The right size for the House of Representatives

[Sic Semper Fascistis]

Since we started a discussion in another topic, and since the great majority of you seems to oppose the current number of seats, let's see what would be for you the ideal number of seats.

Personally, I'd say around 800-1000. One representative per 300/400k people seems reasonable in a country like the USA (especially because such quota will rapidly grow and reach 500k, which is a tolerable maximum). Of course, I'd still be very satisfied with a cube root House.

[memphis]

It's fine the way it is. It would be nice if Wyoming could pull its own weight but unless you have a greatly increased body (which would be a nightmare) or give fractional voting power (which is extremely unlikely to happen) apportionment is going to be an imprecise science.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I favor the cube root rule myself.  The main thing the Wyoming Rule (or a variant thereof) is useful for is to provide guidance on how large a population a potential State has before being admitted.  This is despite not having always being followed.  For example, setting a threshold of ½ a Representative's worth of population, Hawaii could have been a State soon after we acquired it, but Nevada should never have been a State until 1950.

Applying the Wyoming Rule to the 1900 Census results would have yielded a House of 1833 members because of Nevada's small population.

[Хahar 🤔]

I like the cube root rule. Obviously it's not a hard-and-fast rule, but it works for an area the size of the United States.

[jimrtex]

I favor the cube root rule myself.  The main thing the Wyoming Rule (or a variant thereof) is useful for is to provide guidance on how large a population a potential State has before being admitted.  This is despite not having always being followed.  For example, setting a threshold of ½ a Representative's worth of population, Hawaii could have been a State soon after we acquired it, but Nevada should never have been a State until 1950.

Applying the Wyoming Rule to the 1900 Census results would have yielded a House of 1833 members because of Nevada's small population.

The 1872 reapportionment law included a provision that no new state could be added unless it had a population equal to one representative.  Of course, no Congress can bind a future one, so it was more of gesture, and was forgotten when the northwestern states were added in 1889/1890.  While Washington and Dakota had enough population, the mountain states did not.  But they had the potential for being Republican states and the GOP had just regained control of the House.  This was partially the reason behind the division of Dakota, but there was also local sentiment for that change (early settlement in North Dakota was in the Red River valley, while in South Dakota it was along the Missouri, with Yankton which is in the extreme SE corner where the Missouri is the boundary between Nebraska and South Dakota, being the territorial capital).

Idaho and Montana soon qualified, but Wyoming faltered.  Were it not for coal and oil, Wyoming would probably have half the population it does.  The next states, Utah, Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico had enough population, but entry was delayed due to religious and racial issues.  When Arizona and New Mexico were considered for admission, one of the opponents proposed that no new state should be permitted to enter unless it had a population equal to an average state (so 6 million today).   When Alaska and Hawaii entered, Alaska was far short, while Hawaii should have been given two representatives.  Alaska was admitted with the expectation that it would elect Democrats to Congress which would balance the Republicans from Hawaii.

[Sic Semper Fascistis]

Indeed, the cube root rule works for big nations or, say, for regional assemblies. A house at 600-700 members would be correct for the USA. Though it utterly sucks for smaller states (France gets less than 400 seats !).

Alaska was admitted with the expectation that it would elect Democrats to Congress which would balance the Republicans from Hawaii.

That's particularly interesting.

[Free Palestine]

Somewhere between one for every four-hundred-thousand and one for every two-hundred-thousand.

[phk]

Around 700 (cube root rule at 675)

[bgwah]

Yeah, I like the cube root rule.

[Хahar 🤔]

Indeed, the cube root rule works for big nations or, say, for regional assemblies. A house at 600-700 members would be correct for the USA. Though it utterly sucks for smaller states (France gets less than 400 seats !).

That's actually not what I meant. I think that 400 would be the right size for France, myself. However, if you were to create a parliament for the whole world, it would be too large by the cube root rule.

[Sic Semper Fascistis]

Indeed, the cube root rule works for big nations or, say, for regional assemblies. A house at 600-700 members would be correct for the USA. Though it utterly sucks for smaller states (France gets less than 400 seats !).

That's actually not what I meant. I think that 400 would be the right size for France, myself. However, if you were to create a parliament for the whole world, it would be too large by the cube root rule.

Personally, I think around 2000 members is a reasonable size for a world parliament, if you want it to be any representative (and still every rep would represent over 3 million people). Also, for big European States like France, one rep per 100000 inhabitants should be the rule.

[Sic Semper Fascistis]

Bump.

[Sic Semper Fascistis]

Bump.

[angus]

Somewhere between one for every four-hundred-thousand and one for every two-hundred-thousand.

That's about what we have now, in a sense.  About 120 million people bothered to vote in the 2008 general election.  120 million divided by 435 is about 275 thousand.  So we have one representative for every 275 thousand voting citizens.

Frankly, I think it's enough.  In fact, most of the time it seems like too many, but for the purposes of this thread I'll say 435 is fine.

I think the quality of the House is much more important than the quantity.  And much easier to change.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

Somewhere between one for every four-hundred-thousand and one for every two-hundred-thousand.

That's about what we have now, in a sense.  About 120 million people bothered to vote in the 2008 general election.  120 million divided by 435 is about 275 thousand.  So we have one representative for every 275 thousand voting citizens.

Frankly, I think it's enough.  In fact, most of the time it seems like too many, but for the purposes of this thread I'll say 435 is fine.

I think the quality of the House is much more important than the quantity.  And much easier to change.

By contrast, I think the quality of the House can be improved by reducing the size of districts (with the consequent increase in House size), bringing representation to a more local level.

Also, advocates of "small government" would do well to remember that the power wielded by any individual member of a legislative body is inversely proportional to the size of the body. It's harder to get 350 people to agree on something than it is to get 218.

[angus]

Possibly, your excellency, but if you went with the original plan, one rep for every 30 thousand people, we'd now have about ten thousand national legislators.  It's too many.  

In any event "cube roots" and such are no less arbitrary than "The Wyoming Rule" or "The Delaware Rule" or "435."  Just because something is popular doesn't mean that it isn't arbitrary.  And anyway, much of the arguments recently, in this forum and also from U.S. House members, for increases come by comparing to other nations' national assemblies.  But that's a false comparison.  Or at least the logic is flawed.  We are influenced by both bicameralism and federalism in a way that the nations to which folks are making comparisons are not.  Our actual number of legislators is huge, in fact, when you count both federal houses in relation to the actual scope of their mission, which is limited by federalism.  Add to that the scope of the mission of the individual states.  I'm not sure I can offer some detailed algorithm for weighting these components properly for comparison to Germany or Sierra Leone or whatever, but I don't really need to do that anyway since I don't reflexively think more is better.  

Madison had a great quote about this in the Federalist Papers:  

"Sixty or seventy men may be more properly trusted with a given degree of power than six or seven. But it does not follow that six or seven hundred would be proportionably a better depositary. And if we carry on the supposition to six or seven thousand, the whole reasoning ought to be reversed. The truth is, that in all cases a certain number at least seems to be necessary to secure the benefits of free consultation and discussion, and to guard against too easy a combination for improper purposes; as, on the other hand, the number ought at most to be kept within a certain limit, in order to avoid the confusion and intemperance of a multitude."

I guess I buy into that idea, but maybe not everyone does.  

[cinyc]

Possibly, your excellency, but if you went with the original plan, one rep for every 30 thousand people, we'd now have about ten thousand national legislators.  It's too many.  

In any event "cube roots" and such are no less arbitrary than "The Wyoming Rule" or "The Delaware Rule" or "435."  Just because something is popular doesn't mean that it isn't arbitrary.  And anyway, much of the arguments recently, in this forum and also from U.S. House members, for increases come by comparing to other nations' national assemblies.  But that's a false comparison.  Or at least the logic is flawed.  We are influenced by both bicameralism and federalism in a way that the nations to which folks are making comparisons are not.  Our actual number of legislators is huge, in fact, when you count both federal houses in relation to the actual scope of their mission, which is limited by federalism.  Add to that the scope of the mission of the individual states.  I'm not sure I can offer some detailed algorithm for weighting these components properly for comparison to Germany or Sierra Leone or whatever, but I don't really need to do that anyway since I don't reflexively think more is better.  

Madison had a great quote about this in the Federalist Papers:  

"Sixty or seventy men may be more properly trusted with a given degree of power than six or seven. But it does not follow that six or seven hundred would be proportionably a better depositary. And if we carry on the supposition to six or seven thousand, the whole reasoning ought to be reversed. The truth is, that in all cases a certain number at least seems to be necessary to secure the benefits of free consultation and discussion, and to guard against too easy a combination for improper purposes; as, on the other hand, the number ought at most to be kept within a certain limit, in order to avoid the confusion and intemperance of a multitude."

I guess I buy into that idea, but maybe not everyone does.  

The cube root rule isn't arbitrary in the sense that it does have a mathematical rationale behind it, which was better explained in an old post here.  It supposedly optimizes both constituent and intra-legislature communications, if you assume each legislator is seated along a long corridor and each legislator must walk a certain distance to interact with another random legislator.   In other words, it seems to be rooted in efficiency - keeping the legislature as accountable as possible to the people while still remaining small enough for legislators to work together efficiently.  That you see many legislatures around the world (and even the House up until it stopped growing in the 1920s) loosely follow the rule seems to indicate that it works in practice.

[Sic Semper Fascistis]

Actually, most of lower Houses in Europe are far bigger than what the cube root rule would suggest. And they don't work less well than the US House.