Rep. Blumenauer (D) introduces bill to expand size of the House

[JGibson]

A bill to increase the House size is sorely needed.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

Is the New Hampshire House actually bigger than the U.S. House?  If so, the U.S. House should always be the biggest.

I'm in favor of enlarging the size of the House - maybe to 501.  That seems like a basic number (taking into account the need for a majority threshold in a two-party system).  The residents of D.C. need a fully voting member for sure so that would be the first new seat I'd add.

No.
NH House has 400 seats.
US House has 435.

We need to increase the size of the NH house to 1,000

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

And now to do some redistricting specifically for this...

Speaking of which, the more districts you have, the harder it is to gerrymander. Added bonuses are that lobbying is more expensive this way and it is cheaper for candidates to run.

The New Hampshire State House does this very well. I can't think of any downsides to this idea.

The number of seats in the US House you’d need to eliminate or severely limit the possibility of gerrymandering is -much- larger than any serious proposal to expand the House.  Consider state legislature seats in swing states like PA or WI.  They are more than 10x smaller than congressional seats, yet those bodies have been far more effectively gerrymandered than their congressional districts ever were.

[politicallefty]

I'm not sure how he arrived at that number, slighter larger than the Wyoming Rule, but it is a long overdue piece of legislation. I personally prefer the cube root rule, but any increase in the size of the House would be a good thing.

This is an issue that needs mainstream media attention though.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Funny enough, the Chinese Congress has more representatives per capita than the US Congress. And the ROC had a similar number in their one election in all of China.

[Pericles]

The public will reflexively hate this because they don't want more politicians, but this is a sensible idea.

[Ferguson97]

The public will reflexively hate this because they don't want more politicians, but this is a sensible idea.

Oh god I can imagine now, conservatives framing this as "increasing the size of the government" or "giving politicians more power" even though it would literally decrease the power of individual reps.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Now expand the Senate to 150. One seat elected every two years in every state. "Senate classes" now refer only to year of election, not state.


I have absolutely no partisan motive for this, no of course not, none at all

I think that adding 50 senators would be a good compromise to get folks from smaller states to support this. I think it would also be nice to get rid of the senate classes like you say. A party’s chances shouldn’t be dependent on which states are up for election.

[Gracile]

This map from Daily Kos shows the seat totals for each state in a 585-member House:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1622643617759100945

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

This map from Daily Kos shows the seat totals for each state in a 585-member House:

https://twitter.com/PoliticsWolf/status/1622643617759100945

Hello new redistricting project

[MarkD]

If this is passed, wouldn't the House Chamber have to be enlarged? Can it be enlarged?

A new congressional office building would definitely have to be built, to go along with the Rayburn, Longworth, and Cannon House Office Buildings. Maybe one of the buildings that currently house the Library of Congress can be refurbished (after the contents of said building are relocated somewhere nearby).