A "People's House" or an oligarchy?

JEQuidam

Why do we have 435 congressional districts?

Many people do not realize that our total number of congressional districts (and therefore our total number of Representatives in the U.S. House) has been limited to 435 ever since 1913 (except for a four-year period when it was temporarily increased to 437).

In 1929, this number (435) was made permanent by an act of Congress. During the debates preceding that act, Missouri Representative Ralph Lozier stated:
"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."

The challenge posed by Representative Lozier in 1928 is still valid: is 435 a sacrosanct number or should it be subject to debate?

Many of those who framed and ratified the Constitution & Bill of Rights expected that the population of congressional districts would never exceed 50,000. Today their average size is 700,000; by 2100 their average size will be 1.3 million. As a result, it is no longer possible for federal Representatives to faithfully and honorably represent the diverse interests of their constituents. This could be the root cause of why our government has become "broken" and, in any case, violates the principle "That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed" (from the Declaration of Independence).

Related to this matter is the fact that the very first amendment proposed in our Bill of Rights was never ratified. As proposed by the House, "Article the first" was intended to ensure that the district size never exceeded 50,000 people. While this amendment was in the Joint Committee, a subtle error was somehow introduced into it that rendered it inexecutable. It is not known when this error was eventually detected, but the amendment was ultimately ratified by all but one state. This very interesting and important story can be found at:
TownHall.com for red people; or at DailyKos for blue people. Note links in article to supporting information.

Both articles are identical. This is a non-partisan issue.

Tahko · Congressional Page Joined: 10 Jun 2008 Posts: 3

So are we supposed to have more or less? How does the number really differ in a representative democracy?

Skeptik · Congressional Page Joined: 09 Jun 2008 Posts: 20

Does it really matter how many representatives we have ? This is really silly. Like debating how many dead bodies are acceptable in our war against terror. It doesn’t matter. What really matters is the guy we have at the top. If we keep up our tradition of electing jokers as our president we are doomed. 50 or 500 representatives is just arithmetic . We must overhaul our political system so that we can have a good enough president. For that we need to stop the power of money. We need reform in our system not a change in numbers .

lookin · Congressional Page Joined: 05 Jun 2008 Posts: 30

I agree . Numbers don’t matter. It is the spirit which has been severely mauled by our so called representatives. The whole thing stinks. It looks like a huge political cartel . Everyone is saving the others backside. So much so that there is not much to choose from ,between a republican and democratic. The ideological line between them has blurred . Look at the present run up to the Presidential election. All everyone talks about is the Iraq war. Like Iraq was a state within the US. Meanwhile everyone (I mean us ) is bleeding . The economy is killing us while we fight someone else’s war. A war which they never asked for in the first place.