The US Constituion says that the US House should be apportioned among the States based on the Census, with no more than 1 house member for every 30,000 of population (excluding non-taxed Indians and only counting slaves as 3/5 of a person)
The Constitution sets no upper limit on the size of a Congrssional district. With 435 voting members and a country of 300 million people, we’re now at about 700,000 persons per representative. The number was set at 435 after the 1910 Census and has remained there for 100 years.
This web site makes the case that this growth has been a big reason why Congress has grown out of touch with the people. If the House was one person for every 30,000 people, there would be 10,000 members.
Let’s try thinking outside of the box. In 2010, there is no reason why the House needs to be in Washington DC. Picture a system where House members lived in their own districts year round. They would vote electronically on all things that required a vote. There would be no need to hold one vote at a time, unless there were dependencies between bills. The text of the bills could be available on the Internet for all to see, and the vote open long enough for people to discuss the details. A nice touch would be to allow comments to be attached online (“if you do this, that means that “x” will happen”).
A small fraction would meet in DC for ceremonial occasions or perhaps one or two from each state (or maybe a non-member staff person) would be in DC to interact in person with the agencies or the President. The main objective is to move the center of power of the legislative branch out of DC.
So give me some reasons why that is a bad idea or won’t work…
What? And ruin the party in power’s ability to gerrymander? Ha! I would love to see it. Downside? Might water down major initiatives, or not. Good food for thought.
I like the idea, because communication via electronic media involves a greater degree of reliance on words rather than emotion. This would shift the legislator’s focus from getting along in person toward the content of legislation. The input from the legislator’s neighbors would likely increase the legislator’s awareness of the content of the legislation. Being at home, rather than living in a marble castle in Washington, would reduce the isolation from constitutents, and the seeming importance, of the job. Similarly, being one of tens of thousands, rather than tens of hundreds, would diminish the self-importance of the job. Finally, trying to organize tens of thousands spread all over the country, rather than hundreds living in Washington, would reduce the influence of whatever cabal is trying to control policy.
It isn’t clear whether such a change would reduce the power of the bureaucracy. If the change caused proposed legislation and regulation to be more carefully scrutinised it would likely make the bureaucrats more circumspect about trying to promote their vision for the country.
Obviously the fact that electronic media is fairly easily hacked, or that you never know who is pushing that button at the other end, would be the first big issues that would come to mind. In principle, though, I like the idea.
While we are it, senators need to be appointed, not elected, by their respective states. Oh, wait … we tried that and interest groups didn’t like it, it seems.
Great idea, but Congressmen would never voluntarily give up those VIP parking spaces at Reagan National. It’s all about beltway power and they’re not about to give that up without a fight.
700,000 people per representative? No wonder they’re not listening. Who wouldn’t be tone-deaf with that many people complaining about their late Social Security checks!
Hesperus brings up a good point – Senators used to be selected differently. And we would wat to go to a sytem with 10,000 reps? Voting electronically? Hopefully the voting machines would not be Windows-based or about 20% would be rebooting at any given time.
But realistically the two parties would NEVER be able to agree on any type of compromise on this, precisely because they wouldn’t be able to gerrymander it. So it would have to go thru the State house Amendment procedure, which could take 20 years or so.
And no political party is thinking THAT far in advance.
Well, the “tea party” needs a target.
The reason this is plausible is that the Constitution is silent about the House – other than demanding that the allocation of members be based on the Census. It leaves the rules of how the House does what it does entirely up to the House. Doing this would not require permission of the Senate or the President.
The only gotcha was that they did pass a law that set the number at 435 in 1911.
Another issue could be the fact this would deviate from the tradional way legislative bodies work
“Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.”
You can’t “sit” and make decisions without a quorum of members “present”. Members in the House have to physically travel to the floor to put their electronic card into the voting machines in the room.
Hmmm… did you say bigger house or Big House? I’m down with option two myself.
I love the idea, but how could these politicians survive without The Beltway, the power, and “research” junkets?