The US has ~296 million citizens and 435 members of the House of Representatives.
This is basically 680,000 citizen per representative. The United Kingdom (Great Britan) has ~60 million citizens and 659 members of parliament.
This is about 92,000 citizens per representative.
We wonder whats happening to democracy in the United States? It's the fact our representatives are out of touch and removed from the citizenry who elected them.
Want to know why corporate interests fare better than citizen interests? It's the fact that corporations have more clout and are more visible.
We have one of the highest ratios of citizens to representatives of any modern industrial democracy.
I think we should return the government to the people. We shold increase the size of the House of Representatives by 100-200 members. If the British can do it; we can do it better.
We need to bring the House back to the people.
We need to decrease of the number of citizens per representative to increase representation.
We need to democratize the House again.
We need to reduce the affect of corporate interest in American governance.
The government exists to serve the people.
The economy exists to serve the people.
The people do exist to serve neither the government, nor the economy.
"In America, no other distinction between man and man had ever been known but that of persons in office exercising powers by authority of the laws, and private individuals. Among these last, the poorest laborer stood on equal ground with the wealthiest millionaire, and generally on a more favored one whenever their rights seem to jar." --Thomas Jefferson: Answers to de Meusnier Questions, 1786. ME 17:8
"I look for our safety to the broad representation of the people [in Congress]. It will be more difficult for corrupt views to lay hold of so large a mass."--Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., 1792. FE 5:455
""The purpose of establishing different houses of legislation is to introduce the influence of different interests or different principles. Thus in Great Britain it is said their constitution relies on the House of Commons for honesty, and the Lords for wisdom; which would be a rational reliance if honesty were to be bought with money, and if wisdom were hereditary." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.XIII, 1782. ME 2:162
From Mike:
There would certainly be numerous advantages created in bumping the role count of the house, but there would also be numerous problems if it were not handled correctly. Unfortunately, the current congress ("the problem") would be the ones implementing an increase in membership, and we can barely expect that a problematic group would be able to effectively double or triple their numbers while at the same time reducing the faults they have currently built into the system.
To me, the proper way to increase the number of representatives would be via a Constitutional amendment extending the limitations of Article I Section II. Not only would we affirm the minimum representative-to-represented ratio, but we would also establish a maximum representative-to-represented ratio. We would have to do this via a constitutional convention, and of the two methods available, the best for this situation would be the "Application by the State Legislatures" method. If an amendment were to be adopted by the states, I would hope that it would reaffirm each state's right to draw their own districts. The last thing we need is this to become a congressional power grab.
One of the main objections to increasing the number of members in the House is the one brought up by nighttimer: "The very last thing America needs is more politicians in Washington making more bad laws." The case is, though, that we've already got a whole lot more than 435 politicians in Washington making bad laws. Unfortunately, we've only elected 435 of them. Each member of the House is allowed a staff of up to 18, making the total possible staff plus representatives being 8,319. Granted, not all the staffers are writing legislation, but I think it helps to illustrate that people we have not elected are to a certain extent, representing us. I would rather have our bad laws written by people that I elect, rather than by people hired by people I elect.
The current number or members of the House was determined following the 1910 census. From there, Congress froze the total number of representatives at 435 in 1929 (source). At that time, there were 91,641,195 citizens in the US (source). That worked out to about 211,000 constituents per representative. Now, that number exceeds 675,000 constituents per representative!
Looking to the future, we can expect each representative to represent 710,718 people by 2010, 772,486 people by 2020, 836,348 people by 2030, 910,546 people by 2040, and a whopping 965,702 people by 2050 (population estimate source). It seems logical that the House will be increasing their maximum staff allowance, both in total number of staffers and in financial stipends to pay for that staff. Failing to increase the number of representatives in the house means that more staffers will write our bad laws, and the impact of our correspondence directly upon our representatives will be reduced.
By my rough calculations, we could "afford" a little over 1,100 representatives without increasing the cost to the taxpayers a single penny. It would put each representative's district under 270,000 people. Their salary would not change (although it probably should), and they would be left with $365,000 a year for expenses. Considering their district would half the size, that seems to be a reasonable figure.
There would certainly need to be a shift in the way the House operates with 1,100 members. I'm not certain whether it would create problems or solve problems. I imagine it would be a little bit of both. Given the imperfection of our current House, and the promise of even more imperfection with even less representation in the future, increasing the member count in the House is a risk I'm willing to take.
http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9078
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"It is the tendency of all governments to encroach on the rights of the people. Limited constitutions protect those rights, and serve as a line of defense against government intrusion. Rights that are not specifically identified for protection are not assumed to be under the jurisdiction of government, however; they are retained by the people and are exercised as an element of their individual self-governance. in their sovereign capacity."
"The right of one citizen to correspond freely with another is a natural right, arising from the need of individuals to communicate with one another in the conduct of the business of life. The protection of this right is one of the basic reasons why men form themselves into societies and establish governments."
"The right to hold one's own views, and to think and to decide for oneself on any question, is an essential right for a free people. A person is free to believe anything he wishes, even if in error, and may not be persecuted nor denied the right to hold public office for those beliefs. The First Amendment protections for freedom of religion, of speech, of the press and of assembly, all together protect the Freedom of Conscience."
Ok I'm done ranting...
PS - wish me happy birthday!! :-)