For several years I have been asking former colleagues in the House of Representatives, "Why are in that location 435 members in the House?" They unremarkably respond with a shrug or a brusk laugh and say, "Okay, you must know. Tell me." The number of congressional members is non mandated by the Constitution. Nor does the size of congressional districts appear in the document. The number 435 was adopted in 1929, and information technology was a number driven by racism, xenophobia, and the self-interest of members. Yet it could all change with an deed of Congress.

The Framers of the Constitution believed the "people's branch" of authorities—the Firm—should grow in size as the population grew, thereby guaranteeing the people access to their elected representatives. The first Congress in 1789 had districts of 33,000 constituents; today's districts accept 740,000. Districts need to be smaller, and the membership of the House larger. That alter in law would eliminate a 90-twelvemonth monument to discrimination, make the Business firm more than autonomous, and make the Electoral Higher more representative of the population of our country. Smaller districts, accompanied by redistricting and electoral reform, will besides create more than competitive districts, which will mean less virulently partisan candidates—and, hopefully, legislators. Republican candidates running in cities and the suburbs will find it hard to be xenophobic or to oppose reproductive rights and activity on climate change. Meanwhile, Democrats in rural areas will be like the Southern Democrats I served with in the House in the 1970s and '80s: pro-business, pro-life, but besides pro-civil rights. This may not stop political polarization, only information technology is a vital first step in reforming the House.

Information technology Started in Philadelphia

The answer to "Why 435" starts with the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and three contentious problems regarding the creation of the Senate and the House: the composition of the Senate; whether and how to count the enslaved population; and the size of the congressional districts.

On the get-go thing, James Madison had strenuously argued for proportional representation in both bodies. He believed this was essential for a stiff national government. The mid-Atlantic small states—Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey—were obdurate: equal representation in the Senate or nothing.

The second issue was how to count enslaved persons. In 1783, the Congress, drastic for revenue, sought to impose a per-state levy based on population, which raised the result of whether and how to count the enslaved. The Southern states argued against the counting of whatsoever slaves because it would keep their revenue contribution lower; the Northern members wanted to count all slaves. Madison proposed a iii-fifths compromise for acquirement purposes—3 out of every v of the enslaved population would be counted. Four years afterward, during the Constitutional Convention, the issue of how to count enslaved persons arose once again. This time the consequence was not acquirement but representation, and the positions of the Northward and Due south were reversed. By 1787, enslaved persons made upwards nigh 40 percent of the populations of Maryland and the Southern states. Those states wanted to count enslaved persons in the aforementioned as "gratuitous people." Some Northern states, concerned that the Southern states would "import slaves" to increase their population and thus their number of representatives, argued that no enslaved persons should be counted. Nevertheless others argued for another iii-fifths rule—iii of every v enslaved persons would be counted.

Finally, they had to decide on the number of people that constituted a congressional district—and thus the size of the Business firm of Representatives. The merely time George Washington, the convention's chairman, spoke was to argue for smaller districts of 30,000 persons versus the leading culling of 40,000 persons.

The 2d matter was settled first, when, in June 1787, the three-fifths rule was agreed to. In July, the "Peachy Compromise" passed v-4, and small-scale states were guaranteed equal representation in the Senate and proportional representation in the House. Finally, on the concluding day of the convention, September 17, Washington'due south smaller district pick was adopted.

The contend on the kickoff matter, the size of the Business firm, remained contentious during the state constitutional ratifying conventions, with states arguing for more members to ameliorate constituents' access to them every bit well equally a means to foreclose corruption. In 1789, James Madison, and so running for a Firm seat, had written a campaign alphabetic character to the voters of his commune promising them a "bill of rights" and a requirement to increment the size of the House. These amendments were the most of import issues in his entrada for Congress against James Monroe, his opponent and then and, 28 years later, his successor to the presidency. He defeated Monroe 1,308 to 972. Yes, the districts where much smaller then. Lesson learned, Congressman Madison went to New York as member of the First Congress and authored a series of amendments now known as the Bill of Rights. His proposed First Amendment was a guarantee that the House would begin with a defined number of members—which was not included in the Constitution—and would grow according to a specific formula laid out in the amendment. Information technology vicious curt of ratification by i state. Had information technology been ratified, the freedoms we at present enjoy equally part of the First Amendment, including speech communication and the press, would accept been the Second Amendment.

The 1920 Census: White, Rural America Reacts

For the next 120 years, from 1790-1910, membership in the House of Representatives grew as the population increased and as new states were admitted to the Marriage—with the exception of 1840, when the Congress reduced the size of the House membership. The Reapportionment Deed of 1911 increased Firm membership from 386 to 433 and allowed a new member each from the Arizona and the New United mexican states territories when they joined the Union. In 1912, Fenway Park opened, the Titanic sank, and the House had 435 members. Fenway Park has changed, bounding main liners are ancient history—but the House still has the same number of representatives today equally information technology did and then, even as the population has more tripled—from 92 million to 325 1000000.

Afterwards the 1920 Demography determined that more Americans lived in cities than in the rural areas, a nativist Congress with a racist Southern cadre faced its decennial responsibility of reapportioning a country that had experienced a large growth in immigrants. The population had grown in x years by fifteen percentage, to 106 one thousand thousand. Recent immigrants lived in vibrant enclaves with their fellow countrymen. They spoke their mother tongues, shopped at ethnic stores and markets, partied at ethnic clubs, and attended ethnic plays and movies. While 85 pct of Americans were native born, Business firm members debating the effects of the Census routinely referred to the big cities as "foreign" and too much like the "old world." In 1921 and 1924, Congress passed anti-immigration legislation, the second establishing a "national origins formula" that severely restricted immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. Earlier anti-inclusion acts had already restricted immigration from Asia.

The congressional hearings held after that 1920 Census exposed the country's racial separation and its urban-rural divide. The Business firm Census Committee's first hearing included African-American witnesses James Weldon Johnson and Walter White of the NAACP, Monroe Trotter from the National Equal Rights League, and George H. Harvey, general counsel of the Colored Council of Washington, who detailed the systematic discrimination against black voting. White testified that anyone helping blacks vote in certain Florida communities would be "subjected to mob violence." The panel demanded that Congress use the Fourteenth Subpoena'south provisions—specifically Department two, which deals with apportionment and representation matters—to reduce a state'due south congressional delegation equally a penalty for denying its citizens the right to vote.

The Southerners on the committee, offended past the African Americans' presence, rejected the evidence of discrimination. Representative William Larsen, Democrat of Georgia, said: "In my home, ane,365, I believe is the number, n——-south are registered. . . . We have a white primary, which has zilch to do with the full general ballot. The n——— does not participate in the white principal." He explained that blacks cull not to vote in the general ballot because their party—the Republican Party—"lacked the strength to win," as historian Charles W. Eagles put it.

Meanwhile, every bit Congress debated how to reapportion the country, women got the right to vote, and alcohol was banned. Though World War I brought the country together, the end of the war brought ii years of a "reddish scare" in which labor unions and "dissenters" of all types were harassed, jailed, and deported by Woodrow Wilson'southward fanatical Attorney Full general A. Mitchell Palmer, who feared the spread of Soviet-style Communism.

By 1924, the Ku Klux Klan had 4 million members. The Klan was organized, lethal, and rapidly expanding to the Due west and Midwest. This "second rising" of the Klan had begun in 1915, and its membership was anti-blackness, anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, and pro-Prohibition. In the S, the Klan was Autonomous, in the West and Midwest information technology was Republican, and everywhere its members saw a country where white Protestants were losing power and immigrants were ascendant.

In 1929, having failed to hold on how to account for the growth in the country's population, the House set by law the number of members at 435, or the 1912 level. Keeping the number at 435 ensured that Congress would not recognize the changes brought about by the African-American migration and the immigrant population growth in the Northern, Midwestern, and Western cities. The South and rural America, which dominated the House, rejoiced. At the last minute, the Republican authors of the bill removed a decades-long requirement that districts exist compact, contiguous, and of equal population. U.s. were now complimentary to draw districts of varying sizes and shapes, or to elect their representatives at large. (At-large representation had actually existed before, at the beginning of the republic, merely was made illegal over the course of the nineteenth century.)

A Century-Plus Afterwards, It'southward Time for Modify

No one would accept imagined that the racist, anti-urban, capricious number of 435 would last, unchanged, for 108 years. Certainly not the Framers of the Constitution, who believed that the House should grow with each decennial Demography. The "deal" of 1929 that fixed the Firm at 435 members has immune the average size of a congressional district to grow from 230,000 people to approximately 780,000 in 2020. Communication with constituents today is more and more than electronic than personal. Some members even so do in-person boondocks halls, though social media makes organizing to disrupt them easy. As the districts grow in size, the likelihood of having personal contact with House members diminishes.

During my 18 years in Congress, the thousands of unscripted, oftentimes poignant, crazy, and contentious moments with my constituents shaped me and gave them a take a chance to take my measure. Today, members and their constituents can instantaneously communicate with each other, but a digital presence is no substitute for the real thing. It is like watching Quaternary of July fireworks on your iPhone.

So what to practice? I advise we do what the Founding Fathers idea made sense: Increment the size of the Firm of Representatives as the population grows and so that information technology tin get representative of the people in one case again. I once raised the thought of increasing the size of the House with a prominent member. The response did not surprise me: "Oh, they don't similar 435 of the states now. Surely they won't similar more of united states." Probably true if the event is presented solely equally increasing the size of an already extremely unpopular and little-trusted institution. Merely what if the statement is non only well-nigh more than members, but rather smaller and more representative districts and greater citizen access to their members? And what if the result is a more than diverse group of representatives and even, maybe, a reduction in the polarization that paralyzes Congress today?

The first question is, what is the correct size of an expanded House? The Wyoming Dominion provides 1 model for how to make up one's mind the size of new districts. Information technology would decrease the number of people in a congressional commune to the "lowest standard unit of measurement." The Constitution provides that each state is entitled to at to the lowest degree one representative. Wyoming being currently the least populous state, its population (577,000) would be used to make up one's mind the "lowest standard unit," which would then exist the number of people in each congressional commune across the country. To decide how many total members, the population of the country is divided by the "lowest standard unit of measurement."

In 2020, the U.Due south. population is estimated to exist 330-plus million. Wyoming's population is likely to be close to what it is today. That would mean congressional districts of approximately 577,000 or so people. Not exactly small-scale only significantly better than the 780,000 information technology is likely to be in 2020. The number of members in the Firm would increase by 142, from 435 to 577. Big enough to make a divergence, but without being unwieldy. The Wyoming dominion has the virtue of requiring only a statutory alter.

So size is the beginning question. Merely it is not the but question. We as well demand to talk nigh how to expand the House. The idea of increasing the size of the Firm without the necessary balloter reforms would only exacerbate the cool outcomes we run into in states like Northward Carolina, where 50 percent of the votes cast in the 2022 election were for Democratic candidates yet Republicans won x of the state'southward 13 House seats. Similar instances of gerrymandering in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are being challenged in country courts. At that place is no alibi for allowing either Democrats or Republicans to appoint in partisan redistricting. Last June, the Supreme Courtroom ruled 5-4 in Rucho v. Common Cause that "partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts"—a shameful dereliction of the Court'southward responsibleness to protect the rights of all Americans to, equally the minority wrote, "participate equally in the political procedure." The Rucho decision is a return to 1940s Supreme Court reasoning that electoral questions are best left to the political sphere, which the Court had overcome by 1962, when it ruled in Bakery 5. Carr that such political questions were indeed within the Courtroom's purview. While nosotros wait for legislative activeness, former Attorney General Eric Holder's National Democratic Redistricting Committee has vigorously fought a country-by-land battle to insure that the 2022 redistricting maps are nonpartisan. In Due north Carolina, the group's efforts were successful recently when a iii-judge panel ruled that new nonpartisan districts must replace the Republican gerrymandered plan.

How practise we proceed simultaneously to aggrandize and reform? In that location are several thoughtful plans that could frame the debate. The place to get-go is a package of election and voting reforms introduced by Maryland Democratic Congressman John Sarbanes that includes a provision for nonpartisan commissions in the states to examine how to draw district lines adequately. It passed the Business firm in March, but Senate Majority Leader McConnell, unsurprisingly, will not bring it up in the Senate.

Another possible change would be to requite states the option to take some number of the added congressional seats and have them elected "at-big" on a statewide ground. Electing some members statewide volition issue in greater voter participation and more competitive Firm races, which is likely to mean fewer farthermost candidates. Here's how it might work. After the Census, in states receiving boosted seats, parties would advance a list of statewide candidates. The total number of votes cast for all the Democrats and Republicans running in the land's private district races would be tallied to determine which party's at-large candidates would be elected. Then, for example, if the votes cast for Democrats running in all of the district races amounted to 60 percent of the full statewide vote—Democrats would receive 60 percent of the at-big seats, and the Republicans would become twoscore percent. The at-large concept is more nuanced than this instance and is most likely to make sense in more populated states. Many states will not qualify for an at-large seat, and some will go only i or two seats, merely fifty-fifty in those instances there would be a potent incentive to maximize private district turnout; at-large/statewide elections will drive both parties to field candidates in every district in an endeavour to run upward the statewide voting totals. The days of candidates running unopposed would be over. Even in the districts that were overwhelmingly Democratic, the Republicans would even so want to field a serious candidate to increase their aggregate statewide vote total. The aforementioned would exist true for Democrats in strong Republican areas.

More competition for every seat will take a moderating upshot on both parties. In order to exist effective in maximizing their vote, parties will take to field candidates who appeal to more than a narrow ideological base. In a further effort to drive up turnout the parties might want to field at-large candidates of prominence: Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, Beto O'Rouke in Texas, Andrew Gillum in Florida, Michael Bloomberg and Shepard Smith in New York, Ashley Judd in Kentucky, and Madeleine Albright in Virginia.

Don't Forget the Balloter College

Increasing the total number of Firm members would also increase the size of the Electoral College by approximately 142, from 538 to 680 members.

What impact would this have? In sum, the more populated states would increment their number of Electoral Higher votes significantly. Consider a comparison of Wyoming and Florida. Today, Wyoming, with a population of 577,000, gets three balloter votes—ane electoral vote per 193,000 people. Florida, meanwhile, with a population of 21.3 million, gets 29 electors—one electoral vote for every 734,500 people. But if congressional districts were reduced from 720,000 people to 577,000, Florida would grow to 37 congressional districts, and 39 electors, while Wyoming would still have only the three. Ohio would become four more congressional seats, and Michigan iii more than. The big winners of course would exist California with 16 more than seats and Texas with 15. This would translate into 71 electoral votes for California and 53 for Texas.

Of course, the small states would hate this. But the Electoral College has given small states asymmetric power throughout our history. As well, of course, slave states, in the commencement: The three-fifths compromise for counting enslaved people adopted at the Constitutional Convention gave the South more Electoral College votes, which resulted in five of the showtime six presidents being from Virginia. All five were slaveholders.

A constitutional amendment to abolish the Balloter College would be the best way to proceed, but it's extremely unlikely. Increasing the size of the Balloter College would reduce the minor-land reward. The big and growing states—Florida, Texas, California, other Sun Belt states—will become more of import to the effect of the presidential election. Whether this increase in the larger states will favor 1 party over the other is not articulate, but the means by which we elect a President will certainly exist more than representative of the population. And, of course, Nate Silvery will accept to change the name of his website.

Time for a Fence

For 140 years, the correct size of congressional districts was hotly debated. Yet nosotros haven't had a serious fence on the size of Firm districts in 90 years, during which time the land's population has more than tripled. The stasis has left us an outlier amidst representative democracies. U.S. Firm districts are gigantic compared to "lower house" constituencies in Europe. Not bad U.k.'south Firm of Commons has 650 members, each representing nearly 110,000 people. France's Chamber of Deputies is 577, Germany's Bundestag is 709; both, about 100,000-plus people per constituency. The Japanese Diet's lower house with 465 members is the side by side closest in size to the U.S. Firm, merely its districts are much smaller, with nigh 272,000 people.

The Framers recognized that the population would abound and the country would alter. The population has tripled since 1910, the demographic makeup of our country has inverse, simply that change is not matched in the makeup of the congressional membership. According to the Pew Enquiry Center, in 2017, whites deemed for 81 percentage of Congress but simply 62 percent of the population. In the 2022 Congress, women make up 20 percent of the membership, despite being just more than than half the population. In the last 5 decades, the Hispanic population increased more than fivefold. Yet the percentage of Hispanics in Congress, while it has grown, is nevertheless just shy of eight pct. Expanding the House gives us a take chances to accept a legislative branch that is representative of the people in more ways than one.

Many take said to me that the thought of more than members is simply crazy. But what is truly crazy, sad, and inarguably objectionable is that a racist, nativist congressional conclusion of 90 years ago still stands. Four hundred and thirty-five members is tantamount to a Confederate Boxing Flag of numbers hiding in plain sight. Evidently there is no existent agreement of the Framers' intent that Business firm districts grow in number as the population increases. Where are the "strict constructionists" when we really demand them? While we contend what questions to enquire on the next Demography form, there appears to be little recognition that the purpose of Commodity ane, Department 2 of the Constitution was to determine the size of a growing House of Representatives.

Congress will non decrease the size of districts without a fight, of grade. Why would whatever fellow member want to dilute his or her private power and authority? But for democracy to work, democratic institutions must have the trust and support of the people. The Framers promised a people's House. It is time to award that promise. Congress owes information technology to the American people to revisit the decision of 435 made 108 years ago and adopted into law 90 years agone.

Visit your member of Congress, ask them why there are 435 members of the Firm; since you now know, you could brainwash them and the procedure of reform tin can begin.