Patrick Henry's famous words, "no taxation without representation," are as important and relevant today, as they were when he first said them in 1750.
Back then, Americans didn't have proper representation in the King's government. Today, it's the same thing ... as Americans, we don't have proper representation in Washington.
In the current U.S. House of Representatives, each member "represents" around 674,000 (FY2005) constituents. Now, this may surprise you ... but this puts United States citizens among the least represented people in government, anywhere on the globe!
As Jeff Jacoby noted in The Boston Globe:
Divide Iraq's 25 million people by the number of members in the new parliament (275), and the result is one legislator for every 91,000 people. That will make Iraq's government almost exactly as representative as Great Britain's -- each member of the House of Commons also represents, on average, about 91,000 citizens. Other democracies are comparable. The ratio for Italy's Chamber of Deputies is 1 to 92,000. For the French National Assembly, 1 to 104,000. For Canada's House of Commons, 1 to 105,000. For Germany's Bundestag, 1 to 136,000.
A Brief History Lesson:
After the ratification of our Constitution, the number of representatives in the House increased about every 10 years, all the way through the 1910 consensus, which established the number of representatives we have currently - 435.
After the 1920 consensus, Congress failed to reapportion the House (in violation of the Constitution), and then decided they wanted an automatic (rather than mathematical method) to reapportionment. So they passed "The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929," and locked the number in, at 435.
Why 435?
That's a good question! Missouri Representative Ralph Lozier asked the same thing during the debates leading up to the passage of this act.
The bill seeks to prescribe a national policy under which the membership of the House shall never exceed 435 unless Congress, by affirmative action, overturns the formula and abandons the policy enunciated by this bill. I am unalterably opposed to limiting the membership of the House to the arbitrary number of 435. Why 435? Why not 400? Why not 300? Why not 250, 450, 535, or 600? Why is this number 435 sacred? What merit is there in having a membership of 435 that we would not have if the membership were 335 or 535? There is no sanctity in the number 435 ... There is absolutely no reason, philosophy, or common sense in arbitrarily fixing the membership of the House at 435 or at any other number.
In a free society, where legitimate governments "[derive] their just powers from the consent of the governed," it is of absolute importance that the citizens of the United States receive just representation in Washington.
But ... more politicians? Doesn't that mean bigger government?
Nope. In fact, I believe a greater number of representatives would most likely lead to smaller government, but first, let's take a look at the problems that exist due to the current "Super-sized Congressional Districts":
- Citizens have become estranged from the federal government and, feeling disaffected, are failing to vote at alarmingly high rates. Low voter turnout creates a political vacuum that is frequently filled by mobilized fringe interest groups (ACORN for example).
- The House of Representatives has devolved into a virtual oligarchy. It is also worth noting that the United States has the second largest House districts in the world (India has the largest).
- The federal House of Representatives is in egregious violation of the one person one vote principle due to the range in size of congressional districts across the country.
- The average continuous tenure of all Representatives serving in the 108th Congress (2003 - 2005) was 10.2 years. Of all the Representatives in the 108th Congress who sought reelection to the 109th, over 97% won. Once elected, Representatives become virtually undefeatable even if their performance in office has been mediocre, incompetent, or worse.
- The candidate who appears to be the most agreeable to the dominant constituency groups almost always beat the candidates who take a principled stand. This is why Democratic vs. Republican has become almost indistinguishable.
- In super-sized districts, too much time and effort gets placed on getting re-elected every two years. It takes a lot more time and money to campaign in a district of 674,000, than it would if the number was 100,000 (for example).
- The size of the Electoral College is based on the number of members in the House. Mathematically speaking, the smaller the Electoral College, the less likely it is to reflect the popular vote.
- Super-sized districts create voter disenfranchisement. The federal House of Representatives is in egregious violation of the one person one vote principle due to the range in size of congressional districts across the country. As it stands today, some Americans get more representation than others. See chart below.
click to enlarge
Benefits to increasing the size of our House of Representatives:
- A greater amount of bodies in the House decreases the likelihood of political collusion, as well as, reducing the passage of legislation based on groupthink.
- Diversity! The many views and values of "we the people," are more likely to find a voice in the House. With only 435 representatives, "we the people" have been homogenized and herded into groups by politicians.
- With each candidate needing to win fewer votes, the House would become "the people's House" again.
- The purpose of the House is not only to represent the citizenry, but also to protect the citizens from the government.
- Instead of just a face on TV and a name, it becomes more likely that you will know (or have met) your representative.
- A smaller constituency promotes political intimacy between people and their representative, thus requiring candidates for office to be more principled. After all, it's much more likely they'll be held accountable by their constituents!
- The closer relationship also reduces the likelihood of outside special interest groups sticking their nose in your community.
- Elections would return to personal campaigning and local affiliation, instead of expensive mass-media advertising.
- No longer would states have to lose seats in Congress even as their population grows.
There's a lot more to discuss in terms of this idea, but I wanted to get the conversation started. I'll touch upon it further and dig into more detail in the near future.
So for now ... think about it. And remember the first paragraph of our Declaration of Independence:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
P.S. - Make sure to visit Thirty-Thousand.org!
Stephanie,
Thanks for commenting …
I think smaller districts would change the “mass-media” format we have today. For one, it wouldn’t be cost-effective in smaller areas. Two, with each individual rep having significantly less influence, they wouldn’t be able to raise the campaign dough (from special interests) to buy the (now unneeded) mass media.
With more reps, it’s not about the “masses” anymore, but about the neighborhoods and the people!
Maybe not everyone will want to meet their rep, but regardless, their vote will mean a whole lot more to that rep because he/she has fewer votes to rely on … In other words, it’s more likely that the rep will reach out to people!
And what a change that would be!
Thanks for the link, I’ll be checking it regularly. And thanks for stopping by my blog. I started it because I felt it was time to “change” the entire political debate. Red Team vs. Blue Team just isn’t working anymore.
I’m interested to hear your thoughts on proportional representation. I appreciate your comments and increasing the size of the House seems more in line with our Constitution but I wonder if that would be simply bringing more troops into the same battle.
The reason I wonder this is that I believe that mass-media marketing has become the norm for campaigning and most of the people I know could care less about meeting their representatives or doing more beyond watching campaign ads and reading the ballot descriptions. The mud-slinging commercials seem to fit our laziness as voters. (present company excluded
One upside to increasing the numbers in the House would be that it would be more affordable to campaign and open up politics to those who truly wish to serve.
On a final note, you should visit the gop house website (http://republicanwhip.house.gov/) and sign up for “The Whip Notice”. It’s nice to see exactly what’s coming to the floor but also horrifying to see how much time is spent on crap like H.Res. 211 – Supporting the goals and ideals of National Women’s History Month. These people take up residence in Washington, receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries and from what I’ve read, spend most of their time dealing with this kind of stuff. In my opinion, time and money could be saved if Congress quit addressing fluff and took advantage of the technology that we’re all using to connect. With teleconferences and live streaming you would think we could devise a way to make Congress more efficient.
I like your site, linked here from your post on the 9-12 project. Looking forward to making real progress–not to be confused with being progressive.
Stephanie
[...] No Taxation Without Representation! [...]
You are already doing that just by your posting. This is a “grass roots” effort in the truest sense. Every vested interest is opposed enlarging the citizens’ representation. Why? Think about this: according to OpenSecrets.org there are over 14,400 lobbyists in D.C. (as of 2008). Let’s do the math; that’s 27 lobbyists per congressman (for 435 Reps + 100 Senators). If there were one Rep for every 50,000, then there would need to be 164,700 lobbyists to produce the same effect! Of course, the Representatives would then return to serving the citizens instead of the powerful special interests. In fact, current technology would allow most of the Representatives to serve in their home districts (where we could keep an eye on them). Only a few hundred need meet in to work in committees.
As far as encouraging more activist support, please e-mail suggestions to me. We need ideas. In 2009, I would like to start a PHPbb build a community of interest around this cause. There would need to be several moderators committed to keep it on track because I couldn’t do it.
I’m thankful you have a site with so much useful information on this topic!
I agree with you that too often, folks confuse “government” with “governance.” I often talk about the “size and scope” of government, however, the word “size” can be easily confused. I like your way of putting it: Governance vs. Government.
Yes, I’ve read Williams piece, and plan to incorporate it into a post soon. Thanks for stopping by and checking out the blog! I’d be interested to develop some kind of activism on this important topic. Keep up the great work!
That’s a very good introduction of Thirty-Thousand.org (TTO). The problem today is that the Congressional representatives’ constituents are the special interests instead of the citizens. In fact, we are no longer citizens, we are federal subjects.
Even though TTO is non-partisan, support expressed by libertarians and classical liberals is especially helpful because you all are known to oppose enlarging government. The most common objection raised to enlarging our representation is that it would make the government bigger whereas, in fact, it would produce the opposite result! This common misperception is due to the fact that most people do not realize that governance is distinctly different than government.
Dr. Mark Thornton has written two papers providing empirical evidence that total governmental expenditures decrease as the number of representatives increases. Please listen to Lew Rockwell’s interview of Dr. Thornton.
Also, please read Walter Williams’ article “Political Monopoly Power” in which he states that “restricting the number of representatives confers significant monopoly power that goes a long way toward explaining the stranglehold the two parties have and the high incumbent success rates. It might also explain the power of vested interest groups to influence congressional decisions.”
Finally, it is worth noting that the first amendment proposed in our Bill of Rights was intended to prevent this very problem from occurring. Unfortunately, because that amendment, Article the first, was rendered defective in the closing hours of the first Congress, it was never ratified as intended.