy.