The House size needs to be increased

[ProgressiveModerate]

I feel like this is a reform that can happen on a bipartisan basis since it doesn't directly benefit either side, but benefits the country.

Right now, we're approaching a point where we're going to have nearly 800,000 people per congressional district, which in my view is too much. We see these extensive congressional districts that stretch across diverse sets of communities, and the same few races that are always nationalized every 2 years. Parties try their hardest to get as many districts as they can through gerrymandering, and therefore suppressing the voices of certain communities.

Increasing the House size would ensure that each representative is able to represent a defined community of people, and also de-nationalize races a little bit. We would get more diverse voices from politicians who feel more obligated to serve their community than a national party. We might begin to see more DINOS and RINOS in congress; bigger tails to both parties ideologically.

More House districts would also make it harder to gerrymander without insane county splitting.

I also believe that the House size needs to increase with the US population every census cycle.

Is there any reason not to expand the size of the House? This is a reform that is desperately overdue in my view, and is something that the Biden administration could get done and should seriously consider.

[Lord Admirale]

The Wyoming Rule should be made law.

[MRS DONNA SHALALA]

It would make it easier for Dems to win presidential races via the electoral college, which makes it unlikely that Republicans would allow it through to a vote.

[Hope For A New Era]

It would make it easier for Dems to win presidential races via the electoral college, which makes it unlikely that Republicans would allow it through to a vote.

I think it might be possible to sneak it through.

[Del Tachi]

I support this 100%

Increasing the size of the House also reduces the potential for future EV/PV splits, since electoral votes become more proportionally-allocated based on population (i.e., the 100 "senate" EVs represent a smaller % of the total)

[Alcibiades]

I absolutely agree. The USA has an absurdly high population per seats ratio; worldwide, only India has more. The best number would probably be to follow the cube rule root, giving 690 members of the House.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I agree that the House of Representatives should be expanded. I would use the cube root rule, which is much better than the Wyoming rule because it avoids its weird problems e.g. the fact that the House could get downsized even with fast population growth if the smallest state is growing even faster.

[ProgressiveModerate]

It would make it easier for Dems to win presidential races via the electoral college, which makes it unlikely that Republicans would allow it through to a vote.

You could argue it helps Rs in 2022 since it's a total reset of the House map which would weaken Democrat's incumbency advantages

[jimrtex]

It would actually have minimal effect on the electoral college.

In 2000, Gore led in states that had a very tiny majority of the population based on the 2000 population. The House could have been expanded to 1000s and Bush still would have won the EV based on winning 30 states.

Gore would have won though because the House would have been based on 10-year old Census Data.

A better reform would be to greatly expand the Electoral College and make it independent of the legislative size.

(1) Apportion electors among the United States and their territories on the basis of citizen population over the age of 18. Apportion at least one elector for every 50,000 such persons. Each state or territory shall have at least one elector.

(2) Electors to be chosen by popular vote. Time, place, manner by state legislatures, subject to Congressional override (same rules as currently for Congress).

(3) Electors to meet as single deliberative body to choose President by majority of electors.

(4) Repeal 12th and 23rd Amendments.

(5) Eliminate role of Vice President as president of the Senate. Appoint Vice President in manner of 25th Amendment.

So the electoral vote will be more proportional to the popular vote subject only to turnout variations. Citizens in the territories will be able to vote for President.

States will be able to maintain their current system of elections, such all by mail. In person, combined with other elections, etc. But Congress could require election of electors by district or proportional vote. This might also lead to reforms in the way Congress is elected.

Congress might also regulate nomination of electors (e.g. a petition along with authorization by the Presidential candidate). There would really be no need for primaries.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

I absolutely agree. The USA has an absurdly high population per seats ratio; worldwide, only India has more. The best number would probably be to follow the cube rule root, giving 690 members of the House.

So, the opposite of the USA in terms of representation in the parliament would be ... Germany? Even with 690 representatives, the House of Representatives would be smaller than the Bundestag.
Ironically, we with our second-largest parliament in the world, have been discussing the opposite problem for over a decade meanwhile, which eventually led to a tiny electoral law reform some months ago.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I absolutely agree. The USA has an absurdly high population per seats ratio; worldwide, only India has more. The best number would probably be to follow the cube rule root, giving 690 members of the House.

So, the opposite of the USA in terms of representation in the parliament would be ... Germany? Even with 690 representatives, the House of Representatives would be smaller than the Bundestag.
Ironically, we with our second-largest parliament in the world, have been discussing the opposite problem for over a decade meanwhile, which eventually led to a tiny electoral law reform some months ago.

We with our actual second-largest parliament in the world have just cut the number of MPs in a referendum, because alas Italians are stupid.
Also aren't more than 100 of your current Bundestag members überhangmandaten?

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

I absolutely agree. The USA has an absurdly high population per seats ratio; worldwide, only India has more. The best number would probably be to follow the cube rule root, giving 690 members of the House.

So, the opposite of the USA in terms of representation in the parliament would be ... Germany? Even with 690 representatives, the House of Representatives would be smaller than the Bundestag.
Ironically, we with our second-largest parliament in the world, have been discussing the opposite problem for over a decade meanwhile, which eventually led to a tiny electoral law reform some months ago.

We with our actual second-largest parliament in the world have just cut the number of MPs in a referendum, because alas Italians are stupid.
Also aren't more than 100 of your current Bundestag members überhangmandaten?

If you only regard the default number of members of parliament, yours is bigger.
The Camera dei deputati has 630 members, whereas our Bundestag has 598. However, the current system inevitably leads to a huuuge number of overhang and leveling seats (currently 111). You can't regard the formal functional principle of an electoral system and its electoral ramifications independently of each other; thus our lower chamber is indeed bigger than yours.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I absolutely agree. The USA has an absurdly high population per seats ratio; worldwide, only India has more. The best number would probably be to follow the cube rule root, giving 690 members of the House.

So, the opposite of the USA in terms of representation in the parliament would be ... Germany? Even with 690 representatives, the House of Representatives would be smaller than the Bundestag.
Ironically, we with our second-largest parliament in the world, have been discussing the opposite problem for over a decade meanwhile, which eventually led to a tiny electoral law reform some months ago.

We with our actual second-largest parliament in the world have just cut the number of MPs in a referendum, because alas Italians are stupid.
Also aren't more than 100 of your current Bundestag members überhangmandaten?

If you only regard the default number of members of parliament, yours is bigger.
The Camera dei deputati has 630 members, whereas our Bundestag has 598. However, the current system inevitably leads to a huuuge number of overhang and leveling seats (currently 111). You can't regard the formal functional principle of an electoral system and its electoral ramifications independently of each other; thus our lower chamber is indeed bigger than yours.

I was counting the entire Parliament. Our Senate being much bigger than the Bundesrat more than compensates. In any case, as I said, both chambers have recently been downsized (sigh) so when the next legislature starts, Germany will officially overtake Italy.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

I was counting the entire Parliament. Our Senate being much bigger than the Bundesrat more than compensates. In any case, as I said, both chambers have recently been downsized (sigh) so when the next legislature starts, Germany will officially overtake Italy.

Maybe. The number of constituencies will have been decreased to 280 (from 299) for the next election. Moreover, the first three overhang mandates in a Bundesland are no to be compensated by leveling mandates anymore.

Be that as i may, the number of seats has to be drastically raised in the U.S. House of Representatives.

[SInNYC]

It would make it easier for Dems to win presidential races via the electoral college, which makes it unlikely that Republicans would allow it through to a vote.

It would in general. But if Wikipedia numbers (2010 census) are right, it would have netted Trump +64 and Hillary +48, giving Trump an even bigger 370-280 win. But flipping PA/MI would have made it 325-325, which is the only exciting case we haven't experienced recently.

[Adam Griffin]

I mean...good luck convincing members of Congress to water down their power (more members = less individual influence = fewer campaign dollars and cushy post-career gigs).

[The Houstonian]

I mean...good luck convincing members of Congress to water down their power (more members = less individual influence = fewer campaign dollars and cushy post-career gigs).

Presumably they would also enjoy increased job security.

[Skill and Chance]

House expansion is both explicitly constitutional and not an obvious benefit to either party.   It's a smarter and more plausible reform to pursue than D.C. statehood or SCOTUS expansion.  It might gives Republicans a higher proportion of congressional districts in big states and it might help Democrats in the EC in the long run (though this can be a very long run, the 2 most recent times a larger house would have flipped the outcome were 2000 and 1916, and it would have to be ridiculously large to flip 1916), though Trump still wins in 2016 regardless of the House size.

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

The Wyoming Rule should be made law.

Wyoming rule is garbage. If we had the Wyoming rule in 1930, we would've had 800+ house seats, compared to roughly 500 today.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

The Wyoming Rule should be made law.

Wyoming rule is garbage. If we had the Wyoming rule in 1930, we would've had 800+ house seats, compared to roughly 500 today.

It works well in the present, and is easy to communicate and for people to wrap their heads around.

But it should just be a stepping stone to the Cube Root Rule, which is simple enough mathematically, wouldn't give us that many more members (676 currently) than the Wyoming Rule would, and wouldn't be prone to wild swings like the Wyoming Rule is.

Tbh, the sheer instability of the Wyoming Rule is bad enough to make it worse than the status quo. Who cares if it is "easy to understand". To those in the know, it's "easy to understand" - it's easy to understand that it's unideal and terrible.

[Motorcity]

I say make it 500. A nice round number and gives us 62 extra seats that would probably help Democrats long run.

But we still need statehood for DC/Puerto Rico, expand the Supreme Court, ban gerrymandering, new VRA, election day as federal holiday, and abolish the electoral college

[Sir Mohamed]

Yup, we should have between 550 and 600 seats with district lines drawn by a nonpartisan commission.

I think there should also be a debate over term length. 2 years is awfully short. After few months, Reps must already start running for reelection. They're spending way too much time with running for office rather than working on solutions for common problems.

[Skill and Chance]

Yup, we should have between 550 and 600 seats with district lines drawn by a nonpartisan commission.

I think there should also be a debate over term length. 2 years is awfully short. After few months, Reps must already start running for reelection. They're spending way too much time with running for office rather than working on solutions for common problems.

Make House and Senate both 4 year terms elected concurrently with the president?  For checks and balances purposes, all governors and state legislatures are elected only in the midterm years?

[President Johnson]

Yup, we should have between 550 and 600 seats with district lines drawn by a nonpartisan commission.

I think there should also be a debate over term length. 2 years is awfully short. After few months, Reps must already start running for reelection. They're spending way too much time with running for office rather than working on solutions for common problems.

Make House and Senate both 4 year terms elected concurrently with the president?  For checks and balances purposes, all governors and state legislatures are elected only in the midterm years?

I guess the problem with only electing governors and state legislatures in the midterms is that they may be overshadowed by national politics. Or the opposition party would try to score off points and decalre statewide races a referendum on the president. But these should be about issues related to the state government.

Maybe just electing half the members each two years? That's also the case at the state level.

[Coolface Sock #42069]

I don’t want to see the House get so big that each individual member has no power. Members of Congress have a lot of power to force transparency within the Executive Branch via oversight. Having more of them could dilute that power.

But we could probably go to 600-700 members before that’s an issue.