Posted on 12/19/2003 7:26:07 AM PST by FairWitness
Last week, when everyone who understands the First Amendment was rightly having conniptions over the Supreme Court's ruling that political speech can be severely regulated under the rubric of "campaign finance reform," the court also heard arguments in a major redistricting case brought by Pennsylvania Democrats. They're upset because they have a statewide advantage of some 445,000 votes but Democrats hold only seven of the state's 19 congressional seats. Their claim: Congressional districts are being drawn unfairly.
Truth be told, I don't particularly care much about the details of this case. The Democrats complain that the Republicans redrew the map so as to eliminate three Democratic seats. The Republicans say, you guys did it to us for decades, it's your turn to suck eggs.
OK, I may not be capturing the legal subtleties as well some scholars might. But the point is, it was ever thus. Gerrymandering - drawing districts for partisan advantage - is neither unconstitutional nor new. Indeed, the Supreme Court has made it clear that the only districts that violate constitutional principles are the ones excessively and explicitly gerrymandered along racial lines - you know, like the North Carolina district that snaked along Interstate 85 looking something like an X-ray of a colonoscopy.
Yes, I think Republicans in Texas and Colorado probably went too far when they decided to redraw congressional districts after the once-a-decade window was closed. And, maybe the Pennsylvania GOP has gone too far, though it doesn't seem like it to me.
But, look: It is simply inevitable that politicians will fight to draw congressional districts in the most advantageous way possible. Expecting them not to is like expecting Yogi Bear to abstain from eating picnic baskets for the sake of improving tourism.
I have the solution: Make Congress bigger. A lot bigger.
With 435 members, the U.S. Congress is one of the smallest representative bodies in the world. By "smallest" I mean literally and relatively. The British House of Commons is much bigger (659) and so is the British House of Lords (approx. 500). The French National Assembly (577 members) is bigger, as is the Mexican Chamber of Deputies (500), the Russian Duma (450) and so on. But, it's not just in absolute terms. Due to their smaller populations, these countries have fewer citizens for each representative, making them far more democratic.
The founding fathers wanted the U.S. Congress to grow with the population - and it did until 1920 when it froze at 435, largely as a failed effort to limit immigrant political influence. The only time George Washington chimed in during the constitutional convention was to implore his colleagues to reduce the size of congressional districts to 30,000 from a proposed 40,000. In the Federalist Papers, James Madison defended the size of these districts from numerous critics who considered them too large! Such mammoth districts, the critics believed, would amount to a tyranny.
Today the average congressional district has about 600,000 people in it (single-district Montana has closer to 1 million). By comparison, in 1790, half of the 16 U.S. states didn't have a combined population of 600,000. By today's standards, the 1790 House of Representatives would have had seven members and the Senate 24.
All of the ideas for fixing congressional districting call for more and more undemocratic intrusions into the process, particularly by unelected federal judges. Liberals and sympathetic judges want more minority representation. Fine. Most of us want representatives to reflect the values of their communities. That's fine too. Lots of people want "big money" gone from congressional elections. Also fine.
Expanding Congress might solve all of these supposed problems. A bigger Congress would be far more open to blacks, Hispanics, et al, for obvious reasons. Because fewer people would be electing them, representatives would have every reason to spend more time talking to a bigger share of their communities. And as for the influence of money, money would become less important in districts where TV ad spending was less of a prerequisite. And if you're worried about pork-barrel spending, there's every reason to believe it would be harder to get pet projects through a bigger Congress.
I don't know if we should have districts of 30,000 these days. That would create a Congress of more than 8,000 representatives. But a couple thousand wouldn't be a bad way to start.
Yes, there'd be a seating problem in Congress. But those guys are never all there to begin with and the British Parliament has had a standing-room only section for years. All of the voting is computerized, so that's not an obstacle.
The only thing keeping this from happening is that Congress gets to decide. And there's no reason to expect those guys to divvy up their own picnic baskets.
Jonah Goldberg is editor of National Review Online, a Townhall.com member group.
Aside from the relatively small extra cost of Congress itself, that may not be a bad thing. Presumably staffs could be much smaller.
It would certainly change the relationship of the House and the Senate.
Source: Growth in U.S. Population Calls for Larger House of Representatives by Margo Anderson.
Bottom line, if we follow the 'cube-root' model, we would now have 588 Representatives based on the 2000 census, instead of the current number of 435 dating from 1910. Sounds about right to me...
dvwjr
Amen, brudda! We are no more represented today than we were by George III's parliament.
BAD IDEA. We have that here in West Virginia with our delegate districts to the State House and it stinks. In such districts, we end up with deadbeat ('Rat) delegates who ride on the coat-tails of the other delegate(s) who either do all the work or don't and then point a finger instead. As such, there's mass confusion, nothing gets done, and our state is a mess (and you thought California's was bad?). Of course, the 'Rats love this.
This is why there is a statewide drive now (by Republicans) for SINGLE Delegate districts where the delegate can and will be held individually responsible to his/her constituents. When politicians are held accountable, more good things than bad things tend to get done.
RE your suggestion for 3 senators - I think there was some discussion of this during the constitutional convention...will look it up. Of course, the real problem with the senate is that they're elected in the first place. The proper solution is to repeal the 17th amendment and go back to having the respective state legislatures choose their senators. Thus, citizen election of their state legislators becomes MORE important thus transfers more responsibility downstream... makes politics more local. Senators can then spend all their time actually working rather than campaigning/fundraising/sucking-up to lobbyists & special interests.
"In the first place, it is to be remarked that, however small the republic may be, the representatives must be raised to a certain number, in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and that, however large it may be, they must be limited to a certain number, in order to guard against the confusion of a multitude. Hence, the number of representatives in the two cases not being in proportion to that of the two constituents, and being proportionally greater in the small republic, it follows that, if the proportion of fit characters be not less in the large than in the small republic, the former will present a greater option, and consequently a greater probability of a fit choice.
In the next place, as each representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large than in the small republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried; and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to centre in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and established characters.
It must be confessed that in this, as in most other cases, there is a mean, on both sides of which inconveniences will be found to lie. By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the representatives too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and lesser interests; as by reducing it too much, you render him unduly attached to these, and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects. The federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great and aggregate interests being referred to the national, the local and particular to the State legislatures."
The article you linked says the number 588 is based off of the 1990 census, when it says the population was about 203 million (This census document says the 1990 population was 249 million, so who knows). According to the linked document, the 2000 census counted 281 million Americans, which by the method in question would produce a 655 member house.
To me it seems a matter of common sense that the size of the House should increase to keep up with the rising population. The closer the representatives are to the people, the better representative democracy works. It's simple. Once you pass 1000 things begin to get unwieldy and impractical, but adding 2 or 3 hundred couldn't hurt.
I'm not convinced by the arguments presented here against it.
The basic problem of course is that any subtitute proposals will never make it through Congress to be sent to the states.
Unless, of course, they start to feel the heat.
That's no more than 3,000, and more like 2,700.
And you shouldn't forget that Madison was writing in order to get the Constitution ratified, before Aaron Burr founded Tammany Hall and taught the Rats how to steal elections.
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