Why are we not expanding the house numbers?

[iceman]

Why hasn't this been seriously considered in recent cycles? The country is nearing to having around 1,000,000 people per district representative. What seems to be the hurdles in increasing the house?

It should have been around at least 650 members by now.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It used to be that reapportionment, including setting the size of the House and determining which method to deal with fractions was done after each Census. Congress was unable to decide after the 1920 Census, so in preparation for the 1930 Census, they set a fixed number (435) to be that done for the 1910 Census, and fixed the method to apportion that number.  Significantly increasing that number would mean either building more House office space, or reducing the amount each Representative gets (and thus the amount of Staff). Actually, giving Hawaii and Alaska Statehood helped slightly as it cut the number of territorial delegates by 2. No one has been willing to reopen the can of worms since then.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

We really should expand the house, not immensely, but by around 50-75 seats to around 505. America has some of the largest legislative seats in the world it’s ridiculous

[Horus]

We should expand the number of seats to 999 in honor of Herman Cain.

[muon2]

It used to be that reapportionment, including setting the size of the House and determining which method to deal with fractions was done after each Census. Congress was unable to decide after the 1920 Census, so in preparation for the 1930 Census, they set a fixed number (435) to be that done for the 1910 Census, and fixed the method to apportion that number.  Significantly increasing that number would mean either building more House office space, or reducing the amount each Representative gets (and thus the amount of Staff). Actually, giving Hawaii and Alaska Statehood helped slightly as it cut the number of territorial delegates by 2. No one has been willing to reopen the can of worms since then.

I met the Architect of the Capitol about 20 years ago. He said that it would not be difficult to expand to 600 members (think about occupancy during the SOTU), but more than that would start to run into space problems.

Back in May 2018 I did a series on how the chamber would expand based on the rules typically used to determine expansions before 1920.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It used to be that reapportionment, including setting the size of the House and determining which method to deal with fractions was done after each Census. Congress was unable to decide after the 1920 Census, so in preparation for the 1930 Census, they set a fixed number (435) to be that done for the 1910 Census, and fixed the method to apportion that number.  Significantly increasing that number would mean either building more House office space, or reducing the amount each Representative gets (and thus the amount of Staff). Actually, giving Hawaii and Alaska Statehood helped slightly as it cut the number of territorial delegates by 2. No one has been willing to reopen the can of worms since then.

I met the Architect of the Capitol about 20 years ago. He said that it would not be difficult to expand to 600 members (think about occupancy during the SOTU), but more than that would start to run into space problems.

Back in May 2018 I did a series on how the chamber would expand based on the rules typically used to determine expansions before 1920.

Yeah, the chamber itself could handle more members, but it's not as if there's unused office space, and Congresscritters enjoy their staffs and their creature comforts. They've already freed up space in the three main buildings for member offices by relegating committee and support staff to the unconnected Ford and O'Neill Buildings. I suppose they could relocate the Bartholdi Fountain and build a fourth building for member offices where Bartholdi Park now is, but even that dreary expedient wouldn't add that much office space for members.

[Boss_Rahm]

It would take an act of Congress to expand the House, and more representatives would mean less power for each individual representative. Of course they're perfectly happy to keep the number fixed. That's why there was an amendment proposed in the Bill of Rights that would have limited the population per district. If only the Founders had thought of the cube root rule...

[The Mikado]

It would take an act of Congress to expand the House, and more representatives would mean less power for each individual representative. Of course they're perfectly happy to keep the number fixed. That's why there was an amendment proposed in the Bill of Rights that would have limited the population per district. If only the Founders had thought of the cube root rule...

We should all be glad that Madison's harebrained idea didn't pass. One representative for every 50,000 Americans would require a US House the size of a small town.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

It would take an act of Congress to expand the House, and more representatives would mean less power for each individual representative. Of course they're perfectly happy to keep the number fixed. That's why there was an amendment proposed in the Bill of Rights that would have limited the population per district. If only the Founders had thought of the cube root rule...

We should all be glad that Madison's harebrained idea didn't pass. One representative for every 50,000 Americans would require a US House the size of a small town.

It just says at least 50k per district. It would allow any number from 200-6600 districts.

[kwabbit]

Because 538 and 270towin would have to change their names.

[kwabbit]

More seriously, the fact that members would have to vote to dilute their power is a big obstacle. There's not really any energy for it either. Like expanding the house might help Democrats at the margin but not as much as making PR or DC states would or as much as any other structural reform. Apparently the capitol can only support about 600 anyway. 497 is a weird number, but it prevents a tie and then there are 600 electoral votes. 535, a simple 100 vote increase could also be fine. The Wyoming rule would give 568 members, but that could be weird since it could lead to a contraction or expansion depending on Wyoming's pop growth. The cube root rule would yield to many members to fit.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

I’m not sure I support this - I think there’s value in each individual member of Congress having more power, especially when it comes to constituent services and holding the executive branch accountable via oversight.

[jimrtex]

It would take an act of Congress to expand the House, and more representatives would mean less power for each individual representative. Of course they're perfectly happy to keep the number fixed. That's why there was an amendment proposed in the Bill of Rights that would have limited the population per district. If only the Founders had thought of the cube root rule...

We should all be glad that Madison's harebrained idea didn't pass. One representative for every 50,000 Americans would require a US House the size of a small town.

It just says at least 50k per district. It would allow any number from 200-6600 districts.

Madison proposed one per 30,000 until there were 100 after which there would _____ to _____, with each State guaranteed two representatives. It was ordinary for bills to have blanks, with the numbers decided by debate. A lot of these details were hashed out in the Committee of the Whole.

A House Committee on details filled in the blanks with 100 and 175, and eliminated the minimum of 2 representatives per state, keeping the minimum of one.

The House then replaced it with a version that would have required at least one per every 50,000.

The Senate had a different version, requiring one per 30,000 for the first 100, one per 40,000 for the next 100, and one per 60,000 thereafter.

The House refused the Senate amendments, and somehow the House got changed to not more than one per 50,000.

The version proposed to the States is nonsensical between 8 million and 10 million.

At 8 million, at least 200 would be required, while simultaneously requiring no more than 160. Congress may have got confused between two goal: make sure that the House would expand, but not grow without limit, and you got more or less what was proposed.

Had Madison's simple version been approved, the House would have 175 members (almost triple the number (59) that proposed the amendments - North Carolina and Rhode Island excluded, with at least two per state.

With a minimum of two per State districting might not have been required, or perhaps there would be a minimum number of districts: int(N/2). California would have 20 or so districts, States with five or less currently would have 2.

There would be 275 electors (138 to win).

[jimrtex]

It used to be that reapportionment, including setting the size of the House and determining which method to deal with fractions was done after each Census. Congress was unable to decide after the 1920 Census, so in preparation for the 1930 Census, they set a fixed number (435) to be that done for the 1910 Census, and fixed the method to apportion that number.  Significantly increasing that number would mean either building more House office space, or reducing the amount each Representative gets (and thus the amount of Staff). Actually, giving Hawaii and Alaska Statehood helped slightly as it cut the number of territorial delegates by 2. No one has been willing to reopen the can of worms since then.

The statute for the 1930 apportionment provided a choice between Huntington-Hill and Webster's Method (geometric or harmonic means). There would be no difference in 1930. I 1940, there would be a difference between Arkansas and Michigan. The Democrats voted for Arkansas, which was the smaller state and slightly favored by Huntington-Hill. The method was fixed at that time.