Answer to redistricting: Enlarge Congress

Townhall.com ^ | 12-19-03 | Jonah Goldberg

[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.

[DeuceTraveler]

I disagree. Because we have a small legislature the government is more wieldy. Too large a legislature can become cumbersome and make it harder to observe corruption in the government. We already have trouble watching the few hundred elected crooks in power.

[FairWitness]

I was surprised that a search did not show this article as being posted yet since Jonah's writing is generally posted here. Apologies if I missed it in my search.

I felt compelled to post this article since it coincided with a "vanity" that I posted a while ago: We are all "Disenfranchised" (Too Few Representatives)--Vanity.

[ClintonBeGone]

Ugh, I don't know if I could stomach a LARGER congress.

[ken5050]

Maybe the DUMBEST thing he's ever written....Marriage has turned his mind to mush...remember the old joke about Reagan's plan to cure poverty...50,000 teams in the NBA...

[Wombat101]

Yeah, good idea! Let's find some more jobs for untalented, sticky-fingered folks that act like organized crime figures!

[RebelBanker]

Oh, come on, Jonah! More Congresscritters??!! You call that an answer? I think you are just blowing smoke! The idea is to get the House so big that it becomes completely unable to function, so no new laws can get passed. Then, all we have to do is let a lot of existing stupid laws sunset. Nice theory, but the current crop of Congresscritters wants to hold on to their perks and power, so will block any effort to dilute it, including increasing their number.

[FairWitness]

Re-posting a table from my earlier post, demonstrating how we (U.S.A.) have (except for India), the highest "population per representative" ratio amongst majot countries.

Population, Number of Representatives in House (Lower Chamber) of Congress and Ratio of Population to Representatives for Major Nations of the World

Nation	Population (1)	Representatives (2) ("Lower" Chamber)	Pop./Representative
India	1,045,845,226	545	1,918,982
United States	280,562,489	435	644,971
Indonesia	231,328,092	500	462,656
Bangladesh	133,376,684	300	444,589
Pakistan	147,663,429	342	431,764
China (PRC)	1,284,303,705	2,985	430,252
Philippines	84,525,639	220	384,207
Nigeria	129,934,911	360	360,930
Brazil	176,029,560	513	343,138
Russia	144,978,573	450	322,175
Japan	126,974,628	480	264,530
Peru	27,949,639	120	232,914
Iran	66,622,704	290	229,733
Mexico	103,400,165	500	206,800
Saudi Arabia	23,513,330	120	195,944
S. Korea	48,324,000	273	177,011
Vietnam	81,098,416	498	162,848
Egypt	70,712,345	454	155,754
Venezuela	24,287,670	165	147,198
Argentina	37,812,817	257	147,132
Kenya	31,138,735	224	139,012
Germany	83,251,851	603	138,063
Ecuador	13,183,978	100	131,840
Australia	19,357,594	150	129,051
Chile	15,328,467	120	127,737
Thailand	62,354,402	500	124,709
Ethiopia	67,673,031	550	123,042
Turkey	67,308,928	550	122,380
Guatemala	12,974,361	113	114,817
Spain	40,077,100	350	114,506
Netherlands	15,981,472	150	106,543
Canada	31,902,268	301	105,988
France	59,765,983	577	103,581
Italy	57,715,625	630	91,612
United Kingdom	59,778,002	659	90,710
Poland	38,625,478	460	83,968
Belgium	10,258,762	150	68,392
Bolivia	8,300,463	130	63,850
Czech Republic	10,264,212	200	51,321
Israel	5,938,093	120	49,484
Austria	8,150,835	183	44,540
Portugal	10,066,253	230	43,766
Switzerland	7,283,274	200	36,416
Greece	10,623,835	300	35,413
New Zealand	3,864,129	120	32,201
Denmark	5,352,815	179	29,904
Norway	4,503,440	165	27,294
Hungary	10,106,017	386	26,181
Finland	5,175,783	200	25,879
Sweden	8,875,053	349	25,430
Ireland	3,840,838	166	23,138

1) Population (nations > 20,000,000) is the 2002 estimated population from GeoHive-Global Data-Top 50, or for smaller nations (nations < 20,000,000), from GeoHive-Global Data-All. 2) The number of members (Representatives) in the "Lower House" of each national parliament is taken from the PARLINE Database of the International Organization of Parliaments of Sovereign States (IPU).

[FairWitness]

Lots of reactivity here. If you feel that being one of 650,000 people represented by your representative allows your "voice to be heard", good enough.

[thoughtomator]

Yeah like if 435 of them don't work, 600 would? Sounds like an awful waste of money to pay even more people to be corrupt.

[cordeiro]

600 more people wandering aimlessly around Capitol Hill? There's enough gridlock up there already.

[Salvey]

The size of the Congress has increased from time to time, so I see no good reason not to enlarge it somewhat --not in the thousands, as suggested, but perhaps up to, say, 500. That would surely give the "red" states more clout, and therefore be more reflective of the true political tone of the country.

[Paladin2]

Obviously the answer is to make the country's population much smaller. ;-)

A larger Congress is unlikely to make the country better. As long as the redistricting process makes most districts "a sure thing" for one party or the other, your voice (w/o some monetary "lubrication") is unlikely to be heard no matter the number of constituents.

[ZOOKER]

Goldberg has a point, but I'm not convinced.

The number of constituents per Rep has increased, to the point that they can't give heed to individuals. Write your congressman and chances are you get an automated reply from a PR flack (unless you are Bill Gates or General Motors). Going door to door is impossible, a congressman would never get to see even a fraction of his constituents.

OTOH, I believe in the idea of limited government, and this is definitely not it.

[glorgau]

I can't agree more. The only way to talk to a congressperson these days is either be lucky, or have money. The congress should be like the political conventions of old. Hold sessions in a stadium. 5,000 would be good number to start. To keep costs down they all couldn't all be full time with the staffs that they have now. Perhaps only term limited chairpersons, etc.

[FairWitness]

From the article: 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.

[deport]

But a couple thousand wouldn't be a bad way to start.

---

Yep, another 1565 blowhards to suck up tax dollars and divy up more pork is all that's needed..... Much more efficient and responsive I'm sure....

Heck maybe they should reduce today's number by 1/2 and limit the session days to 180 days.... let them spend some time in their districts with their constituents.....

[metesky]

One of the first posts I ever made on FR was about lack of representation. That post was pooh-poohed simular to this one.

When the BOR was submitted to Congress, the original 1st Amendment was as follows:

Article the first [Not Ratified] After the first enumeration required by the first article of the Constitution, there shall be one Representative for every thirty thousand, until the number shall amount to one hundred, after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall be not less than one hundred Representatives, nor less than one Representative for every forty thousand persons, until the number of Representatives shall amount to two hundred; after which the proportion shall be so regulated by Congress, that there shall not be less than two hundred Representatives, nor more than one Representative for every fifty thousand persons.

This was one of those times when the Founders simply screwed up.

[expatpat]

My immediate reaction was NO, but he makes a good case....

..

[mongrel]

A higher number of smaller districts won't bring an end to gerrymandering. They make it even easier with more normal looking districts. Even with a total population of 1,000, ten districts, and evenly split political beliefs--you can gerrymander it so that one has a clear advantage. All it takes is mostly 60/40 districts favoring one party, and a few 100% districts favoring the other party. In this instance, the party that controls redistricting would have an 8-2 advantage.