“If the 30,000 person per Representative were reinstated, giving us a U.S. House of nearly 11,000 members, it would effectively render that body completely useless and UNMANAGEABLE.”
I agree with your last word. People like Pelosi WOULD NOT HAVE A PRAYER at keeping her Dems in line, rather, if they wanted to keep their seats they would be forced to vote as their districts want. Likewise, a Republican voting for Amnesty in a district of 30,000 people would have A MUCH TOUGHER TIME explaining that vote in a small district than a large district.
The people who wrote the Constitution were not idiots, I suspect that they picked the 30,000 number because it was the highest number of people possible to represent and still have personal contact with everyone that wanted that contact. That hasn’t changed, even in 230 years.
They started to raise the number almost at once. But at the time, of a 30,000 constituency, say less than half that would be males, so you’re down to 14,000 or so who could vote due to gender. Reduce that down even more to those who were qualified to vote due to being landowners, and you’re down to a fraction of that.
Case in point, for Delaware in the first 1789 House election where it was allotted 1 seat, a grand total of 2,059 men cast a ballot (and in those days, that was usually a public display). In 1790, just 501 voted.
The folks that could vote then were those that were the distinguished members of the community, those with an explicit interest in seeing its betterment. Today, close to half the voters are parasites with no other interest than voting themselves money and benefits (to which 1789 voters would be appalled at and would like demand our responsible class revolt over).
I’m personally more concerned over whom casts a ballot today. If you take from the producing class, you have no right to cast a ballot. If you work for the government in any capacity (save military or law enforcement/public safety), you have no business casting a ballot, because you’re voting on your own job. That’s why they did not want Washington, D.C. casting votes, since presumably that’s where government workers would live, and they would no doubt be surprised at the outcome today with allowing them to do so.
When I used the word unmanageable or unwieldy, I do mean it as a negative. You’d think the parties would not be able to control their members, although they’d likely find a way. 30,000 constituents would be like a Councilmanic level office, and even those today feel the pressure to vote like the national parties, and that doesn’t harm them one bit.
You’d also have huge areas of rotten borough districts and virtual “no mans land” areas. Imagine Detroit with 600,000 people having twenty Congressmembers. Ditto Baltimore.
Perhaps once we redefined those that should be able to vote, we can enlarge the House, but quantify that districts should be based upon a number of qualified voters to avoid those aforementioned rotten borough districts where perhaps as few as a dozen voters could elect someone representing 30k. 30,000 member districts should represent 30,000 voters. Doing that would increase the present membership of Congress from 435 to about 4,300+ (before you whittle down the “takers”), in which case by that time you’d have about 2,000+ potential members. That would be large, but far more representative of what you’re advocating.