...the time has come to increase the total number of Electoral Votes.
OK, well, actually, it's not the EV that I'm concerned with. It's the number of members of Congress.
OK, I'm actually not at all concerned with how many Senators we have; that's a nice even 100, two per state, which is fine with me.
What I'm really talking about here is the House of Representatives, which has, aside from a 4-year period after Alaska and Hawaii became states, been stuck at 435 since 1911.
From Wikipedia:
Under Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states by population, as determined by the census conducted every ten years. Each state, however, is entitled to at least one Representative.
The only constitutional rule relating to the size of the House says: "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand."[3] Congress regularly increased the size of the House to account for population growth until it fixed the number of voting House members at 435 in 1911.[1] The number was temporarily increased to 437 in 1959 upon the admission of Alaska and Hawaii (seating one representative from each of those states without changing existing apportionment), and returned to 435 four years later, after the reapportionment consequent to the 1960 census.
The Constitution does not provide for the representation of the District of Columbia or of territories. However, those places elect non-voting delegates or, in Puerto Rico, a Resident Commissioner. The District of Columbia and the territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands are represented by one delegate each. Puerto Rico elects a Resident Commissioner, but other than having a four-year term, the Resident Commissioner's role is identical to the delegates from the other territories. The Northern Mariana Islands elected their first delegate in November 2008, who took office in January 2009. Delegates and Resident Commissioners may participate in debates and vote in committees. They may vote in the Committee of the Whole when their votes would not be decisive.
So, there can be no more than 1 Representative for every 30,000 citizens, but there's no specification on the minimum ratio. OK, if we were to go with the maximum ratio, things would admittedly be a might crowded up on the Hill--with a population of 305 million, that'd be more than 10,000 members of the House! Yikes!!
On the other hand, by keeping the total set to 435 (yeah, I know, it's down to 431 for the moment, and yes, I know about the ever-rumored deal to give D.C. a (guaranteed-Democratic) voting seat in return for the state of Utah receiving an extra (guaranteed-Republican) seat), we have a serious problem in the opposite direction: A single Representative for every 710,000 people!
So, here's what I suggest: Increase the total number of Representatives to just more than double the current number, to an even 900, including one (or more?) for D.C.
This would have several benefits for small-d democracy:
--More realistic representation of the diversity of opinion nationwide
--Fairer apportionment for each state. The smallest state, Wyoming, with 533,000 people (0.175% of the total U.S. population) currently has 0.23% of the total members of the House--they're over-represented by 32%! Again, remember that they ALSO have 2 full senators (2% of the Senate), where they're already over-represented by over 1,100% (11 times their percentage of the population)!!
We have to accept this in the Senate, but in the House it should be as close to proportional as possible IMHO.
If we increase the house to 900, Wyoming would actually have two Representatives (well, 1.57 but you can't have .57% of a person, after all), but their percentage of the total would still drop a bit. Other, larger states would have a more accurate representation. And, of course, DC would also have 2 Reps versus its' current zero, so that'd be cool.
--Finally, it'd make it a hell of a lot simpler for number junkies to keep quick n' easy track of where the votes stand, especially in the Electoral College, where the total would be a nice, even 1,000 EVs (900 + 100).
Now, there are certainly a few logistical downsides to this. For one thing, I have no idea whether there'd even be room to add twice as many seats in the Capitol. It's already pretty crowded in there from what I can see on C-SPAN. Perhaps they could put an addition on, or maybe they could remodel the layout.
Also, twice as many seats means twice as many irritating TV and radio ads, and twice as many Congressmen clogging up our email inboxes with donation grabs. It's twice as much corruption and stupidity, and twice as many jagoff Republicans for us to hate.
Still, I do feel that the time has come for the 435 figure to go. At the very least, bump it up to an even 500--that'd make for some fun cable news coverage every two years; instead of Decision '10 or whatever, they could call it The Congressional 500 a la the Indy 500.
Whaddya think?
Oh, one other interesting tidbit that I just learned from that Wikipedia link:
Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution sets three qualifications for representatives. Each representative must: (1) be at least twenty-five years old; (2) have been a citizen of the United States for the past seven years; and (3) be (at the time of the election) an inhabitant of the state they represent. Members need not live in their districts.
Good heavens. They have to live in the same state, but only as of the date of the general election, and even then, they don't have to live in the same district!!
That means that, in theory, a guy living in Ironwood, Michigan (NW tip of the Upper Peninsula, right on the Wisconsin border) could run for Congress in, say, John Conyers' district in south Detroit! (Though somehow I don't think he'd do that well...)
The More You Know...®